2016 Book Favorites

This year I read 116 books ( a healthy number of those where juvenile fiction books). Here is a list of my favorite books and book quotes from 2016. There were so many good ones this year, that I couldn't shorten the list! I hope to carry the wisdom I gained from these books with me into 2017.

Best book quotes of the year

“The areas where we are wise are meant to intersect with someone else’s questions.” –Giddy Up, Eunice: Because Women Need Each Other by Sophie Hudson

“‘I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister.’” –The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” –Oscar Wilde

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” –C.S. Lewis

“God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.” –C.S. Lewis

“Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark.” –The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

“We can glorify God by doing our work in such a way that we make the invisible God visible, by what we do and how we do it.” –Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human by John Mark Comer

“To be here, in this room…with her: it is like medicine.” –All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

“The evening air is a benediction.” –All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

“The Church is not supposed to be a society of perfect people doing great work. It’s a society of forgiven sinners repaying their unpayable debt of love by working for Jesus’s kingdom in every way they can, knowing themselves to be unworthy of the task.” –Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright

“I was strong from losing them, maybe, but any goodness in me came from having them.” –Some Kind of Courage by Dan Gemeinhart

“We’re all desperate to anchor our souls to something we can trust won’t change….Things of this world all eventually reveal what incapable anchors they really are.” –Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa Terkeurst

“Today’s disappointment is making room for tomorrow’s appointment.” -–Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa Terkeurst

“‘People lie all the time, and it’s nothing. But one little lie from you makes me feel so small.’” –Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson

“‘Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with…making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.’” –Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

“In this world you’ve just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.” - Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

“calming every fear, reducing everything to love.” –Wilderness Essays by John Muir

“real spiritual growth happens as we look up to Christ and what he did, out to our neighbors and what they need, not in to ourselves and how we’re doing.” –Jesus+Nothing=Everything by Tullian Tchividjian

“If He wants your hands free, He has something to put in them.” –Audacious by Beth Moore

“it was a common misconception that booksellers looked after books. They look after people.” –The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

“This season is about becoming….Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.” - Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist

“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.” - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer

“‘Red hair is my life long sorrow.’” –Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

“‘I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.’”–Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

“A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.” -Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole

“If God simply overlooks sin, then he would be neither holy nor just.” -Counter Culture by David Platt

“He wants His people to provide for the poor, to value the unborn, to care for orphans and widows, to defend marriage, to war against sexual immortality in all its forms in every area of our lives, to rescue people from slavery, to proclaim and practice truth regardless of the risk, to love our neighbors as ourselves regardless of their ethnicity, and to proclaim the gospel to all nations.” -Counter Culture by David Platt

“God-the same God who created everything…saw fit to become like me in order to win my heart. To win our hearts. He squeezed light-years’ worth of glory into a human body and became a man. For us…He died. And He lives. So that we can really live.” -I Don’t Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton

“that’s how people know we belong to Him-by our love.” -I Don’t Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it…they…will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts…” - The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

“Once you realize how Jesus changed for you and gave himself for you, you aren’t afraid of giving up your freedom and therefore finding your freedom in him.” - The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

“if you don’t live for Jesus you will live for something else.” - The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

“The very thing that makes you you, that makes you great, that makes you different from everyone else is also the thing that, unchecked, will ruin you.” - Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

“Sometimes the darkest parts of us can be our teachers in ways that our sweeter qualities never could.” - Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

“The kitchen is bright and smells like coffee, and at this moment I cannot remember what it is to feel afraid.” - Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

“If you are afraid, sad, tired, or lonely, if you feel lost or strange, if you crave stories and adventure, and the magic possibility of a forest path-this book is for you.” - Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

“God was there to hold what was too heavy to carry.” - Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay

“There was a moment, one brief moment, where the act of disobedience hung in the air like a buttered crumpet, waiting to be fetched and gobbled up.” - Nooks and Crannies by Jessica Lawson

“When hope has left your side, carry on with the assumption that it simply went to fetch a quick bite to eat and will return shortly.” - Nooks and Crannies by Jessica Lawson

“God put his love for you in the depths of time, and he will never remove it from you…” - Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

“if you love anything at all in this world more than God, you will crush that object under the weight of your expectations, and it will eventually break your heart.” - Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

“In our plugged-in, 24/7/365 world drumming to an insistent, unvarying beat every single day, we are prone to miss the cadence of eternity. God has built his own rhythms and restoration and celebration into our days…” - Moments and Days: How our Holy Celebrations Shape our Faith by Michelle Van Loon

“Sabbath invites us into a discipline of rest…Advent…simplicity. Christmas…generosity. Epiphany…mission. Lent…fasting. Holy Week…contemplation. Easter…celebration. Pentecost…community. Ordinary Time…service.” - Moments and Days: How our Holy Celebrations Shape our Faith by Michelle Van Loon

“We are wild and free women. We can hold love and truth equally in our hands. We can be passionate and tolerant; we can be truth tellers while being loving and patient like Jesus is. We can walk with Jesus and watch how He loves.” - Wild and Free by Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan

“She didn’t understand how anyone could only love a part. Her greedy heart didn’t work that way.” –Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

“To love someone…was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.” -–Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

“What if we saw Scripture as not to be memorized for the sake of apologetics, but for the sake of giving language to the beauty of this God-saturated world?” - Out of the House of Bread by Preston Yancey

“Trust that the One who formed you will not abandon you, that the One who guides you does not guide you unsafely. God may not be a God of our comfort, but God is a God of our good.” - Out of the House of Bread by Preston Yancey

“the Scriptures are a tuning fork for adjusting our ears to the tone of God’s voice….to the character that his voice expresses, so that we can identify his true voice over false ones.” - The Listening Life by Adam S. McHugh

“I wanted to avail myself of creation’s pulpit, to sit in rocky and sandy and grassy chapels that I might hear their sermons.” - The Listening Life by Adam S. McHugh

Favorite books of the year

(bold titles-Top favorites; *-books I reread this year)

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery *

Arrowood by Laura McHugh

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin

Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist

Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist

Catching a Storyfish by Janice N. Harrington

Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley

Counter Culture by David Platt

Curious Faith by Logan Wolfram

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton *

The Girl You Left Behind by Jo Jo Moyes

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer *

I Don’t Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton

Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole

The Listening Life by Adam S. McHugh

Looking for Lovely by Annie F. Downs

Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt

Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes

Moments and Days: How our Holy Celebrations Shape our Faith by Michelle Van Loon

Nooks and Crannies by Jessica Lawson

Out of the House of Bread by Preston Yancey

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

Summerlost by Ally Condie

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberley Brubaker Bradley

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Wild and Free by Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan