One enjoyable boon to the vacation time in which I’m firmly ensconced is reading people’s 2024 lists of favorite books, movies, and TV shows. I find it fun to glance back at the year and consider what has provided meaning, support, inspiration, and provocation. Here are a few book recommendations from my year, made amid piles of equally deserving, yet-to-be-read titles.
Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash
Life After Doom, Brian McLaren
This might be author and public theologian Brian McLaren’s most essential and courageous book. He looks clear-eyed at the systemic crises our planet and country face and charts a path of profound and practical hope. This is passionate, contemplative, activist writing at its very best. I hope it becomes a classic. Read here for more on the book of Revelation and McLaren’s work on authoritarianism.
Sage Warrior, Valarie Kaur
Activist and author Valarie Kaur writes gorgeously about the ancestors of her Sikh faith and interprets her tradition for the present moment. It’s an inviting, stirring introduction to the Sikh faith and a storytelling manual for embodying “revolutionary love” in our times. Read here on the book of Revelation and the nonviolent “battle” of love and justice.
Ordinary Mysticism, Mirabai Starr
Author and translator-of-mystics Mirabai Starr released an exquisitely written book this year about humanity’s shared mystical heritage and potential. As I’ve mentioned, it feels like a sibling to my book “The Holy Ordinary.” Her chapters on the contemplative invitation of grief are particularly priceless. Listen to my podcast episode with Starr here.
Greta Thunberg, No One is Too Small to Make a Difference
I’ve listened to her speeches but had never picked up this book and read them side-by-side. Her words, written and spoken, pierce me to the core. How long will we collectively treat the climate crisis as anything less than the all-hands-on-deck emergency it is? Thunberg’s words stir me out of my privileged numbness. Read about a startling image in the book of Revelation through which the earth grieves and rises in solidarity with victims.
Call and Commitment, Naim Ateek
I read Naim Ateek’s autobiography this year. He’s a Palestinian Christian priest whose family lived through the Nakba/Palestinian Catastrophe and who has worked for peace and justice in Palestine for decades. He launched Palestinian Christian liberation theology with his book “Justice and Only Justice.” If there were ever a time for American Christians to retreat from our uncritical support of Israel and listen to Palestinian Christian voices who have been telling their truth to the world for decades, now is the time. Read my book review here; read last year’s “Christ in the Rubble” sermonic reflections here.
Practice of the Presence, Carmen Acevedo Butcher
Translator and author Carmen Acevedo Butcher provides detailed historical and biographical information in an evocative style that synergistically supports the message of practicing Divine presence. In particular, she presents Brother Lawrence as a disabled war veteran, allowing a vulnerable human dimension to open the reader’s perception of this revered Carmelite monk. Her acute attention to translation choices and her accessible notes alongside Brother Lawrence’s text make this a must-have for those on a contemplative path.
Doppelganger, Naomi Klein
I thought about this book all year and brought it up in conversation whenever I could. The journey of activist author Naomi Klein to follow what she calls “the mirror world” of Covid misinformation and conspiracy theories leads to a profound meditation on the polarized, fact-denying moment we find ourselves in. I experienced it as a surprising contemplative book calling readers to move beyond either-or binaries to know our shadow or “double” selves.
How about you? What books most impacted you in 2024? Here’s wishing you a fabulous start to the new year, and with gratitude for your presence in 2024.
P.S. I’ll tackle movies around the time of the Oscars. There are too many that I still need to see (Sing Sing, The Brutalist, and Nickel Boys, among them).
Would love to add to your wonderful list! Cherished Belonging: The healing power of love in divided times by Gregory Boyle. One of the most beautiful/challenging books I’ve read in a very long time. Bonus! If you listen to the audiobook read by Father Boyle.
Two unwavering principles held at Homeboy Industries were the following:
1) Everyone is unshakably good (no exceptions)
and
2) We belong to each other (no exceptions).
“Now, do I think all our vexing and complex social dilemmas would disappear if we embraced these two notions?”
I paused, then continued, “Yes, I do.”
Gregory Boyle