The best books I read in 2013 (that may or may not have been published during the calendar) follow an eclectic path―from fiction to poetry, non-fiction to graphic novels. Instead of providing a review of each book or why I consider it a “best read,” I will provide a quote from each book if possible.
1. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine Lengle
“A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.”
― Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. – Mrs. Whatsit”
― Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
2. American Primitive by Mary Oliver
3. Blankets by Craig Thompson
“I wanted a heaven. And I grew up striving for that world– an eternal world- that would wash away my temporary misery.”
― Craig Thompson, Blankets
“How satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface. To make a map of my movement – no matter how temporary.”
― Craig Thompson, Blankets
4. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
“The worlds of folklore and religion were so mingled in early twentieth venture German culture that even families who didn’t go to church were often deeply Christian.”
― Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
“Bonhoeffer thought of death as the last station on the road to freedom.”
― Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
5. Channel Zero by Brian Wood
“…and all of a sudden, world cultures become the Monoculture, the same conversation, the same clothes, the same show.”
― Brian Wood, Channel Zero
“And, all over the world, one by one, we quit fighting it.”
― Brian Wood, Channel Zero
“It’s about learning how to give a shit again, about finding ways to make things better. It’s about anger as a positive force of creation. It’s about your right to not have to live in the world they’ve built for you.”
― Brian Wood, Channel Zero
6. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost Of Discipleship
7. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
“For what are we born if not to aid one another?”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
8. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
“What can’t be helped must be endured.”
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
“This religion that scorned the beauty and goodness of this world was a puzzle to me.”
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
9. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
“Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
10. The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller
“Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.”
― Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God
11. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
“If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother’s life – without flinching or whining – the stronger the daughter.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent
“The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent
12. River Inside the River: Three Lyric Sequences by Gregory Orr
13. Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins
14. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
“What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
― Nicholas G. Carr, The Shallows
“Culture is sustained in our synapses…It’s more than what can be reduced to binary code and uploaded onto the Net. To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers.”
― Nicholas G. Carr, The Shallows
15. Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom by Victor Davis Hanson, John Heath
“[We owe the Greeks] our present Western notions of constitutional government, free speech, individual rights, civilian control over the military, separation between religious and political authority, middle-class egalitarianism, private property, and free scientific inquiry.”
― Victor Davis Hanson, John Heath, Who Killed Homer?
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