I posted a list of books read this year here. It’s been a great year for reading! Here are some of my favorites from the year and why: you can click on the links to the reviews for more reasons why I liked them.

Non-fiction:

1. Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job by Layton Talbert, reviewed here. This book would qualify both for most edifying and most thought-provoking. I don’t just recommend it, I encourage you to read it if you’ve ever wrestled with the issue of suffering or the book of Job.

2. The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God by John Piper, reviewed here. This was referred to and recommended in the above book. It’s a beauitful poetical rendition of Job, another way of thinking through and processing it.

3. The Way into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide by Peter Schakel, reviewed here. I came across this in the library catalog while searching for the Narnia series for Carrie‘s Narnia challenge this year. I had thought it might be too academic or too arrogant, but it wasn’t: it greatly enriched my Narnian reading.

4. A Novel Idea: Everything You Need to Know about Writing Inspirational Fiction, reviewed here. Written by various authors, this book explored just about every aspect of writing inspirational fiction.

5 and 6. By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt Into Faith and In the Arena by Isobel Kuhn, reviewed here. I think of these two together because the first one covers the first part of her life and the second one overlaps a bit and then covers the rest of her life. Isobel became a missionary to a primitive area in China, and this is a record of an ordinary, flawed woman (like the rest of us!) who loved and followed God closely. I’ve read these many times and they’re among my all-time top 98.

7. Living with Purpose in a Worn-out Body: Spiritual Encouragement for Older Adults by Missy Buchanan, reviewed here. I got this for my mother-in-law but was edified by it myself.

Fiction:

1. Words by Ginny Yttrup,  reviewed here.  Top book of the year. Beautifully written. Hard to believe this is Ginny’s first novel! I was captivated from the first pages, as ten year old Kaylee has lost her words, her voice, after suffering unspeakable abuse. I wouldn’t normally be drawn to a story on that topic, but this book is as much about healing, for Kaylee as well as Sierra, a young woman who can’t forgive herself for her own past, and Ginny doesn’t present any of the situations in a maudlin or sensationalizing manner. As I said in my review, “The book is riveting, hard to put down, eloquent, and full of depth.”

2. A Memory Between Us by Sarah Sundin, reviewed here. Loved the characters in this WWII-era novel. Loved Sarah’s whole Wings of Glory series, but I think this is my favorite of the three.

3. Faithful by Kim Cash Tate, reviewed here. I wouldn’t normally have picked up a book about one woman finding out her husband was having an affair and another tempted in a similar way, but real women, even Christian women, do face these things, and Kim’s story was both engaging and helpful.

4. Just Between You and Me by Jenny B. Jones, reviewed here. This would qualify for “most fun” book of the year. The dialogue just zings, and the story about having to face one’s fears before helping others is good as well.

5. Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner, reviewed here. I dubbed this “A tale of two Janes,” one modern and one historical (Lady Jane Grey). Susan beautifully wove together both women’s stories of seeming victims of circumstance finding they each have “far more influence over her life than she once imagined.”

6. Love’s Pursuit by Siri Mitchell, reviewed here. A model young Puritan woman struggles with being “good enough.”

7. She Walks in Beauty also by Siri Mitchell, reviewed here. A young girl groomed for snagging the most eligible heir during the Gilded Age finds that there’s a dark underside to all the glitter and glamor. When one man tells her God loves her just as she is, she doesn’t believe him, because no one else has ever loved her that way, until she’s sees that kind of love in him.

8. While We’re Far Apart by Lynn Austin, reviewed here. Another WWII-era novel, this one woven from the stories of a girl whose father enlists as a way to handle the grief of losing his wife, a young woman who pines for him, and a Jewish neighbor worried over his son’s family in Hungary and grieving the loss of his wife as well. I was pulled in from the first pages.

Classics:

1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, reviewed here. One of my all-time favorite novels, tied with Les Miserables.

2. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, reviewed here. Thanks to Carrie for giving me the excuse I needed to revisit these books with her challenge!

Beyond Suffering and Words would be my two top favorites of the year, but there were many wonderful books along the way. I’m looking forward to even more next year!

(Sherry at Semicolon‘s invites us to share our book lists for the year in this week’s Saturday Review of Books, and Booking Through Thursday asks this week for our favorite books of the year.)