Best Reads of 2021

This year, I read 34 books and here's a roundup of my four favorites. Below you'll see a list of ten honorable mentions that were also excellent. I only finish a book if I like it, so these fourteen books are all great!

My list this year includes

• Two novels, one nonfiction book, & one art collection
• One female author & three male authors
• Authors who are African American, Dutch American, Thai, and Chinese Malaysian. 

Here are my four best reads of 2021 in the order I finished them.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Genre: fiction

Year published: 2019

Awards & Accolades: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; New York Times bestseller; and lots more awards

Why I liked it: Colson Whitehead ranks among only four authors who have ever won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once. This is the book that won one of them (his other winning book: The Underground Railroad which I also recommend). Compact, devastating, with a powerful though subtle ring of hope at the end, The Nickel Boys is about two Black boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school that is based off a real life reformatory that operated in Florida for over 100 years. I walked away with a deeper understanding of the high cost of hope and peaceful protest in the face of violent injustice. A must re-read for me.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Genre: nonfiction

Year published: 2015

Why I liked it: I had been hearing about this book everywhere for a few years. Dr. van der Kolk, psychiatrist and trauma expert, lays out how trauma reshapes the brain and affects the body and how embodied therapies (drama, yoga, sports) can be used to heal the brain and body. This book is a bit of a deep dive, I'm sure they are assigning it in college courses these days, but the effort is well worth it. I walked away with a changed perspective on the deep connections between our minds and bodies.

Christ on the Bangkok Road by Sawai Chinnawong

Genre: art

Year published: 2000

Why I liked it: Sawai Chinnawong portrays Christianity through traditional Thai drawing and painting. In his own words, "I believe Jesus Christ is present in every culture, and I have chosen to celebrate his presence in our lives through Thai traditional cultural forms." Over the summer, I feasted daily on this book, gazing on one image and reading its description every day. Gorgeous. (I think the only place to get a copy is through OMSC at Princeton Theological Seminary.)

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

Genre: fiction

Year published: 2019

Awards & Accolades: New York Times Bestseller; Reese Witherspoon's book club

Why I liked it: Choo's novel is set in 1930s Malaysia and follows the interlocking adventures of a young woman struggling against societal and familial expectations for her and the story of a young boy on a mission to fulfill his master's dying wish. This coming of age story is full of mystery, magic, and superstition with a sweet love story woven throughout. I loved the lush descriptions of the culture and place that feel familiar from our years in Southeast Asia. I lost sleep over the page turning suspense. Mesmerizing.

Other great reads of 2021:

Becoming Brave by Brenda Salter McNeil - I love the way this veteran in racial reconciliation uses her own journey and the story of Esther to guide the reader in anti-racism work.

Developing Female Leaders by Kadi Cole - A practical guide on unleashing women as leaders in Christian ministry contexts.

Roots by Alex Haley - This epic story follows multiple generations of a single family and deepened my understanding of the way slavery abruptly severs the identity of family and place for so many.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Wu - It took me a bit to figure out what this quirky book was doing, but in the end I loved the originality and the humorous and biting ways it portrayed some of the Asian-American experience.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - Murder mystery, coming of age story, and love story - I loved how the characters paralleled possibilities in our relationship to the natural world.

Shalom and the Community of Creation by Randy Woodley - This theologian deepened my appreciation of the Biblical concept of shalom through his Native American cultural lens.

How to Fight Racism by Jemar Tisby - I thought I knew a lot already and this book showed that I still have so much to learn.

Prayer by Richard Foster - This book expanded both my knowledge and practice of many different types of prayer.

In the Woods and The Likeness both by Tana French - I had trouble setting down these two beautifully written, page-turner murder mysteries set near Dublin.

Best Reads of 2020

2020 fell short in so many ways. But, not in the books category. 

Book after book after book that I read this year was EXCELLENT. I AGONIZED over what to include in this list. This year, I've written up longer descriptions for the four books that (I think) were my favorites. I then recommend another large handful of runners-up.

Note: Over the years, I've become more and more committed to diversifying my reading (i.e. more authors of color, non-Americans, women). In 2020, I was inspired to see many, many people commit to reading more books by people of color, especially Black authors. Here are some excellent reads to encourage your commitment. The vast majority of these authors are people of color and over half are women.

"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

Description: A fictional account of a Baptist minister who moves his family to the Belgian Congo in the 1950s to be missionaries. The story is told from the perspective of his wife and four daughters.

Why I liked it: I first read this book about ten years ago and was deeply moved. So I read it again this fall. It is long, 500+ pages, so you get to really settle into the story and the characters. Kingsolver masterfully develops the main characters by writing the story from the wife and daughters' perspectives, changing the narrator with every chapter. She nails their different ages and personalities and quirks. This story is both gripping and at times heart-wrenching. It explores many themes -- colonialism, missions, mental health, physical disability, poverty, race, etc. This book will make you think about things worth thinking about.

"Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi

Description: Two sisters are born in Africa's Gold Coast in the 1700s - one sister marries a wealthy Englishman and stays and the other sister becomes enslaved in the US. This fictional story follows the lives of their descendants up to the present day.

Why I liked it: The author, Yaa Gyasi, is a young, Ghanaian-American woman who grew up in both Ghana and the US. This is her debut novel and, my goodness, it's stunning. Every chapter alternates between the two lines of the family, one in Ghana and one in the United States moving chapter by chapter down the lineage of each of the sisters. Gyasi touches many landmark events in the history of Ghana and the US. The themes of heritage, home, and identity were strong and poignant throughout this beautiful novel.

"The Cross and the Lynching Tree" by James Cone

Lots of triggering, emotionally heavy thoughts below. Feel free to skip.

Description: James Cone, a prominent African American theologian, explores two of the most charged symbols for Black Americans - the cross and the lynching tree. 

Why I liked it: I began reading The Cross and the Lynching Tree early in 2020 and finished it in June against the backdrop of the nation (and the world) in uproar over the murder of George Floyd. I had never considered the similarities between Christ's crucifixion and the lynching of Black people - Christ was a young, brown man from a minority people who, though he was innocent, was killed on a tree. Now, when I look at the faces of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, I see Christ.

The Bible

Description: It's the Bible. Do I need to describe?

Why I liked it: This summer, I did a "Bible shred" where you read/skim the whole book in 30 days. It took me about two months. I'm normally the slowest Scripture reader on the planet. I'll often reflect on a passage for days (or even months!) It was new experience to inhale massive amounts of the Bible in such a short time. I saw big themes and patterns in ways that I had never seen before. What stuck out the most to me? The theme of God exalting the humble and humbling the exalted was everywhere and said in so many different ways. Shout out to The Voice, my new favorite version of the Bible. And shout out to the Bible Project book summary videos for helping me along the way.

~

Now for the runners up. I kid you not: in another year many of these excellent reads would've made it into the top. The competition was stiff this year. So many good books here:

"Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson - The author's memoir, written completely in poetry form. I've never read anything like it - beautiful and multi-award winning.

"Between Midnight and Dawn" by Sara Arthur - A feast of Scripture, poetry, and excerpts from literature to guide your Lent through Eastertide. This grounded me during March-May 2020.

"The Color of Compromise" by Jemar Tisby - A historical survey of the white American church's complicity in racism from early US history to the present day. There were so many times we could've courageously chosen a different way, but we didn't.

"The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennett - This brand new, New York Times bestselling novel is a page turner. Explores themes of race and identity through the story of twin sisters who choose to lead divergent lives.

"The Very Good Gospel" by Lisa Sharon Harper - The author is one of my favorite Christian speakers, thinkers, leaders and this book offers such a whole and hopeful look at the good news of Jesus.

"Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya - This novel, which follows the life story of an Indian peasant woman, is loosely based on the author's life, was written 65 years ago to critical acclaim, and has sold over a million copies since.

"The Next Evangelicalism" by Soong Chan Rah - I felt like the author was in my head and reading my mind as he explored the future of the evangelical church in America.

"Between the World and Me" by Ta'Nahesi Coates - I listened to the audiobook and loved the experience. His writing style felt as if it veered into poetry at times as he so poignantly spoke of his life as a Black man in America.

Here are my top reads from previous years:

2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015