A Book List

7 Books that Might be Just Right for Right Now

I wanted to share something a little different today in the form of a book list!

This has been a good few months for new books, and I know we can’t read it all, so here’s how this book list works: for each title, I thought about why that book might just right for right now, and if that resonates with you, there are links to check them out further.

I’ve seen how slowing down with a book, and letting it wrap around our minds, hearts, personal experiences can be really helpful. When it comes to having kids in our lives, this personal practice seeps out for them in good ways, so even though this isn’t our usual, I thought it could be fun and helpful.

So, in no particular order, a book list:

Parenting the Spicy One by Mary Van Geffen

If your kid is spirited, strong, and spicy, and you’d like someone on your team who can help you parent well and wisely while wanting that kid to shine, then Mary Van Geffen’s Parenting the Spicy One could be just right for right now. The book takes Mary’s key guidance after years coaching parents whose kids feel big and show up big and offers it in a clear layout with loads of honesty.

Love Like a Mother by Elizabeth Berget

If you want the maternal images of God to wrap around you like a cozy blanket (or fight for you like a bear), or if you’ve not had the chance to explore the ways the Bible speaks of God in motherly terms, then Love Like a Mother by Elizabeth Berget might be just right for right now.

Years ago, I preached a sermon on God as Mother, simply unpacking the ways the Bible spoke of God. When that church got a crabby email (from someone who didn’t even listen to it) they forwarded it to me, a lower level staffer, rather than just delete it or defend it (they’d asked for that sermon!) I wanted some God is a mother bear energy then.

The book is far more than a theological or biblical exploration; it’s an invitation to receive God’s love and to know God better.

Growing up Saved by Kristen LaValley

If you can still sing Jesus Freak, wore a WWJD bracelet (the first time around, because they’re back now?!), and never missed See You at the Pole, and more importantly, if you’ve ever felt something like: is faith supposed to be heavy and hard, or am I missing something? then Kristen LaValley’s Growing Up Saved might be just right for right now.

As Kristen shared her story, I found the specificity and storytelling invited me in, not just to her story, but my own. Most importantly, it invites us to both reckon with and release the weight of thinking faith is meant to make us miserable (for Jesus).

The Place Between Our Pains by KJ Ramsey

If you’re wanting to read something honest, then perhaps a well written, staunchly un-Christianese memoir asking “is joy still possible—even in inescapable pain?” is just right for right now. KJ’s debut memoir, The Place Between Our Pains, shares her story of navigating a stark and sudden shift from ‘managing chronic illness is going well enough to get adventuring’ to ‘something newly terrible is attacking my body and uncertainly now marks everything…again’. And yet, hope remains, love is strong, and joy can live on.

Getting Through What You’re Going Through by Tanner Olsen and In the Low by Scott Erickson

If you are longing for artful words to name the sorrow of the moment—and you may feel that sorry because of personal circumstances or simply because the headlines hit hard—these books of poetry are just right for right now.

Forgive what I’m about to say, or raise your hand if you’re like me, but one gift poetry gives me in hards times is brevity. I find that creates space for me to think and feel that a sea of words does not.

Here’s one of my favorites from Tanner’s collection:

Counterweights by Shannan Martin

Along similar lines, perhaps you’d like a practical practice that helps you actually live, and move, and do the things in this year of our Lord 2026. You also know the way to keep going that isn’t ‘tune out’, ‘just suck it up’, or ‘be fueled by rage’. So Counterweights might be just right for right now. Because yes, so much is heavy, so Shannan explores how the lighter things, the joyful things, and the small good things act as counterweights to all that heaviness. She invites us to notice goodness and let counterweights help us keep showing up as good neighbors and lovers of justice.

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Have you read anything that was just right for right now? Share it in the comments!