Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

books

How to Find the True Rest Your Soul Needs {and a book giveaway!}

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Jennifer Dukes Lee is a stellar writer, and I have been grateful for each of her books and the wise, insightful, funny, real guidance and truth she offers. Her newest book, It’s All Under Control, releases today, and friends, this one resonated deeply with me because, well, I’m Triple Type A, right? I love me some control! Jennifer writes friend to friend, and her insights strike a solid note because they are gleaned from an authentic place of personal experience.

I’m thrilled to welcome Jennifer Dukes Lee to the blog today. AND I have a free copy of her beautiful new book to give away. Details on how to enter the drawing are at the end of the post.

Guest Post by Jennifer Dukes Lee

I know how this noisy world can get in the way of me hearing God’s still, small voice. So, in the past few years, I’ve been intentional about quieting the outer noise in my life.

My biggest challenge is silencing the inner chatter.

I know the value of resting in Jesus, but it’s like my brain won’t stop moving in fifteen different directions. Corralling my thoughts is like herding a nursery full of fork-toting toddlers who just learned how to walk and are weeble-wobbling their way toward electrical outlets on opposite sides of the room.

Take, for instance, one of the places where I go to escape the noise: my bathtub. I’ll toss a bath bomb in the water and sink into the warmth. There’s no TV. No iPhone. Yet even here, my mind is running on high gear. I often receive some of my best writing inspiration in the bathtub, which is why my friend Cheri gave me a set of child’s bathtub crayons. (Yes, part of my latest book, It’s All Under Control, was written on the walls of my tub.) So while it might look like I am resting, I’m actually still working.

God is reminding me that my brain needs rest as much as my body does. I loosen my mind by simply dwelling with him: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

If I have a lot of noise around me—even in the form of the silent iPhone scroll—I can’t hear God.

My friend Lindsay Sterchi, mom of twin toddlers, learned the hard way what happens when she doesn’t get the rest she needs. She told me, “Without rest, I’m not very fun to be around— just ask my kids and husband. I get irritable way too quickly. I lose perspective on the bigger picture of life, and the little things seem bigger than they really are. I get in this fog where I’m going through the motions of life but not really living intentionally.”

The answer for her: finding rest in small pockets of time each day. “Rest means that when the kids nap, or after they’ve gone to bed, I’m not going to zone out on TV or scroll through social media, which might seem restful but ends up being draining.” Instead, she does something that feels life-giving—without feeling guilty. Her escapes: reading a book, journaling, or simply being still, alone with God and her thoughts.

Maybe your escape is Netflix, and if that’s the case, you do you. But make sure it gives you life instead of draining your energy.

No matter what: make rest a priority. It’s vital.

Resting in God serves two purposes: First, rest allows you to intentionally connect with God. God wants to meet with you, not simply to give you the day’s marching orders. He wants to be with you because he likes you.

Second, rest calms the noise around you so you can hear God’s clear direction.

Here are a few ideas to incorporate more rest into your life.

Instead of scrolling, go strolling. Everybody has time for rest. How can I be so sure? Because that’s the time we use to check social media. Put down your iPhone for the fifteen minutes you would’ve spent on Instagram and take a walk instead.

Don’t let your “yes” encroach on your rest. If you say yes to something new, evaluate everything else on your list to see what might have to go. Refuse to put rest on the altar of sacrifice.

Let your work assignments flow from soul realignments. If “everybody is looking for us,” our souls and agendas need realignment so we can hear clear directions from God.

Protect the freed-up time you have already created. God prunes all of us, but achievers try to immediately fill those pruned spaces. Protect the space that God created for you. Downtime is okay; in fact, it will make you more productive in the work you were designed to do.

Adapted from It’s All under Control: A Journey of Letting Go, Hanging On, and Finding a Peace You Almost Forgot Was Possible, by Jennifer Dukes Lee, releasing today from Tyndale House Publishers.

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Jennifer Dukes Lee is the wife of an Iowa farmer, mom to two girls, and an author. She loves queso and singing too loudly to songs with great harmony. Once upon a time, she didn’t believe in Jesus. Now, He’s her CEO. Jennifer’s newest book, It’s All Under Control, and a companion Bible study, are releasing today! This is a book for every woman who is hanging on tight and trying to get each day right―yet finding that life often feels out of control and chaotic.

I have an extra copy of Jennifer’s lovely new book It’s All Under Control that I would love to mail to one lucky recipient (continental U.S. only).

To enter the drawing, just leave a comment below telling me your favorite way to rest your mind, body and soul. I’ll randomly draw one name at 8 p.m. CT on Friday, September 21 (winner will be notified by email). 

 

Raised to Life {a guest post and book giveaway}

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I was delighted to meet Patrice Gopo last spring at the Festival of Faith and Writing. She introduced her friend, Kate Motaung, in a little gathering celebrating Kate’s book release, and even though I didn’t know Patrice, I was moved and touched by the beautiful words she spoke in honor of her friend.

When I saw that Patrice recently released a book herself, I went out on a limb and messaged her on Instagram if ask if, on the off chance, she would be interested in guest posting over here, because I was really excited to introduce you to her voice and a bit of her story. Lucky us, she said yes! Her writing is at the same time quietly powerful, eloquent and lyrical, and I know you will find her as compelling as I do.

Please welcome Patrice Gopo to the blog today, and be sure to enter a comment at the end of this post for a chance to receive a free copy of her beautiful book, All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way. 

Essay by Patrice Gopo

In the nightmare I find my toddler face up in a shallow pool. Her wide eyes haunt me. Her clothes balloon with water. I lean over, yank her out, and hold her lifeless body in my arms. I wake, open-mouthed, to the din of absolute silence.

Now alert in the night, I can split dream from reality. I know my daughter sleeps close by. But I see those vacant eyes. The limp body. The spreading circle of damp on my imagined clothes.

***

I am eleven years old when my pastor dunks me into a baptistery filled with water. Raised to walk in new life, I hear when pulled to the surface. A large towel greets me as I exit, my clothes heavy on my limbs, a puddle forming at my feet. Beneath the soft fabric, my skin feels the cool air, and my body begins to shake.

In the future words gush with great force. Well-intentioned opinions flood my mind and make my lungs burn for breath. Taught as tenets of this faith, I hear instructions about being submissive, respectful, and the keeper of the home. An ancient role, I’m told, assigned from the time the Tigris and Euphrates rushed through Eden.

There are things I will come to regret. The way I shrank myself, the way I silenced my voice, the way I believed that idea to be truth. But I will not regret that moment of immersion.

***

I gave birth to my daughter in a tub of warm water. She slipped from the sac of fluid within me to the birthing pool surrounding me. Below where I crouched and pushed, she could have remained there for seconds, minutes, maybe more, her body attached to a pulsating cord.

Instead, the midwife’s hands sank below the surface, cupped my girl’s wrinkled body, and guided the fresh baby to her mother. Thin skin pressed against my wet chest as I waited for a scream that never came. Just the flutter of a heartbeat and a soft mew.

“The gentle birth,” the midwife said while she drained the tub. “Water babies don’t really cry.”

***

Sometimes I daydream about my girl far in the future when she is big and grown. She stands on the bank of a great river or walks barefoot beside the ocean’s many lapping tongues. Her wide eyes stare into a blurry distance beyond the range of my imagination.

And I think how around her, words can rise. How jagged twists on a faith I have handed her may one day creep close and soak her shoes, her clothes, her being. But my daughter, I dream she floats in the river current, breathes with the ocean’s waves. Her strong arms cut through walls of water in a way even her mother never knew.

Why did I believe for so long? Because I didn’t know there existed a way to stop and still remain.

***

In the bright of morning, after the time for nightmares is over, I hear my toddler’s waking cries. Later we walk past a fountain. Her squeals prod me to stare with her at slim arcs of water splashing into the pool below. I loosen my grip on her hand and watch her touch the slight spray of what she has known since her beginning.

(This post originally appeared in the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts and is used with permission)

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Patrice Gopo is a 2017-2018 North Carolina Arts Council Literature Fellow. She is the author of All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way, an essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging. Her book is a Fall 2018 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Please visit patricegopo.com/book to learn more.  Facebook: @patricegopowrites; Instagram/Twitter: @patricegopo.

Patrice has graciously offered to give away a copy of her beautiful book, All the Colors We Will See. To be entered to win, simply leave a comment on this post — tell me the best book you’ve read in the last six months.

One name will be randomly drawn on Wednesday, August 29 at 8 p.m. Central Time, and I will notify the winner by email.  

 

 

What I’m Reading {Summer 2018 Edition}

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When I was a kid I spent most of my summer afternoons on the screened-in porch, tucked into a rocking chair, the vinyl seat cushion sticking to the back of my legs in the New England humidity.

Often my best friend Andrea would fold herself into her own rocking chair next to me, and together we’d while away the day in quiet contentment, each with a book in our hands. It seems funny now that we intentionally got together in order to spend hours without speaking, each of us with her nose in her own book. And yet, there was something perfectly right about those long, hot summer afternoons spent in companionable silence.

Decades later, Andrea lives 1,500 miles away, I don’t have a screened-in porch or a set of aluminum rocking chairs, and I don’t often have a whole summer afternoon in which to dedicate solely to a book.

Nowadays I often pull a novel from my purse to read a few pages in the car as I wait for a boy to emerge from one activity or another. Or I squeeze in a chapter before turning out the light, my eyelids growing heavy but my mind and heart still eager to turn the next page.

Reading will always be my pastime of choice, which is why every few months or so I love to share the books I’ve enjoyed lately (and I love to hear what you’re reading too – let me know in the comments!).

Here’s what’s been stacked on my nightstand this summer:

The Edge of Over There
by Shawn Smucker
Genre: YA Fiction

The Edge of Over There has a Madeleine L’Engle-ish feel – a little bit fantasy, a little bit mystery, and a whole lot riveting. Though it’s technically Young Adult fiction, I guarantee this book will have you reading late into the night, no matter what your age. Start with Shawn’s The Day the Angels Fell first, if you haven’t read that one yet, and then move on to this equally satisfying sequel.

Why I loved it: It’s a page-turner with a fast-paced plot, but it also got me thinking about deeper questions.

Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up
by Kathy Khang
Genre: Christian nonfiction

A powerful, convicting new voice, Christian activist Kathy Khang makes an important, convincing argument for why it’s imperative that we use our God-given voices and intellect to confront racism, discrimination and injustice. As a person who is often hesitant to speak up, this book gave me a much-needed push toward raising my own voice, as well as a whole lot to think about.

Why I loved it: Kathy’s approach is grace-ful yet firm. I deeply appreciate her wisdom and her courage in telling the hard parts of her story.

Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage
By Dani Shapiro
Genre: Memoir

I’ve read all of Dani Shapiro’s memoirs (Devotion, Slow Motion) and some of her fiction, and Hourglass is my favorite so far. Tender, intimate and vulnerable, yet also ruthlessly honest, Shapiro looks hard at her own marriage — “a reckoning in which she confronts both the life she dreamed of and the life she made, and struggles to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become.”

Why I loved it: Maybe it’s the voyeur in me, but I love a good memoir for its intimacy and vulnerability and the way it prompts me to look at my own life. And this one has the added benefit of being expertly written in beautiful, luminous prose.

A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman
By Joan Anderson
Genre: Memoir

When she hits middle-age, her children grown and married, her husband focused on a new job, Joan Anderson decides to take a hiatus and go her own way. Her year alone on Cape Cod is a rebirth of sorts, a time in which she begins to know her true self for the first time in a long time, perhaps ever. A Year by the Sea is a beautiful reflection on the passage of time, on seasons and the gifts of nature and on the process of deep transformation. Wise, compelling, poignant – this is a book I will return to again.

Why I loved it: At 48, I’m nearly the age Anderson was when she spent her year by the sea and penned this memoir about her transformative experience. I don’t know…maybe I am on the cusp of a mid-life crisis? All I know is that this book spoke to me deeply.

The Poisonwood Bible
By Barbara Kingsolver
Genre: Fiction

I tried reading this one years ago and put it down. But this past spring my son Noah read it for one of his high school classes, which compelled me to pick it up again, and I am SO glad I did. A riveting, compelling saga, The Poisonwood Bible is narrated in alternating chapters by the four daughters and the wife of a Baptist missionary who relocates his family to the Belgian Congo in the early 1960s in order to save souls. I’m a little rusty on my African history and my knowledge of post-colonialism, so I undoubtedly missed some key points, but wow, this book was fascinating. It had me staying up WAY past my bedtime most nights. Kingsolver is a master storyteller, and this book, one that is at the same time very dark and richly beautiful, is one I will not soon forget.

Why I loved it: Plain and simple, The Poisonwood Bible is a masterful novel with deeply compelling themes, rich, multi-layered characters and stunning prose.

Up Next in My To-Be-Read Stack:

An Unfinished Marriage and The Second Journey, sequels to Joan Anderson’s A Year by the Sea.

March, by Geraldine Brooks – The story of the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, by Molly Wizenberg – Part cookbook, part memoir, my favorite (Though I don’t actually cook, I like to read about cooking, which is odd, I realize. Also, I got this for .99 cents on Kindle; check to see if the deal is still on!).

Food: A Love Story, by Jim Gaffigan – I’m reading this one for my book club in August. I think Jim Gaffigan is hilarious, so I’m looking forward to this.

So tell me, what have you read this summer that has you staying up way past your bedtime? 

 

When Walking is Prayer

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Though I’ve never met her in person, I’ve admired Hilary Yancey for a long time. She’s a deep thinker and a beautiful writer, and, lucky for all of us, she’s recently released her first book, Forgiving God: A Story of Faith – a memoir about becoming a mother to a child with disabilities and the impact that experience has had on her faith and on her relationship with God. I haven’t finished the book yet, because it just arrived in the mail today, but let me simply say that I picked it up while I was sitting here at my desk, read the opening few pages, and really, truly did not want to put it down. It’s a privilege to welcome Hilary to the blog today; I know you will be touched by her words.

Post by Hilary Yancey

I remember the first time I prayed with my eyes open. It was on a drive home from high school, late in the winter of my senior year. I had just gotten my driver’s license and was nervously winding my way down the same roads I had been traveling for years. I could feel the car swing into the familiar right turns and how my foot anticipated the next stop sign. But my eyes darted from side to side, my hands sweated at “10 and 2” on the steering wheel and out of my mouth slipped a decidedly complex prayer: “Lord Jesus do not let me die on this road I JUST got my license!”

I’ve always been the kind of person who prays with her eyes closed. I found it easier to concentrate on the ideas of my prayers, to imagine how they were being sent upwards and meeting Jesus in heaven. I prayed in this way to stop being distracted by the things I saw around me, by a book I wanted to read or a pile of laundry I was supposed to do. I thought that by closing my eyes I could close out the world and so through my prayers ascend somewhere else, wherever it was I thought God was.

A few years ago, my prayer life changed. I was pregnant with my first child; we’d received a challenging medical diagnosis at our 20-week ultrasound; I’d never needed to pray more. But when I closed my eyes, it was darkness. There were no feelings of ascent, no sure footing. The world had interrupted my old patterns and it was impossible to close out the world because the world had shrunk to the space of my body expanding for my son and the world was with me everywhere I went.

By the time my son was born, I had given up praying with my eyes closed; I had almost given up the practice of praying. But I walked: to and from his crib in the NICU, to and from the family lounge where doctors met with us to share further diagnoses, treatment options, to and from my bed to the shower to the hallway again, and around the outskirts of the hospital building when I would call my friend to cry. I could not speak to God directly, except to yell, and so I walked.

And my footsteps became words, they became prayers, but open-eyed prayers, prayers of pressing into the world instead of pushing away. My footsteps took me both where I hadn’t wanted to go and where it turns out I needed to, to the place of being surrounded, immersed in the very experiences I had once prayed to avoid.

I walked my son to the doors of the OR, I walked the floorboards of our house listening to the breaths in and out of his new trach, I walked us around the lobbies of his follow up clinics and through the hospital hallways too many times to count, memorizing the turns – up one floor, left then right and around to the desk where they check your ID, down the hallway, slight right to the sink and then left and then Jack, my son, is on the right – all of this walking and I emerged with prayers carved into my feet, with prayers left on those floorboards and hallway tiles, echoes of what my mind couldn’t say but my body could.

I am still at the very beginning of learning to pray. I am still working on finding a new rhythm of conversation with God. But now, when I can’t find a way to say what I mean, when I close my eyes and feel only quiet dark, I start walking. And the footsteps become words, and the words become prayers.

I turn the corner and I am somewhere new.

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Hilary Yancey loves good words, good questions, and sunny afternoons sitting on her front porch with a strong cup of tea. She and her husband, Preston, and their two children, Jack and Junia, live in Waco, Texas, where Hilary is completing her PhD in philosophy at Baylor University. Her first book, Forgiving God: A Story of Faith was just published by FaithWords. You can read more of her writing on her website and follow her on Instagram at @hilaryyancey.

Favorite Books of 2017

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What better way to kick off the New Year than with a look back at favorite reads from 2017? Plus, now you can take all those gift cards you received for the holidays to the bookstore and find yourself a good book to help you weather the doldrums of January!

I read a total of 44 books in 2017, which, strangely, was exactly how many I read in 2016. I’m nothing if not consistent, right?! However, this doesn’t count the five books I didn’t finish this year (they are marked DNF in the list below). I gave myself the same rule I give my kids: read 50 pages, and if you are still meh, you can quit. Nothing against any of the books I didn’t finish (in fact, at least one came highly recommended and has been well-liked by many); they just weren’t for me.

So, without further delay, here are my eight favorite reads of 2017, followed by a complete list of all the books I read last year. Happy reading, friends!

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
By Cal Newport

Genre: Business

About the Book: “Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.”

Why It’s a Fave: Technically this is a business book…but it’s easily applicable to lots of different fields, including creative work. This was the first book I read in 2017, and it changed the way I approach my work. I especially appreciated how Newport wove interesting, relevant stories with science and practical applications to make this book super accessible. This would make a great January read.

The One-In-A-Million Boy
By Monica Wood

Genre: Fiction

About the Book: 104-year-old Ona befriends an 11-year-old boy who knocks on her door one morning looking to fulfill his Boy Scout duty. As he refills the bird feeders and tidies the garden shed, Ona tells him about her long life, from first love to second chances. Soon she’s confessing secrets she has kept hidden for decades.

Why It’s a Fave: I loved the writing in this book. Monica Wood has a real gift for gently revealing the nuances of human connection. One-in-a-Million Boy is funny, poignant, a little bit quirky and bittersweet; be prepared for tears with this one.

One: Unity in a Divided World
By: Deidra Riggs

Genre: Christian Non-Fiction

About the Book: “Jesus didn’t say that the world would know we are his followers by our biting rhetoric, our political leanings, our charity work, or even by our knowledge of Scripture. He said the world would know us by our love for one another. Yet it’s so easy to put others at arm’s length, to lash out, to put up walls. Deidra Riggs wants us to put our focus on self-preservation aside and, like Jesus, make the first move toward reconciliation.”

Why It’s a Fave: I know you might think this is cheating, because Deidra is a good friend, but truly, I loved this book, and I deeply value its message, especially at a time which feels, on most days, more divisive than ever. Deidra does not get all up in your grill with her message about unity and reconciliation, but instead, offers a gentle but firm approach to how we might more toward more unity in our families, communities and churches.

At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe
By Tsh Oxenreider

Genre: Travel/Memoir

About the Book: At Home in the World follows the Oxenreider family’s (Tsh, her husband Kyle, and their three kids under age nine) on their nine-month journey from China to New Zealand, Ethiopia to England, and more. “They traverse bumpy roads, stand in awe before a waterfall that feels like the edge of the earth, and chase each other through three-foot-wide passageways in Venice. And all the while Tsh grapples with the concept of home, as she learns what it means to be lost—yet at home—in the world.”

Why It’s a Fave: This is one of the best travel memoirs I have ever read. If you want to travel the world but can’t quite sling a backpack on your shoulders and hit the road like the Oxenreiders did, this book is your next best option. I especially loved how Tsh’s writing offers a complete sensory experience – I felt like I was smelling, tasting, hearing and seeing right along with her. I also appreciated her honesty. Traveling around the world with three kids under age nine isn’t all roses, and Tsh lets the reader in on some of the challenges and frustrations she faced along the way.

When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions
By Sue Monk Kidd

Genre: Christian Non-fiction/Memoir

About the Book: “Blending her own experience with an intimate grasp of spirituality, Sue Monk Kidd relates the passionate and moving tale of her spiritual crisis, when life seemed to have lost meaning and her longing for a hasty escape from the pain yielded to a discipline of ‘active waiting.’ Full of wisdom, poise, and grace, Kidd’s words will encourage us along our spiritual journey, toward becoming who we truly are.”

Why It’s a Fave: I read a library copy of this book for research, but it really resonated with me – so much that I ended up purchasing my own copy just to have on my shelf. I appreciated Kidd’s honesty regarding her spiritual dark night of the soul. If you’re in a wilderness or waiting season, this is definitely one to pick up. I know I’ll be re-reading it again.

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
By Gregory Boyle

Genre: Christian Non-fiction

About the Book: “For twenty years, Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, he distills his experience working in the ghetto into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith.  Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally.”

Why It’s a Fave: Hands-down my #1 favorite read of 2017, this book is a deeply moving testament to the power of love and community, even in what seem to be the most despairing, hopeless circumstances. Father Boyle is funny as heck, and his storytelling abilities are second to none. You will come away from this book not only astonished by Father Boyle’s commitment, generosity and compassion but also, honestly, astonished by the humanity of the gang members with whom Boyle makes his life. A truly inspiring and transforming read.

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian
By Sherman Alexie

Genre: Fiction/YA

About the Book: “Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.”

Why It’s a Fave: Truth be told, I didn’t think I was going to like this book when I first started it. It’s YA, which is not my favorite genre, and it includes drawings/cartoons, which felt a little too Diary of a Wimpy Kid to me at first. But it didn’t take long for the character of Junior to grow on me. This book is FUNNY, but it will also tug at your heartstrings in a very real way. Alexie, who draws liberally from his own experiences of growing up on a Native American reservation, does not shy from depicting the relentless poverty and rampant alcoholism pervasive in the Native American culture. I read this one with my book club, and it generated a lot of in-depth discussion.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
By Gail Honeyman

Genre: Fiction

About the Book: “Eleanor Oliphant struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.”

Why It’s a Fave: I love quirky (but not too quirky) fiction, and this book fits the bill. It’s smartly written, clever, funny, a little bit bizarre, and heart-warming. While I don’t like books with saccharine plots/unrealistic happy endings, I do appreciate a story, like this one, that ends on a generally uplifting note. Also, Eleanor Oliphant is different enough that it’s not likely to blend in with the many other books I read each year. In other words, I like a book that stands out, and this one does exactly that (but not in a gimmicky way).

And the rest of the books I read in 2017, in the order I read them:

[I also indicated which ones I listened to on audio, and which ones I read for my book club.
DNF = Did Not Finish; R = books I read for book-writing research]

Daily Rituals, by Mason Currey
The Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple
The Creative Habit, by Tyla Tharp – DNF
Images and Shadows, by Iris Orega – DNF
One True Loves, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
A Fall of Marigolds, by Susan Meissner (book club pick)
One Plus One, by Jo Jo Moyes (audio)
Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance
The Grain Brain Whole Life Plan, by David Perlmutter
Columbine, by David Cullen
You are Free, by Rebecca Lyons
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben – R
Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren
The End of Absence, by Michael Harris – R
The Art of Slow Writing, by Louise DeSalvo
What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, by Haruki Murakami – DNF
Let’s Not Go to the Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller
Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang – R
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi – DNF
Anything is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout
Upstream, by Mary Oliver
Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah (audio)
Waking Up White, by Debbie Irving
Abba’s Child, by Brennan Manning – R
Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Taylor Brown – R
A Beautiful Disaster, by Marlena Graves – R
Adopted, by Kelly Nikondeha
The Year of Small Things, by Sarah Arthur and Erin Wasinger
The Way of Hope, by Melissa Fisher
The Tech-Wise Family, by Andy Crouch
Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season, Edited by Gary Schmidt
The Anthropology of Turquoise, by Ellen Mcloy – DNF
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman (book club pick)
If All the Seas Were Ink, by Ilana Kurshan
Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger
The Year of Yes, by Shonda Rhimes
The Raven’s Gift, by Jon Turk

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