The Best of the Best—My Top Books, Podcasts, and More from 2022
I benefited from a host of great writers, podcasters, directors, playwrights, and theologians this year.
It’s a delight to share my favorites from 2022 with you!
Note: these are the best things I read, watched, or listened to this year. They were not all necessarily published or produced in 2022.
Biographies and memoirs
3. Jenna Fischer, The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide
As you know I am a big fan of the Office Ladies podcast. That’s how I found out about this book. So when one of my children expressed interest in acting, I picked up Jenna Fischer’s book.
It is a great introduction to the real struggle of life as an actor. If you want to be an actor or if you minister in a community with a lot of theater people, this is a must read.
But it’s also great if you’re just interested in what an actor’s life is like.
2. Herman Selderhuis, Martin Luther: A Spiritual Biography
Herman Selderhuis offers readers a good introduction to the complex life of Martin Luther, the circumspect monk whose struggle for assurance and eventual opposition to the Pope triggered the Protestant Reformation.
You can read my full review here.
1. Bob Spitz, Reagan: An American Journey
Whatever you think of Ronald Reagan’s politics, no one can doubt the impact that his presidency had on national and international affairs in the late 20th century.
Spitz briskly recounts Reagan’s unlikely story, from small-town lifeguard to B-list actor to president of the Screen Actors Guild and finally to the presidency of the United States.
If you’re looking for an interesting audiobook for your next trip, this is a great choice.
Fiction
3. Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway: A Novel
This novel follows four young men from Nebraska in the 1950s who set off for California in search of a long departed mom.
Their journey takes them across the Lincoln Highway, America’s first paved transcontinental road for automobiles. And while they intend to travel west to San Francisco, through a series of unexpected events they wind up in New York City.
Great story, beautifully told.
2. Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
This is the prequel to Suzanne Collins’ amazing trilogy, The Hunger Games.
It follows the story of Coriolanus Snow, an older teenager from a once prestigious family in the Capitol. Of course Coryo, as his sister called him, would go on to become President Snow, the chief villain in the Hunger Games series.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes shows how his violence later in life was formed as a young man. It’s riveting.
1. Richard Wright, Native Son
Henry Louis Gates Jr. said, “If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son.”
First published in 1940, this is the painful account of Bigger Thomas who lived in Chicago during the Great Depression. Its treatment of poverty, violence, and racism challenges prejudice and penetrates the conscience.
If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and add it to your booklist for 2023.
Theology
Both of these deserve top billing.
2. Khaled Anatolios, Deification Through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation
Anatolios was born in India and grew up in Egypt and Canada. He is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and a married priest in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.
His church traces its roots to the Syrians who were “first called Christians in Antioch” (Acts 11:26). Through the centuries it followed the Byzantine traditions of the Eastern church before reconnecting with the Western church in the modern era.
This background gives Anatolios a fascinating perspective on the New Testament, the Eastern and Western churches, and Christian theology. In this book he argues that the essence of soteriology is doxological contrition, which Jesus himself fulfilled on behalf of his people. Wrapped in strongly Trinitarian framework, the goal of salvation is the reunification of humanity with the divine in Jesus.
I hope to write a full review soon. Until then, just get the book. Warning: it’s not for the faint at heart. But if serious soteriology is of interest to you, you’ll want to read Deification Through the Cross.
1. Raniero Cantalamessa, Come Creator Spirit: Meditations on the Veni Creator
I chose this as my top theology book for the year because overall this was my favorite book in 2022.
Cantalamessa has given readers a tremendous gift—a lifetime of reflecting on the Third Person of the Triune God in a single volume that is academically rigorous, historically informed, and spiritually nourishing.
I read this book while on vacation, one chapter a day. It was easily the most spiritually renewing experience of the year.
You can read my review here.
History
3. Thomas Dyja, New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
When asked which is the greatest city in the world, the American sociology William “Holly” Whyte replied, “New York, New York, New York.”
Thus the title of this book.
Dyja offers a surprisingly comprehensive narrative of New York City under the mayoralties of Ed Koch, David Dinkins, Rudy Guiliani, and Michael Bloomberg, with an epilogue updating the story through the Bill deBlasio years.
But the book is not limited to the politics of the era. Dyja discusses with equal skill such divergent topics as the birth of hiphop, Linsanity, the rise of Donald Trump, and 9/11. It is meticulously researched and a pleasure to read.
2. Helen Kim, Race for Revival: How Cold War South Korea Shaped the American Evangelical Empire
I really want to put this book number one because this is a story that evangelicals need to read.
Evangelical history often recounts a transatlantic story, from the Wesleys and Whitefield to Moody and Spurgeon.
But Kim successfully argues that evangelical history since World War II is largely a transpacific story. She traces three modern evangelical behemoths—World Vision, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and Campus Crusade for Christ—and shows how the Korean War was formative for all three organizations.
And it was critical to the success of the neo-evangelical break with fundamentalist Christianity in the 1950s, a break that created present-day American evangelicalism.
Not all of her arguments are equally convincing, and I found a surprising number of editorial misses for an Oxford University Press publication. But this is a story worth knowing, at least as important as Jesus and John Wayne is for understanding Christianity in America today.
1. Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
In one of the CMP classes I direct, Tim Keller recommended this book.
I’m so glad he did.
Though written in 1991, The Democratization of American Christianity is remarkably relevant. Hatch’s focus is the sixty years following the Revolutionary War, essentially 1780 to 1840.
He stresses how the egalitarian sentiment in the new nation—a sentiment that threw off the monarchical rule—resulted in a decline of hierarchical denominations (especially the Episcopal Church in the US) and spawned dramatic growth in mass movements (e.g., Methodism) and new religions altogether (e.g., Mormonism).
Ironically, however, Hatch notes that some of the most prominent voices for popular rule in the church possessed a kind of authority unmatched in hierarchical denominations. An Episcopal bishop, for example, couldn’t have dreamed of having the kind of power that some Baptist pastors enjoyed.
The merging of popular religion, American culture, and sometimes demagogic leaders is still with us today. Hatch gives a long-range view of how we got where we are.
It’s worth your time.
Pastoral theology
3. Margaret Guenther, Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction
This is a very specific book that introduces readers to the practice of spiritual direction. But there is value here for pastors as well.
Guenther organizes her subject around three images—hospitality, classroom instruction, and midwifery. Each presents the work of spiritual directors in a different light, and each shows how they serve the work of the Spirit in the life of a directee. She adds a chapter specifically for women that explores the unique contribution and gifts they bring as directors.
2. Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Haul of Faith
Unlike Guenther’s work—and contrary to its title—this book has a broader focus than the work of spiritual direction. In fact it’s a compilation of otherwise unpublished writings by Nouwen that aims to strengthen the soul of the reader.
In other words this isn’t a book about spiritual direction; it’s a book of spiritual direction, from Nouwen to you.
That broadens the appeal of the book. And makes it a good addition to your library.
1. Barbara Peacock, Soul Care in African American Practice
Peacock’s interest in this book is to show how the Black church tradition contains many of the practices typically associated with spiritual direction, even though the latter as such hasn’t been as much a part of the former.
The resulting book is a call to all people to “disentangle themselves from the concerns of society, from technology, and from anyone or anything that gets in the way of them having an intimate relationship with God” that is hopeful, inspiring, and motivating.
You can read my full review here.
Racial issues
3. Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Hong is a poet who here presents a series of essays that is simultaneously a memoir of her experience as the child of Korean immigrants in America and a critic of cultural assumptions at large.
From the model minority myth to the tragedy of Asian American invisibility, the author shares her experience in hopes that we can improve as a nation.
I resonated with some but not all of her pain. The greatest value to me was piercing my own desire for invisibility and recognizing that my story as the biracial son of blue-collar parents is also worth telling.
2. Richard Wright, Native Son
See above.
1. Drew Jackson, God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God’s Unexpected Coming
What a gift Drew has given us.
The author is a fellow pastor here in Manhattan, and in these pages he presents poems based on the gospel of Luke and reflective of the Black experience in America.
A powerful book. Read it slow.
You can read my full review here.
For the soul
3. Fleming Rutledge, Three Hours: Sermons for Good Friday
This is a fantastic little collection of sermons that Rutledge preached for a Good Friday service.
Each sermon covers one of the seven last words of Christ on the cross. Each is powerful, profound, and nourishes the reader’s devotional response to the crucifixion.
It’s an easy read that will enflame your love for our Lord.
My suggestion: consider reading a sermon per day for Holy Week 2023.
2. Barbara Peacock, Soul Care in African American Practice
See above.
1. Raniero Cantalamessa, Come Creator Spirit: Meditations on the Veni Creator
See above. My favorite book in 2022!
Top five Broadway and Off Broadway shows
5. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
The production is worth every penny. (Especially if you win the Friday Forty, which we have multiple times.)
I just don’t love the story.
4. Plaza Suite
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker acting together as three different couples over this three act play? Yes, it was as good as billed.
And she is brilliant.
3. Hamilton
It feels almost sinful to list “Hamilton” at number 3.
I find it impossible to decide which is best—the writing, the songs, the story, the choreography, the set design. The show is perfect.
And yet it wasn’t the best one I saw this year.
2. Ain’t Too Proud
Kimberly and I attended the closing performance on Broadway of “Ain’t Too Proud” which follows the life and times of the Temptations.
It was absolutely electric!
Naturally I have a bias towards a Motown story.
But this night wasn’t about my love of all things Detroit. It was simply the greatest night on Broadway I’ve ever experienced.
The songs, the dancing, the story, the energy of the closing night crowd—it was a night I won’t easily forget.
What could be better than that?
1. Pipeline
The writer behind “Ain’t Too Proud,” Dominique Morisseau, also wrote “Pipeline,” the story of a Black, inner-city teenager who faces expulsion from his suburban boarding school. It intersects with the novel Native Son I mention above and exposes troubling realities faced by young Black men.
So why was this my favorite show of the year?
Kimberly and I saw “Pipeline” about a month after we attended “Ain’t Too Proud” and a few weeks after I read Native Son. It was presented by Sea Dog Theater in a readers theater style, not as a full stage production.
Morisseau traveled from Detroit for this one-night reading. She was joined by a bevy of Broadway actors who read the play with incredible depth and pathos.
It was a moving experience. The best show I saw all year.
Top five TV series
5. Pachinko (AppleTV+)
I have to admit, I watched only the first episode. And I cried throughout as I reflected on my own family’s experience during those difficult years in the early 20th century under occupation.
I want to go back and watch the rest of season 1.
I’m just not sure I’m ready.
4. Hard Knocks: Detroit Lions (HBO)
Ok, this pick is all about my love for all things Detroit.
Still, the show gives a behind-the-scenes peek at a National Football League team.
It just happens to be my favorite team.
3. The Patient (FX/Hulu)
A psychological thriller starring Steve Carell.
Pastors may find the insight into Judaism particularly interesting.
2. Severance – season 1 (AppleTV+)
What a great concept—separating our work lives from our personal lives.
A fabulous illustration of what it means to be human.
It deserves to be number 1.
And yet …
1. Better Call Saul – season 6 (AMC)
I loved this show, and the sixth and final season did not disappoint.
Simply fabulous.
If you haven’t seen it, you can catch up on the first five seasons on Netflix. Season 6 is not currently available on a streaming platform, apart from purchasing it separately.
Top five podcasts
5. In the Trenches with Jon Jansen
Ok, here’s another Michigan specific item. In this case, it’s Michigan football.
If you haven’t noticed, we’re having a great year. For the first time in our history, we’re 13–0 with the national semifinal game on New Year’s Eve.
Former offensive lineman and national champion Jon Jansen does a great job prepping fans for the game.
4. Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan
Sullivan’s podcast is a weekly interview with journalists, writers, newsmakers, and other interesting people.
I don’t listen every week as not every interviewee is of interest to me. But I regularly find value in these conversations.
And if you want a taste of the Dishcast, see below. Or check out his very recent interview with Carl Trueman.
3. Our Triune Pod with Nick Comiskey and Ben DeHart
Nick and Ben are priests in the Episcopal church who explore Scripture and theology in a punchy twenty minute format.
Season 2 ended in November and focused on the psalms assigned for Sunday worship by the Book of Common Prayer. Last year’s season 1 looked at the collects of the week (prayers) recorded in the BCP.
Season 3 is coming soon and will cover the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.
2. The Rest is History with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook
What could be more fun than two Oxford-educated historians talking about, well, anything?
And I mean anything.
This year included episodes on Alfred the Great, French History on film, Justinian and Theodora, and Marilyn Monroe.
It’s a fabulous, often hilarious podcast.
1. Office Ladies with Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey
Still tops in my book.
Top five podcast episodes
5. Dishcast with Nicholas Christakis on Covid and Friendship
A wide-ranging interview on the history of pandemics, the societal effects we can expect from Covid-19, and the philosophy and nature of friendship.
4. The Rest is History: Switzerland—Calvin’s Cancel Culture
Dominic and Tom discuss the execution of Michael Servetus and what role John Calvin did and did not play in his death.
3. Office Ladies interview with Mike Schur
A lengthy conversation about Mike’s role on the show, his performance as Dwight’s cousin Mose, and the way writers and actors work together.
2. How to Reach the West Again with Makoto Fujimura and Missy Wallace
A discussion of how the gospel enables us to bring faithful presence to the arts and the workplace. Enlightening and hopeful.
1. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill: Healing and Resurrection after Spiritual Trauma
A fabulous interview with therapist Aundi Kolber that explores where spiritual trauma comes from and how to move forward with God.
Final recommendations
Favorite Harry Potter book I read this year: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
What a great illustration of how the Enemy subtly gives us what we want in order to take our life away.
Favorite Louise Penny book I read this year: The Madness of Crowds
This is a new category for me this year. I discovered Louise Penny while on vacation in 2020 when I picked up Glass Houses, the 13th book in her series on Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. I then continued in the series until the most recent publication, The Madness of Crowds. So this year I went back to the first book of the series and started from the beginning.
All told I’ve read six of her books this year.
And The Madness of Crowds was my favorite. A remarkably timely novel.
This year’s Bible translation: Parole de Vie 2017
I listened to it for free on the Bible app.
What about you?
What were your favorite books, podcasts, and TV shows this year?
Drop them in the comment section below!