As always, this booklist is not a list of every book I read this year. This is a collection of favorites. While I didn’t achieve my goal of reading a Puritan writer’s work in full this year as I have been in past years, I did meet many of my reading goals. I also encountered some new writers who have made my world better with their beautiful prose.
Have suggestions for next year’s booklist? Drop them in the comments below or on social media (here’s my Instagram account). I welcome your suggestions and add them to my list, which is always growing. So many books, so little time. 🙂 What a privilege to be a reader of the English language, with such an abundance of beautiful writing to enrich our lifetimes as readers.
I hope you enjoy these descriptions of my favorite books of 2022 and that it helps you add some new favorites to your roster of writers!
The Restful Home: Favorite Books of 2022
General Nonfiction
The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry
Prescient, often beautiful in its powerful reflection. Mini review here.
Education, especially Home Education
For the Children’s Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
An idealistic, inspiring examination of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. I’ll be posting a mini review of this book soon.
A Charlotte Mason Education, Catherine Levison
A very short, practical overview of Miss Mason’s philosophy of education, giving common sense ways the home educator can apply the philosophy. I found the summaries very helpful for someone like myself with time constraints who isn’t prepared to dive into the six volumes of Charlotte Mason on Home Education quite yet.
This book definitely shows its age, giving P.O. Box addresses for curriculum companies or bookstores. But it’s a good resource to have on hand when you need a refresh on what the Mason philosophy is on a given topic, such as foreign language learning.
The Creative Family Manifesto, Soule
Very Waldorf-leaning and unabashedly hippie, this book is a quick and fun reminder to let kids create art, music, and handicrafts without the distraction of technology or adult expectations. Definitely not a Christian book. But a Christian parent can gain inspiration from these pages and be reminded to rejoice in the wonder a child gains from touching stones and leaves and mud.
Steeped in Stories, Perkins
“The problem is that chasing after luxury, desperately pursuing success, and expressing our emotions without self denial results in a life marked by restlessness, envy, and discontent.”
This book was recommended by a friend, and I wrote a mini review of it earlier this year. Please read that if you’d like to know my reservations about the conclusions drawn toward the end of the book.
Honey for a Child’s Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life, Gladys Hunt
Not just a booklist—this is a happy encouragement for the whole process of educating and loving your child.
The Brave Learner, Bogart
Inspiration for keeping our kids’ excitement for learning alight. Read my review here.
Mother Culture, Karen Andreola
Fun and encouraging. Very old-fashioned.
Home Management
Project 333, Courtney Carver
A quick, thought-provoking call to be content with less. Ms. Carver shows us that more shopping doesn’t ever fulfill and that we really can get dressed happily every day with only 33 items in our closets.
I didn’t agree with her theologically (she sees truth as subjective, rather than objective, and she insists that our hearts know what’s best for us). But I was encouraged to live counter culturally.
How to Manage Your Home without Losing Your Mind, Dana White
Similar to the book of hers I read last year with its funny, straightforward advice. This one tackles more home management instead of focusing on decluttering. But decluttering (with her two questions, the first of which asks where you would look for X item first) definitely is a major part of this book.
Do More Better, Challies
A quick and very practical listen/read.
Favorite Books of 2022 for Spiritual Growth
Untangling Emotions, J. Alisdair Groves and Winston T. Smith
Really helpful. I especially like the appendix on whether an impassible God actually feels and sympathized with us humans. This was a suggestion for my booklist from a friend last year.
7 Reasons We Left Mormonism, Wilder
To the point and very helpful. A quick reference guide.
Who Am I? Jerry Bridges
“God loves us, not because we are lovable, but because we are united to Christ.”
“Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.”
A good reminder of who we are in Christ.
The God of the Garden, Andrew Peterson
Beautiful writing. Read more of my thoughts in this mini review.
Pray Big, Alistair Begg
Five stars! Why pray small prayers when we can pray for all the riches of God’s mercy, majesty, and goodness? Begg urges us in this short book to pray not for a personal jet but for personal change. Easily one of my new favorite books on prayer.
Repentance: The First Word of the Gospel, Richard Owen Roberts
“Men only preach repentance when they have come under the burden of the Lord and see the human heart as God sees it” (46). This book is so full of powerful quotes and convicting passages that I’m glad I read it. It’s not a quick read–it’s over 300 pages of thoughts that must be mulled over, not skimmed, so I took most of the year to read it in short installments. However, there were places in this book that carried a strong whiff of legalism. I plan to write a longer review with my thoughts on this book. Worth reading and meditating on, but, like any book with a human author, must be taken with a grain of salt.
If you enjoy Leonard Ravenhill, you’ll like Richard Owen Roberts for his passion and zeal.
The Pilgrim’s Regress, C. S. Lewis
The sometimes very strange, sometimes startlingly true allegory that parallels Lewis’s own journey toward faith. See my mini review here.
No Little People, by Francis Schaeffer
What a beautiful collection of sermons on the power of an ordinary life that is lived for God’s glory. In God’s economy, there are no little people or unimportant lives. I particularly love the comparison of Elijah’s and Elisha’s ministries.
A Hunger for God, by John Piper
Excellent, convicting, heart-searching call to love God more than anything else, even good things. If you’re looking for more information about fasting for spiritual reasons, this book is a good place to start. You can download it for free on Piper’s website, Desiring God.
Rediscover Church, Hansen and Leeman
Leeman talks about church offering a “gospel word and a gospel society” (23) which is greater than the sum of our political divisions. I wrote a more thorough review here.
Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans, Elmer
This book has been my morning companion all year, and its prayers have been a blessing as they’ve guided my heart to think rightly about myself and about God.
The True Woman, Susan Hunt
A strong encouragement to be a faithful woman of God, to seek purity and piety and to view domesticity as a great power and not slavery. Mrs. Hunt walks the reader carefully through Biblical examples to show us how to live for God as women. Not male copycats, but uniquely and richly feminine in our spheres of influence.
Give Them Grace, Elyse Fitzpatrick
This book doesn’t claim to be a parenting manual. The authors say that their purpose in writing the book was to point us stressed, information-overloaded parents to the gospel of grace. We, who are sinners in need of Christ’s grace, have children who are also sinners in need of grace. When we teach them about righteousness we should frame our words within the great story of Christ’s work on our behalf, not direct them into legalism.
**I do like this book. Many of the words touched me and made me reconsider how I’ve taught my children about law and grace. However, I want to add the caveat that I don’t agree with all that the authors have recently espoused.
Also, while I enjoyed many parts of this book, I think sometimes their thoughts on what we might say in response to a child’s attitude are just overwhelming. Frequently, in my admittedly inexperienced opinion as a young mom, I believe a child just needs a snack and hug, not a sermon.
Glimpses of Grace, Furman
Gloria Furman writes about resting in the truth of the gospel as we live in the mundane in Glimpses of Grace. See my full review here.
When Words Matter Most: Speaking Truth with Grace to Those You Love, Cheryl Marshall and Caroline Newheiser
An encouraging guide to counseling or simply being a friend to a fellow Christian going through a hard time.
Honorable Mention:
A Meal with Jesus, Chester
I’m adding this book to the list just because the first part about hospitality was excellent. The latter half of the book was more questionable and less of a joy to read.
Favorite Biographies/Memoir:
Behind the Ranges by Geraldine Taylor
I have never before read a biography that so inspired me to pray. Read my full review here.
Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, Brad Ricca
Absolutely fascinating. A woman lawyer in early 1900s New York City takes on a case that everyone else has given up on: the disappearance of an 18 year old girl. She digs up a dirty underworld of politics and crime and wins a reputation as the female Sherlock Holmes.
I love true stories like this one. Grace Humiston’s character in all her strength and weakness is meticulously researched and brought to life by an author who seems to care as much for the truth as Grace herself did. (This book was a great recommendation by a friend last year.)
Unveiling Grace: The Story of How We Found Our Way Out of the Mormon Church, Wilder
Memoir of a Mormon who became a Christian. Mrs. Wilder was a successful BYU professor when her son, a Mormon missionary, began to question their family’s faith. Her eye-opening story gives an inside look at LDS education, religion, and family life.
The King of Confidence, Miles Harvey
The preposterous true tale of the man who crowned himself king of heaven and earth, J. Strang. America in the mid-1800s was the land of opportunity for anyone who could make a spectacle. (It’s not much different now, as much as we might be tempted to chuckle at the credulity of Strang’s true believers.)
The Quiet Zone, Kurczy
An area of Appalachia where radio silence has been preserved, in part to facilitate contact with aliens, actually exists in present-day America. It’s called The Quiet Zone. The author spent significant time with the people of the Quiet Zone and found himself in a hotbed of conspiracy theorists, scientists, radio-wave sensitives, a few isolated white supremacists, and the normal people who live in an area with little to no cell phone accessibility.
Theologians You Should Know, Reeves
5 Stars!
Brief introductions to theologians who have changed the way Christians thought about God and the Bible, from the early church fathers to Luther to Packer. See my review here. I would put this book in my top 5 reads this year.
Note: Michael Reeves also wrote Delighting in the Trinity, an excellent read that’s much better known than this book.
Favorite Novels of 2022
Sophie’s World, Gaarder
Fascinating overview of mostly Western philosophy. Fifteen year old Sophie is introduced by a teacher to the mysteries of life and what man has thought of it. The novel-within-a-novel presentation makes this an intriguing read, although the topics are sometimes difficult to understand. Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder does a fairly good job of giving objective summaries of such famous philosophers as Plato, Augustine, Hume, Locke, Hegel, Marx, and Freud. (He leaves the more subjective and opinionated comments to the fiercely feminist young Sophie.) When he discusses Darwin, however, his objective tone suddenly becomes almost worshipful.
A helpful read for an introduction to philosophy, and one that you’d definitely want to read alongside your older teen to discuss where the author’s biases lie. (Warning: contains non-graphic references to sex.)
The House on Mango Street, Cisneros
The story of Esperanza, a Latina girl who’s growing up and watching what the people around her choose to become. Many of the chapters stand alone as beautiful short stories about life in a poor Chicago neighborhood. Young adult fiction, but I enjoyed this more as an adult than I would have as a teen.
Peace Like a River, Enger
This novel will be one I return to again and again. See my review here.
The Heaven Tree Trilogy, Pargeter
This is what adult fiction ought to be: delving into life, the good and bad, to find a deeper truth. The three books follow a single man’s story as he seeks to express truth through art. His art is architecture and sculpture; the author seems to parallel his journey through the art of writing. I preferred books 1 and 3, but the trilogy needs to be read together.
Not a good choice for children because of some risqué, although not graphic, content in a couple chapters.
A Cup of Dust, Finkbeiner
Christian fiction. A story of a little girl living though the Dust Bowl/Depression years in Oklahoma. This was a difficult novel to read, maybe because of the open innocence of the narrator. When hard times and hard people come to Red River, Pearl has to decide whom to trust and what love is really all about.
I would read more by this author—the writing was excellent. But I would space her books out with plenty of time to digest each.
Hannah Coulter, Berry
The quiet, moving story of the kind of life described in Eliot’s Middlemarch as “hidden faithfulness.” Hannah lives, works, and loves in what the world would name obscurity but in what her small town calls “the membership.” The membership are the people who can always count on one another to work hard for and with each other, to laugh and then to grieve with one another—and yet the membership is a dying breed. Read this book for the simplicity and gemlike beauty of the writing. Read it to remember that your corner of the world is important. Or read it because you feel that you’ve lost your way in a world that’s too busy for anyone.
Note: As with all of Berry’s writing that I’ve read, I thoroughly enjoyed this book but wished he had gone just a bit deeper. He is Judeo-Christian in his morality and philosophy, but does not exalt Christ as Lord.
All the Light We Cannot See, Doerr
“What pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and Wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them?” See my very brief review of this beautiful secular novel here.
The Green Dress, Liz Tolsma
Christian fiction. Can a whole family be poisoned with no one suspecting it? Told from the perspective of one of the potential victims, this is a fictionalized retelling of the true story of the serial killer called the Boston Borgia. I couldn’t put the book down until I finished it.
A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park
A short but gripping novel based on the true story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who came back to give hope even to those who were once his enemies.
This book was recommended by my friend Jaclyn Lewis. Check out her author page on Amazon here.
The Lincoln Highway, Towles
Not just an entertaining but a brilliant story. Review here.
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, Messina
Lovely writing about the process of grief, from the perspective of a modern Japanese protagonist. Writer Laura Messina is an Italian who has lived in Japan and studied the Japanese language for many years.
This novel was a friend’s recommendation. General (not Christian) fiction.
Emily of Deep Valley, Lovelace
Somehow I missed reading the Maud Lovelace books while I was growing up. I’ve been catching up on some young adult literature, and this book was one of my favorites among the lot.
Sweet, wholesome coming-of-age story about finding contentment and purpose wherever you are.
The Last Bookshop in London, Martin
One of the most vivid (and sweet) depictions that I’ve read of Londoners working together to survive the Blitz during WWII.
The Barrister and the Letter of Marque, Johnson
A rare find: a legal thriller set in regency-era England. I couldn’t put the book down! The author did a great job of spinning out the tension and bringing it to a satisfying close.
Inside Out and Back Again, Thanhha Lai
Moving free verse from the point of view of a Vietnamese refugee.
What Were Your Favorite Books of 2022?
Please let me know in the comments or on social media! I’d love to hear your recommendations for what I should read in the coming year. I’m already starting to read Robert E. Lee & Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause. And I’d like to read more of the fiction of Wendell Berry and Elizabeth Goudge. I just finished reading (and enjoyed) Goudge’s The Scent of Water.
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