A Year in (Reading) Review 2023

Well, with 2023 nearly completed I figured I would go ahead and post my annual year in reading review. This year I read 56 books.

However, while typing this up I caught two books missing from my list. So it is conceivable I read more. But to be fair–you’ll also notice a fair amount of graphic novels on my list, including the Word for word Bible comics. If you decide those don’t count then the number is probably shorter by between 15-20. A while ago I decided to start including graphic novels because while some I can read very quickly, some are quite long and take a while. But the same is true of books: I read Legends and Lattes in about 3 days and On Getting Out of Bed in one. I realize I may be beating a dead horse at this point but in my defense (still on graphic novels) some of these books are long. The Five Families by Raab is over 800 pages of non-fiction history. The Expanse series is over 5,000. So I’m not trying to just pad my numbers. I guess you could say I’m both proud and surprised by this number.

So, a few standouts.

I’ve read The Godfather several times and seen the movies even more–I still marvel at the quality of this story.

Four Thousand Weeks was a very good book–not so much from the time management perspective (although perhaps it was?) but more from the fact that it really helped me focus not so much on my mortality, but on the limit of time I have here on this side of heaven. And specifically, how much has already passed me by. As New Years Eve approaches it is a bit like my life is being lived out in Times Square and, assuming I remain healthy, the ball is midway down the pole. So this has led to a lot of evaluation of my life and contemplation of my future but thus far it has only translated into minimal action. Insert shrug emoji here.

Leif Enger continues to remain one of my favorite authors–if that is possible for someone with only three works to their name. I put it off for a while but I finally read his third work, So brave, young and handsome. Mrs. Wine teased me about the title. It wasn’t until a conversation I shall shortly quote that it hit me what another beautiful book Enger had written touching upon themes like law preceding grace, or uninvited grace still has the power to work or oven the unfairness of God’s grace.

The entire plot of So Brave revolves around the criminal Glendon who has settled down. In his old age, he regrets leaving his wife Blue when the police were closing in on them so he, with his neighbor, set out to find her and to try to seek her forgiveness. In many ways, it is a parable for the Fall. After finding her and apologizing, Glendon begins to work as her employee. His friend suggests they could still get back together. Glendon replies that isn’t possible because of his past. His neighbor points out no one is still chasing him for those crimes and then they have the following conversation:

“Even if you’re right, does it remove my debt?”

“But wait, Glendon–you love Blue…That is partial payment at least, I would think.”

“It’s as you say. But if she loves me back, it deepens what I owe. There ain’t no parity in that arrangement.”

Glendon realizes that his sins put him in a position of debt towards society and his wife and even if she reciprocates his love, that only deepens his debt because he doesn’t deserve her love. He deserves justice.

This was also a year of awakening for me when it came to genre. For half of my life, I’ve told others my favorite genre is science fiction. But I realized this year my favorite books are all mysteries. So I decided to explore that theme further and man did I read some book mysteries. I started on the Darktown Trilogy by Thomas Mullens on vacation. The first one made me so angry and upset that it took a long time to read the next one. In terms of historical fiction, and a punch in the face for America’s racist (too recent) past, it is an excellent book. Not to mention a great mystery.

What else? The Sinatra Club was another disappointing read not because it wasn’t a riveting tale but because I had to face the reality of Our Thing. I’ve been obsessed with The Life since I first saw the Godfather and read at least one book on organized crime every year. This book was the first time I didn’t read some historic perspective that sanitized it but instead here was the total depravity of that life. I had to realize in my mind I had glorified a life that was just deplorable.

So, I could go on. But why? Here are the books I read this year:

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Jesus: A Theography by Sweet and Viola
Republocrat by Carl Trueman
Strange Adventures by Tom King
The Human Target Vol II by Tom King
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien

The Gods of Gotham by Lindsay Faye
Jesus in His Own Words by Robert Mounce
Word for word Bible comic
*The book of Ruth
*The Gospel of Luke
*The Gospel of Mark
*The book of Jonah
*The Gospel of Matthew
*The Book of Judges
*The Book of Joshua
*The Book of Esther
Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Stories from the Witch Knight and the Puppet Sorcerer by Garth Nix

The Five Families: the Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires by Selwyn Raab
Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress by Nick Trenton
American Gospel by Lin Enger
Atomic Habits by James Clear
On Getting Out of Bed by Alan Noble
Orbiting Jupiter by Gary Schmidt
Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger
Boundary Waters by William Kent Krueger
Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Ken Bailey
Be Thou My Vision by Jonathan Gibson
Warhammer 40K: Marneus Calgary Vol I by Kieron Gillen
So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger
Christ-centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Exodus, by Tony Merida
How it Unfolds by James SA Corey
Darktown by Thomas Mullens
Lightning Men by Thomas Mullens
The Lilies of the Field by William Barrett
The Watchmen: Doomsday Clock by Geoff Johns
Letters by a Modern Mystic Frank Laubach
The 12 Topsy Turvy Very Messy Days of Christmas by James Patterson
The Santa Suit by Mary Kay Andrews
The Gospel of Mark by Tim Keller
The Attributes of God by AW Pink
The Sinatra Club: My Life Inside the New York Mafia by Sal Polisi
The Mystery of Iniquity by Daniel Taylor

The Expanse series by James SA Corey

• Leviathan Wakes
• Caliban’s War
• Abaddon’s Gate
• Cibola Burn
• Nemesis Games
• Babylon’s Ashes
• Persepolis Rising
• Tiamat’s Wrath
• Leviathan Falls
• Memory’s Legion

  

Last Christmas

So last night Mrs. Wine and I watched a film neither of us had seen before called Last Christmas. We stumbled upon it a bit humorously: Mrs. Wine despises the Christmas song of the same name and while teasing her I came across the film. I played the trailer thinking it would have said song playing on an endless background loop but instead, we both thought, ‘Hey, this looks like a good movie.’ And it was a good movie. But more than a good movie, the film portrayed a character who was the most Christlike figure I’ve seen in cinema in a very long time.

Last Christmas is about a family of Yugoslavian refugees living in London. Specifically, it is about the daughter Katarina (Kate) who had what they thought was a promising singing career that was derailed when she became seriously ill. After surgery and a significant time in the hospital, she finally was “okay.”

However, since that time, she has been far from okay. Kate works as an “elf” in a year-round Christmas store in London. She is functionally homeless: every night she goes to a bar, gets very drunk, and then goes home with a complete stranger. In that way, she has a bed. She had been living with different friends but one by one, those bridges were burned by her destructive behavior of drinking and sleeping around.

While at work one day she meets the mysterious Tom Webster. He takes an interest in her and keeps wanting to take her on a stroll (his idea of a date). At first, she isn’t interested: he isn’t her type. Namely, he seems to have his life together while Kate’s life is a mess. Eventually, she concedes and they go on a stroll (clip below):

This clip is a good summary of everything I just talked about. You see Kate, suitcase in tow, agreeing to go on a date with him at night. She is hoping it will end with her having a place to stay but instead, Tom takes her to a bus where she goes home–the first step in a process of healing for her.

On their date, he continually tells her to look up and follow him and takes her to a secret garden where he proceeds to tell her about the failures and struggles of the other people in the garden and then lets her know that she is “one of them” now.

Thus begins a most unlikely courtship for films these days. Kate’s relationship with Tom completely changes her with the point of serious change coming from a moment of total honesty from her: after the surgery that saved her life, instead of being okay as everyone told her she would be, she feels “half alive.” At the end of this conversation, Kate tries to get Tom to go to bed with her but he refuses.

After this, Kate is completely changed (not immediately, but gradually. And as she changes, you can tell she is being healed in her mind and spirit. She begins volunteering at a homeless shelter. Her relationship with her boss and work ethic change following a suggestion from Tom to try being nice to her boss. She mends things with her estranged sister and parents. She makes up with her friends by restoring the property she had destroyed when her life was out of control. The culmination of all of this comes when she goes to a bar one evening and is drinking. The scene is set up like the start of the film, but when a stranger comes up to her and offers to buy her a drink, she declines and leaves the bar alone. By the end of the film, Kate has found contentment with her life. She is happy with her job at the Christmas store and has decided to pause auditioning for shows.

I’ll try to not spoil the film by leaving out some key details about the ending and who (or what) is Tom.

As I mentioned at the start, Tom is the most Christ-like figure I’ve seen in cinema in some time. I say this for several reasons: he urges her to mend relationships, he isn’t afraid to call out her destructive sleeping habits, he encourages her to be kind to people who are rude to her, and repeatedly tells her to “look up” and find wonder in the world that surrounds her. The way of life he tries to introduce her to leads Kate to dedicate her life to serving the hopeless and building a community for them.

But my ah-ha moment came when Tom was still pursuing Kate and trying to get her to go on a date. Kate understood they weren’t compatible. Tom obviously had his life “together” and Kate clearly did not. What did he see in her?

What does God see in me? Why does he relentlessly pursue sinners? What is it about the faithless, highly imperfect church, that makes God stand by her and call her his bride?

There is a concept in our culture called “marrying up.” Men will often say they “married up” meaning they don’t deserve their wife. We, the body of Christ, have “married up.” We don’t deserve him. And yet here he is, repeatedly appearing in our lives, encouraging us to follow him, look up, and love us when we are a hopeless wreck. Thinking about it is as confusing as watching someone who “has it together” pursue a messed-up person. And in the film Last Christmas, that is exactly what happens–and the love completely transforms and heals Kate. I doubt I’ll watch it again but in terms of a beautiful betrayal of redeeming love, it is at the top of my list of recommended films.