Books I Read in 2020
I cannot live without books.
Thomas Jefferson
In years past I joined the Goodreads reading challenge—to see how many book I could read in a 365 day period. What I discovered is that I was reading a lot of books, but I wasn’t necessarily reading better or bigger books. Nor was I reading deeper. I was consuming books, as if reading forty or fifty or more volumes a year was somehow virtuous or something to be proud of. It wasn’t. It was merely a race; to flip pages before December 31 turned into January 1, when the gun went off for the next year’s race. In 2020 I decided to leave the rat race of book reading behind. I decided to spend more time with what I read, to “eat the book” as God told Jeremiah and Ezekiel and John; to own what I read. Philosopher John Locke said, “Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” That’s was the goal for 2020. And I’m happy to report that has largely been true.
Having said that, these are the books I read in 2020. As always, I read some of these books for work and some for pleasure but all to learn something I didn’t know before. These volumes aren’t ranked. Rather, they are listed in order read. The number isn’t important. I only offer this list to those who are readers and looking for ideas to shape their future reading. Some of these works might just be what fit that bill. In any case, keep reading my friends.
The Time It Never Rained, Elmer Kelton
Courageous: 10 Strategies for Thriving in a Hostile World, Robert Jeffress (Derrick G. Jeter)
Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West, Cormac McCarthy
The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness, Erwin W. Lutzer
Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflects at Sixty and Beyond, Larry McMurtry
100 Days in Texas: The Alamo Letters, Wallace O. Chariton
Texas Flags, Robert Maberry Jr.
House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday
The Cowboy Hat: History, Art, Culture, Function, David r. Stoecklein
Horses to Ride, Cattle to Cut: The San Antonio Viejo Ranch of Texas, Wyman Meinzer and Henry Chappell
The Last Kind Words Saloon, Larry McMurtry
The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, Ryszard Legutko
The Plague, Albert Camus
The Texanist: Fine Advice on Living in Texas, David Courtney & Jack Unruh (illustrator)
News of the World, Paulette Jiles
Where Is God in a Coronavirus World? John C. Lennox
Get In the Ark: Finding Safety in the Coming Judgment, Steve Farrar
The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love & Learning, Worship & Work, Steven Garber
Simon the Fiddler, Paulette Jiles
H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State, Lawrence Wright
God’s Country or Devil’s Playground: The Best Nature Writing from the Big Bend, ed. Barney Nelson
Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas, Stephen Harrigan
Blood Brothers: The Story and Strange Friendship between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, Deanne Stillman
Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics, C.S. Lewis
Texas Place Names, Edward Callary (with Jean K. Callary)
The Color of Lightning, Paulette Jiles
The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poems, N. Scott Momaday
Last Words: A Dictionary of Deathbed Quotations, C. Bernard Ruffin
The End of October, Lawrence Wright
Cultural Intelligence: Living for God in a Diverse, Pluralistic World, Darrell L. Bock
Frederic Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, David W. Blight
The Searchers, Alan Le May