2025 Favorites

Happy New Year!

I have not done a favorites list for the last several years, and I miss having the record for myself, especially as I’ve quit using the platforms that keep up with these records for me. So in addition to some favorites from 2025, I will throw in a highlight or two from the years I’ve missed, where I can remember them.

Ok, let’s go…

2025 Favorites: Books 

Fiction

My Friends by Frederik Backman

The Girl with the Louding Voice Abi Daré (audiobook is the move here)

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

The Most Fun We Ever Had Claire Lombardo

The Names by Florence Knapp

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

The Women of The Copper Country by Maria Doria Russell

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny (I have never been a mystery series girl, but I started this series in 2024 and I am ALL IN. I’d move to Three Pines if there weren’t so many murders there.)

Nonfiction

To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donahue

Consolations by David Whyte

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism by George Monbiot (also a documentary)

Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Emergent Strategies by adrienne maree brown

Quick Highlights from the years I missed:

2024: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

2023: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

2022: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

2025 Favorites: Songs 

We shut down our family Spotify account this fall because they were recruiting for the devil. In the search for a new streaming service, my daughter, Mary Polly, turned us on to Qobuz, which (supposedly) is a more ethical streaming choice because they publish what they pay artists per stream. The kids have all gone back to physical media, listening to records and CDs, bought mostly from thrift stores, which is just WILD. But I do love hearing what they have found when I hop in their cars.

If you want to give Qobuz a try, here is a Qobuz playlist of the 95 songs I listened to the most in 2025.

But here are the highlights: the 5 songs that I listened to nonstop in 2025:

Dear Maria Joy Oladokun

Looks Like The End Of The Road Alison Krauss & Union Station (The whole album is delightful, but this track is my fav.)

Haven Hill Sierra Hull (From another album I listened to on repeat.)

Lost Woman’s Prayer Emily Scott Robinson (I feel pretty sure her upcoming album, Appalachia, will be on my 2026 favorites playlist!)

Nice To Each Other Olivia Dean (She played the Forwards Festival in Bristol this year which happens right around the corner from where we live.)

Quick Highlights from the years I missed:

2024: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter (the whole album)

2023: To The Mountains Lizzy McAlpine (This has been my theme song for more than a few walking trips.)

2022: Portas do Sol Nena (I heard this song in a cab in Porto in June 2022 and I still listen to it regularly. It reminds me of being in Portugal and motivates me to figure out how to get back there as soon as possible.)

2025 Favorites: Movies + Documentaries

I have a very short list of movies I loved from this year. And no hope of remembering from years past.

Bob Trevino Likes It (Randomly watched this on an airplane and have been begging people to watch it ever since. Small cast. Slow burn. The two main performances by Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo are a WONDER!  Based on a true story from a time before Facebook algorithms ruled our lives, this film will restore your faith in humanity.)

A Complete Unknown (I’m pretty sure I was still in the womb when my dad introduced me to Bob Dylan, so this film was made for me and I ate it up. I could re-watch it weekly for the MUSIC ALONE.)

Lilith Fair: Building A Mystery (Speaking of things that were made for me, this documentary captures all the music that played in the background of my early married years. I had my first two babies during Lilith Fair summers. What a time!)

Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All (Yes please to music documentaries from all my favorite artists! I first heard Closer to Fine when I was working at summer camp in 1990. Rites of Passage was playing nonstop the year that Taido and I fell in love. We got married the year Galileo came out (1994). So of course, of course, I loved this story of the Indigo Girls. Pure nostalgia watch.)

2025 Favorites: TV 

Andor: Season 1 (I’m late to the party here but my son, Ben, talked me into watching the first season while I was home for Christmas. Now I’m ready for the rest. I’ve already re-watched Episode 10.)

Pachinko (LOVED this book, and I’m mesmerized by the series! I still have about 6 episodes left to watch.)

2025 Favorites: Podcasts 

On Being (Always brings me back to the light)

Scene On Radio (Season 7 on Capitalism and Season 5 on Climate Change)

Maintenance Phase (De-bunking diet culture, yes please)

If Books Could Kill (De-bunking popular books that we’ve let make opinions for us)

2025 Favorites: Experiences 

Celebrating our 30th anniversary over New Year’s in Lisboa with family. I’m still amazed that we’ve been married for that long.

Hiking with friends and family: the GR7 in Spain with old and new friends! Hiking a new Camino: The Camino del Norte from San Sebastian through Bilbao and on to Santander. Planning the perfect trip to Wales! A Hut-to-Hut hike in the Dolomites with my family. (Sleeping at Santnerpass, which is the hut in the photo for this post.) Returning to Switzerland. Reviving a canceled 2020 itinerary to walk the Way of Saint Francis to Assisi with friends. Doing walks in and around Bristol with my friends! I’m so grateful for the folks who travel year after year to come and walk with me! What a delight!

Swimming. I started swimming reluctantly in 2024 because I hurt my knee. There are a lot of things that I don’t love about it that kept me away from year-round swimming for a long time: paying for it, smelling like chlorine, exercising in a gym instead of out in the woods, awkward lane sharing with other swimmers of varying speeds, squeezing my wet thighs into warm fleece leggings afterwards. But in spite of all I don’t love about it, I have found swimming laps to be one of the most meditative and healing acts of kindness I can do for my body and soul.

Ashtanga Yoga. I’ve done a lot of yoga over the years, so it’s always with amazement that I find ways that yoga can be new to me. I had never done Ashtanga before 2024. Ashtanga is a set series, where the motions are the same every time. Like swimming, the repetitive nature of this yoga style has been comforting to me. Maybe in a world that feels out of control, it’s been a relief to have a season of knowing what to expect when I show up for yoga.

Live Music with Taido. I don’t even know how many sets of concert tickets Taido Chino has bought since we moved to Bristol. But here’s the way it always goes when I realize there is a concert on the calendar: I see it and think…dang, I’m going to have to stay up late for that.  Then the day arrives and I don’t really want to go, and I wonder if someone else can go with him so I can stay at home in my sweats. About a half hour before it’s time to leave, I change out of my leggings into jeans and something slightly cuter than the dirty t-shirt I’ve been wearing for three days. Maybe I put on a sweater or a flannel button down shirt. I might even smear on lip gloss instead of chapstick. Then I leave the house AFTER DARK. We walk into the city and it’s always wild to me that there are so many people out and about. Then we go to the concert venue and find our seats and wait for the music to start. The band comes out and starts to play and all of a sudden I’m enjoying myself. I LOVE IT! I’m so glad I came. We walk home talking about our favorite parts and we make playlists out of the set lists to listen to on repeat.

Cheers to getting out of the house after dark! And to all the walks, artists, authors, musicians and fellow travelers who make this wild world more beautiful to me!

Want to see more favorites (mostly books) from past years? Here’s 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2019 , 2020, and 2021.

The post 2025 Favorites appeared first on Alison Chino.

2021 Favorites

Happy New Year from our new home!

We ended 2021 by moving back to the UK. It’s been a bit of a flurry, but now we are in our new home in Bristol, quarantining and waiting for our shipment of stuff to arrive.

Our house is currently empty except for a couple of mattresses on which we are sitting, reading, hanging out and sleeping. It’s a strange time, waiting to be “free” from isolating and wondering what our life will be like here in our new town.

It feels both entirely new and strangely familiar.

More to come from Bristol, but for now,

I’m recording my favorite reads and round-ups from 2021.

As always I have so much gratitude for the artists, writers, musicians and poets who make my world more beautiful (and bearable) by their presence!

2021 Favorites: Books 

How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson (re-read)

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Faith After Doubt by Brian McClaren

Christian Meditation by James Finley

Merton’s Palace of Nowhere by James Finley

First, We Make The Beast Beautiful by Sarah Wilson

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green (audiobook)

The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. (audiobook)

Broken Horses by Brandi Carlisle (audiobook)

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (audiobook)

2021 Favorites: Songs 

Jubilee by The War and Treaty

To Hell & Back by Maren Morris

A Change Is Gonna Come by Leslie Odom, Jr

Getting Older by Billie Eilish

The Secret Garden by AURORA

Sapling by Foy Vance

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly by The Potter’s House

2021 Favorites: Movies

Shang-Chi

Your Name

Judas and The Black Messiah

Promising Young Woman

The Trial of the Chicago 7

2021 Favorites: Podcasts 

Poetry Unbound

Eckhart Tolle Podcast

DuoLingo Podcast

Turning to the Mystics

2021 Favorites: Experiences 

Slowly regaining strength all spring from having COVID.

Spring break road trip with Simon + meeting my mom at the beach.

Watching Simon blaze the trail as we hiked in the Shenandoah with friends.

Summer camping with family in Michigan’s UP.

Meeting online with a group of women to slowly work through two books on race: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee.

Returning to the Camino.

Walking in Arkansas over Christmas, getting some trail time with my dad.

Ending our time in Illinois with grace and landing in Bristol on our 27th anniversary.

Want to see more favorites (mostly books) from past years? Here’s 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

The post 2021 Favorites appeared first on Alison Chino.

Happy New Year from Castle Bluff! We are staying at a cabin in the woods where the mood outside is matching all my feels about the year we just finished.

I am happy to join in the collective sigh of relief that 2020 is officially over.

For the final month of 2020, I managed to cram in both my very favorite experience of the year (walking the Ouachita Trail) and my very worst moments (getting COVID and passing it around my family).

So that feels about par for the course for this very strange year.

I did read quite a lot this year, so I’m recording my favorite reads. And I’ve added a few other round-ups below, as is my custom at this time of year.

I am super grateful to the artists, writers, musicians and poets who made 2020 just a little bit brighter for me.

2020 Favorites: Books 

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

The Water Dancer by Ta-nehisi Coates

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram Kendi

Eager to Love by Richard Rohr

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

Evidence by Mary Oliver

Talking to Strangers Malcolm Gladwell

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur

Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem (re-read)

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson (half-way through)

2020 Favorites: Songs 

Resilient by Rising Appalachia (which they sing during this Tiny Desk concert). This song has been my “theme song” for 2020.

If I Ruled The World by MILCK Taido introduced me to this artist and I have listened to the whole album a lot this year, but I especially wore out this song.

Just Be by LVDY This song has been like a meditation. I use it in yoga all the time.

Like the rest of the world, I have had Taylor Swift’s folklore on repeat this year. And I’m equally loving evermore since its release. It’s hard to choose a favorite from each one but I think My Tears Ricochet is way up there for me.

We had sort of a sad Christmas. Taido and I both had COVID and the kids couldn’t come. So I don’t know if ‘Tis The Damn Season is really my favorite song off of evermore, or if it just matched my Christmas mood so much that it won the day. Either way, I’ve listened to it A LOT.

2020 Favorites: Movies

Except for maybe Soul, these aren’t necessarily the award-winning movies from this year. But I’ve watched them on repeat because they made me smile.

Blind Date (French: Un peu, beaucoup, aveuglément)

We Are Family (French: C’est Quoi, Cette Famille)

Onward

Eurovision

Rebecca

Soul

2020 Favorites: TV

Most years, I don’t watch much TV, but this year was different. I think we watched more TV than we ever have before. And while I’m not really proud of that fact, I do feel like watching TV was a quarantine balm for us. Simon and I watched an episode of The Good Place together every day when he finished online school. And then we all watched an episode of something after dinner every night.

The Good Place

Derry Girls

Cobra Kai

Stateless

The Good Lord Bird

The Queen’s Gambit

Kim’s Convenience

Baskets

2020 Favorites: Podcasts 

On Being

Poetry Unbound

Cosmic Connection

Ear Hustle

DuoLingo Podcast

Unfinished

2020 Favorites: Experiences 

Hiking and being at Castle Bluff with my dad just before we realized how serious the pandemic was.

Having all three of my boys home with me for a short time during the first lockdown.

Doing a virtual walk with my friend Kandace during the time we were supposed to be walking the Way of St Francis. And listening to Richard Rohr talk about following St. Francis while I walked.

Camping and climbing mountains in Colorado with friends.

Being a part of a very small (and very special) family wedding in Colorado.

Meeting once a week for a couple of months on Zoom with a group of ladies to work through the practices from My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem.

Walking the Ouachita Trail.

Want to see more favorites (mostly books) from past years? Here’s 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

The post 2020 Favorites appeared first on Alison Chino.

I am already pumped for all that’s coming in 2020.

It’s going to be an AMAZING year, I can feel it.

But before we get too far into 2020, I want to  I want to take a minute to record some favorites from 2019.

So here are some of the books, movies, songs and moments that captured my heart and widened my thinking in 2019.

2019 Favorites: Books 

Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women by Susan Burton

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Rabbit: A Memoir by Patricia Williams

On The Come Up by Angie Thomas

Educated by Tara Westover

Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii by T.W. Neal

Leaving Church by Barbara Taylor Bradford

Holy Envy by Barbara Taylor Bradford

The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr

2019 Favorites: Songs 

2019 Favorites: Movies

The Sun is Also A Star

This Beautiful Fantastic

Avengers: Endgame (Obviously)

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Little Women

2019 Favorites: Podcasts 

White Lies

The 1619 Podcast

Dolly Parton’s America

Ear Hustle

DuoLingo Podcast

2019 Favorites: Experiences 

Helping to Lead a Hike + Yoga Retreat

Returning to Italy

Honoring My Mother-in-Law’s Life

Living Near My Sister

Walking from Logrono to Burgos

Want to see more favorites (mostly books) from past years? Here’s 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017, and 2018.

The post 2019 Favorites appeared first on Alison Chino.

Hello 2019. I’m grateful you’re here. There are so many things I am already hoping and praying for in the year ahead. But before I get ahead of myself, I want to take a minute to be grateful for what 2018 brought into my life.

So here are some of the books, movies, songs and moments that captured my heart and widened my thinking in 2018.

Favorites of 2018: My Favorite Books I read in 2018

I usually limit my year-end book list to 5 books. But I’m making an exception this year because I read so many books that blew my mind.

Novels

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Song Yet Sung by James McBride

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Memoirs

The Color of Water by James McBride

Heavy by Kiese Lamon

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah (This was so good that after I read it, I listened to the audio version.)

In The Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Redemption by Wilbert Rideau

Nonfiction

In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction by Gabor Mate

Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie

The Yamas and Niyamas by Deborah Adele

How To Be Less Stupid About Race by Dr. Crystal Fleming

The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby

It would not be an exaggeration to say that reading changed my life this year. These books challenged the way I think about addiction, trauma, incarceration, laws, housing, drugs, parenting, racial reconciliation and the church. I look forward to several of these books coming with me into groups and conversations in the coming year.

Favorites of 2018: 10 Songs I Listened To Over and Over Again in 2018

Goodbye Road by JOHNNYSWIM, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors

My friend Carol played this album on a road trip to Florida and I have listened to it many times since!

Stand Up For Something by Andra Day (feat. Common)

This was on the soundtrack for Marshall (a favorite movie from 2017) and it’s been on almost every playlist I made in 2018.

La Bicicleta by Carlos Vives, Shakira

This is one of MANY favorite songs I dance to in Zumba class. Zumba definitely makes my list of things I am thankful for from 2018. It’s a little spot of happy in my week!

Our God Reigns by Israel Houghton (feat. BJ Putnam)

We sang this in choir this past summer and now I listen to it all the time. It just puts a little jump in my step.

Here In The Presence by Elevation Worship.

Another choir fav.

Seven by Sleeping at Last.

This is the latest in a series of songs dedicated to the Enneagram numbers. I have loved all these songs and the podcasts that accompany them.

Magic by Sia (from A Wrinkle in Time)

I Am Here by Pink

Found/Tonight A beautiful mash-up of two songs from two musicals (Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, both of which I LOVE) sung by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Benjamin Platt, which they did to benefit March for Our Lives, because DEAR LORD PLEASE TAKE THE GUNS OFF OUR STREETS.

Andante, Andante by Abba, from Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

This movie was just delightful from beginning to end. The soundtrack has been on repeat since the movie came out, but I think this song in particular is so much fun.

One Of Them Days by Kiana Ledé

We went to hear a local artist (Crissy P!) back in November and the theme of the evening was 90s R&B. Later I was searching the songs and found this fun new take on Monica’s classic.

Favorites of 2018: Five Favorite Movies I Watched in 2018

Black Panther (I saw this movie 3X in the theater. Simon and I watched it again on New Year’s Eve. It’s so beautiful.)

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (Just delightful! And also Let’s go to Greece!)

The Hate U Give (I was worried I wouldn’t like the movie as much as the book. Both were brilliant!)

On The Edge of 17 (Maybe it’s because I have so many teenagers in my life, but this movie just spoke to me. I know it came out earlier than last year, but I just saw it this year.)

Coco (Also didn’t see this until 2018. I watched it several times with Simon. So sweet.)

Favorites of 2018: 3 Experiences I Especially Want to Remember from 2018

Number 1: Being Silent. In February, I attended a 10 day silent meditation retreat (Vipassana). This is easily the most important thing I did this year. I love to talk about it and I wrote all about it when I got home so I could remember everything, so if you want to know more, email me and I’ll try to convince you to go. Then I bookended the year with a few days of silence out at Michael and Sandy Boultinghouse’s farm while they were away.

Number 2: Hiking with my family around Arkansas. (above: on top of Pinnacle Mountain on Thanksgiving Day).

Autumn colors in Arkansas while hiking Lake Sylvia with my boys.

Lake Sylvia.

More Lake Sylvia.

Early Fall hiking around Heber Springs, Arkansas.

Watching the boys climb rocks.

Also playing with my real camera again in the woods. (also in Heber Springs, Arkansas)

Number 3: Completing Yoga Teacher Training!

Doing yoga training has been a long time dream! I’m super grateful for these gals, and for the many, many things we learned together. And also for the laughs.

I celebrated completing training with my first ever yoga retreat in Hot Springs.

I’m so thankful for each person who came and to Whitney for cooking and hosting!

Look at this gorgeous lunch, just one of many beautiful meals.

PS. I’m helping to teach yoga on a beautiful retreat in Italy in 2019. Wanna go?

Lots more amazing things happened this year. I started making Kombucha and stopped eating meat. I spent more time in the sun than I have in a long time. I joined a gym for the first time in my life. I went to therapy. I participated in the Poor People’s Campaign. I visited The National Memorial For Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum. I worked on my biggest ever copyediting project,  a beautiful book by my client and friend, Jane Reeves. I walked with dear friends in familiar places that I love. I sang in the choir. I made homemade rolls in my sister’s restaurant. I watched my kids grow and do new and wonderful things.

It was also a hard year in many ways. There were great losses near to me. I deeply grieved settling back in a country (and a state) so rooted and steeped in white supremacy, the reality of which I see played out every day: on the news and in my community. Violence abounds in the world. The poor are criminalized instead of cared for. Also, Taido lived back in Germany until July. We survived living apart from one another and were grateful to be reunited in the summer. However, our path remains uncertain, much as it has for a while now. But as I look to 2019, I feel certain that He who has carried me along for so many years will continue to do so. I look around me in wonder at what God is doing while trying to find my small part in it, so that I can say with St Francis one day:

I have done what was mine to do, may Christ now teach you what you are to do.

Want to see more favorites (mostly books) from past years? Here’s 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017.

The post Favorites of 2018 appeared first on Alison Chino.

These are some of the books, movies, songs and places that widened my heart in 2017.

My Five Favorite Books I read in 2017

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

White Awake by Daniel Hill

Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher L. Heuertz

My Five Favorite Songs I Listened To Over and Over Again in 2017

Dear Me by Nicole Nordeman

Even If Mercy Me

Never Give Up Sia (from Lion)

Facts by Lecrae

Tin Man by Miranda Lambert

Five Favorite Movies I Watched in 2017

Wonder Woman

Thor Ragnorak

Marshall

Lion

Hidden Figures

Five New Places I Fell In Love With in 2017

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Val D’Orcia, Italy

Chelmno, Poland

Berlin, Germany

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Five Lessons Learned in 2017

Writing three things down that I’m thankful for every single night before I go to sleep is still the best way I know to end a day.

I can walk in every kind of weather, and I can always go more miles than I thought I could.

Deep connections can be forged in a short amount of time.

I’m too old for overnight buses.

I can do yoga in German.

The post Five Favorites of 2017 appeared first on Alison Chino.

Friends! How these first days of January have flown by! Confession: I have not left the house this week except to go to church and to walk to and from school. And I am still not caught up!

But it’s time to throw off the PJ pants and head out into the world because it is FRIDAY! Yay for the weekend! Double date with friends + Hiking + Life.

Loads to share with you in case you are hiding from the weather on this January weekend!

Five Stories

I have LOVED the return to storytelling in my own writing lately, and it has made me watch more closely for more good stories on the internet. Here are five I’ve loved this week.

A story about being lost at sea. Mind = Blown.

A story about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. It was 20 years ago that they battled it out on the ice, and both lost. Super interesting retrospective.

A story about getting hired by a great company.

A story about life hacking really just being white privilege.

A story about a failure. Refreshing, honest and generous.

Five Books I Loved in 2013

I have not written as much about books this year, partly because I think Goodreads has kind of replaced the need for other book review sites. I finally set up an account and hope to be more active there with what I’m reading in 2014. But here are my five favorite reads of 2013. (I’d love to hear your favorite read of the year in the comments!)

Penguins and Calves by Madeleine L’Engle

I thought I had already read everything Madeleine L’Engle had ever written and then one day I stumbled across this unfamiliar title in a used bookstore. Madeleine takes both the simple and grand events of life and turns them into a meditation that leaves me shaking my head and wondering anew at how much beauty there is in language. And in the world.

A favorite quote: A mortal is a more dangerous idol than a golden calf.

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Taido brought Brene Brown into our home this year during a sermon, and I have been so much the richer for the introduction. I have quotes from Daring Greatly all over my journals and nightstand. In my old house, I wrote them on my chalkboard. She inspires me to push forward down the paths that seem the craziest, the wildest and the scariest.

A favorite quote: It is the willingness to be brave while we are afraid that is the essence of our power.

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

This brilliant novel inspired me to read everything I could get my hands on about North Korea last year. (I also gave Liberty in North Korea t-shirts for a large number of 2013 birthdays.) I still haven’t recovered. But more importantly, neither has North Korea.

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

Easily the best fiction I read this year, I dream of seeing this book as a movie one day, ideally with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard and directed by Joe Wright. I never get tired of WW2 novels and this is one of the finest I’ve encountered, as rich in characters as in history. Tragically beautiful.

Five Links By Me (having nothing to do with the New Year)

In 2014, I hope to write more and more for other websites and magazines besides my own. Here are five articles or interviews I’ve done lately!

4 Reasons To Use iPhone Photography On Your Blog for Sarah Von Bargen

7 Free Things To Do in Little Rock for Traveldudes

An American in Aberdeen for Embrace Scotland

Interview for Expat Blog

Our Scotland Yard for Little Rock Family (which is accompanied by the darling illustration by Hannah Alexander that is headlining today’s pipeline! Adorbs!!)

Wow, if you made it here, Congratulations for reading the longest ever version of the Chino House Pipeline! Cheers to a lovely weekend and hope to see you back here on Monday for more storytelling love + an announcement!!

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The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

The City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell

Peace Like A River by Leif Enger

The Fiddler’s Green by A.S. Peterson (sequel to The Fiddler’s Gun)

I read around 60 books in 2012.  These six novels were my favorites.

The first two books are set during World War II, one in Hungary and the other in Russia.  I think I will never get tired of reading books about this time period. These stories remind me that though the world is fraught with evil, people still shine light in the darkness.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is also filled with this same kind of hope inside a darker story.  Foer captured me with a highly intelligent young protagonist who is trying to make sense of the world in his own special way.  (I also enjoyed the movie version of this book.)

The last three books fed my soul as much as my mind.  A precious missionary couple, a miracle-working single father and his three children, and an orphan girl masquerading as a pirate boy are the characters of these three novels that became friends I would be sad to leave when these books were done.  They are books I have given and will give again as gifts.  They are stories as rich in faith as they are in characters, plots and settings.

I read The Fiddler’s Green on a boat in September, which was perfectly magical since it is set mostly on a pirate ship during the American Revolutionary War.  I loved being out on the sea while reading about Fin’s sea adventures.  I plan to read both The Fiddler’s Gun and The Fiddler’s Green out loud this year to the children who still listen at the Chino House.

And here is the bonus round of 2012.

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner

Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess  by Jen Hatmaker

I could not leave out these two books to which I have already returned in 2013.  Still is just full of the kind of wisdom and empathy that one wants to revisit and Seven is forming the basis for a movement of women at my church that I am looking forward to.

Our Greatest Gift by Henri Nouwen

Also, I read Henri Nouwen’s book on dying while my grandmother was sick this fall.  I just mention it because it was hugely helpful to me in preparing for her death and I am certain I will return to it again and again.

Chicken Boy by Frances O’Roark Dowell

I always read a lot of children’s novels and this one was by far my favorite this year, recommended to me by a very beloved teacher.

I’m already happy with the reading that 2013 is bringing my way, but I always keep my eyes and ears open for the next book in line.

What are your favorite reads from the last year?

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