ALL I read in 2019

Need some ideas for what to read while staying home? Here’s a comprehensive list of the 150 books I read last year!

I organized this post into the following categories so that you can easily find book recommendations that match what you’re interested in! My top reads are in bold.

faith

• Wild in the Hollow: On Chasing Desire and Finding the Broken Way Home – Amber C. Haines
• The Practice of the Presence of God – Brother Lawrence
• A Grief Observed – C.S. Lewis
• Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis
• Suffering and the Heart of God – Diane Langberg

• Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality – Donald Miller
• Life On Mission – Dustin Willis & Aaron Cole
• In the Presence of My Enemies – Gracia Burnham
• A Christian’s Response to Islam – James L. Garlow
• In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character – Jen Wilkin
• You Are the Girl for the Job: Daring to Believe the God Who Calls You – Jess Connolly
• Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved – Kate Bowler
• It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered – Lysa Terkeurst
• Discipling – Mark Dever
• Praying Together: The Priority and Privilege of Prayer: In Our Homes, Communities, and Churches – Megan Hill
• Enjoy Your Prayer Life – Michael Reeves
• Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity – Nabeel Qureshi

• The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected – Nik Ripken
• Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions – Rachel Held Evans
• A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle, Author of a Wrinkle in Time – Sarah Arthur
• Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted – Shannan Martin
• The Gospel For Muslims – Thabiti Anyabwile
• The Reason for God – Timothy Keller
• The Prodigal God – Timothy Keller
• Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life – Tish Harrison Warren

racial justice

• Discourse on Colonialism – Aimé Césaire
• Living by the Word – Alice Walker
• The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row – Anthony Ray Hinton
• Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics – Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, & Maya Sen
• Counting Descent – Clint Smith
• My Life, My Love, My Legacy – Coretta Scott King
• Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores – Dominique Dubois Gilliard
• Beyond Racial Gridlock – George Yancey
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – Harriet Jacobs

• Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases – Ida B. Wells
• The Red Record – Ida B. Wells
• The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
• Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? – Kathleen Collins
• Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil: The Life, Legacy, and Love of My Son Michael Brown – Lezley McSpadden
• A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry
• The Measure of a Man – Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High – Melba Pattillo Beals
• Inside This Place, Not Of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons – Robin Levi & Ayelet Waldman
• Quiet Strength – Rosa Parks
• My Story – Rosa Parks
• The Narrative of Sojourner Truth – Sojourner Truth
• Blood Done Sign My Name – Timothy B. Tyson
• The Blood of Emmett Till – Timothy B. Tyson

middle east / refugees

• Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi
• City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp – Ben Rawlence
• What is the What – Dave Eggers
• The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan – Jenny Nordberg
• Love Anyway: A Journey from Hope to Despair and Back in a World That’s Scary As Hell – Jeremy Courtney

• Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time – Jeremy Courtney
• A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
• And the Mountains Echoed – Khaled Hosseini
• The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
• Love in the Face of ISIS: Seven Prayer Strategies for the Crisis in the Middle East – Lorraine Marie Varela
• We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World – Malala Yousafzai
• The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State – Nadia Murad
• Girls of Riyadh – Rajaa Alsanea
• Understanding Iraq – William Polk
• In the Hands of the Taliban – Yvonne Ridley

women’s equality

• Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women – Carolyn Custis James
• Women of Resistance – Danielle Barnhart & Iris Mahan
• Are Women Human? – Dorothy L. Sayers
• Shout – Laurie Halse Anderson
• What Is A Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics – Rachael Denhollander
• A Year of Biblical Womanhood:  How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master” – Rachel Held Evans
• Black & White Bible, Black & Blue Wife: My Story of Finding Hope After Domestic Abuse – Ruth A. Tucker
• Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible – Sandra Glahn
• The Dance of the Dissident Daughter – Sue Monk Kidd
• Is the Bible Good for Women?: Seeking Clarity and Confidence Through a Jesus-Centered Understanding of Scripture – Wendy Alsup

other justice issues

• Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen – Jose Antonio Vargas
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity – Katherine Boo
• Intended for Evil: A Survivor’s Story of Love, Faith, and Courage in the Cambodian Killing Fields – Les Sillars
• Save Our Sisters – Morgan Barney, McCall Barney, Brianna Copeland, Elise Griffin, Kristie Watkins, & Maleah Weir
• Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide – Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn
• Refuse to Do Nothing: Finding Your Power to Abolish Modern-Day Slavery – Shayne Moore & Kimberly McOwen Yim

misc. non fiction

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma – Bessel van der Kolk
• Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone – Brené Brown
• Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts – Brené Brown
• What Happened – Hillary Clinton
• The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery – Ian Cron & Suzanne Stabile
• Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the Future of Faith in America – Michael Wear

novels: Black history & race

• Queenie – Candice Carty-Williams
• The Thing Around Your Neck – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Red at the Bone – Jaqueline Woodson
• Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jesmyn Ward
• Salvage the Bones – Jesmyn Ward
• Chains – Laurie Halse Anderson
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry – Mildred D. Taylor
• Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
• The Water Dancer – Ta-Nehisi Coates
• An American Marriage – Tayari Jones
• Home – Toni Morrison
• Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan
• Monster – Walter Dean Myers
• Nehanda – Yvonne Vera
• Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

misc. novels

• The Red Tent – Anita Diamant
• The Librarian of Auschwitz – Antonio Iturbe
• The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
• Unsheltered – Barbara Kingsolver
• Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
• Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng
• The Fork, The Witch, & The Worm – Christopher Paolini
• The Girl in the Spider’s Web – David Lagercrantz
• The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye – David Lagercrantz
• Call Your Daughter Home – Deb Spera
• Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
• A Woman is No Man – Etaf Rum
• Beartown – Fredrick Backman
• A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman
• Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
• Dark Places – Gillian Flynn
• The Tattooist of Auschwitz – Heather Morris
• A Spark of Light – Jodi Picoult
• The Clockmaker’s Daughter – Kate Morton
• The Alice Network – Kate Quinn
• The Yellow Birds – Kevin Powers
• A Wind in the Door – Madeleine L’Engle
• Pachinko – Min Jin Lee
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong
• My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
• The Lost Girls of Paris – Pam Jenoff
• The Orphan’s Tale – Pam Jenoff
• Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
• Lethal White – Robert Galbraith
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
• The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larsson
• There There – Tommy Orange

memoirs

• The Hiding Place – Corrie ten Boom
• Evidence Not Seen: A Woman’s Miraculous Faith in the Jungles of World War II – Darlene Deibler Rose
• You’ve Got Libya: A Life Serving the Muslim World – Greg Livingstone
• Invisible – Hugues de Montalembert
• Even Silence Has An End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle – Ingrid Betancourt
• My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past – Jennifer Teege
• My Accidental Jihad: A Love Story – Krista Bremer
• Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now – Maya Angelou
• Tears of the Silenced: An Amish True Crime Memoir of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Brutal Betrayal, and Ultimate Survival – Misty Griffin
• All You Can Ever Know – Nicole Chung
• Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison – Piper Kerman
• The Yellow House – Sarah M. Broom
• Educated – Tara Westover
• Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope – Wendy Holden

Keep up with what I’m reading all year on Goodreads!