Amidst all that I have read, re-read, listened to and watched during this past year, I am especially grateful for having read, re-read, listened to, and watched the following:

Books

Biblical Studies

• Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People by Mark S. Kinzer
• The Gospel of John: A Commentary by Frederick Dale Bruner
• Apocalypticism in the Bible and Its World: A Comprehensive Introduction by Frederick J. Murphy
• Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary by Shalom M. Paul

Biography

• Hammarskjold: A Life by Roger Lipsey [I blogged about this here, here and here]
• Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
• Rudolf Bultmann: a Biography by Konrad Hammann
• George MacKay Brown: The Wound and the Gift by Ron Ferguson
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Cooking

• Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi
• Rick Stein’s India by Rick Stein
• Riverstone Kitchen Cookbook by Bevan Smith
• The Kitchen Diaries II: A Year of Simple Suppers by Nigel Slater

Fiction

• Montana 1948: A Novel by Larry Watson
• Ransom: A Novel by David Malouf
• Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
• The Island of the Women and Other Stories by George Mackay Brown
• The Golden Bird by George Mackay Brown
• Time in a Red Coat by George Mackay Brown
• Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
• Greenvoe by George Mackay Brown
• Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes
• Stoner by John Williams

History

• Black Pioneers: How Aboriginal and Islander People Helped Build Australia by Henry Reynolds
• The Rhetoric of the Reformation by Peter Matheson
• Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
• The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society by Brad S. Gregory
• Letters from Hamnavoe by George Mackay Brown
• Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century by Paul Mojzes
• Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit

Philosophy

• Tradition and Dissent by Davis McCaughey
• Uncommon Friendships: An Amicable History of Modern Religious Thought by William Young
• George Mackay Brown and the Philosophy of Community by Timothy C. Baker
• Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt
• The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt
• Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt
• Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
• Susan Sontag: Essays of the 1960s & 70s by Susan Sontag
• Waiting for God by Simone Weil

Poetry

• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (trans. by Clive James) [I blogged about this here]
• The Collected Poems of George Mackay Brown edited by Archie Bevan & Brian Murray
• The Book of my Enemy: Collected Verse 1958–2003 by Clive James
• A Word In My Mouth: Selected Spiritual Poems by Robert Cording

Theology

• The Word of God and Theology by Karl Barth (new edition by Amy Marga)
• Faith in the Public Square by Rowan Williams
• Reformed and Ecumenical: On Being Reformed in Ecumenical Encounters edited by Christine Lienemann-Perrin, Hendrik M. Vroom and Michael Weinrich
• Kierkegaard and Theology by Murray Rae
• God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ by Sarah Coakley
• Furthering Humanity: A Theology of Culture by Timothy J. Gorringe
• The Kenotic Trajectory of the Church in Donald MacKinnon’s Theology: From Galilee to Jerusalem to Galilee by Timothy G. Connor

Music

• 13 Songs You May or May Not Have Heard Before by Richard Shindell
• American Kid by Patty Griffin
• Hill of Thieves by Cara Dillon
• Highway by Holly Williams
• The Low Highway by Steve Earle
• Recollection by K.D. Lang
• Ashes & Roses by Mary-Chapin Carpenter
• Sing The Delta by Iris Dement
• Spring & Fall by Paul Kelly
• Morten Lauridsen: Lux Aeterna by Paul Salamunovich and the Los Angeles Master Chorale
• The Complete Black Lion and Vogue Recordings of Thelonious Monk by Thelonious Monk
• Once I Was An Eagle by Laura Marling

Films

• We Need to Talk About Kevin
• La Migliore Offerta
• Amour
• Hannah Arendt
• The War You Don’t See
• Rain of the Children
• Africa
• The Orphanage
• Le Chat du Rabbin
• Derek
• Lincoln
• Eric Bogle: Live at Stonyfell Winery
• Another Earth
• Les Misérables
• Rick Stein’s India
• The Lost World of Mr Hardy

I am equally grateful to those readers of this blog, and to those fellow wayfarers in blogdom, who have recommended some of these gems.

I am grateful too that this year has seen the birth of three books that I have either written or edited – Hallowed Be Thy Name: The Sanctification of All in the Soteriology of P. T. Forsyth, Descending on Humanity and Intervening in History: Notes from the Pulpit Ministry of P. T. Forsyth, and, most recently, ‘Tikkun Olam’ To Mend the World: A Confluence of Theology and the Arts. I hope that each of these prove beneficial – and rollicking good fun – for those who take up and read them.

As 2013 approaches expiration, I wish to sincerely thank readers of Per Crucem ad Lucem for stopping by, for reading my periphrastic prose, for offering comment (both online and via email), and for subscribing to and linking to posts. I hope that you have been blessed by what and by who you have encountered here, and I look forward to continuing a further leg or two of the pilgrimage with you. Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou ki a koutou katoa.