One of my favourite blog posts to be written is the annual Booker Prize post about the best books I've come across and read this year - the feast of nerdiness. I am writing it early this year as there are still about three weeks left of 2016. But I will not add any new books to my reading list in December for the simple reason of having started a massive 660 page book yesterday which will last, I'm sure, way into the new year. It's Jung Chang's book Wild Swans that I'm currently reading - a monumental family story which really tells the history of China - a mysterious and troubled country - throughout the 20th century. Might sound boring but is actually breathtakingly interesting.

The other reason books are on my mind these days is that I've already received five books as an early Christmas present and it has made my heart very glad. I met up, very briefly, with K. last week who came from Newbold and brought me a book gift from Dr A. N. - four books, to be exact. I swallowed the first one of those just this past weekend - Simone Schwarz-Bart's novel The Bridge of Beyond which tells, in a very poetic way, a tale of slavery, happiness and misery and hope on the island of Guadeloupe, and about mighty women who carry the weight of the world on their broad shoulders. It made me tear up for a couple of times, it was so touching. Plus I met up with J. for some mentoring the other week and she too gave me a book as a Christmas gift. This one is waiting for its turn. So. Merry Christmas. :)

And this is the reading statistics - 35 books in 2016. I haven't counted the pages - maybe I should start doing it - but considering the size of the books I hardly think I've ever read more than I did this year. And here are my five favourite books out of these 35 in a random order.

1. Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Landfalls. It's the last book of his epic travel trilogy that describes his journey in the footsteps of a medieval Muslim traveler Ibn Battutah. The whole trilogy is a gem, it doesn't matter whether you are into travel books or not, these books are a pure pleasure. The language he uses, the historical knowledge behind everything, the descriptions and dialogues both serious and hilarious... Mackintosh-Smith masters writing on all levels. When I was nearing the end of the third book, I read slower and slower because I just didn't want the book and the journey to end. It was that good. And then, when the book finally did end, I went on Amazon to see what other books he's written and when I found only one more book (about his travels in Yemen) I sort of got mad. How dare you? How dare you write so little? Then I had to remind myself that those Battutah travels took him ten years, and then all the years he wrote this trilogy, phew, man, with those books he has already done and given more than many others do and give in their lifetime. So I calmed down and forgave him for writing so little.

2. Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ. Sometimes you need to go back to the basics.

3. Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark. It is by far the best sermon collection I have ever read. This book came to me sometime in February, I think. I was going through a terrible time in my life at the time and I sort of cried my way through this book. I couldn't read more than one or two sermons each day, they were that good and that heavy. I read one and then I had to put down the book and let the message really sink in. And sometimes, when I had come across an especially good thought, I just had to share it with someone and so it was that I bombed J. with paragraphs and sentences from Buechner's sermons and he very kindly endured it and in the end put the book on his 'got to read it one day' list. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy if I heard these sermons preached in a pulpit though, I think Buechner is much more a writer rather than a preacher. They are for eyes more than for ears. You need to read those sermons. And then read again. Underline some paragraphs. Memorise some sentences. And you need to have this book on your book shelf. It is a real treasure, a book to go back to again and again. I'm glad this book found its way to me at the right moment, very glad indeed.

4. Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath. The SNDT of this book is extremely simple, really - what you consider an advantage may end up being a disadventage instead, and what you consider a disadvantage may and up being your advantage instead. Simple idea, simple stories all throughout this book. But it changed something deep inside me. As I read this acclaimed book (in the youth camp last summer), I started to think about my own life, my own advantages and my own disadvantages, the things life has thrown at me, things I think have the power to lift me up or put me down, and some things started to shift slowly. It doesn't happen often that a book does it. But this one did. I ended up reassessing quite a few things in my life. The biggest thing probably was my surprise when I realised that the combination of being a woman and being a pastor in the Adventist church - what a dreadful combination! - which I had always seen as a massive disadvantage I ended up seeing as one of my main strengths and advantages in life. There are some things in this combination that put me in a unique position and which I wouldn't change for anything. Thanks, Malcolm! What else could I say.

5. Annie Dillard, The Abundance. Every ordinary thing she writes about becomes extraordinary. There's awe everywhere. Bauty and grace. Meaning. If I were a writer, I'd like to write like her.