5 Recommended Reads for the New Year

For many years I have kept up the practice of noting down the title of each book that I finish reading. There’s no self-improvement goal here, and certainly no competitive element (which is why I don’t post them on social media): I simply find it oddly satisfying to do so, and as years went on (and became decades, in fact) it has become a pleasant way to look back at the ebbs and flows of my reading life. I began this habit by using a notebook; now I use my phone’s note feature. At the end of each year, I copy the titles into that notebook.

My book-list only includes the titles that I read all the way through, so it doesn’t feature the (many!) books which I consult or read partially as resources for my academic work, nor the books that I start but don’t finish. (It was a watershed moment in my reading life when, decades ago, I realized that life is too short to spend it reading a book I don’t enjoy, and that it is perfectly acceptable to just stop reading something.)

As a result, perusing the list as I copy it out in January of a new year allows me to take an idiosyncratic journey through a wide range of titles that I simply found interesting enough to read all the way through. (For the curious: it’s usually around a hundred titles per year.) New releases, classics, scholarly, fun—it’s a mix.

Here are five of the most valuable or interesting books that I read in 2023, under the topics of culture, nonfiction, literature, children’s fiction, and spirituality. Perhaps you would like to read them too, or perhaps they will spark some ideas for your own literary explorations.

Popcorn with the Pope: A Guide to the Vatican Film List​

By David Paul Baird, Andrew Petiprin, and Michael Ward


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5 Recommended Reads for the New Year - Word on Fire

Reading worthwhile books is very good thing to do for one’s intellectual, imaginative, and spiritual health. Here are five books I recommend.

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