a year of reading.

2011 kicked off my first reading journal.  I hope from now on to write down every book I read, every year, and a few lines about it.  It’s been fascinating to look back over the year and see what books I read.  It says a lot about me.

I read fifty-six books last year (counting a few unfinished books that I read at least 200 pages of).  Yes, I set aside books that don’t grip me or better me.  Julie will never forgive me for reading half of her favorite novel David Copperfield and quitting.  Some notable unfinished works of 2011 are Crime and Punishment, Shantaram, and I hate to admit, Love Walked Among Us.

But most of those I finished last year I relished.  I read fourteen books on theology, thirteen on missions, a staggering (for me) twenty novels, a handful of culture and religious books on India, a few on business and investing, a chunk of Bloom’s compendium of English poetry, and (randomly) Shakespeare’s Richard II.  It took me moving here to be reintroduced to Shakespeare by an Indian friend, so I’m meandering through Harold Bloom’s overly enthusiastic book of him as well.

Seventeen were written in the last five years; forty-eight in the last hundred years.  The oldest was a refreshing reread of Martin Luther’s Concerning Christian Liberty (1520).  I hope to read it every year.  Twelve are non-Western writers and nine are women – my center of literary gravity is shifting.

Six novels that absolutely took my breath away: Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, Paul Harding’s Tinkers, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Three books that made my palms sweat from a grander view of God, his kingdom, and his calling: 1 Corinthians by David Garland, The Theology of Paul the Apostle by James D. G. Dunn, and The Call to Discipleship by Karl Barth.

Roland Allen, John Nevius, Dean Gilliland, and Eckhard Schnabel will forever be missiology conversation partners.  They cut through the din of contemporary voices on missions tactics and drive me back to the Word.

I read Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.’s book on sin on the plane ride to Turkey.  Shockingly, the girl sitting next to me said she had read it.  I think she was just trying to hit on me.  But nothing says, “I’m not interested,” more than reading a book on sin.

Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street and Hagerstrom’s The Warren Buffet Way tried to get my knee-jerk investing back on track.  I hope they do.

I read a book on mothering (Loving the Little Years, Rachel Jankovic).  I need to read a book on fathering.

I read a book on Hinduism (Sen’s blandly titled Hinduism) and a retelling of one of Hinduism’s greatest epics, the Mahabharata.  I stopped and started the Bhagavad Gita many times.

A handful of authors made the coveted short list of multiple books read in the same year: Wendell Berry, Aravind Adiga, Annie Dillard, Charles Dickens, and Peter Leithart.

Together these reads of 2011 really stretched and challenged me in a lot of different directions.  They are still whispering bits of wisdom or wonderful uses of words or robust characters or penetrating looks into my self and world long into the new year.  In Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (a 2012 read), he rattles off important books of his younger years and tells his son, “I still think that time spent to great advantage.”  I agree.