25 books that mattered to me in 2025
A memory just came to me. My brother Jason and I are probably early elementary age. It's summertime and one of Mom's weekly routines with us is a trip to the local library. Charles Page Library in Sand Springs already felt like a museum then. Heavy marble covered the steps and walls. Even the slightest whisper echoed and echoed. We'd each walk away with a huge stack of books that we'd bring back the next week, all finished.
It was one of Mom's summer traditions. I think she'd like the library at the Abbey.
Now, it's a frequent thing that a visitor to the Abbey of the Heights makes their way through the front of the house to the library in the back, and their eyes just go wide, and with varied volumes of, "Oh!" That's a favorite thing. There can be such a wonder being in front of a full bookshelf and have no agenda and no pressing time limit.
This is the sixth time I've compiled a list of my favorite books I read in the year.
I've tried something a little different this year. I picked out three that were, to me, the most fun to read. I thought I would pull together those that had a common thread. I find that I often chase a thread through several books looking for what I can make of it.
As I often tell the visitors in front of our bookshelves, there's likely something here with your name on it, that's especially for you. There's also likely something that's not for you, and you don't need to touch it. May you find the one that has your name on it.
My favorite book I read
Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Padraig O Tuama
This was a delightful surprise of a Christmas gift last year. I then took it on summer vacation and devoured pretty much all of it in the week. I was expecting 50 original poems. But it wasn’t that it all. He picked 50 of his favorite poems and then wrote an essay about what he found so meaningful in each one. It’s a masterclass in seeing with words and loving poetry. It’s a treasure. I also learned it's a podcast series.
My other favorite book I read
The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon
My sister put this on my radar, and when I read the blurb, I thought, “How have I never heard of this?” A cookbook by a priest? I kept telling people it felt like Wendell Berry via Julia Child. And then I kept finding myself in conversation with people who were like, “Yeah, I’ve made every recipe in that book!” We did the “Contemplation of an Onion” for one of our cohorts, and it went over even better than I could have hoped.
My other, other favorite book I read
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments by Joe Posnanski
Okay, one more. My first paying job came when I was in the 4th grade, delivering newspapers three days a week. I spent every penny on baseball cards and a Sporting News subscription, where I pored over the weekly statistics. Later, in the space between college and seminary, I wrote a baseball blog about the Seattle Mariners. One variation of it still exists out there in cyberspace. A good third of the stories in this book have happened during my fandom, and each one brought a smile to my face. Baseball is delightful.
My favorite books for the contemplative journey
The Lord Is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love by K.J. Ramsey
The Emmanuel Promise: Discovering the Security of a Life Held by God by Summer Joy Gross
Embracing the Body: Finding God in Our Flesh and Bone by Tara Owens
A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker Palmer
Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You Into a Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection by Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw
Boundaries for Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings Into Your Greatest Allies by Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller
Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us Out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode—And Into a Life of Connection and Joy by Aundi Kolber
If you spent any time with me this past year, chances are our conversation included the ideas from these that simmered like a tasty stew in my mind—how things like embodiment, attachment theory, internal family systems, and our emotional vocabulary all inform our experience with God. They give us eyes to see how we choose to love God and neighbor.
Tara Owens' book is now in our School of Spiritual Direction curriculum. Summer Gross came and led an event with us here at the Abbey of the Heights. Palmer's image of the soul as a "shy animal" that needs silence and solitude to make itself known has become a favorite picture. If you experience any kind of small group through The Sabbath Life, you'll become familiar with Palmer's Circle of Trust Touchstones.
My favorite books about healing
Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself—And to God—When You're Wounded, Weary, and Wandering by Chuck DeGroat
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing by Jay Stringer
Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing by Hillary McBride
These could have easily fit into the above category, but I realized they each had a slightly different angle in common. DeGroat's book is excellent for ministry leaders—and those who work closely with them—for being intentional about what's going on inside with one's heart. Stringer's book came recommended by a ministry colleague who told me he'd been slowly reading it with a church men's group and how transforming it was. McBride's book is the best I've found so far about naming spiritual trauma, spiritual abuse, and spiritual bypassing and finding healthy next steps.
My favorite books about what’s happening in the world and what we can do
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley
On Freedom by Timothy Snyder
Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart
The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a Way Forward by Malcom Foley
There’s a chapter in Stanley’s book about the controlling of other people's bodies that I’m still thinking about.
I read Timothy Snyder’s brief treatise On Tyranny in 2016. While that feels like a series of short, punchy vignettes, On Freedom is more lengthy essays on five particular principles that form a robust vision of freedom—something more substantial than "don't tell me what I can't do." The chapter on "unpredictability" was what finally pushed me over the edge to delete my Facebook and Instagram accounts this year. I highly, highly recommend this book.
Stewart has a previous book that was made into the documentary God & Country, featuring Kristen Kobes Du Mez and Jemar Tisby, all about Christian nationalism. That's worth watching. This book continues those themes, how religion is being exploited for big profit by one end of the political spectrum. My hometown of Tulsa appears half a dozen pages in, and that was a bummer to see.
Riffing on a sermon of St. Basil, Foley has this fire quote: "Basil calls us to think more creatively than neoliberal capitalism would like us to."
My favorite fiction stories
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
James by Percival Everett
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Fiction is part of my before-bed routine. These are the ones I remember the most.
Orbital is a beautiful reflection on the world, told from the perspective of various members of an international space station. If you can imagine the story of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, that’s James. And it’s worthy of all the awards it’s won. Stone Yard Devotional is about a woman finding refuge in a rural Australian monastic community. Tomorrow is a story about friendship, entrepreneurship, and video games. I saw Timothy Snyder call The Handmaid’s Tale a novel we need right now. It’s the totalitarian state story of 1984 told from a woman's perspective, and it feels prophetic in ways I really wish it didn’t. It makes a pretty chilling pairing with Katherine Stewart's book above. There’s a dissertation to be written (if it hasn’t already) about the use (and abuse) of the Bible in this story.
My favorite stories about people
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie
The first of these is a comprehensive biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Eig doesn't shy away from the humanity of King (the marital infidelities, the frequent hospitalizations for exhaustion), but doesn't make it a gotcha expose, either. I've known the "big rocks" of King's story—Birmingham, Selma, the March on Washington, Memphis—but never the broad context for how they all fit together in the cohesive story of a life cut short at 39.
The theme of this Beatles book is that the Lennon-McCartney catalogue came from their deep, intense friendship. In our world today, we have precious few stories of adult male friendship.
My favorite reread
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There by Philip Hallie
I dare call this the most important book I read. I was first exposed to this in a seminary class about Christian hospitality. Bonhoeffer gets a lot of attention as a modern saint of Christian political resistance, but he’s far from the only story that comes out of the horrors of World War II. This book is the story of Le Chambon, a humble French village that served as something like an “Underground Railroad” for German-Jewish refugees. It’s a story of an entire community led by a parish church and its pastor and his wife. It’s a story of beauty, hope, goodness, and taking care of one’s neighbors in the face of extraordinary evil. Definitely, the most inspiring thing you can read right now.
BONUS
Book series I read with kids
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
Our kids turned 12 and 13 this year, and we still do bedtime stories. All together, we finished up the Incorrigible Children series and then moved on to the Benedict Society series, which has been pretty fun. Coen and I started reading together the Percy Jackson series, as he read the first one in his language arts class at school.
Many of these books you can find on the shelves at the Abbey of the Heights on your next visit. We hope to see you soon.
Here's where you can see all these in a single, simple list, as well as previous lists:
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