What I Read in 2021 (and Maybe What You Should Read in 2022)

I’ve been able to hit the 100-plateau of books the past few years. This year I read 111 books (the symmetry of that number made me smile). If you wonder how I read that much, this post might help spur you on and provide some practical pointers in your reading journey in 2022. I love reading for many reasons. It’s a gift to be in conversation with a multitude of wise voices, to be invited into the imaginative worlds of some of the best minds of our time, and to grow in empathy and understanding as I step into the shoes of those very different from myself.

I love the gift of reading books with friends. Most of the books I read are recommended by friends and I love it when friends read a book I recommend. If you read any of the books recommended below, I would love to hear what you think. And I would love to hear what your favorite books of 2021 were. If you want fuller reviews on any of the books listed above or just want to connect on an ongoing basis about reading, I encourage you to friend me on Goodreads.

Let me start with my three favorite books of 2021, and then we will get to the rest of the action:

The premise of Our Secular Age doesn’t have strong curb appeal: evangelical Christians grappling with the contribution of a contemporary philosopher’s nearly 900 page tome. Despite the fact that one of my favorite authors, James KA Smith has been significantly influenced by Charles Taylor, I still have yet to pick up Taylor’s A Secular Age.

Despite the less-than-enticing premise, Our Secular Age is a book that should be broadly read by Christian leaders. Even for the reader (like myself) who has no first-hand experience with Taylor, his theses are laid out clearly and the wide-ranging impact of his thought is explored and at times critiqued.

Taylor’s central thesis is that the secular world is a world that has turned its focus on the self and lost its sense of the transcendent. Collin Hansen says that Taylor traces the beginnings of this age to Martin Luther: “Taylor faults the Protestant Reformation and modern evangelical Christianity for disenchanting the world and turning the focus on the self rather than on God through and turning the focus on the self rather than on God through shared religious rituals.”