1. When Less Becomes More: Making Space for Slow, Simple, and Good by Emily Ley [Audio book]—In this book, simplicity expert and planner designer Emily Ley discusses how she overcame the push for “more” in life, so that she could learn to enjoy and be present in the “less.” This is not about minimalism per se, but about counting costs, about letting things go, and about finding contentment in the Lord. There are some pretty lengthy sections about social media, eating, and parenting that did not resonate with me so much but the rest of it? Yes! I needed the reminders. My life is very full, and as Ley states, sometimes good is better than great, specially when present in it. I want to make space for more good.
2. How to Plot a Payback by Melissa Ferguson—Lavender Rhodes ruined Finn Master’s life, and when he’s forced back into proximity with her via becoming producer of Neighbors, the show in which she stars as lead actress, things continue to go awry. He still has the list of every way she’s wronged him, and now he’s plotting a payback. The thing is that his acts of revenge keep boomeranging back at him. This is a rom-com if there ever was one: slapstick and silly, but also sweet and poignant. While there is no overt Christian content, the script is clean and contains life lessons about what it truly means to be neighbors and love one another. I am ready to read another plot by this author.
3. The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon (1/6/25) [Audio book]—NPR political correspondent and journalist Sarah McCammon grew up in a charismatic evangelical church in Kansas. Slowly, she became disillusioned with it and eventually left. This book is her story, along with the compiled stories of many other ex-vangelicals. The book chronicles the many reasons people have left the evangelical church, including Christian nationalism (with the 2016 election being a crux point), Christian opposition to science; LGBT issues, fear-based rhetoric surrounding topics like the rapture, purity culture, and more. What stood out to be as a key factor in leaving the evangelical church was a failure to believe in scripture as the inerrant word of God. Without that foundation, the fundamental tenets of Christianity, in my opinion, cannot hold. I finished this audiobook with sadness over the hurt and harm people have experienced from the church, but also with a sense of hope. McCammon concludes the book writing about the loneliness of ex-vangelicals, as well as how many are making sense of their purpose in the world by serving others. If there are any opportunities for the church to be Jesus—even to those who claim to have left it—I think those are some doors to doing so.
4. In His Dreams by Gail Gaymer Martin—Marsha lost her husband to Lou Gehrig’s disease and her brother-in-law Jeff lost his wife in a tragic car accident. While Marsha has made peace with God, she’s a controller and often meddles and tries to fix people. Jeff blames God and is trying to be all things to his disabled daughter Bonnie. The two hit it off when they run into each other one summer in Beaver Island. They both have to get right with God (and others) before they have any hope of a potential future together. This is a more serious than dreamy book, with a sexual abuse content warning. It’s a good, more true-to-life romance, though, and is valuable for that reason.
5. Beloved by Francis Chan with Mercy Gordon—This is the book that Francis Chan says he wishes he wrote before Crazy Love. It’s not that Chan doesn’t believe the Crazy Love message, but that he believes understanding God’s love is the foundational bedrock for Christian life and ministry. This book is not light on gospel, scripture, or obedience. It is heavy on all. There’s still stuff to do: meditate on God’s word; spend less time on social media; love the poor, etc. The thing is that all this doing needs to come from immense knowledge of being loved by God. Chan writes that it has taken him decades to get there, and I am definitely not there yet. This book is a call to meditate on God’s love and allow it to continually saturate me more and more fully, however, because those who know they are beloved are able to be love to the world that so desperately needs Jesus.
6. Growing Boldly: Dare to Build a Life You Love by Emily Ley [Audio book]—My husband says I am a pessimist, and maybe I am, because as much as I would like to believe that everybody can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and “live boldly,” I don't think they can. There is systemic injustice. There is poverty. Sometimes life is about mere survival. There aren't resources to live, let alone to dream. Still, God used this book to speak to me about time and seasons. Life is not all about big and shiny. Sometimes leaving a legacy means cutting back. Some callings are for a season. Calling is not vocation. Where possible, naming what I love about life can help me move more towards that kind of life. Disagree though I may with the dream stuff, I like Ley's writing. It is simple. It is easy to read (or listen to, as was the case with this audio book for me). It is encouraging. If anyone is to grow, these things are all nourishing towards that end.
7. Less Doing, More Living: Make Everything in Life Easier by Ari Meisel [Audio book]—Ari Meisel is a serial entrepreneur. He went from overworked and burned out, with several side effects from undiagnosed Crohn's Disease, to a coach, hobbyist, and business man happy with his life and work. This book is his treatise on how to optimize, automate, and outsource in order to reduce work and increase living. The eight principles he shares are more about apps and processes than philosophy, and they could help some people. These strategies were not really for me, though. Yes, I touch a lot of things, but I think I find joy in some of them, like my to-do list. For automators and programmers like my husband, though, this book could be highly beneficial. In fact, as I read it, my husband was implementing his own "external brain" system to avoid a to-do list (not influenced by Meisel, since he had not read the book), and found it highly successful.
8. Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein—I don’t want to discount this book’s author’s personal story, or the stories in it, but I just didn’t find it helpful. I read this book after hearing in the ex-vangelical book that purity culture turns people away from the church ,and I hoped the book would help me understand more. Instead, what I found were sexually explicit interviews, and not too much about a path forward, at least until the end. Maybe I’m just too far removed the experiences of people in the book. While I think the church could do more to teach body literacy and healthy sexuality, I don’t remember experiencing the levels of shame Klein and her interviewees share. Maybe it’s because I grew up outside the charismatic denominations that Klein disclosed for herself. Or maybe it’s because I took sexuality classes from my Christian university before I got married in my 30’s. Whatever the case, I just did not find reading stories of people who bucked the sexual norms of the church that helpful. I think a more helpful book would be one that focused less on the details of the sexual struggles and more on what the church could do, or has done, to be helpful. The ending few chapters are redemptive and seem to start to go there. Maybe this is a future book for Klein or others?
9. Racing to the Finish: My Story by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. with Ryan McGee (1/17/26) [Audio book]—As the daughter of a NASCAR-watching dad, I thought learning more about a racer's story might be interesting—and it was. This was actually less of a book about Dale Earnhardt Jr.,'s life, and more about his multiple concussions and recoveries from them. As a mental health professional, I found it interesting how anxiety and stress exacerbated Earnhardt's symptoms, and how some of his symptoms of fearing future concussions mirrored PTSD. I was unfamiliar with the concussion recovery program out of the University of Pennsylvania and think it could be a resource for many inside and outside of racing. I think I will also see future NASCAR races and their potential for injury differently. All in all, this audiobook was worth my time to better understand a sport and its repercussions.
10. Grace Not Perfection: Embracing Simplicity, Celebrating Joy by Emily Ley [Audio book]—Emily Ley writes some good books: simple, easy to follow, personal, and applicable. Additionally, Ley has a very soothing voice, making them enjoyable to listen to via audiobook. This particular book is about slowing down, making space—margin for what matters, and taking time to savor life. It’s about rhythms and routines that can make space for joy, all while being flexible and having grace for self and others. It was applicable and helpful, and I recommend it!
11. The Most Perfect Rom-Com by Melissa Ferguson—Bryony Page fell into becoming the ghostwriter for air-headed and pompous Amelia Benedict. Now, due to Amelia’s inability to even read the ghost-written books, Bryony has to go on tour with Amelia for damage control, all while writing “the most perfect rom-com” that will shoot Amelia to the top of the bestseller list. At the same time, Bryony is trying to work with her agent Jack Sterling to sell her own book, a book she hopes she will save The Bridge, the center at which she teaches English as a second language. Bryony and Jack are friends, but enemies, until all the facades drop, and they fall into their own rom-com story. I don’t believe in perfect in this world, but as far as books go, this one is pretty close: clean, sweet, and with some surprise Easter eggs of depth and meaning. The one thing that would make it more perfect is more faith integration.
12. Unplanned by Abby Howard [Audiobook]—Abby Johnson grew up in a Christian household that was pro-life, but she didn’t really know why or necessarily hold that conviction personally. Johnson became a volunteer at Planned Parenthood because she believed in empowering women. After two abortions of her own, a troubled marriage followed by divorce, and finishing her psychology and counseling degrees, she went on to become director of Planned Parenthood, working there for eight years. After upset in the organization and assuring with an ultrasound guided abortion, she broke down and eventually resigned her position. She didn’t immediately become pro-life, but after a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood, she went public with joining the Coalition for Life. This book may seem like a treatise for the Pro-Life movement, but it’s not just that. It’s a critique of the radical right and how their macabre tactics pushed Johnson and others away. It shows how the love and prayers of truly compassionate people worked to change Johnson’s heart. It reveals the hypocrisy of churches that condemn rather than love. This book contains some gruesome details, but it’s a powerful one, revealing how God is sovereign over all things, especially over the unplanned ones.
13. Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World by Gretchen Rubin—Gretchen Rubin is a self-proclaimed happiness expert, seeker of ““Self-knowledge and mindful action.” This book details her attempts to be more present through use of her five senses. In each chapter, she engages readers in first person narratives about her own sensory experiences, as well as a few tidbits of research. This book also includes a few photos for the benefit of reader's own sensory experience. All in all, this book does encourage me to observe more. More than that, it reminds me that we are, as the Psalmist says “fearfully and wonderfully made” (139:14). Perhaps if I could get out of my head and into my body more, I would experience more of that.
14. The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities by Kate Bowler, read by Kelly Burke[Audio book]—Kate Bowler is an expert on prosperity gospel, and in this tome, she looks at what it looks like to be a female part of that (well mostly—not all the women covered as prosperity gospel teachers or purveyors). She discusses the interplay between complementarianism and capitalism, the double standards for women in ministry, and more. This is not just all about preacher’s wife, either, but about female evangelical figures in general: Bible teachers, authors, Christian music artists, counselors and other advice givers, etc. I listened to this on audiobook, all 11 hours of it, and I am not quite sure I would have been able to stay engaged for all of it via sight reading. As it was, it was interesting background listening, and a very well-researched resource, should I want to dive into this topic further.
15. Out of the Cave: Stepping into the Light When Depression Darkens What You See by Chris Hodges [Audio book]—Chris Hodges is not a clinician. He’s a pastor (of Highlands Church) who has both personal (individual and family) and professional experience with depression. He started writing this book after yet another pastor suicide, and he does a good job of looking at the holistic struggle that is depression. He uses the prophet Elijah as a case study, weaving in scriptural and psychological information to show how depression is physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, and relational. I think this is a very balanced, faith-based, and accessible approach to an often contentious topic. I am thankful to have this book as a resource to add to my personal and professional toolbox.
16. The Sweet Life by Suzanne Woods Fischer—Dawn and Marnie Dixon lost their father/husband in a tragic accident, and now Dawn has had her engagement broken and learns Marnie had breast cancer. They go to Chatham Bars Inn on the honeymoon Dawn was supposed to have, and that starts a cascade of events that will change their perspectives. Dawn is not happy when Marnie decides to buy a dilapidated ice cream shop, but Marnie does it anyway, stating that she needs something different in life. Dawn begrudgingly agrees to help, and as she does so, both find a new lease on life. This is probably more of a summer beach read than an in-the-middle-of-the-winter read, but nonetheless, it's a sweet one! Bonus points for the author who obviously did her research for this book, even including fun quotes (some reworked) from famous people about ice cream!
Readers, what have you been reading lately? Please share in the comments section!
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