Earlier this year, I finished an audiobook of Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen Doucleff.

Overall, I loved this book. Doucleff details how various ancient cultures parent their children and how we in the western world can implement some of these ideas to raise well-behaved, helpful children. It was fascinating to dive into these cultures and their bents toward the “it takes a village” model of parenting. A lot of it is extremely helpful, especially the concept of including children in the family as productive, important members, even as babies. 

Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot was my favorite book from 2023. In a collection of letters Elliot wrote to her then newly-engaged daughter, Valerie, Elliot tackles the question “what is a woman?” What she means is, “who am I?” and to answer it, she first askes, “Whose am I?”

The Road is a deeply depressing book that still provides beacons of hope; the story bestows a heaviness that comes with a true understanding of brokenness. The burden is too much to bear.

As my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia, A Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis provides more insight into writing from the perspective of a child without losing profundity and power that I hadn’t realized until reading it for the nth time late last year. Lewis is a master at this endeavor in general, writing for all audiences in a way that neither panders nor overreaches.

Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being has been sitting atop my bookshelf for too long, so I was excited to finally read this book; she did not disappoint. I was inspired to take her writing methods and use them as revision exercises in my own writing.

I’ve never been much of a poetry reader - I find myself too insecure to dive into what I know is a wealth of beauty and wisdom. Strangely, the ambiguity of Emily Dickinson’s poetry gives me confidence to read it. She packs each line with multiple meanings, often contradictory meanings, and most of them tackle the concepts of God and the afterlife, two of the most ambiguous and strange topics I’ve had the pleasure of thinking about.

I’ve read a lot of books in the last few months – most amazing, some just eh, and I figured I’d write reviews on a few of my favorites. I read My Name is Asher Lev last fall and it remains pretty far up on my list of “highly recommended” books.