2012 WAS A GREAT YEAR FOR BOOKS, at least for me.  I spent much of the last ten years “catching up” with authors I did not know.  And while there are dozens of dozens of important books I have not read, I think perhaps I have at least a bit of a foothold in the mountain of text written these days.

2012 saw new books from Eggers, Tropper, Chabon, Wright, Bissell, Franzen, and (posthumously) David Foster Wallace.  I got to meet one author this year, Donald Miller, who I’ve been reading for the better part of a decade.  I saw some of my favorite books turned into movies.  I found myself revisiting the thoughts of A. W. Tozer for most of the last half of 2012.  And I ended the year with the hint of better things to come all-around with the likes of Robin Sloan.

And so, my three most engaging reads:

1.  Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.  It was an adventure story that connected the dots between books and technology.  It was sincere and hopeful.  And it introduced me to Sloan, who has solid web presence.  He’s a great thinker, perhaps in line with Coupland and McLuhan for me.  I look forward to what he has to say in the future.  You can read a really interesting write-up of Sloan here.  And speaking of McLuhan. . .

2.  Every Love Story is a Ghost Story.  This biography by D. T. Max of David Foster Wallace was good look at the deceased author’s life that reminded me a lot of McLuhan in the sense that DFW understood the effects of a ubiquitous television culture.  From Max’s view, DFW grew to become a kind of morality writer, which I saw hints of in the recent release of Both Flesh and Not, which was one final collection of DFW’s essays.  If you had told me at anytime in the past that I would enjoy a decade-old essay about professional tennis, I would’ve laughed a good laugh.  But I did and it was enthralling.  I know that biographies make you feel like you know someone better even though you don’t.  But it definitely added understanding to an author I am still getting to know.

3.  The Pursuit of God.  I was introduced to A. W. Tozer years ago, in that space between my high school and college selves.  I reread TPOG after I bought a couple of copies as graduation gifts for students.  Then I found myself working through God’s Pursuit of Man.  Then, up through this past week, I journaled my way through The Root of the Righteous.  Tozer was no scholar, at not in our sense of the word.  And yet there is a ring of truth to so much of what he says.  I was excited to see his thoughts crossing paths with the thoughts of N. T. Wright, just as a younger me was excited to sense a connection of views between Tozer and Bonhoeffer.¹

“Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in,” the protagonist in Sloan’s adventure concludes.  Books and movies and music and television have been roads for me, roads and trolleys and subways.  I am thankful for them, those who write them and act them and sing them.  They make the city of my life a much better place.

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¹  In reality, Wright’s How God Became King should be one of my three mentioned.  It solidified in my mind some things, things that Tozer helped fit in my heart.  Whatever some people’s problems with Wright, I cannot help but think he has cleared away some damaging debris that can help us reimagine the kingdom of God.  And Tozer?  I’ll be revisiting his thinking much more in 2013.

(image courtesy of radionorthland.com)