2024 Favorite Reads

The Paradox Paper #38

I have been sick in bed for a week. Not the state in which I’d hoped to write the first Paper of 2025. Alas.

Instead of subjecting you to whatever disjointed ravings would result from any attempt on my part to employ creativity, I hope you’ll enjoy a sampling of my most memorable reads of 2024. If you’ve read any of them, let me know how they impacted you!

Welcome to The Paradox Paper, a monthly newsletter that honors the everyday paradox of a life with Jesus. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:

In this edition:

• 2024 books I’m still thinking about

• A song for when you’re fearful of human disapproval

How To Know A Person by David Brooks

When it comes to deep relationships—the kind where intimate understanding is shared and both parties see and feel seen—David Brooks is no natural. He argues that none of us are. That’s why he wrote a book about it. Making the case that “seeing others deeply and being deeply seen” is a skill that can be learned, he lays out several ways to practice it. I keep his list of “right questions” in regular rotation with the kids in our student ministry, and they never fail to take a conversation to a deeper level.

Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese

I’m leery about historical fiction. In my mind everyone in the olden days was an emotional mummy, bound up in about 83 layers of self-restraint and social suppression. Sometimes reading characters like that (looking at you, Elinor Dashwood) makes me so frustrated the book is no fun anymore. JUST TELL HIM HOW YOU FEEL ALREADY. But these characters were more than that. Albanese balanced characters who relate in historically-appropriate ways with a fast-moving plot and a dash of magical intrigue. I am still thinking back on these women and the sacrifices they made to survive.

The God of the Woods, Liz Moore

Moore’s writing is masterful. Even though I did not enjoy every moment reading this book (missing child plots are usually a no-go for me) I still find myself remembering a detail or a revelatory moment and thinking how did she DO that? Louise wakes up one morning at Camp Emerson to find that one of her campers is missing. And not just any camper. Barbara Van Laar, the camp owners’ only child. Worse, she’s not the first kid to go missing on the Van Laar preserve. The search for Barbara reopens the case of her older brother Bear. What has happened to the Van Laar children, and will the family—and the town—ever recover?

Practicing Christian Doctrine by Beth Felker Jones

I read this for school all the way back in June of 2024, and some of the beautiful sentences still come back to me. If you want to dive into Christian theology (what do we believe about God anyway?) this book is a great starting place. While not a mindless beach read, neither will you go cross-eyed trying to understand. Felker Jones writes about complex issues with warmth and simplicity.

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God by Dallas Willard

I like to talk things over once I’ve completed my own assessment of the situation, and not before. As a result when I do want to talk something over, I get panicky wondering how and with whom to begin. This book has lent me much peace in this area. Willard’s framing of prayer as a conversation instead of a religious practice or a negotiation has changed my method and motivation in praying. I share my concerns right away without holding back, and then I listen. I don’t scramble for a solution as much as I once did. I am having a conversation, after all. The answer will come.

Hold the paradox. Don’t panic. See you in next month!

-Steph

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