The Flight: A Monthly Book Sampler (January 2021)
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Y’all, we made it through 2020. Books were one of the few constant good things for me last year and I hope that you found some bright spots in their pages, too.
In the interest of accountability, I want to give a super quick update on my plan to read a book by a Black author every month of 2020 beginning in June.
Here’s what I read, which includes 8 of the 12 books I listed at the end of May:
June - Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation by Latasha Morrison
July - The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right by Lisa Sharon Harper
August - Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne by Wil Gafney
September - The Dream of You: Let Go of Broken Identities and Live the Life You Were Made For by Jo Saxton
Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now by Brenda Salter McNeil
Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present by Robin Maynard
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby
November - The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
December - The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin
I’ll be continuing to read at least one book by a Black author in 2021 as well. I highly recommend that, whatever your reading habits, you make sure you’re including books from BIPOC authors as a regular and consistent part of your reading.
And now, on to what I read in January.
How to Fight Racism by Jemar Tisby
In The Color of Compromise, Jemar Tisby laid bare the Church's centuries of complicity in systemic racism in America. It was an unflinching call for honesty about the past, repentance, and active work towards racial justice moving forward. In How to Fight Racism, Tisby provides a roadmap for how that can happen, through what he calls "The ARC of Racial Justice". Through awareness, relationships, and commitment to action, he lays out eminently practical, doable steps that we can take to fight racism in our families, churches, communities, and countries.
What a gorgeous book! I stayed up past midnight to finish it - something I normally reserve for novels. It's extraordinary and the exact thing I needed to read right now. It's a beautifully written, deeply sacramental ode to the majesty of creation (including us) and the glory of the Creator. It's a lyrical, pastoral (in both senses) exhortation to let the immanent point us to the transcendent and vice versa. I sent screenshots of pages from the introduction to multiple friends because it was so good. And it just kept getting better, so more screenshots went to more friends. By the end of the first chapter, I was kinda mad about how good it was. How does anyone nail their first book that hard? Plus, it’s the sort of book that you want to start all over again as soon as you’ve finished it. I can almost guarantee that this book will be on my list of top 10 non-fiction books of 2021. (If anyone is interested, Joel’s sister Joy is hosting a leisurely (one chapter every two weeks) book club discussing Sensing God on her Patreon, complete with secret podcast. The episode/post about the introduction went up on January 21st and chapter 1 went up on February 3rd.)
The Grace of Enough by Haley Stewart
After reading The Grace of Enough, I'm now convinced that I need to read more Catholic writers, past and current. I very much enjoyed this book. It's simple, practical, and Stewart's ability to present her family's story as descriptive, rather than prescriptive is sadly all too rare in this type of book. As a single woman, I'm deeply appreciative of the repeated mention of unmarried people throughout the book, the emphasis on the fact that singles and marrieds need each other, and the dismissal of the idea that marriage is the ultimate goal. Y’all, I would love for someone smarter than me to do a deep dive on what Protestants lost when we rejected the idea of marriage (and singleness) as vocation. It’s a Catholic doctrine that Stewart refers to repeatedly and every single time I read those references, I wondered what church would be like for singles across North America if that were what we heard year after year, rather than the idolization of marriage. The other thing that struck me most strongly was the consistent reminder that the simple life she describes is not lived out solely for our own benefit, but for the benefit of our families, friends, neighbours, and communities. I'll be recommending this book regularly.
The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin
This is the final book in the Broken Earth trilogy. It picks up a few days after The Obelisk Gate left off as the characters deal with the ramifications of those events. It’s just as captivating as The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate; just as strange and fascinating. I’ve long said that I like my fiction to follow Oscar Wilde’s rule, (“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.” - The Importance of Being Earnest), and this is not that kind of trilogy. But it’s not entirely the opposite either. Jemisin’s ability to weave together the multiple timelines and POVs is really impressive. She somehow manages to make you feel as though you know her characters well and not at all. I can’t precisely say that I enjoyed reading the trilogy; it would be more accurate to say that I appreciated it and found it compelling. But, I completely understand why each volume individually won the Hugo award when it was released and I’ve got another four of Jemisin’s planned because I’m so impressed by her talent.
The Brass Queen by Elizabeth Chatsworth
This one was delightfully fun, wonderfully silly, and hilariously absurd. In this steampunk world, Sheffield is the martial manufacturing heart of the British Empire and home to its most brilliant scientists, its greatest black market arms manufacturer, and some of its most ridiculous subjects. Of course, the reader is quickly introduced to the American spy; the heiress on the brink of losing her inheritance; the all-knowing, all-seeing butler; the heiress's rakish fop relative; and the Machiavellian wannabe determined to ruin their day. Chatsworth’s ability to play with the stereotypical characters is as impressive as it is funny. Just a few chapters into the book, the phrase "rollicking good time" popped into my head and it stayed there right to the end.
The Ordeal of the Haunted Room by Jodi Taylor
Every year, Jodi Taylor releases a Chronicles of St. Mary’s Christmas story. Almost every other Christmas story involves the incorrigible trio of Max, Peterson, and Markham breaking several laws by absconding with a pod and jumping somewhen they probably shouldn’t. This one, on the other hand, finds them on an authorized jump to a local village in 1895, just doing their jobs, until Peterson sprains an ankle and they’re forced to beg the hospitality of the local manor. This being St. Mary’s, absurd shenanigans ensue. This wasn’t my favourite short story, but it was still plenty of fun and it helped to tide me over until the next full-length book comes out in April.
At this point, I think we can safely assume that I will read anything that Jim Butcher writes. I’m officially impressed that he managed to write two series as completely different as Codex Alera and The Dresden Files and do both so well. But despite the very different tones and settings, I can’t help but notice the similarities between Tavi, the Codex’s main character, and Harry Dresden. Both start out as outsiders and relatively underpowered weaklings. Both rely on their wits and their friends to outwit stronger, more powerful enemies and get them out of deadly situations. Both rack up even more powerful enemies along the way, even as they themselves grow more powerful. I loved the different plots in Cursor’s Fury and the character development, especially as some of the background characters moved towards the foreground, was great. I had guessed at some of the big revelations towards the end of the book, but one caught even me by surprise. I’m on the verge of loving this series as much as I love The Dresden Files.
I jumped right into the next book in the Codex Alera as soon as I finished Cursor’s Fury. I’ve decided that one of my favourite things about Jim Butcher’s writing is his ability to write characters who are flawed, but still deeply good. Of course, one of my other favourite things is his ability to write hilarious snark. Almost every time Kitai opens her mouth, I crack up. The mutual heckling between the characters is delightful. The more I read of the series, the more absurd it seems that Butcher wrote the beginning of the first book to prove a point and win an argument. There’s a whole lot that happens at the end of the book and I can’t wait to see how Butcher wraps it up.
