FEWER AMERICANS ARE reading for pleasure. According to the latest American Time Use Survey, the portion of Americans who read just for the joy of it on a given day has fallen by more than 30 percent since 2004.
I’m choosing to resist the tyranny of trends—by reading more. Lately that’s meant sinking into a sprawling novel about trees, who, it turns out, are an active force, not just part of the scenery. The Overstory, by Richard Powers, is also about community, family, conscience, love, and fighting the powers.
My editorial colleagues are also making time to read. Their stacks include sci-fi (Blackfish City, by Sam J. Miller); historical fiction (Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee); a novel spanning Roman-occupied Jerusalem to the 21st century (Eternal Life, Dara Horn); short stories (The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, by Denis Johnson); poetry (Don’t Call Us Dead, by Danez Smith); essays (Feel Free, by Zadie Smith); biography (Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, by Dava Sobel); and many more.
Below are some nonfiction books that might fit in your leisure reading mix.
How did we get here?
A significant majority of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, despite his track record of decidedly unevangelical behavior and attitudes. In Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump (Eerdmans), evangelical and historian John Fea digs under facile explanations to explore with nuance the role of what he calls “court evangelicals” in Trump’s political world and how fear of change, nostalgia, and pursuit of power has driven the Religious Right far from any scriptural moorings. Fea offers no easy solutions but does call fellow white evangelicals to the vital work of rebuilding a Christian witness rooted in hope, humility, and history.
Martha C. Nussbaum looks more broadly at the role of fear and other emotions in our current affairs in The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis (Simon & Schuster). She explores how fear (no matter where we are on the political spectrum) feeds destructive anger, disgust, and envy. This engaging book, with reference points ranging from ancient philosophers to current pop culture, ultimately points toward ways to foster hope.
Life stories
When we get too busy with our own lives and worries, taking a walk in someone else’s shoes can provide fresh insight.
Raised a progressive Muslim in Kashmir, Daisy Khan became a successful New York City architectural designer. In Born With Wings: The Spiritual Journey of a Modern Muslim Woman (Spiegel & Grau), Khan tells of how, after marrying an imam, she became a women’s advocate, founding the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality and working globally against child marriage and genital mutilation and educating young Muslims to resist ISIS recruiters.
Rob Schenck became a radical antiabortion activist in the 1980s and a D.C.-based leader in the upper echelons of the Religious Right movement in the 1990s. In Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love (Harper Books), Schenck tells his story—and the unexpected turn it has taken the last several years as he became increasingly convicted by the problem of gun violence and repented for how his political activism strayed from his religious principles.
Robert Hudson is both a Bob Dylan scholar and member of the International Thomas Merton Society. He combines these passions in The Monk’s Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966 (Eerdmans), a look at the influence Dylan and other poets and musicians had on the influential monk, theologian, mystic, writer, and social activist Merton.
Professor, writer, and cultural commentator Brittney Cooper often uses stories from her own life as a launching pad for broader political and social concerns. Co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective blog, Cooper provides rich, thought-provoking insights as a black, Southern, Christian feminist in her essay collection Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (St. Martin’s Press).
Gifts for the spirit
True “self-care” is far more than spa days and “me time.” Souls need rest and reflection to flourish.
In Four Gifts: Seeking Self-Care for Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength (Herald Press), pastor and writer April Yamasaki guides readers through a scripture- and theology-informed perspective on taking care of our own needs, setting priorities, slowing down, and finding rest. The goal is to help us center our full selves on God.
Best-selling author Parker J. Palmer looks back on eight decades of life and forward to what’s yet to come in On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old (Berrett-Koehler). With prose, poetry, and three downloadable songs by singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer, Palmer explores the power in nurturing a healthy inner and outer life, seeking relationships across generations and racial, ethnic, and religious divides, and becoming “fierce with reality” to engage life fully to the end.
Unsettling the Word: Biblical Experiments in Decolonization (Mennonite Church Canada), edited by Steve Heinrichs, with illustrations by Jonathan Dyck and afterword by Sylvia McAdam, is a beautifully designed volume created in response to the long history of settlers and colonizers using the Bible as a weapon to justify displacement and oppression of Indigenous people. More than 60 writers, both Indigenous and settler, wrestle with the scripture through poetry, story, and essay, reclaiming its power to inspire and spur a more just future. This resource can inform life-giving preaching, teaching, and service—but the relatively short pieces also work as grist for prayer and individual reflection.
Why read? Here’s why.
If you’re the type of person who loves to not just read books but to read books that are about reading books, here are two worth checking out: British writer Francis Spufford is known for five critically praised and widely varied nonfiction books (including the excellent Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense) and one prize-winning novel. He has a collection of charmingly quirky essays on writing, books, corresponding with cranky atheists, Siberia, and more, called True Stories and Other Essays (Yale University Press).
And in September Brazos Press will publish On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books, by Karen Swallow Prior. Prior, a respected Liberty University English professor and writer, takes a fresh look at the power of great literature to shape our character and morality, exploring virtues in works including Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, and George Saunders’ “Tenth of December.”
Note: All books featured on this list were independently selected by Sojourners’ editors and writers. Sojourners has partnered with Bookshop.org, an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. When you order through the Bookshop links on sojo.net, Sojourners earns a small commission, and a matching commission is paid to independent bookstores.
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