2007 Books
If you can’t tell, I like making lists. And at the end of the calendar year list making seems to be the thing to do. I’ve been hearing a lot about the best movies of 2007, but I hardly saw any movies this year so I can’t comment in that area. But I can list the books I read this past year and comment on my favorites. And yes, this is mostly for my own personal benefit…
Faith/Spirituality/Theology/Church
Metaphorical Theology by Sallie McFague
Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren
Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns
Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology by Kwok Pui-lan
Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman
Graven Ideologies by Bruce Ellis Benson
Visions and Longings by Monica Furlong
Healthy Congregations by Peter Steinke
Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright
An Emergent Manifesto of Hope ed. Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones
Hagar, Sarah, and their Children Edited by Phyllis Trible and Letty Russell
How (not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins
Justice
Sex, Economy, Freedom, Community by Wendall Berry
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Justice in the Burbs by Will and Lisa Samson
The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason
Urgent Message From Mother by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Memoir/Reflections
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
The Faith Club by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott
History
Books on Fire by Lucien X. Polastron
Goddesses and the Divine Feminine by Rosemary Radford Ruether
Spirituality in the Land of the Noble by Richard C. Foltz
In Search of Zarathustra by Paul Kriwaczek
When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone
Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler
Parenting
Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community by Alfie Kohn
The Homework Myth by Alfie Kohn
Fiction – General
Fantasy
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter Books 1-6 by J.K. Rowling
Kushiel’s Justice by Jacqueline Carey
Dark Moon Defender by Sharon Shinn
Star Wars
Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn
Betrayal by Aaron Allston
Bloodlines by Karen Traviss
Tempest by Troy Denning
While I think I’ve made myself clear how much I like the Harry Potter conclusion, I must restate that it was a highlight of the year. In the category of just purely enjoyable reads, I would also have to list Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler. The process of tracing the history of civilization through linguistics was a new perspective for me and one I found utterly fascinating. But if I were to choose two books from this year’s list that I would recommend to just about anyone as “must reads”, I would have to say Graven Ideologies by Bruce Ellis Benson and The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. Both selections I think are vital for understanding the world we live in today. Benson’s work is a brilliant introduction to the philosophical undercurrents of our time as well as a primer for a Christian understanding thereof. Singer and Mason delve into popular philosophy as well as they seek to help readers understand how ethics should inform our food choices. Both offer needed perspectives for those seeking to live a thoughtful and moral life in the 21st century. I highly recommend them both.
Anyway, I have a long and eclectic list of books on my “to read” list for 2008, I just need to find more time to actually read.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
WOW girl, that’s a lot of books!
You are quite the reader! I was very pleased to see Wendell Berry’s “Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community,” on your list. I’m convinced Berry is one (if not the only) true prophet of our age and I’m happy he is still being read. It probably didnh’t hurt sales that his publisher put “Sex” in the title.
Keep reading and blogging through the new year.
Wendell Berry is a clear sighted, powerful voice and will be missed when he is gone. As with C.S. Lewis, another favorite author of mine, I can never decide which I like more – his poetry, his fiction or his non-fiction. I’ve appreciated that Berry is perfectly willing to prick balloons on both the right and the left, and simply calls it like he sees it while ignoring and defying such categorizations.
There was a lot I liked about Berry, he does state it like it is with choosing sides. I did get occasionally annoyed with his “grumpy old man” persona as he continually complained about “kids these days” and labeled anything new as bad. I am all for reclaiming tradition, but I don’t think that a complete and total rejection of say computers and the internet would be the most effective or feasible way of doing so.
Berry definitely doesn’t seem practical, with his technology-eschewing ways. But maybe that’s part of what appealed to me in reading him. Unlike a lot of people (like me) who agree with much of what he says, he is willing to take things to their logical conclusions and tries hard to live in a manner consistent with his convictions. He admits that he uses a chainsaw but writes about a man who does not, who still chops his wood by hand and comments something to the effect of “he is a wiser and saner man than I.” That’s how I feel about Berry. I’m not willing to go to his lengths, but he is probably wiser and saner than I, in part because of his willingness to go to those lengths and do without things that I and most others can’t imagine lacking.