This book list overview is very late - I got engaged in October of 2021 and in a lot of ways, life stilled as much as it picked up. In the chaos of the planning, I confess I lost my love of reading and writing there for a minute.

Perhaps I shouldn’t say lost - just misplaced for a little while. There always seemed to be too much to do; it became harder and harder to make time for the little joys, something other engaged and married friends warned me of. It’s easy to let life’s important milestones take over the day-to-day baby steps, especially when the milestones are so wonderful and exciting.

My baby steps are coming back to the forefront though, and I’m feeling still and happy in married life. Maybe I’ll write about it more and maybe it’ll end up here for you to read.

For now, I’m going to still celebrate the books I read in 2021, though I didn’t reach my goal of 40 in a year. I read 28…I want to be excited about that number because it’s still huge considering everything that happened last year, but it’s also two fewer than 2020’s list and that feels like a step backward.

But maybe it’s only a baby step backward and that’s okay.

Below is my reading list from 2021 and I’m happy to talk to anyone who asks about my favorites, my least favorites, and the funny amount of Christian fiction (peek the Ted Dekker books) that found its way in there. I think I was feeling nostalgic for the genre that sparked my love of writing in the first place.

My 2021 Reading List

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Prodigal God by Tim Keller

The Gambler Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Art of Making Sense by Andrew Klavan (reread)

Let Evening Come Poems by Jane Kenyon

My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul

South and West by Joan Didion

Revelations of a Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

Brown by Richard Rodriguez

The Angel of History by Carolyn Forche

Growing Up Poor by Robert Coles

The Language of Grace by Peter S. Hawkins

25 Great Sentences & How They Got That Way by Geraldine Woods

A Traveler’s Literary Companion to Ireland by James McElroy

William Faulkner: Early Prose & Poetry by Carvel Collins

Unfinished Business by Vivian Gornick

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Lies of the Saints by Erin McGraw

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

The Boundless Garden by Alexandros Papadiamandis

The Best Spiritual Writing (2013) Edited by Philip Zaleski

Ever Ancient, Ever New by Winfield Bevins

The Last Thing I Remember by Andrew Klavan

Play Dead by Ted Dekker

Green by Ted Dekker

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson

The Bees by Laline Paull

Black by Ted Dekker

2022 is still young, so here’s to more baby steps.