91 books like Joni

Set in Holland during WWII, this autobiography gives an up close and personal look at life in a German concentration camp.

The vivid descriptions of the horrid living conditions and prevailing illnesses made me feel like I was there. Most memorable was the discussion of the flea-infested straw bedding and the notion of being thankful for the fleas. The author and her sister were devout Christians, but why be thankful for fleas? However, the guards left the women alone because of the fleas.

I will also always remember how the author was given a small bottle of liquid vitamin D and how she never hesitated to share it with the sick, yet it never ran dry. She makes it clear this was God’s work. 

This is the best missionary autobiography I have ever read.

In These Strange Ashes Elisabeth Elliot is so brutally honest about being a missionary. She complains about humidity and wrinkled clothes. She endures loneliness and times of deep discouragement in the jungles of Ecuador. And the ending! I won’t spoil it.

While I’ve read other books by Elliot, including her famous memoir about losing her husband Jim, this one stayed with me. It asks, why do we serve God? What happens when the result is not stellar? Does it mean we failed? I wasn’t eager to sign up for a trip to the jungle after reading her story, but it helped me see my life from a new perspective.

As a young girl, I loved missionary stories about women like Gladys Aylward who left their comfortable homes and traveled to remote countries to tell people about Jesus.

In 1930, Gladys traveled across Siberia by train to a remote town in northwest China. There, as an independent missionary, she shared God’s love and stood up against time-honored traditions that were harming young girls. This book is full of adventure, and doesn’t shrink from stomach-wrenching details.

I’ll never forget the vivid descriptions of foot-binding, and how Gladys fearlessly confronted and corrected this painful procedure, no doubt impacting lives forever.

In the late 1800s, at age 28, Amy Carmichael went to India as a missionary, compelled to stay by the children she adopted as her own.

I love that Amy was stubbornly unconventional. Unlike other missionaries of her time, she adopted the cultural dress of saris and sandals, and lived among the people she served. She stood up against local practice to rescue children and though she had no children of her own became a mother to many.

Amy was so captivated by her love for India its people that she stayed there for 55 years, writing 35 books. There is something raw and honest about Amy’s story that gave me a passion for missions.

Between suffering from polio as a child, post-polio syndrome as an adult, betrayal, the loss of a son, and a husband who left soon after – Vaneetha Risner has endured unimaginable suffering. For that reason, her honest words about suffering have left an incredible impact on me as I’ve endured my own. She doesn’t “preach” to us as if we need to get our act together, but she writes with compassion, honesty, and comfort as one who’s been there. Despite having every reason to be angry and bitter at the people who have hurt her and God himself, she is full of wisdom, grace, and joy, and shares about the hope she has that has enabled her to endure. 

With Pete Greig’s How to Pray, the subtitle says it all: A Simple Guide for Normal People. Greig is a worldwide authority on prayer, but as a self-described “scruffy Brit,” he writes in a way that makes prayer both appealing and accessible. With disarming humor and candor, Greig addresses questions we’ve all asked, from why God heals some people but not others (Greig’s wife, for example, suffers severe epilepsy) to whether or not it’s okay to pray for a parking space. (Spoiler alert:  Greig says yes to parking place prayers, since doing so equips us to live life with greater gratitude. Love that.) I have more than two dozen well-loved books about prayer on my shelf, but How to Pray might be my favorite. It is, to borrow a word from the Brits, “brilliant.”

Huber is an author and teacher whom I adore, and I am lucky enough to call friend and mentor, but her writing will make everyone fall in love with her.

Heartfelt, lyrical, brutally honest, and funny, this collection of essays will give you new insight into what it means to live in chronic pain. She writes in a way that makes illness and pain itself almost beautiful. If you want poetic writing, a compelling narrative, and an experimental approach to understanding the pain that is an inextricable part of life for some of us, this book is for you.

This book at times feels like poetry and written with such profundity.

Grappling with deep physical pain, Jen Soriano, a daughter of a neurosurgeon, comes upon a hard truth about the origins of her physical pain; a history of generational trauma and her family’s absorption of a painful history of colonization of the Phillipines.

This poignant memoir helped me understand, at a personal level, how the body starts to give up when we carry the emotional wounds of the past, how neurodivergence intersects with historical trauma, and reminds us that freedom from pain is indeed possible.

As a trauma psychologist, it was both humbling and enlightening to receive the author’s personal accounts of intergenerational trauma and intergenerational healing.

McGreal’s book fell a bit under the radar, but in my mind, it’s one of the best books of reportage on the opioid epidemic. As a reporter for The Guardian, McGreal covered the drug crisis for years. American Overdose connects all the dots that caused it. The book starts out, “Even as a teenager, Henry Vinson wanted to be an undertaker,” then takes flight from the hollows of West Virginia to the halls of Congress. McGreal is a tenacious reporter and a superb writer. He’s one of the first reporters to lay bare the Food and Drug Administration’s cozy relationship with Purdue Pharma. And he introduces readers to former DEA agent Joe Rannazzisi, who tried to put the brakes on massive shipments of painkillers to small towns across America, but was forced to step aside after Big Pharma complained about him to powerful U.S. lawmakers. The story builds from… show more.

Licensed Counselor Esther Smith masterfully offers an impressive Christian devotional for chronic illness sufferers that takes only a few minutes per day to read. I find myself referring back to it for strength, wisdom, and biblical insights. The chapter for each day includes a Bible verse pertaining to a topic, a faith-based discussion, reflection questions, and suggested actions.   

There is so much to love about this book: it is practical, relatable, quick and easy to read, and comforting.