Wendell Berry and the Gift of Remembrance: November Gratitude Reading Plan (Day 26)

(This devotional is day twenty-six of a 30-Day Thanksgiving Challenge. Each day includes a daily reading that will be accompanied by a post on this blog.)

Read Psalm 105

“[Tol Proudfoot] had become an elder of the community, and had recognized his memories, the good ones anyhow, as gifts, to himself and to the rest of us.”[1]

Maybe it’s my small-town upbringing, but I feel at home when reading Wendell Berry’s fictional stories. His characters aren’t larger-than-life heroes or villains but they capture the ordinary, beautiful, flesh-and-blood people I’ve encountered in life. His plots aren’t moved along by intense action, but in their familiarity as true to life stories you might hear at your own family gathering.

Continue reading Wendell Berry and the Gift of Remembrance: November Gratitude Reading Plan (Day 26)

Gilead

I first listened to Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead on Audible and now have read it, alongside her two follow-up novels (Home and Lila). The trio share overlapping characters and stories from the vantage of three different characters. It’s similar in ways to what Wendell Berry has done with some of his Port William characters in his stories and vignettes.

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Favorite Books From 2017

Ecclesiastes 12:12 says, “Of making many books there is no end.” Today, we might add, “Of the year-end list-making for books there is no end.” All such lists are faulty because they’re limited to both the list-makers preferences and the works they read (and didn’t read) in a given year. Nevertheless, I find such lists helpful in for pointing me to books I might have missed but might want to add to my ever-growing Amazon wishlist.

Below are a few of my favorites I read in 2017 (not necessarily published this year).

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