Books 2023

A few years ago I intentionally began working to balance fiction and non-fiction in my reading, finding both valuable in different ways.  Everleigh inherited my love of historical fiction and while she crocheted, painted, embroidered,and sewed, I read to her the majority of Jeff Shaara's historical fiction on US wars. We thought we had read it all, only to discover 5 new titles (on the Mexican American War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Korean War, and two new books on World War II) we have yet to read. We have opted to break for a while and try some new books, but suffice it to say, I find Shaara's work to be insightful, faithful to the historical record, and strangely comforting in a turbulent age. I was so fascinated by his Gettysburg account, I also read The Twentieth Maine by John J. Pullen, an account of Joshua Chamberlain's all-volunteer regiment. Chamberlain, college professor turned regimental commander, and later governor of Maine is a fascinating American I knew nothing about until 2023. 

I read Michael Strogoff: A Courier of the Czar by Jules Verne again. Nothing makes me so happy to be an American as reading Russian literature and I needed to re-read this in 2023. While this novel starts a little slow (as novels set in Russian do), it is a true adventure full of tragedy, heroism, and romance. 

Willa Cather runs a close second to Russian literature for making me thankful for my life, and also reminds me of some of the hearty stock I come from who made a life on the harsh prairies of Kansas and Nebraska. This year, it was my first read of O Pioneers. This should be must reading for every whiny woman complaining about dishes and laundry on social media. Cather makes me feel the coldness of the prairie, the disappointment of a lonely life, and the determination of women of substance. 

While I am deeply suspect of fiction writers still living, Amy Lynn Green came on to my radar a few years ago with her book Things We Didn't Say. She is a graduate of Taylor (Ben's college) and when I saw that The Lines Between Us was set in Oregon during World War II, it was a must-read. It was my fastest read of the year, because I couldn't put it down, completely caught up in the trouble between conflicting convictions in a family and a riveting story based on real events that I was completely unaware of in my home state. 

Rounding out my fiction reading for the year, was C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. There is not much in the human lexicon that Lewis doesn't touch in this masterful myth telling. Peter Kreeft's 2004 lecture on the book was a fascinating addition.

I ventured into new territory, reading Jon Acuff's Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking and finding it underwhelming. So oddly, I opted to follow it up with his similar book for teens written with his teenage daughters, L.E. and McRae Acuff, Your New Playlist: The Student's Guide to Tapping Into the Superpower of Mindset. This one so moved me, I had my youngest read it and blogged about it for HSLDA. One sentence continues to humble me and make me a little more generous to millenials and Gen Z: "We would have made the same mistakes you’re making with your phone." Good reading for teens AND parents.

I read Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos. I didn't find it revolutionary but didn't disagree.

Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing by Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis should be must reading by everyone, but particularly anyone who thinks there is any reason to keep this hideous practice, legal. Tackling all the ways that abortion destroys everything: women, children, men, law, politics, medicine, the media, Anderson and DeSanctis point the way forward for prolife activists to help our culture understand the horrific repercussions of this evil. 

Hats off to Matthew Continetti for his brilliant and readable The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism. I came away with a more complete understanding, a little more hope, and a more grounded understanding of why I am and will remain, a conservative.

Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq by Melvyn P. Leffler was an insightful look at a key time in history. Having lived through this period, I've never thought the media accurately reflected the decisions and motivations of the Iraq invasion and removal of Saddam Hussein. Leffler's book was deeply satisfying for finding deeper and more nuanced motivations, and recognizing the long-term repercussions of policy decisions and leadership issues.

I met Pam Tebow in the fall of 2022 and was inspired by her positive outlook. Thrust into the national spotlight by a son who has lived uncompromising faith in the limelight, Pam grasped and articulated something I needed to be reminded of: that a woman's influence is more than a job she does, it is about the people she influences behind-the-scenes, in day-to-day faithfulness. She told me (and others) that she thought homeschooling moms (of which she was one) play a key role in influence and Ripple Effects: Discover the Miraculous Motivating Power of a Woman's Influence is her story of living out that reality. I realized again how much I most value the role of wife and mother above all things, and that homeschooling my children is my opportunity to live this to the max.

Letters to A Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine by Dorothy L. Sayers, is a collection of Sayers essays on the intertwining of faith and theology with art, literature, education and history. Each is rich in merit, and I took some time to read and process, identifying with Sayers' frustration that the Church and her people are diminished and impoverished by a lack of robust imagination and intellectual passion. These 70+ year old essays could have been written to today's Church and are relevant to anyone who takes faith seriously and needs refreshment and renewal.