My Top 10 Substack Posts So Far This Year
The header photo for this post is a picture I took in our garden, which is tenderly cultivated by my husband. If you want to see more, check out his Instagram, The Rambling Rectory.
I don’t pay a ton of attention to how many views my posts get, other than out of curiosity. It’s interesting to see which posts get more email opens, which posts have more views coming directly from Substack, etc. I don’t let this impact what I wrote about too much, because my goal with my Substack has always been to write about whatever the heck I feel like I want to write about.
I do, however, care about the people who have chosen to read my posts and so I have started to look back over these first six months of data and see which kinds of posts are getting a lot of views. The two main categories with the most views are, not surprising, the kinds of posts I love to write: personal stories and book roundups.
Here are the 10 posts I’ve written that have gotten the most views in my first six months, just in case you missed them!
Book Roundups
The post below is my top post of all time, with more than 1000 views!
my 15 favorite spiritual formation and devotional reads from 2024
**This post now contains only 14 books, as I have removed a book I had recommended by Dane Ortlund. While it grieves me very much, after reading multiple articles and a report from the Illinois Human Rights Commission, the evidence seems to point to spiritually abusive behavior on his part.
Here are some other book roundups people have enjoyed:
My 20 Favorite Nonfiction Books
If you’re looking for other lists of nonfiction books I’ve liked, here are a few:
Chelsey's 20 Favorite Fiction Books from the Last 10 Years
I have a difficult relationship with fiction books. I enjoy fiction and losing myself in another world. But in a world where it seems like just about anything can get published, there are an awful lot of terrible fiction books out there. The problem is that you don’t always know how bad they are until you’re halfway through them. I have no problem aband…
Chelsey's 2025 Fiction Summer Reading Guide
I’ve seen a bunch of fun summer reading guides on Substack recently, and I wish I had thought about this before now so that I could have made a bigger and more comprehensive summer reading guide. But it’s already summer, and I know many people are about to be going on vacation and maybe hoping to bring along a good book.
10 Nonfiction Books I Loved in 2024
In any given year, I end up reading about 50% fiction and 50% nonfiction. I don’t try to do this; it’s just what ends up happening. I suspect it’s because I go back and forth between bingeing several fiction books, usually by the same author, and then I find a nonfiction book and read a few books on that topic. Sometimes I’ll read a fiction book based o…
10 books that might help if you feel stuck
What do I mean by stuck? Maybe you’ve just been through something really hard and you’re trying to get back to your previous level of normal. Maybe you’ve noticed areas in your life where you’re slowly drifting into a place you don’t want to go. Maybe your house is a mess and you don’t know where to start to give it some sense of order. Perhaps it’s jus…
Personal Essays
The post below is my most-viewed personal essay, probably because I chose a somewhat clickbait title (although it is a true representation of what the post is about).
the night in the psych ward
What you don’t understand until you experience it yourself is that the process of entering the psychiatric ward makes you feel like you have done something wrong. The attendant asked me to hand over any personal items, which turned out to be only my wedding and engagement rings and my phone. I took off my shoes. She patted me down to make sure I didn’t …
Here’s another personal essay with a lot of views:
why I still love the church
I am five years old. I open the door to the church library, one of many rooms in a long line of rooms with white cinder block walls. The church librarian, a grandmotherly woman, smiles when she sees me. She stands up and reaches into a tall cabinet and pulls something out. It is a VHS copy of
Miscellaneous
There are two other posts that don’t fit into either category that have also done well, and they are what I think could be considered “listicles.” I’m a sucker for these kinds of posts, too.
Chelsey's 39 Favorite Things
Tomorrow I’ll be 39 years old. I decided to channel Oprah and share my 39 favorite things. That is where my similarities to Oprah end as I cannot afford to bless you all with one of each of these, although I hope maybe you’ll think about trying some and seeing what kind of mileage you get. Some of these are new finds; some are old finds; some I truly co…
Chelsey's Depression Toolkit
I have a vivid memory of sitting at the desk in my bedroom. The walls were painted purple and there was a floral wallpaper border around the top of the walls. I was 15 or 16 years old. My Bible was open on the desk before me, and I wept as I read Psalm 25 over and over again.
If you’re a regular reader, I’d love to know if there are any other posts you personally enjoyed that you’d like to see more of. I know that going by number of views doesn’t really measure the impact of a post, and hearing from you is a true joy for me.
Keep writing Chelsea, it’s a gift! -Tara