Melody She Wrote

 Instead of taking you through the various genres of fiction I read this year (fantasy, contemporary, and some magical realism, most of it YA), I wanted to share some notes related to the winner of the Non-Fiction Bronze award,  Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes . Since reading that book, I've been keeping an eye out for narrative examples that illuminate the cultural differences discussed in Misreading Scripture . (You may also notice some tie-in with the winner of the Non-Fiction Gold award,  The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self , which investigates the origin of our western obsession with identity. Yep. That obsession, common to westerners both Christians and non-, has an origin story; it's not inherent.) One of the main points of Misreading Scripture  is that for each person, there are many cultural things that "go without saying." We don't even know that we believe them, because they feel inherent. And when something feels inherent, it's hard to g...

I've been looking forward to this post all year. With each book I began, I wondered if it would merit a mention in the year-end summary. And here we are, even as I realize I didn't blog about anything else during 2021. I'm not sure how I feel about the radio silence; I had plenty of things I could have blogged about. But sharing one's opinion online is no longer the fun and fancy free experience it was in my earlier blogging days. I digress. Let's talk about books. In 2021, I read 49 books. I almost read 50, except that on December 31, I forgot to listen to the very last podcast episode that took me through the Bible in a year. (So now I'm just that much more ahead in 2022.) This is definitely a more balanced split between fiction and non-fiction than in 2020, though still more fiction than I thought I was reading this year. I tried to alternate back and forth, but sometimes you need a couple novels to compensate for some particularly heady foray. My average rat...