It's s 2:50 P.M on December 31, 2019. I am sitting in my living room in Grand Rapids, Michigan, bundled up in wool socks, cozy slippers and a chunky wool cardigan, watching as the world outside has become a snow globe in a matter of hours.
It's New Year's Eve, and I can't help but think how fast this last decade has passed. So much has happened for me. Ten years ago, I was still a sophomore in college, unsure of what life would bring. So much has changed since then. Not only did I complete college with an English degree, I received my Master's degree in Social Work. I moved four times, I have two cats, and one darling husband. Through all of these changes, though. my love for reading has never faltered.
This morning, I had the inspiration to collect the titles of all the books I have read in the last decade. It wasn't too difficult - I've been keeping a reading list since 2012 when I graduated Calvin. The more difficult task, then, was finding all of the books that I read while at Calvin, at least two and a half years of novels, most of which were very specialized in their genre because of the courses I took. I had forgotten most of them. It was rather enjoyable then, sleuthing through old papers that I wrote for class, finding old syllabuses in order to piece together the complete list.
There are over 100 titles on this list. Some of them are classics. Some are favorites, and some I would never recommend that anyone ever read again. Whether or not I could vouch for the quality of every individual title. I do believe that every single book on this list, in one way or another has shaped the reader and the writer that I am today.
I wonder what the next decade of reading will bring. Happy New Year 2020!
I wonder what the next decade of reading will bring. Happy New Year 2020!
Books of the Decade: Titles I’ve Read from 2010 - 2019
2010:
- The World To Come (Horn)
- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Stein)
- Nightwood (Barnes)
- Shakespeare and Company (Beach)
- House of incest (Nin)
- All Other Nights (Horn)
- The Sparrow (Russell)
- Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (Foster)
- Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Various)
- The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)
- Loves Me. Loves Me Not: The Ethics of Unrequited Love (Smit)
- The Last Song (Sparks)
- I Kissed Dating Goodbye (Harris)
- Boy Meets Girl: Saying Hello to Courtship (Harris)
- The Grapes Of Wrath (Steinbeck)
- Home (Robinson)
- Take This Bread (Miles)
- The Bible and The Future (Hoekema)
2011:
- Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (Schmidt)
- The Wednesday Wars (Schmidt)
- Trouble (Schmidt)
- Okay For Now (Schmidt)
- Charlotte Temple (Haswell Rowson)
- The Tale of Despereaux (DiCamillo)
- Sarah, Plain and Tall (MacLachlan)
- Strawberry Girl (Lenski)
- Farmer Boy (Ingalls Wilder)
- Bridge to Terabithia (Paterson)
- Dogsong (Paulsen)
- Jane Eyre (Bronte)
- Captivating (Eldredge)
- England, England (Barnes)
- A Fine Balance (Mistry)
- Red Earth and Pouring Rain (Chandra)
- Map of the Invisible World (Aw)
- Straw Into Gold (Schmidt)
- Midnight’s Children (Rushdie)
- Ghostwritten (Mitchell)
- The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (Vassanji)
- The Untouchable (Banvile)
- Arcadia (Stoppard)
- White Teeth (Smith)
- Little Women (Alcott)
- Walden (Thoreau)
- New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (Maher)
- New New Rules (Maher)
- Seriously...I’m Kidding (DeGeneres)
- Good Stuff (Grant)
2012:
- Amazing Grace (Kozol)
- Dear Cary (Canon)
- Bird by Bird (Lamott)
- Dispatches from the Edge (Cooper)
- Knocking At Your Door (Rademacher)
- Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys (Various)
- It Seemed Important At The Time (VanderBilt)
- Mennonite In A Little Black Dress (Janzen)
- What Came From The Stars (Schmidt)
2013:
- The Ring (Steele)
- The Help (Stockett)
- The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
- Once Upon A Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and its Aftermath (Alford)
2014:
- Thrive (Huffington)
- Who Stole the American Dream? (Smith)
- Lucky Man (Fox)
- Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M (Wasson)
- The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice (Musser)
- I Must Say: My Life As A Humble Comedy Legend (Short)
2015:
- Summer at Tiffany (Hart)
- Building the Bridge As You Walk On It (Walker)
- To Kill A Mockingbird (Lee)
- Go Set A Watchman (Lee)
- Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented In Today's Church (Colon; Field)
- Orbiting Jupiter (Schmidt)
- The Four Loves (Lewis)
- Silent Screams (Gregory)
- A Christmas Carol (Dickens)
- We Want To Believe: Faith & Gospel in "The X-Files" (Donaldson)
2016:
- From Anna (Little)
- Every Good Endeavor (Keller)
- Rebecca (du Maurier)
- The Prodigal God (Keller)
- Notes From Underground (Dostoevsky)
2017:
- Bad Feminist (Gay)
- The Meaning of Marriage (Keller)
- Wives Of War (Lane)
- Disability and The Gospel (Beates)
2018:
- The Gospel According to Jesus (MacArthur)
- The Disabled God (Eiesland)
- The Nightingale (Hannah)
- The Gospel Comes With A House Key (Butterfield)
- The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and FeebleMinded (McCully Brown)
- Gay Girl, Good God (Hill Perry)
- Eve in Exile: and the Restoration of Femininity (Merkle)
- The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Champagne Butterfield)
- When Helping Hurts (Corbett; Fikkert)
2019:
- Women of the Word (Wilkin)
- Wife-Dressing: The Fine Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife (Fogarty)
- The Social Contexts of Disability Ministry (Herzog)
- The Scarlet Virgins: When Sex Replaces Salvation (Lemke)
- The 10 Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them (DeYoung)
- The Unsaved Christian: Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel (Inserra)
- Broken Pieces And The God Who Mends Them: Schizophrenia Through A Mother's Eyes (Carr)
- Liturgy of the Ordinary (Harrison Warren)
- Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy (Vroegop)
- Girl, Stop Apologizing (Hollis)
- Lies Women Believe (DeMoss Wolgemuth)
- Pay Attention, Carter Jones (Schmidt)
- Love Like That (Parrott)
- Why Can't We Be Friends? (Byrd)
- Becoming Mrs. Lewis (Callahan)
- A Grief Observed (Lewis)
- Same Lake Different Boat (Hubach)
- Bold Love (Allender)
- The Holiness of God (Sproul)
- Joni: An Unforgettable Story (Eareckson-Tada)
