All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome

This book by Kathy Hoopman is an entertaining, if thoroughly dishonest at surface level, exploration of the similarities between cat behaviours and common personality traits of persons with the higher-functioning autistic spectrum disorder often called Asperger's - not super educational on either front for most practical purposes but an interesting and somewhat amusing conceptual mishmash.

playing

This book by James Evans is a really interesting series of Christian reflections on culture, society, God, "the margins" and how playfulness encapsulates & shapes the creative and prophetic dimensions latent in all things; I found this book far more academic than I was expecting but it was a refreshing deep dive having been working on something similar for much of last year. Evans covers a lot of ground in a concise book - the Spirit's guiding acts in subverting things of worldly wisdom and convention, Jesus's examples of how "playing" with rules/norms can refocus sociocultural imaginations out of self-maintained prisons & on toward things of Heaven: underlying his conceptual frameworks and plentiful in examples is the lived experiences of African-American Christianity, and I think for that alone this book should be high up the reading lists of all white christian leaders; the graceful depth and theological poignancy here make this a must-read for this oh-so-typically-unplayful demographic in my opinion. 

2019 overview

Another year - another few dozen thousands words poured into posts that nobody but me is ever likely to read; and since my last year's recap - there's been a lot of change. I'm going to link here to the posts in which I've further explicated the stories related in this whistlestop summary, but those posts will also be linked for actual book-related recap purposes later on down this post. So, the super-quick summary - I was told by a colleague that I was, apparently, a prophet, which seemed to map onto things God was also trying to tell me; I went through an absolute horrorshow in relation to mental health and my home church which resulted in me leaving my church - and also getting fired; so though still part of the Mission Community I'm no longer involved with Church Army's research work, and after a brief & messy recovery stint at my family home, as of the end of 2019 going onwards to a hopefully brighter new decade, I'm working as a chef, which is actually great for my mental health, weirdly, as I don't think many in the profession find that to be the case, but I've always been a bit odd. It gives me plenty of spare time & headspace for writing and reading, so there's that.

   Anyway - in 2019 overall I read sixty-three books, which is still quite a way below my 2017 personal best, especially when you also consider the fact that a good dozen at least were children's books, which I had to read, for reasons. Whatever. Here's some bullet points, as per the usual for these recaps:

• Essays that I found myself disagreeing broadly with from the outset but actually then upon completion conceding "fairenough" - Why I am not going to buy a computer.
• Best existential comic - Garfield Minus Garfield.
• Best toilet book - The Etymologicon.
• Least practical [obvs jokes] - The Art of War.
• Superlatively pragmatic & conceptually relatively concise Christian intellectual works - Truth and Authority in Modernity and A Generous Orthodoxy.
• A superb, if less concise Christian devotional-intellectual work - Knowing God.
• Excellent Christian books with strong mental health relevance - The Inner Voice of Love for the devotional side, and Jesus PhD Psychologist for the more rigorous bits.
• Best book on the Church - 5Q.
• Best book on Jesus - The Universal Christ.
• Best Christian kids' book - Wonderful Earth!
• Probably most countercultural Christian book - Single-Minded.
• Worthwhile research into youth Christianity - How Faith Changes.
• While we're on the subject of Christianity, if you are one [a Christian] and you want to be better at understanding and loving trans folks - don't read this, read this. I mean, read both if that's your jam. But transforming is both a far more scripturally rigorous and Christ-ethic centred treatment of the subject.
• Close but no cigar - almost interesting interfaith dialogue; the Lotus and the Cross.
• Most theologically adventurous Part One - Quakers: advice & queries.
• Most theologically adventurous Part Two - the Tao Te Ching, although I did need the help of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in explaining its contents to me initially.
• Several poets have taught me a great deal this year about vulnerability, being okay with not being okay and giving yourself permission to be honest about that as you grow and change - including here: Kate Garrett, Rainer M. Rilke, Hannah Chutzpah, Sabrina Benaim, Kate Tempest, Raluca de Soleil, Hollie McNish, Otis Mensah, Rupi Kaur and the young people of the Amber Project.
• In terms of my favourite poetry books of the year though - it's really difficult as I've read some absolute corkers, and though I think Rilke would have to just win on the blunt technicality that it was a longer book; in terms of punch-per-page I'd lump this collection joint top spot with "Safe Metamorphosis!!", Hold Your Own and The Saint of Milk and Flames.
• Best non-poetry discussion of mental health - Reasons to Stay Alive.
• Most embarrassing book to still own in 2020 - the 2019 Jeremy Corbyn annual.
• Best manifesto/polemic - Feminism for the 99% - if any coherent political ideological system can bring together the calls of Greta Thunberg and the Dalai Lama, I'm reckoning it's this.
• Finally read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and it's a pretty stupid book.
• A handful of quality fun children's books - The Odd Egg, Gary Larson's morbid tale of a worm family There's a Hair in Mr Dirt!, Michael Rosen's classic We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Slinky Malinki's adventures in Catflaps and opening doors, and finally Oi! Duck-billed Platypus! I did read a lot more half-decent kids' books than are listed here, but you've probably heard of The Gruffalo and honestly I'm not even convinced it's that good.
• What the hell was Beatrix Potter smoking when she wrote this? - Pigling Bland.
• Least funny "humour" book - The Famous Five Escape Brexit Island.
• Most surprisingly profound - The Little Book of Colour.
• Overall most mind-expanding - A Secret History of Christianity.
• Discworld novels I'm not going to choose between - Thief of Time & The Truth.
• Also I just love the Gaunt's Ghosts series; see The Warmaster and Anarch.
• Best non-sci-fi or fantasy novel - Of Mice and Men. Although Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine gets a solid honourable second-place.

In terms of the reading more stuff written by people who aren't just white males, I think I'm doing a lot better this year - though still need to keep pushing, as I've done a survey of my personal library and it's not even remotely representative of even Anglophone writers, let alone the whole world repository of human wisdom. We can all dream. But can we really dream?

   That's it from me for now - I'll be keeping up the blog efforts on into the foreseeable future, so expect the first book dump of 2020 to land here immanently.

   Happy new year folks

   Peace & love

   Isaac Stovell