Dear Friends,
Here are a few books from 2020 that I loved and am happy to suggest for Christmas Holiday and the New Year.
For those who love leadership books I am recommending:
Acho, Sam. Let the World See You: How to Be Real in a World Full of Fakes. Nelson Books, an Imprint of Thomas Nelson, 2020.
Edmondson, Amy C. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley, 2019.
Epstein, David. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Riverhead Books, 2019.
MURPHY, KATE. You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters. VINTAGE, 2021.
For those who are interested in culture:
Warner, Rob. Secularization and Its Discontents. Continuum, 2010.
Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs, 2020.
Three books worth a read given conversations about race:
Jones, Robert P. White Too Long: the Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. Simon and Schuster, 2021.
Meacham, Jon, and John Lewis. His Truth Is Marching On. John Lewis and the Power of Hope. Random House, 2020.
Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. Beacon Press, 1996.
My Wendell Berry recommendation for the year:
Berry, Wendell, and Gary Snyder. Distant Neighbors: the Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder. Counterpoint, 2015.
I know some of you love a bit of odd theological reading, here is one worth a bit of time in this Christmas season:
Dickens, Charles. The Gospel in Dickens: Selections from His Works. Edited by Gina Dalfonzo and Karen Swallow Prior, Plough Publishing House, 2020.
My three fun fiction books are all sci-fi this year:
Cline, Ernest. Ready Player Two. Century, 2020. (There are 2 in this series – this is the second)
Clines, Peter. 14. Permuted Press, 2017. (There are 4 in the “Threshold” series)
Taylor, Dennis E. We Are Legion (We Are Bob). Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency, 2017. (There are 4 in the series)
Taylor, Jodi. Just One Damned Thing after Another. Headline, 2019. (There are 14 in the series)
Here are two poetry books that got me through the year:
Collins, Billy. Nine Horses. Picador, 2013.
Heaney, Seamus. Death of a Naturalist. Faber and Faber Ltd, 2016.
Finally, for the book collector among you I offer two selections. If you or a person in your life loves travel diaries these will suit you well too.
Belloc, Hilaire. Hills and the Sea. Methuen, 1916.
Thomas, Edward. The Ickneild Way. Constable and Co. Limited, 1913.
Happy Christmas and Happy reading!
C. Andrew Doyle
IX Bishop of Texas
Episcopal Diocese of Texas
