During the year I collect a list of the books I read and then, in a completely unscientific process, choose the five I most highly recommend to you. This year I read 27 books – a pittance compared to some of your lists, but still enough to make choosing five a small challenge. Previous years’ lists can be found here: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. What about you? What books did you read in 2012 that you can recommend to us?
The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson (2011).
I don’t read enough fiction – and this book is historical non-fiction – but The Warmth of Other Suns was the narrative I most enjoyed this year. Wilkerson is masterful at taking the bits of history to tell a story that is so important to the demographic and cultural texture of America today. Important, yes- but the history told in these pages is regularly overlooked.
By showcasing three individuals who made the trip north or west from the Jim Crow South, Wilkerson brings into focus the massive migration of African Americans that has shaped the country we know today. Our church is situated in a neighborhood with deep ties to the stories in this book so I found it especially interesting. (One of the three characters the author follows is Ida Mae Brandon Gladney who moves from Mississippi to the South Side of Chicago.) Ultimately though, The Warmth of Other Suns is an American story, one told exceedingly well by Wilkerson.
The Meaning of the City, Jaques Ellul (1970).
Jacques Ellul has been a footnote author for me over the past decade: an author who is regularly cited in appreciated books. Regularly enough that at some point the footnote must be traced back to the original source. Ellul was a French sociologist, philosopher, and professor of law who is known for his writings on technology, among many other topics. He was also a Christian whose theological work – in my cursory observation – is either seen as increasingly relevant in our technological age or anachronistic. I lean toward the former.
In this book Ellul gives us his Biblical reading of the city: its origins, symbolism, role in redemptive history, and location for Christian witness today. Some see Ellul as a pessimist whose view of the city leaves no room for positive change or reform. I suppose there is some truth to this but I read him differently. The vision found in The Meaning of the City is one that allows Christians to bear witness to Christ regardless of perceived reform.
For the growing number of young, Evangelical-ish Christians who see the city as the place to change the world (for God), Ellul provides a necessary corrective. We witness to Christ in the city because of God’s love for the city and we continue to do so whether or not things turn out as we hope because, ultimately, we are simply called to bear witness. The One with the power to change operates outside our time and plans and one day His heavenly city will replace all that continues to plague the residents of earthly cities.
Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith (2009).
I recommended this book more than any other this year. Desiring the Kingdom is the first book of a planned three-part series and the second book is the only book I’ve ever pre-ordered. James K. A. Smith is a professor of philosophy and theology at Calvin College and, as the book reveals, an astute observer of American cultural practices and artifacts. The book opens with a description of a typical American mall from the perspective of an alien who believes this massive edifice and those coming and going from its doors must form some sort of religious center.
Smith shows how humans are primarily desiring beings. We do what we love rather than what we think or even believe. Others have made this point and Smith’s important contribution is in showing how these desires are formed within us. Liturgy is an important concept in this formation and the author shows the cultural liturgies that compete with those observed by congregations. These are liturgies with radically different ends, liturgies that aim to form distinct desires among their practitioners.
For a long time I’ve thought about the occasional dissonance between a congregation’s spoken theology and the accepted practices (liturgies) that hinder the implementation of this theology and Smith has given me additional tools to think carefully about this unfortunate tendency. There are questions I have after reading this book – Is a congregation’s liturgy limited to a worship service? – that I hope Smith will address in the next two books. But those questions are mostly evidence of just how convincing I find Smith’s thesis and how helpful.
Life Itself, Roger Ebert (2011).
I read a few different memoirs this year and Roger Ebert’s was by far the most enjoyable. I remember watching Siskel and Ebert’s movie reviews during high school- I didn’t watch very many movie’s then but was still fascinated by these two witty critics who made a living… watching movies? (Check out this great oral history about that unlikely show.)
In more recent years I’ve begun to appreciate the world of film more and Ebert has been one of the writers who has pointed me to the many great options beyond the megaplex. Life Itself is worth reading for so many reasons: Ebert’s descriptions of journalism in a bygone era; his reflections on religion as an atheist married to a Christian woman he adores; the many, many stories of the women and men who make movies, each told without a trace of the cynicism or celebrity worship we’ve come to expect from such stories.
But what makes this book truly fantastic – why I’ll read it again – is Ebert’s writing. These pages contain more than interesting remembrances of a more than interesting life. It’s the words and sentences Ebert selects and crafts that make this book a page-turner even to those who care little for the films with which the author will forever be identified.
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (2010).
I said more about this book on the blog than any other this year. My friend Richard and I blogged our way through the book and it was gratifying to hear of others who were reading along. Briefly, author Michelle Alexander makes evident the hard-to-grasp and harder-to-believe systems, policies, and narratives that have led to the mass incarceration (and huge racial disparities) that has become common in America.
The statistics Alexander provides will make you angry- and that’s the point to some extent. The America beloved by so many and the one experienced by those portrayed in The New Jim Crow are two different Americas. What will it take for those who’ve been privileged to know the supposed best of this country to see through that privilege to the appalling injustice on the other side? Alexander’s book has been that catalyst for many already and, I hope, for many more.
