The Books I Read in 2021
2021 was a tough year. Can I get an amen? I think we all hoped we would be past the pandemic, but many are still firmly stuck inside and isolated. We’re still seeing spikes of Covid and having to deal with all that entails socially, politically, and otherwise.
I was hoping to read more in 2021, but my life was particularly interesting this year. I started a new role at work in August after staying in the same role for a decade. It’s been challenging and uncomfortable, but ultimately good. Ministry was very difficult for me this year, and it had nothing to do with my day job. Our little church saw many families leave for various reasons. I carried a heavier preaching load due to our lead pastor’s continued effects from contracting Covid, and I just plain wore myself out. All that meant I didn’t read as much as I like to. Some days I just felt like I was trying to survive.
But I didn’t read nothing, and that’s why you’re here—to see what I did read.
So here you go. Here’s my annual list of the books I read.
A few notes before you get started:
The list isn’t in any type of ranking. I just look at what I read in chronological order and then put it in either the best or the rest category and list it here. So the last of the best is not the worst, just the last I read.
My reading is a bit eclectic, as I think everyone’s should be. You’ll find works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and theology. You’ll find different thinkers and influences. It’s the way I like to read.
I separate the list into “The Best” and “The Rest". By no means do I intend to communicate “The Rest” are no good. Quite the opposite. I try to be discerning about what I read. Life is too short not to be. But some books rise above the others. Maybe I leave some out of my best list that you would include. That’s what makes these lists so fun.
“The Best” means the books I enjoyed the most this year. It doesn’t include re-reads, and some classics I read for the first time don’t make it. If they’re a classic, they should probably be on the list, but whatever. I reserve the right to like what I like, just as you do.
If you have some book recommendations for me this year, leave a comment. I’m always on the lookout for a good read.
All the links are Amazon affiliate links, so if you buy it from that link, I get some money from the purchase.
Now, on to the list!
The Best
Warren is a fantastic writer. She writes with a heart that feels deeply for the things of God and with a mind that thinks deeply about him too. This book on suffering is one I will revisit as my life shifts and shapes, because no matter what happens in life, suffering is a friend that visits us often.
Sometimes a book encapsulated a ministry. Jared’s ministry is one to pastors. It’s to the Church. It’s to those serve the church, who go to church, we need the church to be the church. He is Jared’s magnum opus. It’s the distillation of a lifetime of thinking about the church through the lens of the Bible. If you’re in ministry at any level, this is a must read. If you’re a pastor, it’s required reading.
By general rule, if Tim Keller writes a book, I read it. Kelley’s godly insight has helped thousands of people throughout his gifted ministry. This book is no exception. The resurrection is the turning point of history. Keller takes us inside that great hope. Buy this now and save it for Easter time. It’s the perfect book to help you see the magnitude of Jesus’s victory.
Each year I try to take an author and read through their corpus. The past two years have been interrupted by life, so I haven’t been able to stick with that plan. I didn’t even pick an author in 2021, but throughout the year i realized I was reading a lot of Eugene Peterson. I had never read anything by him before, so everything felt new and fresh to me. Then this great biography came out and I picked it up. What I found was a book that was about Peterson but also read like him. Some biographies tell you about the subject. Good ones helps you see the subject’s importance in the world. Great ones introduce to the subject himself. This one is the latter kind.
I love a good western, and this is a good one. I’m obviously not the only one to say that. This book won a National Book Award in 1992. It’s the story of John Grady Cole who finds adventure in Mexico chasing horses. It has enough action to make for a good western and enough remarkable scenarios to make for great fiction.
I used to think the Beatles were overrated. The popish songs of their early days felt cheap and shallow. But maybe the problem was I just never met a real Beatles fan. If I had, maybe seeing the band from a fan’s eyes would open mine. Sheffield is about as big of a fan as one could find. This book is really nothing more than a series of essays on his love for the Beatles. I picked it up while on vacation in Florida and read it in between shuffling the kids from the beach to the pool. It was the perfect beach read. Easy. Light. Funny. Engaging. And now I listen to the Beatles a lot. One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was McCartney’s newly released book of lyrics.
Alexis Cole did something really difficult to do. She wrote a book about George Washington that covers his life in all its grandiosity while providing something new and fresh. The layout of the book is great. The content is thorough. It’s the kind of biography of a man of legend that only a woman could write, and I’m glad she did.
Erik Larson’s books are legendary at this point. He can take history and make it sound fictional. He can tell a story containing multiples stories without missing the main point. In this story of Germany’s air raid war on England during World War II Larson takes us inside the British and German governments and all the various players. It is hard to believe people lived through these events, and it’s hard to believe a book could relate it all so well.
It wouldn’t be a best of list on this website without at least one Ortlund book. This year’s has two, and I read four Ortlund books by four different Ortlunds this year. Ray’s book on porn is probably different than what you expect unless you know him. It’s not legalistic. It’s not shaming. It’s not a pointed finger. It’s an invitation to a better life. Through a series of letters written to younger men, Ray brings us into difficult and awkward conversations about a real problem in the world today. He’s blunt but loving; pointed but caring; convicting but inspiring. It’s a book everyone—especially men—should read.
Most people know Andrew Peterson from his music. But more and more are getting to know him through his writing, and I mean that literally. Peterson writes with his heart wide open. He takes us inside his thoughts and intentions and fears and desires. This book is written memoir style and features lots of trees. Maybe that doesn’t sound interesting, but I promise it is. It’s well-written and devotional. It’s a testament to the grace of God in the ordinariness of life and creation.
Here is the second of the Ortlund books I read in 2021. Gavin is a great thinker, and I truly mean great. Here you will find a reasonable man searching for reasonable answers in what feels like an unreasonable world. What I appreciate is Gavin’s willingness to not start immediately with his firmest Christian beliefs. Instead he starts with the kinds of questions all seekers must start with and builds from there. He ends with a strong defense for God, but not in a way that is off-putting to those still thinking it through. This is the kind of apologetic we need today.
Some authors reach the level of “I’ll read whatever he writes.” Doerr reached that level with his Nobel Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a crazy title for a book. It sounds too out there, and when you start reading it you might think, “I don’t know about this one.” But stick with it for the first 100 pages and you’ll race to the end. It’s a complex novel with multiple storylines throughout different centuries. But it’s really one story, and it’s a good one.
Alan Noble understands our age. He gets inside one of the common messages we hear every day, “you are not your own.” He counters, of course, with scripture. But before he gets there, he lays the foundation of the world in which we live so that when we hear God’s word in the face of our current situation, we’re ready for answers. It’s a book well worth reading and thinking about for a while.
The Rest
