my favorite books of 2013

Not all of these books were published in 2013, but each of them found its way to me this year, and isn't so much of the magic of a book finding the right book at the right time?

In no particular order:

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
A fun, smart novel, this is the story of 15 year old Bee Branch’s attempt to understand what happened when her misanthropic mother disappeared without warning on the day before they were set to leave for an Antarctic vacation. Compulsively readable. (Full review here.)

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming by Rod Dreher
Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, and part hagiography, journalist Dreher’s book is the story of his saintly younger sister’s untimely death, his return to his small hometown in Louisiana, and his struggle to understand what it means to live a Good Life. (Full review here.)

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Remember in highschool how you felt like you were different from everyone, and then you found that group of kids at summer camp who were interesting? Artistic, unconventional, gifted, "on-fire," aspirational, rich - whatever?  Remember how for the rest of your life you were trying to make sure you fit into that group, even at the expense of your own happiness? That's basically what this novel is about.

Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang
This two-part graphic novel tells the story of the Boxer Rebellion in China, first from a peasant's perspective, and then from a missionary's perspective. So moving and disturbing I had trouble sleeping and then bad dreams after reading it.  Always the sign of a good book, right?

Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith by Michael Reeves
I had always thought first of God as Creator, but this book convinced me to see him first as Father, or as self-giving Love.  I read this with the Taylor freshman in Foundations of the Christian Liberal Arts, and it truly deepened my understanding of the Trinity's importance.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr
This was the first of several of Sara Zarr's YA novels that I tore through this year. If you, like me, love good realistic YA with strong female characters and spiritual themes, you need to check her out.  Beautifully written.

The Cuckoo's Calling by J.K. Rowling or whatever her pen-name was
I'm a sucker for a good British mystery novel, and this was certainly that.

Booked to Die by John Dunning
The other best mystery novel I read this year.  A former cop turns used-bookseller but still gets embroiled in murder investigations.

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
Doubtless this book would not have affected me so much if I hadn't been house-hunting while reading it.  Some lovely thoughts about the ways that architecture can shape our identities. (I wrote quite a bit about it here.)

Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays vs. Christians Debate by Justin Lee
Regardless of which side of this debate you find yourself on, you should read this book.   It clears up a lot of misconceptions about homosexuality that are common in Christian circles, and does so winsomely, with grace.

The Fault In Our Stars by John Greene
I think everybody already knows about this book, which is being made into a movie, but if you don't, you should read it!  Unless you don't like to read about kids and cancer. Then maybe skip it.

Previously: my favorite movies of 2013 
and my favorite albums of 2013 
and my favorite tv shows of 2013

a few things at the end of spring

Yesterday, I finished grading all the essays. The chickens are pecking at the remains of dandelions across the yard, and the grass needs to be mowed again every time I turn around.   Lilac branches spill out of a silver pitcher on the dining room table, and we cooked outside this week, sipping cold whiskey-gingers.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that summer is here.  The seniors graduated and we said goodbye to our Korean and Chinese friends - goodbye for the summer, to most of them, and goodbye indefinitely for a few favorites who are going back to finish university in Korea now.

Rosie and Owen dressed up for graduation, too.

 In just seventeen days we'll be moving into our new house. In the meantime, the chickens (whose story you can read at the Renew and Sustain blog) are free-ranging in the backyard, with a portion of the storage shed cordoned off as shelter for them.

We've been very into fairy princess ballerinas around here - but the kind who dig for worms, make mud pies, climb fences, and chase chickens. (I'm a sucker for old-fashioned fairies and bought this book for Rosie and me to share.)

We are journeying into Narnia, too - Rosie and I have read the first three books, and are currently in the middle of Prince Caspian. She can't follow the stories too well, but doesn't care at all, and refuses to let me switch to Betsy-Tacy.

At Christ and Pop Culture I've been reflecting on books and television and music and theology - you can click through if you want to read -

"The Office" Ends, but Love Never Fails  (my take on the "The Office" - which had a really surprisingly great run of episodes at the end!)
Denison Witmer- Songs to Grow Up To (a new album from one of my favorite songwriters - this is on repeat at my house)
A New Wave of Complementarianism (a round-up of other people's posts)
Where'd You Go, Bernadette (a review of a really fun novel - especially for anyone who has ever lived in Seattle)
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Lesson in Community (a review of conservative columnist Rod Dreher's memoir)

Incidentally, Christ and Pop Culture has launched a new magazine for the iPad and iPhone - you can get a free trial subscription and check it out.  It's a well-designed, curated collection of perspectives on pop culture.


For a few months now, this essay's been bouncing around in my head about buying our first house and reading Alain de Botton's Architecture of Happiness.  Maybe now that it's summer I'll finally get to writing it. Or maybe I'll just go make some popsicles.

a few things in January

Late December to early January is one of my best chances in the year to read.  (I love working on an academic calendar!) Here are a few things I’ve been enjoying:

The Stages by Thom Satterlee - Thom is a friend, poet and writer in residence at Taylor, and fellow member of Gethsemane Episcopal. It's always nerve-wracking to begin a book written by someone you know, because what if it's awful. This book, though, was truly excellent. Here's the review I left at goodreads: "An intelligently written literary mystery, The Stages tells the story of Dan Peters, an American translator (and Aspie) living in Copenhagen. When his colleague and best friend dies mysteriously and a Kierkegaard manuscript goes missing, Peters seeks to clear his own name in the murder investigation.
With a strong setting, well-developed characters, surprising plot twists, and a solid grounding in philosophy, theology, and language, this book is heads and shoulders above most murder mysteries. Highly recommended. (Currently only available on kindle- and a steal at 2.99!)"

Torn by Justin Lee I basically want to recommend this to every Christian I know. Whether or not I agree with every conclusion Lee comes to, his poignant, vulnerable story is one that Christians - especially those who have never had a gay friend - need to hear. This book is not primarily an argument for gay rights or gay marriage, although Lee does take a little time to explain how his mind changed on those topics. It is primarily a story, one that you need to read with an open heart, ready to learn from it without simply jumping to find things you agree or disagree with.

Not Your Mother’s Morals by Jonathan Fitzgerald ebook available here - full review coming soon.

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter I read this because it's free on Kindle, and because I rememberd my mom recommending it to me like 10 years ago.  I absolutely loved it.  Set in Indiana (!) in the early 1900s, it's a beautiful coming of age story that demonstrates so many American cultural values - self-reliance, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, the value of hard work and education. It also has a unique naturalist perspective, and it made me think a lot about humanity, the natural world, and technology. 

As for movies, we really liked Safety Not Guaranteed. Josh Radnor's newest offering, Liberal Arts, was ok, a bit predictable, and really! he's playing the same Ted Mosby role again and again! Jack and I both sobbed through Les Miserables in the theater (and it totally changed his mind about Anne Hathaway - from contempt to admiration), and on Amazon Prime we're watching Foyle's War, which his parents recommended. It's a classic British detective show set in the south coast of England during World War II.

nativity

Let's start with this:

Mary didn't ride into town while having contractions, then deliver that night. She and Joseph were probably there for a few weeks.

And the young couple wasn't turned away from every local hotel. 
Bethlehem wasn't even big enough to support a commercial "inn".

They were actually staying with Joseph's relatives. 

Oh, and Mary didn't give birth in a barn, or under the stars.

And I'm afraid it wasn't winter. The shepherds came, but they weren't shivering shepherds.

You probably know, too, that the wise men weren't there the night Jesus was born, and that we don't know how many of them there were.


Ken Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is likely my favorite book of the decade. The very first chapter (which is available as a free sample here) is what opened my eyes to a whole new nativity scene.

Fluent in Arabic, Bailey has spent forty years living and teaching New Testament in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Cyprus. He studies ancient, medieval, and modern commentaries and translations in Semitic languages— Syriac, Hebrew/Aramaic, and Hebrew. Drawing upon his expertise in Middle Eastern culture and his study of these eastern commentaries and traditions, he paints a truer picture of the birth of the Messiah.

"No room at the inn"

In Luke 2, the Greek word (katalyma or kataluma) translated as inn does not mean a commercial building with rooms for travelers. It refers to the guest room of a personal house (in Luke 22:10-12, it is translated as “upper room,” whereas in the parable of the good Samaritan the Greek word for a commercial inn is pandocheion). Most village homes in Bethlehem had two rooms - one for guests, one for the family. The family room also had an area, several feet lower, where the family animals could be brought in for the night.

When Mary and Joseph arrived at their relative's home, others were already using the guest room. So Mary and Joseph stayed in the lower part of the family room, where the animals also stayed through the night.

Why is Bailey so sure they were staying with family?

"I've never found a Western nativity scene that included cousins or aunties. But Middle Eastern cultures have always I've never found a Western nativity scene that included cousins or aunties. But Middle Eastern cultures have always valued family and hospitality. Mary and Joseph were traveling to Joseph's ancestral home. He would naturally have had relatives there, and they would have welcomed him. “To turn away a descendant of David in ‘the City of David’ would be an unspeakable shame on the entire village,” Bailey writes in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. Even if no one had room for them, they could have traveled just a little further to stay with Elizabeth and Zechariah.

"While they were there, the time came..."
Mary wasn't in labor when they arrived in Bethlehem. In the Greek, Bailey explains, Luke's text indicates that Mary spent the last stages of her pregnancy in Bethlehem. A literal translation might read, "While they were there, her days (plural) were fulfilled." 

Jesus wasn't born in a barren, windswept stable in an unfriendly town where Mary labored afraid and nearly alone. 

Jesus also wasn't born under a halo of fluffy winged angels who sang as Mary painlessly delivered a child while clean baby animals gazed adoringly at the manger.

Mary and Joseph spent the last weeks of pregnancy with their relatives in Bethlehem. Probably because of the census, both of the rooms in the house were full, so they stayed in the lower part of the house, where the animals spent the night. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born. God became man and was born into a family, a large, warm community of humble, broken people trying to care for each other. He cried and was washed, fed, and comforted, wrapped in a clean blanket and laid in a manger.

It's true. But isn't it also a better story? And one that will inform our family Christmas traditions, and even our decorating.

(Originally posted November 15, 2010)

hearts, disaster, desire, time

Here are four posts I appreciated this week on preparing for Advent. Click through to read the posts in their entirety.

Prepare Our Hearts - Addie Zierman

"This year, I will watch as many sappy Christmas movies as possible and give myself two points for every former child-star from my youth that appears in a starring role. I’ll drink hot chocolate every night, screw the calories. I’ll choose only simple Christmas crafts to do; nothing that requires a “tutorial.” 

...When it all comes down to it, I think I’ve had too many years in a row of trying to conjure up the perfect Christmas. This year, I’ll settle for merry. I’ll settle for good, for less-than-picture perfect. I’ll settle for not-quite-how-it-was-supposed to be."

Preparing for Disaster - Ragan Sutterfield

"We who are ready to welcome this new kingdom of God should be like those small farmers who are learning how to plow with a mule or grow food without synthetic fertilizers, not as some abstract hobby, but as preparation for the world that will come. But how do we do this? We get some hints in our epistle reading where Paul prays, “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all” and “may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” 

Our task now is to gather and become communities of agape, outposts of the kingdom where we learn to love each other and move our lives ever more closely to the pattern of Christ. Our churches are where we start this work—calling each other to get off the couch of the world as it is and preparing for a world where God reigns in justice, love and goodness."

Advent is About Desire - James Martin, SJ

"Desire may also be difficult for some people to accept in their spiritual lives. One of my favorite books on Ignatian spirituality is The Spiritual Exercises Reclaimed, written by Katherine Dyckman, Mary Garvin and Elizabeth Liebert, three women religious.  In his classic text, The Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius Loyola repeatedly recommends praying for what “I want and desire.”  For example, a closer relationship with God.  Or a particular grace during a meditation period.  The three authors astutely note that this dynamic may present obstacles for some women. "Women may often feel that paying attention to their desires is somehow selfish and that they should not honor their desires if they are being truly generous with God."  The authors strongly encourage women to resist that tendency and to "notice" and "name" their desires.  To claim them as their own.  

Why all this emphasis on desire?  Because desire is a key way that God speaks to us, whether in Advent or the rest of the year.  Our holy desires are gifts from God."

Finding Time for God in Advent - Dr Chuck DeGroat

"What if your story was somehow ordered by a larger Story?  What if you could relinquish the frantic need to master time, and relax into a more sacred rhythm?  What if this season of Advent could mark a renewal in your life, a renewal of your time?"

As I write everyday through Advent, sharing some of my thoughts and yours, I will be meditative, not instructive.  I'm not going to offer tips and tricks for doing Advent with kids.  I'm mostly just going to listen and reflect on advent in my own life. 

That said, here is a list of my favorite resources for Advent (affiliate link); here is a post I wrote two years ago about advent traditions in the family; here is a great resource  for preschoolers that I'll be playing with this year.

What are your favorite books or resources for Advent?  Please share!

psalms for children and the heavy hearted

I didn’t really have a problem with God until I hit my 20s. Up to then, he had been — like my human father — good, kind, and sometimes inscrutable, but always loving, always approachable, always there.

It wasn’t that I had never questioned him — to be fair, in my teens I had battled doubts about God, but they had been cerebral, intellectual doubts. I read the existentialists, and I studied world religions, and I wondered if all that I understood from the Bible could possibly be true.

But emotional doubts — those I had never encountered. I had never railed against God for his absence and silence; in my sweet, safe, sheltered life I had never had cause to question his goodness. As far as I knew, no one else had either.

So when my world flipped upside down at the age of 23, when God absconded, I lacked the emotional vocabulary I needed to pray through it.

{Read the rest at The Living Church.}

{I promise, I do write things other than book reviews, sometimes.}

church beyond starbucks

{When I was 22, I started writing a book.  Today when I plugged in my old external hard drive to look for a file with some Greek translations, I found the folder with all the work I had done on the book.  I was gratified to find that re-reading it, after almost ten years, wasn't too embarrassing.  Do you want to read the first chapter? I know.... no one reads posts this long on the internet.  But, because it makes me happy to listen to my younger, more sincere and serious heart, here it is.)

Church Beyond Starbucks: Searching for the Soul of the American Church (OR – Recovering authentic love and radical holiness in the American church)


By Amy Lepine

Chapter One: Introduction

When I was thirteen, my best friend Bekah drifted away from the church. Despite the fact that our youth group brought in rock bands and professional skaters and half-pipes to be relevant, she remained unconvinced. “I feel like it’s so much emotional manipulation,” she told me. The church was just another group trying to control us, to buy us; it was just another social game to master.

When I was sixteen, Leigh and Jeremiah had had enough of the social game. Most adults would tell them they were in an adolescent phase and just needed to mature, and so the only older Christians they would even talk to about religion were the few who would take them seriously. In the church, they found no place to admit doubt. They were considered in need of salvation if they had doubts – not to mention tattoos or bare feet. They liked music and literature and film and philosophy, and the church wasn’t speaking those languages. Instead, the church had practically banned those languages.

When I was eighteen, my friends and I dropped out of the college class at church, where we felt looked down upon for not becoming more and more involved in the certain “approved” venues of growth and leadership. We were less spiritual because we played lacrosse or joined sororities rather than leading the college class Bible studies.

When I was twenty, I spoke with European and American college and highschool students in Taize, a Catholic monastic retreat center in France. They had not been shepherded in their faith by their churches; to them, Christianity seemed like hollow tradition, a business or a set of rules. But in the simplicity of the communal life at Taize, in the silence and the prayers, they sensed something genuine. They were desperately seeking, but, as one said, “The Christians I know hate each other – and every Buddhist monk I’ve met seems to genuinely care for the people around him.”

When I was twenty-one, my friend Shawna left the church. She was a three-year old Christian, and I had known her for almost all of those three years. Initially she was so excited with her newfound faith, and her life changed instantly – she effortlessly gave up her old habits, and she loved learning about Jesus. The more involved in the church she became, though, the more disillusioned she became. First, she dropped out of the college class, and worked with the youth group like I did. Then she quit working with the youth group, under the pretense of being too busy job-hunting with only three months left till graduation. And finally she quit coming to church all together. She would still come to lunch once a week for prayer with Caroline and me, but that was the extent of her involvement with Christians.

“At the beginning, everything looked so good,” she said. “The deeper I got though, I found that no one was willing to really be intimate with me. They wanted to keep their lives together and looking good and under control, and they didn’t have room for me in that. They just wanted me to climb the same ladder they were climbing…but there was nothing genuine underneath their happy smiles and controlled lives.”

This week (I’m now a whopping 22 years old), I celebrated Thanksgiving with a group of fellow English teachers in southeast Asia. During a car ride, our conversation turned to church. We discussed the forms our worship and community had taken in the different cities where we taught, and how that differed from our practices in the States. Becky’s parents had offered to send her sermon tapes weekly from their church, but she didn’t want them – “How applicable would that be to me here? –‘And remember, folks, share your Mercedes this week’ – right.”

She told me a story about her home church in the Chicago area. Last year, living in Chicago and working two jobs, she was regularly attending church as well as a weekly women’s Bible study. But she kept getting pressure from a woman in the Bible study to join a second study. “I didn’t have time for another study, and honestly, I didn’t need it. I was growing a lot,” Becky said, “but she was making me feel guilty for not being involved enough. She said she had time for a different Bible study every night of the week.”

Sally had a question along the same lines. “You know how books often recommend prayer journaling? I’ve really been trying to keep a prayer journal this year, but I just can’t do it. I’m not a journaling kind of person, and I keep failing at this. But I’ve read some books that say that if you don’t keep a prayer journal, you won’t see God work at all…they practically suggest that if you don’t keep a prayer journal, you might not be a Christian. I know that’s not true, but I’m feeling really guilty…”

And this year I also met M. – a twenty-year-old southeast Asian student, and a new Christian. Her faith is unhindered by legalism. She is open about her sin, her failures and her repentance. She’s not trying to be successful according to some “Christian” ladder of success. Her joy in the Lord in evident, and she’s trying hard to love those around her in a sacrificial way. Her friends can see the difference in her life.

Why don’t these things that characterize her spiritual life characterize the lives of so many church members I know in America? Why is Christianity so appealing and full of life for her, but so full of hypocrisy, legalistic ambition, and apathy for so many of my friends in the American church?

I’m twenty-two years old, and I love the church. I love the American church in all of its failures and inconsistencies, its off-key voices, its silly and grand traditions, its Sunday schools, its coffee and donuts, its youth retreats and acoustic guitars. But the church is losing my friends, and a huge chunk of my generation, for many reasons that boil down to one: praxis. Not one of my friends has left the church after doubting the propositional truth of the Bible. Not one has had a philosophical problem with the gospel. But friend after friend has turned away from the church because they don’t see people living out their faith. Put simply, they don’t see genuine love. They may find superficiality, legalism, hypocrisy, materialism, or commercialization, but they don’t see love.

In many cases, the church in America has yet to realize the fact that my postmodern generation is not going to be convinced by arguments against evolution, by historical proofs of the resurrection, or by the number of authentic ancient manuscripts that we have of the book of Isaiah. My postmodern friends want to hear the Story, and they want to see the Story coming true in specific lives and in communities living and loving authentically. They will believe in the Resurrection when they see lives characterized by spiritual Resurrection.

Rather than living out authentic love and radical holiness, the church has tried to reach my generation by being relevant. In some ways, it wasn’t a bad idea. It began when someone said, “If we could get a Starbucks-like café in our church, I bet we could really draw in the coffee shop crowd. We could have an event on Saturday nights, with live music and coffee, and maybe people who aren’t usually comfortable at church would come and learn to be comfortable at church. We could have the café open on Sunday mornings in between services too.” It was a good idea, and it met my friends where they were, putting the gospel into words that were familiar to them.

But at some point people began to get church and Starbucks confused. What, exactly, is the difference between a sermon and a decaf latte? What, exactly, is the difference between watching a talented band of musicians and singing praises to God? Does being conformed into the image of Christ mean wearing Abercrombie vintage t’s and a sterling silver cross ring? Does having a quiet time require owning a real leather journal?

Suddenly, what had been a creative way to reach a group of people was doing just the opposite - turning them off. My friends already had a Starbucks - they didn’t need another one. They didn’t need or want a church that conducted market research and surveys in order to offer a list of spiritual services and goods according to the felt needs of their target audience. They needed a church; they needed intimate relationships with set-apart people who love God. They needed a challenge to radical holiness. But all they found when they went to church was a watered down version of the culture they already had, another marketed product desperately claiming to be what will make you happy. This church was popular, and so some of them went, but it didn‘t mean much. And those who went didn’t usually stay long – after a while, the hypocrisy and superficiality became too much, and they left, still looking for something real.

The American church has often done a fabulous job of contextualizing - framing the gospel in meaningful and relevant terms and forms for American Christians. The problem is that now sometimes “Christianity” has become more associated with its contextualized trappings than with the actual gospel; Christianity has become a popular coffee shop, fitting too neatly into American life, rather than a message of authentic love that turns the world (and the believers themselves) upside down (Acts 17:6). American Christianity has pursued relevance at the expense of meaning; it has become a set of habits, values, and practices that aren’t necessarily essential to Biblical faith and that can obscure the gospel. Christianity has become comfortable; the church, seeking acceptance and marketability, has watered down the powerful gospel.

What I want to do in this book is ask what would happen if we took the “American” off of “American church”. If we stripped off the contextualized trappings of our faith, what would we have? Would we find the roots of an ancient and life-changing faith? Would we find something real for my generation to cling to? Drawing upon my experiences and those of my friends in the American church, and comparing and contrasting that with my experiences in the church in Europe and Asia, I want to look at the negative ways in which our church has become a culture - that is, ways in which the church has become a marketed product or an ingrained habit instead of a dynamic group of people working out their salvation with fear and trembling. And then I want to look at some positive ways we can recover authentic love and radical holiness in our spiritual communities.

My hope for this book is that my own reflections will spark conversations among my peers and among those who are discipling my generation. What should our church look like? What trappings need to be peeled away? There is nothing wrong with seeking to be culturally relevant, but we must guard against letting that become our most important goal. How can we build a church that is characterized by authentic, biblical love put into action? Ultimately, I want to see the church in America characterized by authentic love and radical holiness, not by a set of popular marketed catchphrases and products.

I have seen this kind of love and holiness, in both individuals and communities.

{...}



Though authentic love and radical holiness manifest themselves in every aspect of the life of the Body, in this book I will only look at a few aspects. Specifically, I will look at those aspects in which I see that the church has taken on America’s values instead of embracing counter-cultural biblical values. First, we’ll survey the landscape of the church in my generation, looking briefly at the history of evangelicalism in this century and where it has left us. Before delving into specific aspects of Body life, I’ll begin with a general look at syncretism (the blending of several religions) in the church, showing broadly how Christianity in America has blended sycretistically with American values.

Then, more specifically, we’ll study what I see as the key obstacles that need to be transformed in the American church in order for us to move toward authentic love and radical holiness: materialism, commercialism and commodification, superficial community, and the balance of truth and praxis. Finally, we’ll take a look at the first church in Acts in order to establish some principles to guide the church in the 21st century.

In this book, I may say some offensive things about the church. I may make some generalizations that aren’t true in every case. And I will certainly call the church to a high standard that I myself fail to reach. As I examine my church, I must necessarily examine myself as well, and often we both need serious adjustments. May God grant us wisdom to

a few things in September

Ballet. This picture is so cute it is driving me crazy. Maybe I didn't actually ask the other moms if I could put their children's picture on the internets. My apologies (tell me if you want it removed). It's just too much.

Damages. On the other extreme, I've been enjoying the disturbing show Damages. For most of the show's run, I've had a personal policy of no-damages-before-bedtime, because believe me, you do not want damages-dreams. In this, it's fifth and final season, though, it's got less violence but just as much drama. The performances by Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, as two damaged and power-hungry attorneys, are extraordinary. Are they the only women on tv who are allowed to be as complex and ambitious, as intriguing and abhorrent, as men? (Well, besides the female Prime Minister on Borgen-- yes.) The series finale airs Wednesday on Direct TV.

The Year Six Playlist. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about why we make anniversary mix CDs. Here's a link to listen to Year Six on spotify. My current favorite song is track 2, by The Walkmen. I need what it says about not striving for perfection, but being open to mistakes and failure and correction, a life of wholeness.

Lit. Currently loving this memoir by poet Mary Karr.

Certified Copy. We actually watched this film a few months ago, but somebody reminded me of it this week. It's a French film by an Iranian director and set in Italy. (Actually, parts were filmed in Cortona, just a few miles from where I spent a semester (Mollie, Anna, watch it!)). It's a beautiful and thought-provoking look at relationships, gender, and how we create our stories.

Walks. I usually walk Rosie to preschool, a little over a mile each way, and right now the weather is just achingly perfect, the kind that fills you with nostalgia. Go for a walk.

Google hang outs! Yesterday I used google plus for the first time, to have a video chat with my brothers (in Denver and Tulsa) and our parents (in Arkansas). It was super fun and would have been perfect if Sister Kate could have been there too.

ten beautiful modern novels

Because I was an English major, I often get asked about my favorite novel, or my favorite period of literature, and I am always at a loss.   In fact, I'd say the main reason I never went to grad school for literature was that I couldn't figure out how to specialize.  I didn't want to narrow down my love.

Young Adult fiction might be my favorite. For escape I like to read YA fiction, mysteries, memoir, novels, and occasionally fantasy.  I love the classics, too.  Julius Caesar, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, The Sound and the Fury, Notes from Underground, Things Fall Apart.  I love poetry: Rilke, John Donne, George Herbert, T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Sara Teasdale, W.S. Merwin, Mary Oliver.

But to get to the point: if I had to choose, now, I'd probably choose the modern (20th century) American novel.  (I just wouldn't be able to decide if I wanted to do the 1920s, the 1950s, or the 1990s.)

Here are ten great American novels. For this list I went with very recent books, all from the 20th and 21st centuries:

 1. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

4. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

5. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

6. The River Why by David James Duncan

7. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

8. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

9.Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

10. The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel

Someone who had seen my list of nonfiction books that shaped my faith asked me on twitter yesterday if I thought that fiction could shape faith, too. I answered, "Absolutely."

Most of the books listed here have shaped my faith, my worldview, and my imagination.  The best ones always do.