What I Read: 2014 Edition

I love recommending books. Having someone read a book you loved, and talk about it with you, is a great delight. Also, I appreciate the value of good recommendations. It can be hard to dig up good books!

So with that in mind, I want to continue a tradition which I started last year: a wrap-up of the best books I read in the last twelve months. Last year, I had one fiction book and one fiction; this year, I want to add several different categories. This is entirely because picking just two books to talk about is far too difficult!

Along with each book, I've included a short summary of what I liked about it, an excerpt to give you a feel for what the writing style is like and the kinds of points the writer makes, and a link to my review on Goodreads. The link is embedded in the title.

Best Non-Fiction: Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must be Reinvented in Today's Church, by Christine Colon and Bonnie Fields.

It's been easily six months since I've read this book. But I remember even now is that Singled Out resists the temptation to jump right to complaining about the (genuinely frustrating) exclusion of singles in the church, or offering pat, unsympathetic solutions along the lines of "Be content in Christ!"

Instead, Singled Out devotes its entire first half to an extensive, detailed-oriented examination of how singleness is represented in both the secular and the evangelical world. This first half gets the reader oriented to the problem, especially helpful if the reader is married and therefore unfamiliar with how problematic being single can be in the church.

Excerpt: Lust is a lot more than sexual desire. It is the objectification of another person. It is seeing someone else only through our own desires, and these desires can be emotional as well as physical. Seeing someone only in terms of our desire for intimacy or security can be just as objectifying as seeing them in terms of our desire for sex. Rather than fearing the opposite sex, or even our sexual desires, perhaps we should focus on viewing others as individuals created in the image of God.

Best Fiction: Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller and Children of Men, by P.D. James.

Yes, I picked two "best" novels. Sue me.

I read Canticle for Leibowitz and Children of Men back to back this fall. Both novels deal with humanity facing its own end, whether by (respectively) the pervasive effects of nuclear war or the mysterious inability to reproduce.

The central conflict of Canticle for Leibowitz is how to humanity can shepherd its knowledge, both scientific and spiritual, for its betterment and not its destruction; of Children of Men, the characters' realization that when there are no new generations to whom you can pass your wealth and wisdom, then what is life for?

While we readers may not face the same wide-scale destruction as the novels depict, we each of us search for meaning amid the sharp disappointments of life, and we look for wisdom to face our own destruction. For this reason, the novels were surprisingly resonant, well worth the read.

Exceprt, Canticle for Leibowitz: 
Listen, why don't you forgive God for allowing pain? If He didn't allow it, human courage, bravery, nobility, and self-sacrifice would all be meaningless things. 

Excerpt, Children of Men: 
Pleasure need not be less keen because there will be centuries of springs to come, their blossoms unseen by human eyes, the walls will crumble, the trees die and rot, the gardens revert to weeds and grass, because all beauty will outlive the human intelligence which records, enjoys and celebrates it.

Biggest Surprise: The Martian, by Andy Weir

I read this book over Christmas and could not shut up about how good it was.

C.S. Lewis says the best part about science fiction is the strangeness of other worlds. To heck with Lewis: Weir spends absolutely zero time developing the strangeness of Mars (there are no aliens, for instance), and all his time putting his main character Mark Watney into unexpected, life-threatening challenges. This ratchets the tension up, and up, and up.

But thankfully, Weir ratchets this tension up without losing sight of his main character: Watney, who narrates more than half the novel, is given a very personal, authentic voice with a lot of humor. This makes the novel easy to read. Finally, the novel is about the world pulling together to save one man, rather than one man saving the entire world - a refreshing break from the stereotypical superhero-saves-the-world science fiction plot these days.

I think I'm going to read it again.

Excerpt: Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.

Caution: Some language.

Most Challenging: Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. 

In evangelical circles, there is a tendency to assume that people who are vegetarians, or who purchase only locally-grown meats, are tree-huggers, environmentalists who belong to the political left and have little investment in religion. The truth is far more complicated. The truth is, eating local meats protects the very thing that evangelicals claim to stand up for: human life.

Schlosser details, with vivid storytelling and extensive research, the process by which fast food restaurants acquire and produce their food, especially the meat and potatoes. For me, the most memorable part of the book was his description of factory farms: To make production fast and cheap, workers are deeply underpaid and forced to work in situations where they are at risk of being sliced open with the knives and choppers used to process meat; if they are sliced open, they receive very little compensation.  

Have I gone vegetarian completely? No. I live in the Midwest, with a meat-and-potatoes family. Going wholly vegetarian would cause more conflict than it's worth. After all, we're told to as much as possible, live at peace with one another. 

But I do make an effort to purchase eggs and bacon locally, and I eat less meat than I did. This book is well-written, compelling and potentially life-changing. Highly recommended.

Excerpt: Workers told me that they are under tremendous pressure not to report injuries. The annual bonuses of plant foremen and supervisors are often based in part on the injury rate of their workers. Instead of crating a safer workplace, these bonus schemes encourage slaughterhouse managers to make sure that accidents and injuries go unreported. Missing fingers, broken bones, deep lacerations and amputated limbs are difficult to conceal from authorities. But the dramatic and catastrophic injuries in a slaughterhouse are greatly outnumbered by less visible, though no less debilitating, ailments: torn muscles, slipped disks, pinched nerves.

Biggest Disappointment: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn.

Reading Gone Girl reminded me to take glowing recommendations in the popular media with a huge grain of salt. There are absolutely no characters in this novel I can root for. Not only are there no likable characters, there are no characters who are at all sympathetic. Absolutely every single one of them lies and cheats and digs their way deep into a problematic situation throughout this novel, and even the This was a waste of $8.00 on Kindle.

Lesson learning: Read what you like, not necessarily what other people like, and certainly don't waste time on books which make you "cool" to have read.

Conclusion: I've really enjoyed science fiction in 2014, so in 2015 I want to read more science fiction. I also want to read more investigative journalism, a la Eric Schlosser. I already have another one by Schlosser on the docket, this time one on the fiascos of the Cold War.

How about you? What have you read, and what are you reading?