It was a strange year of reading. I got off to a good start and had a major slump in the middle and then recovered a bit towards the end of the year. The numbers look a bit better than it really it is (58 books) because there’s some padding with a few Calvin & Hobbes books these past few days and a whole chunk of audiobooks and family reading. But reading (and listening to reading) all counts. I did not (once again) do a very good job of reviewing those books and while I may not do a review for every book I read next year, I do want to do and a write better reviews for some of those more important books.
I think I’ve become aware this year more than ever that reading is a habit, a discipline and a muscle that needs cultivating and it goes so easily, a bit like my fitness following a bout of coronavirus.
My kids choice for audiobook of the year
This is quite a big category in the end. All the Just William books got consideration as did The Nowhere Emporium and How to Train a Dragon but my son was very insistent that the best audiobook was: The Parent Agency by David Baddiel. Given that it’s a story about a kid who gets to choose a new set of parents because he thinks the ones he’s got are boring, poor and embarrassing, then I’m not quite sure what to make of that. But such is the lot of a parent sometimes.
My daughter’s choice for book of the year
The best book she read by herself was this retelling of The Pilgrim’s Progress but the best book we read together was this one by Bob Hartman. It had the right mix of hilarity, thoughtfulness, sweetness, sadness and differing perspectives to let the stories speak freshly. And although each story is told from a very different angle the point of each story, I thought, was very faithful or true to the point that the actual story of the Bible.
The story that really stood out was the first one about Adam & Eve which had both of my kids literally crying with laughter. I think it’s the way I read it. But they loved the whole book.
My fiction read of the year
This category had a fair few re-reads. I regularly turn to an Agatha Christie or a John Grisham book when I’m flagging with my reading. A simple page-turner does exactly that and gets the pages turning and I carry that through several non-fiction books before I return to another fiction book. Dune was an interesting re-read but not nearly the great book I remember from my teenage years. Robert Harris’ An Officer and a Spy was a great book to start the year. I enjoyed listening to Master & Commander by Patrick O’Brian on audiobook. The runner-up is Ismail Kadare’s The Siege which I really enjoyed, as the Ottoman invades Albania and besieges some unnamed castle.
I think though my fiction book of the year was Philip Roth’s Everyman. In part this was due to when I read it. I read it at a time when I was thinking a lot about death following the death of a friend of mine who was several years younger than me. I didn’t know that this was essentially the underlying and central theme of this book and the point of this title. Death is what befalls every man (and woman). There were aspects to the central character which were deeply unlovable but it really made me reflect on the fact that living with hope & purpose makes so much difference to how we live now. I became surer than ever that in order not to lead essentially a selfish and self-centred live, with choices centred around me that finding something greater is essential. So in a strange irony a book about an ordinary man who was an atheist who lives and dies reinforced my faith in Christ. Here’s a little more in my short review.
My biography read of the year
I’m enjoying reading more of these books and they get the pages turning almost as much as a fiction read. Essentially I think because they tell a story and I really enjoy a well-told story. Several of these were running books and the best of those was Running up that hill by Vassos Alexander. Hillbilly Elegy deserved all the praise it got when it came out a year or two back but I was delightfully surprised by the humour and insights from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
It’s obviously a remarkable book solely from the fact of how it was written (literally in the blink of an eye) and also because the author died shortly afterwards (of pneumonia) which emphasises the preciousness of life. That life is to be treasured in all it’s infinite varieties and that if a man who locked-in his bodies with only control over his eye, can see that – then, well it helped me see that too.
My non-fiction (including Christian) book of the year
Looking back at what I read during 2020, I realise that I’ve read fragments of lots of books but finished not nearly enough of them. I’m somewhat disappointed by how few books are in this category. So I want to definitely work harder at reading more of these next year. I enjoyed the speculation of The Future of Humanity and the beautiful pictures in The Hand of God. I appreciated the wisdom of Rowan Williams in Being Christian and the sheer loveliness of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox & the Horse. But this has to be How to Think by Alan Jacobs.
We live in a time where it seems most people have lost the ability to think and to discern and to process and this short book really does help you become a sharper and kinder thinker. There is more than we realise that goes into being a good thinker about what we see, read and hear on a daily basis and too often we react, we get angry, we fail to listen properly. This book really helps. So good in fact that I would make it essential reading on any course I’d run for leaders, theology, Bible studies, you name it. It was the first book of Jacob’s that I’d read and it won’t be the last.
My book of the year
To read one book in a year that goes on your essential reading list means it’s a good year. I’ve read two. My book of the year is essential reading not because it was enjoyable (it wasn’t) or edifying (it isn’t) but because as a result of reading it I cannot see the world in the same way again. I now get the extent of my male privilege as a result of this book. This is a long, detailed, extremely well-researched look at all the ways in which men are brutal to and commit violence to women. From sex trafficking, child marriage, rape, domestic violence, prostitution, sex-selective abortions to honour killings and patriarchy. This is a book long on description and short on prescription but it does not suffer for that.
I think all men, all male leaders, I think my son when he is hold enough needs to read this book and understand what we men are capable of (and yes sometimes with the complicity and compliance of women) and commit ourselves to not just not being one of those men but for standing up to and opposing this evil.
Here’s the full list on Goodreads.
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