My 7 Favorite Books from 2015

It is always fun to close out the year with a few lists of favorites. So, in a slightly particular order, these books are just a smattering of what I read this year and my very favorite.

7. Own Your Life: Living with Deep Intention, Bold Faith, and Generous Love by Sally Clarkson (Non-fiction) – This is about taking responsibility for your own life well-lived, finding your part in God’s story, and simply being fully aware of the impact we can have when we live our story intentionally.

6. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg (Non-fiction) – This book unfailingly made me want to write. Well, actually, it was a hearty battle between writing and reading the whole book in one sitting. Writing actually won out however. I loved how short each thought was and how applicable to learning to write as yourself and how to improve. Definitely a good one for the aspiring or blocked writer.

5. Still Alice by Lisa Genova (Fiction) – Written from the perspective of a woman with early onset alzheimer’s this book brings the reader completely into the experience of forgetting. I really appreciated that the author has a Ph.D in Neuroscience and the way she wove what actually happens to the brain into the story line.

4. Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World by Emily P. Freeman (non-fiction) – I have quoted this book many many times already this year. But it is so lovely. More here.

3. Embracing the Body: Finding God in Our Flesh and Bone by Tara M. Owens (non-fiction) – I just loaned the book out so I’ll have to actually write more about it later, but it’s about embracing the createdness of our body, how culture skews our perspectives on it, and how we can reclaim our impulses, desires, and embodiedness to live more wholly and more free.

2. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (Fiction) – People and stones have strange powers. The history of the world is as well-wrought envisaged as the present. The characters are well-developed and all their own. The plot is layered and wound. There is a subtle humor that caused me to laugh out loud more than once. And it is almost impossible to put down. This addicting fantasy world also has the advantage of being 1000 pages long and promising to be a 10-book series. I can’t wait for the next book.

1. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (fiction) – This is an engrossing historical novel set during WWII telling the stories of a german boy and a french girl and all the surrounding history, fictional and real. I love historical fiction just because of what you can learn while still being connected to people you can relate to. All The Light We Cannot See is the best I’ve read.

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And, just for fun, here’s my year in books on Goodreads. :) I read 61 books with an average length of 330 pages. I’d call that a good year :)

What was your favorite read this year?

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