2018 Reading List

I'm not sure that there are clear themes for this year, but I certainly enjoyed reading fiction with friends, reviewing powerful nonfiction books, taking the recommendations of friends, quality spiritual reads, and poetry that made me think about the world in new ways.

I read Patricia Hruby Powell's Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case (2017) very quickly. It had been gifted to me, but with my long to-read list, I never thought I'd get to it. However, after reading The Invention of Wings over break, I wanted to further explore the complexities of US history; I saw Loving vs. Virginia on my bookshelf and I was intrigued. I opened it, saw that it was in the form of poetry and in the voices of the Lovings, and it is easily readable. I ultimately finished it about as fast as I've ever finished a book, and I appreciated the beauty of every page. There are few things that I love more than history with heart.

Rex Ambler's Living in Dark Times (2017) makes me feel like I'm on the right track in the way that I am living my life. He writes that although we cannot fix the whole world, we can use the model of our own lives to increase the light and love in the world. 

I read Toni Morrison's The Origin of Others (2017) because someone in my Meeting is very excited about it. Although I love exploring the topic of othering, this book was a bit esoteric for my taste. She uses novels to explore the topic, and because I have not read most of the novels, I had a hard time appreciating her arguments to their fullest extent.

I read The Irish Jesuit's Sacred Space for Lent 2018 every day of Lent. I loved having that evening reading as a part of my bedtime routine in the past few weeks. I love that each reading has questions to consider. I loved that I felt totally ready for the showing of Jesus Christ Superstar on Easter night. I could answer everyone's questions that arose from the musical!

A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis (2018) taught me a lot I did not previously know about how the Civil Rights Movement happened. It shined a light on areas of that history that feel both important and hidden away. Lots of connections to current events!

Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine (2015) is a gorgeous book of poetry by Remi Kanazi. The poems are bold and call all of us to bravery and to our best selves that center justice.

Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five (2018) by Miko Peled was a very interesting read in the weeks leading up to my Israel/Palestine trip. It was a good reminder of the responsibility that we have here in the United States to fight Islamophobia - an anti-Palestinian sentiment is not something one has to go abroad to address. Also, our justice system as a whole needs so much loving attention.

I went to Anthony Ray Hinton's book talk for The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (2018) this spring on a whim, but I was immediately drawn in by the power of his storytelling. This book did not disappoint. Anthony Ray Hinton is a model for us all in his capacity for love and forgiveness.

In the final weeks of the school year, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home (2006) was a great escape from the stress and pressure of the end of the year. It is a page-turner - hard to put down each time I would start reading it.  It also turned out that I had a totally false idea of what it was about based on what I knew of the musical. It is a deep and thoughtful memoir of loss and finding oneself and one's voice.

Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works (2015) by Roger L. Martin and Sally R. Osberg goes beyond the basics of social entrepreneurship that I had previously known. It is full of practical tips about social entrepreneurship and interesting and powerful case studies. There are examples of solidarity in the book that I used in a peace-building workshop days later.

I started C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves (1960) over a year ago, but just finished it because I promised someone on my Israel/Palestine trip that I would read it. I saw why he wanted me to - it was reflective of many of the conversations that we had in the Holy Land about the nature and responsibilities of love. Although the denseness of the book is what slowed me down from finishing it for so long, I am ultimately glad that I read it - much food for thought!

I also promised someone on my Israel/Palestine trip that I would read C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy (1954), the third book in the Narnia series. It's interesting reading it after knowing more about C.S. Lewis because his Christian philosophy shines through so clearly.

Jennie Isbell and J. Brent Bill's Finding God in the Verbs: Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer (2015) is a book that I've been reading slowly over the course of a couple years. I brought it on my Israel/Palestine trip because it seemed like the kind of topic that would be fitting for the Holy Land. Given the daily prayers that we shared in my group, I was deeply grateful to have this book as a grounding presence. I love that it is both Quaker and focused on building one's relationship with God broadly, with Jesus specifically, and with Scripture. It felt like a bridge and it deepened my spirituality.

Enough As She Is (2018) was our summer reading book and was written by Rachel Simmons, whom I first worked with in 2000, and whose career I have followed with great joy. She is thoughtful about how to best support adolescent girls as they develop in their competence, confidence, and connection and navigate their way to adulthood and defining their own success.

Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now (2017) was a book that I needed when it came out in early 2017, but then it turned out its poems were not quite as easily understood as I hope. There are certainly many gems within it, and each work is clearly written with care, but it definitely took more a year and a half to read for a reason.

Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) is a stunningly beautiful novel by Jesmyn Ward. The novel weaves the past and the present together seamlessly. It is like a literary version of the Bryan Stevenson's Legacy Museum and Peace and Justice Memorial.

I absolutely loved Krista Tippett's Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (2016). The chapters were on words, the body, love, faith, and hope. The book is made up of interviews that Tippett did over the course of over a decade, and it beautifully puts into words a lot of the ideas that I have been reflecting on recently about how we can be the change we wish to see in the world.

I finally read Steve Chase's Pendle Hill Pamphlet Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions? A Quaker Zionist Rethinks Palestinian Rights (2017), which I've been meaning to read for a year. Like Steve, the book is extremely thoughtful and authentic. He models his process for coming to BDS very similarly to how I modeled mine in my article "A Loving Quaker Journey to BDS." Steve is coming to my Quaker Meeting next week, and I'm happy to be able to use this text in my introduction of him.

A Kind of Freedom (2017) by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton was my first ever audio book as I prepared for my "Women Reading Women" book club. It reminded me in some ways of Homegoing, but circled back through the generations multiple times. I cared about the characters, but kept waiting for major revelations that never came.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (2017) is my new favorite novel. It is a modern reimagining of Antigone that features a British family of Pakistani origin. It is from the perspective of the characters who represent Antigone, Haemon, Polynices, Antigone, and Creon.  It's absolutely gorgeous.

My most recent book club book was Trail of Lightning (2018) by Rebecca Roanhoarse. It is Indigenous dystopian futurism and I thoroughly enjoyed it and its three-dimensional characters. At first the literal monsters in it turned me off, but they definitely did not end up being the focus of the book, and instead it is full of meaningful relationships.

Final book of the year was Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018). Her story is remarkably relatable, and I found it very interesting to hear her insider take on events that we all saw happen on the news. She calls us all to consider how we can use our voices and share our gifts.