The best new books I’ve read in the last month are
- (5.0) How to Begin When Your World is Ending: A Spiritual Field Guide to Joy Despite Everything by Molly Phinney Baskette (Broadleaf Books, 2022)
- (4.5) The Magi: Who They Were, How They’ve Been Remembered, and Why They Still Fascinate by Eric Vanden Eykel (Fortress Press, 2022)
- (4.5) The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy by Anand Giridharadas (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022)
- (4.5) Care: How People of Faith Can Respond to Our Broken Health System by G. Scott Morris (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2022)
- (4.0) We Are Not Okay: Elegy for a Broken America Memoir in Essays by Christian Livermore (Indie Blue Publishing, 2022)
- (4.0) Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way Toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace by Valerie Brown (Broadleaf Books, 2022)
- (4.0) Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz (Workman Publishing, 2022)
- (3.5) God Is by Mallory Wyckoff (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2022)
How to Begin
Molly Phinney Baskette is an ordained United Church of Christ pastor who currently serves as Senior Minister of First Church Berkeley UCC in Berkeley, California. She’s also a prolific author. Her work as a solo author includes Real Good Church: How Our Church Came Back from the Dead and Yours Can Too (recommended here on So What Faith in August 2014) and Standing Naked Before God: The Art of Public Confession (2015). She’s also the he co-author of three additional books and a regular contributor of shorter form pieces as a member of the UCC Stillspeaking Writers’ Group.
Baskette writes about what she knows best: her own life. Potential readers should be warned she’s incredibly frank, refreshingly authentic, and consistently faith-centered. Opening the book is an invitation to journey through Baskette’s biggest challenges (personal: cancer and professional: pastoring a congregation as its building is consumed by fire and through years of rebuilding), and to be reminded of God’s presence in the midst of one’s own difficult days. Whether you are facing a Job-like series of calamities or simply know the complexity of living life well in the midst of a rapidly changing world, you’ll find this book points your toward hope while reassuring you there are ways to find joy in the midst of every situation.