Ending 2022’s Reading: A Review, Recommendations, and Resolutions

The year 2022 was not a record year for my reading – there was too much time taken up with vertigo recovery, our care for Carol Coppi, our involvement with my little sister in Wichita, and the ever-busy tasks of Vital Signs Ministries. And, alas, my reading took a pretty big hit with the ending of the Notting Hill Napoleons, our remarkably stimulating book club of 30 years. However, I still managed to slip in 6 dozen. 

As usual, many of these books were re-reads as I thoroughly enjoyed checking in again with such dear, lifelong friends as Alexander Dumas, Rafael Sabatini, Samuel Eliot Morison, C.S. Lewis, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jan Karon, G.K. Chesterton, John Buchan, William Shakespeare, Michael Ende, Edna Ferber, Owen Wister, Joni Eareckson Tada, Bess Streeter Aldrich, and Charles Dickens. 

But I made some new friends in 2022 too. Hunting the Nazi Bomb by Damien Lewis, Your Time Is Now by Jonathan Evans, Seven Men of Gascony by R.F. Delderfield, The Admirals by Walter Borneman, Created Equal (Clarence Thomas in His Own Words) edited by Pack and Paoletta, Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, The Apostate by Mark Christian, and The Book of Signs by David Jeremiah. All of the above titles made 4 stars in my ratings and are therefore enthusiastically recommended to you all. 

So there you have a very brief review plus a few recommendations. How about the resolutions then? Well, even now I have begun re-reading the several books connected to a seminar I’m presenting at the Rochester L’Abri’s annual conference on February 17 & 18. That presentation is entitled Beware the Mad Scientist: Divine Warnings Against “Playing God” from Classic Literature and it will cover Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.  

Beyond that project, my reading will most likely continue along regular routes. I will spend most of my reading time with those authors near and dear to me while occasionally investigating others.  Of course, I do have a few specific projects in mind (besides the L’Abri responsibilities) for 2023. They include my bi-annual reading of Heaven by Randy Alcorn; a few classic commentaries on books of the Bible by men like Harry Ironside; more Dickens and Shakespeare; a first time read of Robert Bork’s book The Tempting of America and George Gilder’s Men and Marriage; and jumping back into the stirring adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia. 

Want to come along?