Great Reads of 2024: A Reading Year in Review

It’s that time again! Can you believe this is my 7th Great Reads post? Unreal. Yet here we are. I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember, but the urgency of Real Life took precedence for far too many years. Now I have time, and I can’t keep up with all the good books in my growing stack. Ah, retirement angst. The struggle is real.

This is a long post, so feel free to use the quick links in the Table of Contents below to jump to your favorite genres. (Note: I am an Amazon Affiliate, so if you purchase through one of my links, I receive a small commission.) 

My Top Picks

I agonized over my Top Picks list again this year. Each book kept me company for a season, absorbing my time and attention for a stretch of my calendar. Whether a book brought clarity, taught me something new, settled (or unsettled) my soul, or simply delighted me with colorful language, I’ve loved them all. But you, dear reader, come to me for guidance, for help in choosing the right book in which to invest your limited time. Give the people what they want. So, here you go. If you’re working on your 2025 reading list, please consider my top 10 recommendations. (Reviews are in their respective sections.)

Memoir

Some of y’all don’t know how unusual it is that I only read two memoirs this year! Usually I have to break this category into sub-categories to disguise my addiction.

Ghosted by Nancy French (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. You really won’t believe the wild things that have happened to Nancy French. A gifted storyteller, French recounts an impoverished childhood in Appalachian coal country, an abusive youth pastor who wrecked her faith, a psychotic boyfriend, a whirlwind romance with her husband David, an improbable career ghostwriting famous peoples’ stories, and a political rollercoaster ride that left her in exile for a time. She tells her story with such grace and wit. I loved the audio version, hearing her tell her own story. Don’t miss this one!

Thin Places by Mary E. DeMuth ⭐⭐⭐⭐. I heard Mary DeMuth speak at the Festival of Faith & Writing Conference this year, and I was captivated by her story and her demeanor. A very prolific and accomplished writer and speaker, her childhood wounds lie just below the surface. At age 5, she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by older boys and has been on a lifelong healing journey ever since. Hers is a redemption story, and she radiates the love of Jesus in her tireless efforts to advocate for abuse victims.

Faith

My faith is the anchor of my life, so it’s no surprise that I gravitate to books that challenge and inspire me to live more intentionally and faithfully. This is my largest category, so I’ve divided it into three broad sub-categories: Christian Living, Theology and Race.

Christian Living

Looking Up: A Birder’s Guide to Hope Through Grief by Courtney Ellis ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I met Ellis at the Festival of Faith & Writing Conference, and she’s every bit as delightful as you might expect after reading her book. Ellis and her husband are pastors at a Presbyterian church in California, and she is an avid, no obsessive, bird watcher. It’s hard to categorize this book because it’s part Audubon field guide, part memoir, part meditation on grief. Ellis processes the grief of losing her grandfather during the Covid pandemic, which was its own season of daily griefs and tensions, and how birdwatching helped her process it all. If you’re not into birding now, you might be after reading this book. But if not, you will come away with renewed hope and a softened heart. Filled with gentleness and grace, Courtney’s writing soothes the soul.

The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. We are witnessing in real time a deep fracture in what is commonly labeled the “white evangelical church.” But while most recognize it, far fewer understand it and can articulate the reasons for it. Sarah McCammon is one of those few, along with Tim Alberta, Kristen Kobes DuMez and Russell Moore. McCammon writes with the diligence of a top-notch journalist and the empathy of a wounded evangelical child.

If you are one of those people who simply do not understand what all the fuss is about, I encourage you to read this book. Take your judgy pants off, if necessary, and read it from a posture of genuinely seeking to understand. You will find plenty to disagree with, but maybe just listen.

And if you are one of those people still fighting through disillusionment, feeling exiled by the church that once nurtured you, read this book for clarity. You are not alone. There are good reasons for that cognitive dissonance you’re feeling. It’s tempting to walk away from it all, but with discernment, you can recognize the parts that are worth keeping. So much of evangelical subculture is not biblical, and it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff. I describe my own journey this way: “I didn’t lose my faith. I lost my patience.”

Not everyone interviewed for this book embraces the “exvangelical” label, and McCammon does a good job of representing the continuum of experience. Some of us still occupy evangelical spaces, but we’re loitering uneasily in the foyer.

We Too by Mary DeMuth ⭐⭐⭐⭐. In 2019, the Houston Chronicle published a 5-part investigative report exposing years of sexual abuse and cover-up within the Southern Baptist Convention. The ripple effects of that investigative series launched the “church too” campaign to demand change. Unfortunately, very little has changed. DeMuth’s experience as a sexual abuse survivor spurred her to action, and since publishing this book, she has been an outspoken advocate for victims. The book discusses the history of abuse in the church, the root of bad theology, the church’s complicity, and a better way forward. It should be required reading for every pastor, elder and church leader.

Mostly What God Does by Savannah Guthrie (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. If you struggle with insomnia, as I do, this book may help. Not because it will bore you to sleep, but because it will soothe your anxious mind. Guthrie narrates the audio version, and I periodically listened to a chapter at bedtime. Each chapter relates how she experienced God’s love through the ebb and flow of her faith journey. Even in seasons when her faith was not a pressing concern, she found God continued to pursue her. Because mostly what God does is love us. And that reminder, my friend, will help you sleep in peace.

Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐. In this beautiful book, artist Makoto Fujimura talks about how his faith is integral to his art. He sees the desire to create as a spiritual impulse, and sees art as a critical witness to the divine in our culture and time.

Theology

The Mary We Forgot by Jennifer Powell McNutt ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Jennifer Powell McNutt is a professor of theology and Christian history at Wheaton College, and in this book she seeks to introduce us to the real Mary Magdalene. She does so with a close reading of scripture and deep scholarship of early church history, which often got various “Marys” confused. After setting the record straight about who Mary Magdalene wasn’t, McNutt expands on what we do know about her. We know that Jesus cast seven demons out of her, that she was one of the disciples, that she financially supported his ministry, and that she was present at his death, burial and resurrection. Most importantly, she was the first to see the resurrected Christ, and she was given the commission to share the news of his resurrection with the other disciples. She was an apostle to the apostles.

The first part of the book focuses on Mary Magdalene’s identity, while the second half explores her significance, both to the early church and to us today. While I learned a lot in the first part, it was a tougher read. But the second part I found deeply moving. Women largely reside in the background of the biblical narrative, and we rarely hear their stories from the pulpit. McNutt brought Mary Magdalene out of the shadows for me, and I felt like I was meeting her for the first time.

Not only is Mary’s unwavering devotion to Christ worth a closer look, the flip side is also remarkable. Jesus honored Mary, invested in her, loved her, trusted her, and valued her. Jesus set a powerful example for the church in the way he treated Mary Magdalene and his other female disciples. This is worth our attention as we see women being increasingly marginalized in the church today.

I salute McNutt’s writing craft. Many academics cannot write for a lay audience, but she mastered a compelling blend of scholarship and storytelling.

Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson ⭐⭐⭐⭐. I’m a huge fan of Marilynne Robinson’s novels, so I was anxious to read this book that is such a departure from her normal genre. In Reading Genesis, Robinson asks us to consider Genesis for its literary greatness and for the big picture themes of what it tells us about the nature of God and mankind.

Our trip to Egypt this year renewed my interest in Genesis, particularly the overlap between the biblical creation narrative and other ancient texts. The amount of overlap is stunning, and I was hoping for a chart or two. But Robinson completely sidesteps the scholarly debate over apparently derivative aspects of the Genesis narrative. Instead of debating whether Genesis is meant to be taken literally or figuratively, she invites the reader to step back and see Genesis from a wider perspective. Never mind the derivative parallels with ancient Babylonian texts, she seems to say. Focus instead on just how radically the covenantal God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the one true God, departs from the myriad self-interested and petty gods of the day. That’s the story. (But if you’re curious, she comes down on the figuratively side, at least until Abraham.)

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this book, but it was a slog in the beginning. Let me start with what I liked. Robinson made me see familiar stories in a new light. We tend to view the patriarchs as heroes of the faith, and sometimes they were, but she reminds us they were just flawed human beings like the rest of us. The stories of their many failures highlight God’s grace and faithfulness. When God entered into a covenant with Abraham, he meant it. He kept his covenant promises over and over in the face of his people’s unfaithfulness. Ultimately, the Bible is the story of God’s love and grace for mankind, from the first verse to the last. He is rich in mercy toward us not because of us, but in spite of us. And that’s very good news for modern man.

Now, what I didn’t like. Robinson’s elevated vocabulary and structural choices made the book needlessly difficult to read. The book has no chapter delineations, sub headings, or footnotes, leaving the reader to feel her way along, groping for some familiar landmark. And then for some reason, Robinson includes the full King James Version text of Genesis at the back of the book. Excerpts of the text may have been helpful if they had been included when they were being discussed, but the editorial decision to plop the entire KJV version at the end, as if it were a giant footnote, baffled me. Good writing is kind and respectful to the reader. Robinson’s decisions about the book’s structure and vocabulary were less than kind. Those choices cost her a star on the Gronewold scale.

If you want to get the gist of this book without the effort, listen to Russell Moore’s interview with Robinson in his March 13th podcast. It’s an excellent “cliff notes” addition (or substitute) to the book.

Race

We’ve taken a giant step backwards in racial harmony within the evangelical American church. The rise of Christian Nationalism and fundamentalism harken back to a golden era, which coincidentally pre-dates the civil rights movement. I consider these two books required reading for any pastor or lay leader in the church. Heck, for any white believer, period. We really must take a clear-eyed look at our racial history, particularly in the church, if we are ever to move forward in unity.

The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I highlighted the heck out of this book. Jemar Tisby truly delivers on the subtitle of the book: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism. It’s an uncomfortable read for a white Christian, but oh, so important. With the care of a historian scholar, Tisby walks through the history of racism and complicity in the American church, and makes a compelling case for a better way forward. His writing is clear, and you can read his heart on every page. I’ve lived much of the history he recounts, and it rings entirely true to me. Tisby has been vilified in some evangelical circles, for obvious reasons. People don’t want to hear this message. All the more reason to read it for yourself.

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I came to this book by way of a tweet. Fleming Rutledge, renowned Episcopal priest, wrote one of the seminal texts on the crucifixion of Christ. On Twitter one day, I happened to see a post where she lamented the fact that she had discovered this book by James Cone after she wrote her book on the crucifixion. She found Cone’s parallels between the cross and the lynching tree so compelling, that she was rewriting the foreword to her book to incorporate Cone’s perspective. Wow!

So, of course, I had to read it. I’m not exaggerating to say this is one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. It is a gut-punch, but I needed to enter into the pain of the black experience in order to truly see my black brothers and sisters. No one wants to read a book about lynching, but please, read this book. You will not be the same afterwards.

Fiction

Like Lucy with the football, every year I say I’m going to read more fiction, and every year I don’t. So don’t believe me when I say it again this year! I really do love to lose myself in a good story, but somehow I always gravitate first to so many other topics that pique my interest. *Sigh*

Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. This book won a slew of awards for good reason. Nayeri is a masterful storyteller. Classified as an “autobiographical novel,” it’s the true story of a young boy’s struggle to adjust to a new school in Edmund, Oklahoma after his family fled his native Iran. Nayeri adroitly weaves Persian stories and memories into his day-to-day observations of his strange new American culture. We get his back story in pieces, mixed with myth and innuendo, making it difficult to sort fact from fiction. In other words, we experience the family’s dislocation just as Daniel did — all the feelings without a complete understanding. At once funny and deeply sad, this book leaves a mark. I highly recommend the audio version, narrated by the author, because some of Daniel’s stream-of-consciousness narrative might be harder to follow on the written page.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. This was my first Amor Towles book, but it won’t be my last. On one of my many roadtrips, this audio book swept me into a world of wartime Russian intrigue with compelling characters and a complex plot.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman ⭐⭐⭐⭐. Every now and then, you just crave a Hallmark movie, with its predictable plot, beautiful people and fairytale fantasy. That impulse led me to check this book out at my local library. I needed an escape. Some brain candy. I couldn’t do a steady diet of this type of read, but the witty writing gave me a refreshing break from election angst just when I need it.

Ireland by Frank DeLaney (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. In this wonderful novel, Frank DeLaney spins an enthralling history of Ireland through the tales of a mysterious traveling storyteller. You’ll find yourself musing on the stories we tell ourselves, and the importance of place and rootedness, in wrestling with our own identity. But here’s my advice: don’t overthink it. Just enjoy the ride of a masterfully told story.

Nature

I was tempted to name this category “For Love of the Earth” but my internal editor pared it down to “Nature.” I started this year with three intentions — more poetry, more nature, more liturgy — to address my sense of dread at what the upcoming year might hold. Thanks to that intentional focus, two of these four books landed on my Top Picks list this year.

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I discovered Margaret Renkl’s delightful book in January, the perfect time to start it. The book contains 52 essays, one for each week of the year, in which Renkl observes the plant and animal life inhabiting her back yard. Such a simple premise yields absolute wonder and surprise every week. In addition to her exquisite prose, each chapter begins with an enchanting illustration. Keep this book on your nightstand or beside your reading chair and savor it all year long.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I hardly know where to start with this one. Robin Wall Kimmerer, an indigenous woman with a PhD in botany, explores our different ways of understanding the earth through both native custom and scientific inquiry. She laments the impact of industrialization on native plants and habitat, but calls readers to action rather than despair. Instead of exploiting earth’s resources, indigenous peoples approached the earth with gratitude and a spirit of reciprocity.

Kimmerer advocates for a return to this indigenous relationship with the earth, one where we take only what we need, share liberally, and give back to the earth. Time and again she frames our relationship to the earth in terms of reciprocity. I loved her reverence for native cultures, and her skilled weaving of storytelling and truth telling. This book stayed with me long after I turned the final page.

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. With lyrical storytelling, Katherine May seeks to tamp down the mental and emotional exhaustion of our times by reconnecting with the natural forces of earth, fire, water and air. She invites the reader to find refuge from a culture that demands constant vigilance by focusing attention on the constancy and mystery of the natural world. I was captivated by her surprising imagery, deep insight, and evocative prose.

The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich ⭐⭐⭐⭐. Gretel Ehrlich went to Wyoming for what she expected to be a brief visit while working on a documentary. Instead, she stayed for years. Her collection of essays captures the landscape and people of this fierce, unforgiving environment with tenderness, humor and keen insight. I recognized my people and my own love of Wyoming’s open spaces in her evocative writing.

General Non-Fiction

Two of my non-fiction reads had a common thread: how to improve human interactions, even with strangers.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. True confession: I adore David Brooks. There is something about his earnestness and humility that makes me hang on every word. He could be spouting total rubbish, and I’d be eating it up. So, maybe take this review with a grain of salt! But seriously, this is a book that addresses deeply ingrained social patterns that lead to a paucity of human relations. We don’t really see each other, because our cultural communication norms work to obscure rather than to illuminate.

Brooks’ premise is simple: learning to ask good questions and really listen to others can revolutionize our relationships. But just because the concept is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. It takes practice and intentionality. Loaded with personal anecdotes, this book is memorable and thought-provoking. I listen to audio books when I walk, and I came back to this one several times this year, re-listening to chapters I found particularly resonant.

Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. This book takes the prize for the most unlikely book to make my reading list this year! Will Guidara writes about his journey to four-star Michelin achievement in the world of fine dining. Until my daughter treated me to a Michelin four-star dinner in London this year, this world was so far from my experience as to be unimaginable. But having that memory fresh in my mind helped me relate to Guidara’s story.

Even without knowledge of the fine dining world, however, this book is valuable for anyone who interfaces regularly with people. If you’re in a customer-facing role, whether business or non-profit, you can up your game with a greater focus on how you make people feel. Because ultimately we are all engaged in the business of hospitality.

History & Politics

The older I get, the more I love history. This year I read books by two of the most fascinating people I know, Doris Kearns Goodwin and George F. Will, who lived a lot of the history I was too young or distracted to fully appreciate at the time.

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. My earliest memory is watching an evening news anchor (probably Walter Cronkite) report John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But it wasn’t the news anchor I remember. It was my mother’s reaction. I was barely three, but I knew from her distress that something terrible had happened.

Doris Kearns was a 20-year-old college student at that time. A few years later, she began serving as a White House Fellow in the Lyndon Johnson presidency. After Johnson left office, she taught at Harvard for ten years and wrote Johnson’s biography. She would later marry Dick Goodwin, one of Kennedy’s closest aides. Together, they had a front-row seat to one of the most consequential and tumultuous periods of American history, the 1960s and 1970s.

In the final years of Dick’s life, Doris helped him sort through a mountain of boxes of documents from his lifetime career in Washington. He had served as an aide and speechwriter to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, as well as Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy. Their individual Washington careers were well established by the time they married in 1975. The memories they uncovered in those boxes brought fresh revelations — and not a few disagreements — as they relived those momentous events with the benefit of hindsight perspective. It’s that parallel juxtaposition of their individual experiences of the same events that makes this book so fascinating.

One note: I almost always prefer an audio book narrated by the author, but not this time. Goodwin’s speaking cadence and inflection were distracting. I would have enjoyed this one more in hard copy.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐. Brown tells the true story of a 9-man rowing team who beat incredible odds to make it to the 1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Germany. The personal story of the main character, Joe Rantz, was emotionally gripping, especially in light of the historical context. I enjoyed the story, but I could have done with less detail on rowing minutia. I found myself muttering under my breath, as I do when I read Tolstoy, “My good man, will you please get to the point already?” 🙂

I haven’t seen the movie, but suspect I might like it even more than the book since it would necessarily highlight the inspirational aspects of the story without getting bogged down in the physics of boat craft.

The Conservative Sensibility by George F. Will (audio) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. This year marked the 50th year that George Will has been writing a twice-weekly opinion column about politics and foreign affairs for The Washington Post. I’m a long-time fan, not because I always agree with his positions but because I admire his acerbic wit and colorful vocabulary. No one throws shade quite like George Will.

Even though he’s considered one of the most respected voices on conservative politics, Will has never been shy about criticizing Republican politicians. After the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016, he couldn’t take it anymore and officially broke ties with the Republican party. I suspect he would say of the break-up that he didn’t leave the Republican party, the party left him. He remains steadfast in his defense of conservative principles.

In the words of the Farmer’s Insurance commercial, George Will knows a thing or two because he’s seen a thing or two. And that’s why I tackled this book. Will takes his readers through the history of the American experiment, from the Founding Fathers to our current time, showing how we’ve been engaged in a governance tug-of-war from the very beginning. From James Madison’s view of natural rights that pre-exist government to Woodrow Wilson’s progressive views on the necessity of centralized power, it’s been a grand struggle.

Drawing from decades of scholarship and experience, Will speaks of Locke and Madison and Hayek and Fukuyama with the familiarity of old pals playing checkers on the stoop of the general store. This book is deep and complex, but also thoroughly engaging. If you love American history and want to understand our current political upheaval in its historical context, read this book. It’s quite a ride.

Poetry

365 Poems for Life compiled by Allie Esiri ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I intentionally set out to read more poetry this year, and it’s been every bit as delightful as I had hoped. This anthology had lots of familiar favorites, and many new poets, too. Keep this book beside your favorite reading chair, and enjoy a poem every day. Vitamins, you know.

A New Reading Thrill

Without a doubt, the biggest thrill of my reading year was engaging with groups of readers who were discussing MY book! I fulfilled a lifelong dream in February when I published my first book, Walking Mama Home: A Caregiver’s Journey. After caring for my mom for the last six years of her life, I longed to throw a lifeline to caregivers still engaged in that struggle. For all of you who read the book, posted reviews, or shared it with a friend, thank you! If you, or someone you know, is approaching or living this season of life, it would be my honor to walk a bit of that journey with you through this book. Again, a million thanks to all who have supported and encouraged me on this writing venture.

Whew! This concludes the review of my 2024 Great Reads. Thanks for hanging with me through this long post! Now it’s your turn. Drop a comment to let me know which books made your own Great Reads list this year. I wish you good health, prosperity, and excellent reading in 2025!

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