This year, I read more novels than I’d read in awhile. After growing up on them, I’ve been reading more and more nonfiction in recent years. Twenty-two of the books below were written by women. 42%, not quite up to half. Books can show you things you don’t believe, too, and should. Expansion, integration, mystery – yes to both.

(I read this poem by Mary Oliver, many times.)

In the coming year, I want to read more artist biographies, more science books, more by contemplatives and mystics, more novels that are the kind people call “sweeping”. I want to read more poetry. After looking through a few essays from my last semester of college, I also want to write and talk more about what I’m reading. It seems important to practice holding articulation and uncertainty together.

• Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art, Nancy Princenthal
• Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux, Heather King
• A Concise Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, John Powers
• How to Love, Thich Nhat Hanh
• As I Lay Dying, William Faulker
• The Color Purple, Alice Walker
• Redeployment, Phil Klay
• Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott
• Vermeer in Bosnia: Selected Writings, Lawrence Weschler
• Why I Wake Early, Mary Oliver
• Gork, the Teenage Dragon, Gabe Hudson
• Swimmer Among the Stars: Stories, Kanishk Tharoor
• Imagine Wanting Only This, Kristen Radtke
• Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, Richard J. Foster
• Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang
• An American Childhood, Annie Dillard
• Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, Krista Tippett
• This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression, Daphne Merkin
• The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
• Simple Matters: Living with Less and Ending Up with More, Erin Boyle
• The Nix, Nathan Hill
• The Immortals, Amit Chaudhuri
• *The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
• The Meaning of Marriage, Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller
• Waves Passing in the Night: Walter Murch in the Land of the Astrophysicists, Lawrence Weschler
• Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair, Anne Lamott
• Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions, Rachel Held Evans
• The Eight Limbs of Yoga: A Handbook for Living Yoga Philosophy, Stuart Ray Sarbacker and Kevin Kimple
• The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, David Abram
• Chemistry, Weike Wang
• Blue Iris: Poems and Essays, Mary Oliver
• How to Relax, Thich Nhat Hanh
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy
• An Introduction to Hinduism, Gavin D. Flood
• Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light, Leonard Shlain
• NW, Zadie Smith
• The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage, Rob Bell and Kristen Bell
• The Complete Stories, Franz Kafka
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, Ernest Hemingway
• Revolution of Character, Dallas Willard with Don Simpson
• The Animators, Kayla Rae Whitaker
• All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks
• Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality, Rob Bell
• Terrapin: Poems, Wendell Berry
• *Animal Farm, George Orwell
• White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping it Real on Your Spiritual Path from One Seeker to Another, Danielle LaPorte
• All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
• Your Brain is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time, Dean Buonomano
• Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls, edited by Karen Finneyfrock, Mindy Nettifee, and Rachel McKibbens
• A Sacred Shift: A Book About Personal Practice, Marlee Grace
• Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett
• The Country of Marriage: Poems, Wendell Berry

* = re-read

ps. GoodReads has a fun visualization of “My Year in Books”. Previous reading lists here: 2016 and 2015

pps. Any favorites you’ve read recently, or books you’re excited to read soon?