Books I've Read

Social media used to be a fun place to hang out. There were jokes, memes, banter. I even learned things from time to time. Now, it's filled with disagreement. I can't even look at it. If anyone knows how to navigate such disagreement without disengaging, it is Gavin Ortlund. I have seen close-up how he approaches conversations with those of differing views. His YouTube channel, Truth Unites, is a master class in this area. If you want to know how to grow closer to someone while disagreeing with them (and who doesn't need that?!), this book will help you. It's such an important book for our day--relevant, practical, and pastoral.

What happened to the gospel-centered movement? That's what Jared Wilson tackles in this book, and I'm not sure there is a better person to do it. Jared has been beating the gospel-centered drum for as long as I've known him, which is, at this point, a very long time. What better message do we have to offer the world than the gospel of Jesus Christ? Why drift from that message and only that message? So many other things demand attention and try to get us to hop on the hobby horse, but the gospel is the only thing big enough to be the one main thing of any church, any community, and life.

Do you wish you had a book that you could give to someone who is at rock bottom that doesn't offer 7 steps to climb out? Something that doesn't include any trite platitudes that would make you wince? Something that just offers Jesus, the friend of sinners and sufferers, the One who knows what rock bottom is like and is there with his everlasting arms to receive you when you get there? Well, this is that book. It's classic Ray Ortlund. It's comforting. Relatable. Worshipful. Encouraging. Needed in this broken world. It's short, too, which is what someone at rock bottom needs.

Tim Keller is one of the most formative voices in my Christian life. So it was a joy to read this book about Keller's own Christian life. It's filled with insights and encouragements—so many that you can't catch them all with one reading. This is one I will visit often.

Some books are great because they make you think about what could be, and this book did that for me. I live in a big city, Nashville, that doesn't have a seminary. It's a shame that we don't. Yes, we have remote campuses and things like that, but not a full on seminary. Well, this book helped me see there might be another option. God has used study centers to grow Christians for decades. Maybe he wants to do that here in Nashville too. Maybe I can be a part of it. Maybe you can too.

I love books like this. Partly because it's a great debate partner--is that guy really one of the best 100 players ever? It's a fun read. Not much thinking necessary. Like a bunch of buddies sitting around making their top player ever list. Endlessly fascinating.

The Nicene Creed is so important to our faith, and on this 1500 anniversary of it, DeYoung gives us a great little book reminding us of the great importance.

Sometimes I read books that, when I tell people I'm reading them, just sound weird. This is one of those. Have you ever wanted to read a book about plants? I didn't either, but then I picked this one up and I was fascinated. God's creation is just unbelievably cool. The way he created this world is, literally, awesome. Plants are such a big part of this world and modern people spend so little time thinking about them, paying attention to them, or even growing and cultivating them. But they are vital to our life. They are also so, so cool. It's almost like they have a brain, senses like us, maybe even emotions! That's what this book explores. Is the grass outside your window more than just carpet? I just might be.

Keller's latest comes posthumously, based on a sermon series about sin. Perhaps not the most popular topic, the doctrine of sin is vitally important to understanding our world and how the gospel of Christ makes a difference. This is classic Keller, and it made me so happy to read a book with his name on it again. I've read or listened to some of these sermons before, but to have it all compiled into a book like this gives the world yet another great resource.

Martin Luther is not only one of the most important people in history, but also one of the most fascinating. By the end, he said some things I wish he didn't in ways I wish he hadn't, but he also said some things no one else could say in quite the same way. We know Luther as the great Reformer--that courageous and bold man that stood against the Catholic Church and her indulgences and for salvation through faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone. But Luther was also a pastor. A good one. He cared about people. The Reformation happened because he cared about people. He couldn't stand to see his parishioners believing their salvation hinged on such things as indulgences paid. So he pastored people closely and carefully, and counseled people all the time. Kellemen's gift to us in this book is his distillation of Luther's counsel. It's a book you can't read once, because we don't live life all at once. It's one I plan to revisit often.

Like the book on plants, here is another book that sounds weird when you tell people you're reading it. It's about a duck woman on the islands of Norway. Yes, a duck woman in Norway. Rebanks is a great nature writer, and in his latest, he takes us away from his English fell-land and into the small but important life of a Norwegian woman who spends her days caring for ducks. Like Rebanks's family, this woman's ancestors passed down a certain life--one caring for ducks that come to nest for a few weeks on islands. They harvested the feathers to make down blankets and such. It sounds like an odd thing to write a book about, but it's less about the ins and outs of duck-caring and more about the way life takes us to surprising places, and how the small things are actually the big things, how a life devoted to caring for other things ends up being a life that others care about knowing. Rebanks is a great writer, and this is a great book. It might be my favorite I read this year.

Zorrie is a novel that came out in 2021 and became a finalist for the National Book Award. It's deserving of that honor. I read this over Thanksgiving break, and found myself up at night lingering over the story--not because it's remarkable but because it's ordinary. It's the story of one woman's life in rural Indiana. As with all small towns, everyone is connected, and everyone matters. At times, it's heart-wrenching, because, at times, life is heart-wrenching. But overall, it's a beautiful story of one life in one town, and such stories captivate us because no matter who it is or where they live, there is something about everyone's story that is also our story. Hunt's writing is wonderful. There is a simplicity and brevity to the book that pushes the story along so that we don't get bogged down in every detail. Yet there were times I wanted more. I didn't want the story to progress so rapidly. Life is like that sometimes too, isn't it? Some days, we wish it would slow down. Some days, we wish never happened. Some days never end because the events never leave you. And at the end of our life, we have a number of days spent in a number of ways--a whole life. And life, fictional or not, is beautiful.

David McCullough has been gone for a few years now, so it was great to hear some things he'd written that didn't make it into any of his many books. McCullough was a great historian, and a great writer. It's the writing aspect of this book that I loved so much. It's a book about writing, even though it's a book about history. McCullough wrote a lot about writing even as he went about writing. He loved it. He considered it the best job in the world. He couldn't wait to get to work every day. No wonder his books sold so well. People love a work that's been loved into creation. This is a short book with short essays. It gives us another chance to hear from one of America's great historians--this time more about himself than anyone else.

I'm not sure I've read a more well-written book, and I couldn't leave it off my best of list. I'm also not sure I love the story. Stoner is a man too stoic to be likable yet too realistic to be unfamiliar. He's a hero of the ordinary—a man who wanted more than life would give him, who didn't know how to articulate what his heart wanted, though his very occupation was steeped in literature. He lived a disappointed and disappointing life that, by the end of it, had a beauty that made it all worth it. The question we're left with at the end is Stoner's question to himself, "What did I expect?" In life, that's the question we are so often left with. As a Christian, this story is too steeped in stoicism for it to ring true to my heart, but there is an Ecclesiastes-ish wisdom in it. In the end, what is there to a life? For many, it's the moments along the way, the book that was written, the love that was had, the friends that were made. Does all that ultimately mean anything? Well, what do you expect? Stoner got what life could give him and no more. For those without God, that's the best they can hope for. But in Christ the answer is different. What do we expect? Far more than this life can give us. This is the kind of book that can, with the right focus, lift your eyes to the One who can fulfill the desires of your heart.

Jamieson's latest wont the Christianity Today book award, and for good reason. Ecclesiastes is one of the most difficult to understand books in the Bible, but one of the most rewarding when understood rightly. Jamieson takes us inside the mind of the Preacher of Ecclesiastes and the wisdom he shares. This is a book well-worth your time that will help you grow in the Lord and in wisdom.

We live in an age of technology and convenience. Our digital lives take up so much time and space that we often skip across the surface on the way to the next thing. But what do we miss if we don’t engage with others as deeply as we could? What if we actually knew someone? What if our deep need to be known was commonplace? David Brooks asks similar questions. What should we ask when in conversation with others? What should we pay attention to? Lean into? Learn from? Knowing how to know people takes some work, especially these days. What if we spent the next year learning how to get to know others and, in turn, letting people get to know us? What would our future look like? This book could help with that. And, as an added bonus, which even Brooks doesn’t fully realize, this is exactly the kind of life God intends for us!

Oh, I adore a good baseball book. If that good baseball book is written by a great writer, well, that’s about as good as a book gets. Roger Kahn is a great writer, and he knows baseball. The Boys of Summer is Kahn’s classic book about the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s, written by a man who loved the team and the players. He covered them early in his career, and as they all grew and separated, Kahn reconnected with each of them to see how life turned out. It contains nostalgic recollections, life advice, baseball glory, and post-baseball struggles. From Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier to the classic 1955 World Series win against the mighty Yankees, this book will take you deep into mid-century baseball—baseball as it is in every boy’s memory, whether you lived through those years or not. Oh, how i wish the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and Ebbets field was still standing!

Piper’s book is part of the Love Your Church series published by The Good Book Company. I think it’s the best of the series. I have the privilege of knowing Barnabas. He is one of my pastors at Immanuel Church. I don’t think my knowing him influences this book’s position on my list other than the fact that I feel its truths deeper for knowing him. It is true, nonetheless. Immanuel Church, where Piper serves, is the best church I know for experiencing Christian belonging. We call it gospel culture. If you want to taste what that is, this book is for you. Who doesn’t need a greater sense of belonging? That deep desire can be satisfied, and this book can help you.

Here is a book on many “Best of” lists this year, and rightly so. Jonathan Haidt sounds the alarm on what is happening with our children. Technology is a great gift and creates many wonderful opportunities, but we can’t let it rule us. The consequences are dire. Mental health among children and teens nose-dived in the early 2010s—right around the rise of social media and smartphone usage among that same group. Play-based childhoods are fading, and technology is filling the gaps. Children are more distracted, less rested, and more connected, but they are more troubled than ever. Anxiety is at a high point. Haidt offers not only the data supporting his thesis but also some potential solutions. This is a book well worth your consideration.

Here’s a good rule to live by: if Leif Enger writes it, you should read it. Enger has the ability to combine intriguing adventure and profound emotion together in ways few authors can. I Cheerfully Refuse is a story of a man who has loved and lost much refusing to fall into the pit of despair. Enger’s writing is beautiful. His stories are gripping. Again, if he writes it, read it. I think every book I’ve read by him ends up on my best of list.

Here is a book that qualifies in the category of “great author, regardless of the subject.” I’ve read Goodwin on presidents, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and now on her marriage to Dick Goodwin. Dick was on JFK’s team as he prepared for a presidential run. His speechwriting was monumental during the 1960s, and this book is largely a history. It was written by someone who was not only heavily involved in the major political lives at the time but was married to someone who was also. It’s a story of a marriage that lasted more than 40 years, written based on letters and diaries revisited long after their writing—a time filled in with wise and profound reflection that can only come by age.

Another baseball book. This time, on the greatest baseball player to ever live. Sure, you can argue other players have come along with equal talent, but I’m not sure I can buy an argument that anyone surpasses Ruth. Part of that is because of the way he changed the game, ushering in the live ball era where home runs ruled the game, but part of it is the personality behind the bat. Ruth was an all-time great with a personal and professional life that has kept him in the American consciousness for over 100 years. If, after that long, others in your field are still compared to you, you know you’ve reached the top. Biographies abound on Ruth, and this book isn’t novel in that regard. But Leavy's writing always feels fresh. She centers the story on a point in time and writes around it, bringing in the full history. That approach helps us feel as if we are at dinner with the subject, listening to old stories over the course of the evening, drawing us into the personality behind the lore.

It wouldn’t be a best-of-list without Jared making an appearance. Here is a book for writers about writing by one of the best writers around. What makes Jared’s books so good is not just what he writes about (mostly Jesus) but how he writes. There is a craft to it. Every word matters. The style says something about the subject. Good writing adorns the gospel, and no one does it better than Jared.

One of the great joys of 2024 was getting to know Gavin and his family. In doing so, I got an up-close look at the brilliance that is Gavin Ortlund. I don’t know anyone else who is doing what he does. His YouTube channel, Truth Unites, is outstanding. He defends Protestantism so well, with courage, intelligence, and great care. This book is a distillation of a lot of his YouTube content. It’s a heady read but a really great one.

Another Ortlund book! Ray and Jani were our dear friends when my wife and I were newly married. We learned so much from them about what a marriage should look like. We missed out on their parenting days with kids in the house, but we heard stories, and we saw the lives their children now live. We were impressed. This book is their attempt at coaching us parents on how to think about our family through the gospel lens. Your family matters to God. It is a divine strategy for blessing. Lean into it, and let this book help you.

Another great joy of 2024 was spending more time with my friend Sam. I don’t know anyone who uses illustrations to explain the gospel as well as he does. In this book, he helps us understand what it means to be united with Christ—a biblical reality that sits above all other realities in our relationship with God. Let Sam teach you what it means to be one with God, and rejoice in that glorious truth.

The NFL is the biggest sports league in the country. Nothing compares to it in terms of revenue earned, influence produced, and eyeballs attracted. How did it get that way? This book tells the story. If you want to know how the NFL grew from a cute little league barely making it to the behemoth it is today, this is it.

Speaking of football, Jos Posnanski takes that great American game and tells us stories about it in this wonderful book of memories and recollections. Posnanski is just like us—a fan. He happens to also be a great writer. You might have other moments you would include, but you can’t argue with the ones he highlights in this book.

Twenty-five years after The Tipping Point, Gladwell revisits the idea of social epidemics and why things become what they become, why places turn into what they are, and why people end up where they do, with a look at the darker side of tipping points. I listened to this one and would highly recommend that experience.

Maybe this is just a more professional attempt at fan fiction, but this book was fantastic. Percival Everett retells the story of Huck Finn through the eyes of Jim, the slave. It includes all the elements that made Twain’s original so good—all the adventure and comedy, but with a sober look at slavery. It’s more than just a straight retread from different eyes. It adds to and expands the story.

Vanhoozer’s latest is just excellent. It takes some focused attention, as all his works do, but it rewards. The premise is simple enough: essential principles for reading the Bible as Scripture everywhere, at all times, and by all Christians. His proposal is “mere” in that way. The impact is far from mere, however. If we read the Bible incorrectly, we make a major mistake. We need to right lens to see the light of the Bible. Vanhoozer helps us put those lenses on in this great book—my favorite book of theology this year.

I love to look at year-end book lists. This one showed up on NPR’s Books We Loved list, and it drew me in. I listened to this one. It’s short enough to listen to relatively quickly, and easier to keep up with the characters because there are so few. It’s a story, ultimately, of friendship between a man about to lose his house and land and the one sent to take it from him.

Here is a book I would normally never pick up. It’s a graphic novel, which isn’t my cup of tea. But this one is different. For one thing, it’s about two of my favorite authors: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Hendrix tells the story of their friendship from the early days of the first meeting to the Inklings and eventually to the strain their relationship faced near the end. It’s a wonderful story that keeps you turning the pages. It’s also beautifully written and illustrated. And I promise, especially for Lewis and Tolkien fans, the final chapter is worth the journey.

This little book helped me revel afresh in the genius of Jesus, who doesn’t often get the credit he deserves for being the smartest man to ever live. Using the story of the prodigal son, Williams explains how Jesus’s brilliance is on full display in a relatively short story about two sons and their father. If you liked how Tim Keller expounded and applied the parable in his great book The Prodigal God, this book will help you dive even deeper into the glory of that story.

Hisham Matar won a Pulitzer Prize for his book The Return in 2017. He’s back now with a new novel about a man named Khaled who leaves his home country of Libya to go to school in London. While there, he and a fellow countryman make a decision to attend a protest that changes their lives forever. Through a series of friendships, Khaled learns to live his unexpected life away from his family but close to friends he wouldn’t otherwise have had. Matar shows us what friendship can do and how it can create in us a good life even when the life we imagined is lost forever.

Another truism: if Fredrik Backman writes it, read it. That’s what I do. While waiting for his forthcoming novel in 2025, the great people at Amazon published this short story about how a frying pan changed a person’s life. It’s short, funny, moving, and well worth the little time it takes to read it.

Here is a true story that is stranger than fiction. It’s one of those fun reads that just boggles the mind. Here is the description from Amazon.<>pStéphane Bréitwieser is the most prolific art thief of all time. He pulled off more than 200 heists, often in crowded museums in broad daylight. His girlfriend served as his accomplice. His collection was worth an estimated $2 billion. He never sold a piece, displaying his stolen art in his attic bedroom. He felt like a king. Until everything came to a shocking end.

I love Westerns. My family laughs at that. I make them watch old John Wayne movies with me. Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone and all the spin-offs are so entertaining to me. Surprisingly, my four-year-old daughter is the child who shares this interest the most. She loves to watch “the bad guys” receive their outlaw justice. I don’t have a cowboy hat because, living in Nashville, I couldn’t wear one and not look like a tourist, but if I lived almost anywhere else, I’d wear one regularly. My family owns a 350-acre farm with about a hundred head of cattle. We have a farm hand who looks after them and, honestly, he has my dream job. Instead, I read and watch Westerns. Thankfully, the Western has had a long, glorious run as a genre, and I don’t think it’ll die anytime soon. The Sisters Brothers was one of the first books I read in 2023, and it was one of my favorites. It’s not a typical Western. It includes far more humor than most. The story is 100% Western, though. It’s plenty violent. It has the good guys and the bad guys, and it’s hard to tell who is who most of the time. If you’re looking for an entertaining novel, Western or not, this one will scratch that itch.

Christopher Watkin’s Biblical Critical Theory is the best book I read this year. I’ve recommended it to several people, and I plan to revisit it often. It’s a big book, but it doesn’t feel like it to me. Reading it, I didn’t want it to end. I wished it kept on exegeting our modern culture for a thousand more pages. A lot of people might be turned off by the title, thinking it’s some woke thing. It’s not. Watkin helps us see that what we think we know about modern life and culture finds its grounding and reality in the Bible. The scriptures help us understand everything, and with Watkin’s guidance, we can start to understand that in new ways. If you’re looking for a book that helps you understand our world through the eyes of the Bible, this is the book for you. Don’t be intimidated by its size or title. Instead, dive in head first. You’ll come out wiser than before.

There isn’t enough space to write about Tim Keller’s influence on me. I wrote a little about it on the day he died. I was really looking forward to Colin Hansen’s “biography” of Keller since I first heard about it some time last year. I put biography in quotes because it’s not the kind of biography you’re used to. Yes, it tells the story of Keller’s life, but it is, fittingly, not Keller-centric. Rather than focusing on Keller himself, we learn about the people who influenced him. We see how he became who he was and how he was formed spiritually and intellectually. It’s a brilliant idea. To understand a person, you have to understand the people that shaped them. From C.S. Lewis to Richard Lovelace to Edmond Clowney to Barbara Boyd, you get to see the minds that shaped the mind that touched the hearts of so many of us.

Rick Rubin’s career is a long list of greatest hits. He’s worked with everyone cool, Johnny Cash being, by far, the coolest. His creative instincts are matchless. So, when I saw he wrote a book about creativity, I knew I had to read it. The book is broken into chapters by what Rubin calls “78 Rules of Thought.” He aims to get inside the internal dialogue of the creator where self-doubt and insecurity run rampant. If you’re a creator (which Rubin says we all are), you will enjoy this book.

When I picked this book up, I thought, “What a great idea for a book!” Generations are a bit difficult to pin down. Where does one end and another begin? I’m on the front edge of Millennials, but i don’t seem to resonate with those of my generation that came after me. Does that mean I’m not one of them? Twenge helps us understand the differences between the generations. Starting with the Silent Generation, she takes us all the way up to babies today. Each generation has its own quirks. Each has a reaction to the ones before them. Some of these things are obvious. Some are more subtle. And for people like me, kind of in the middle between the boomers and the babies, this book helps me understand that large gap of people. Of course, not everyone falls into the stereotypical generational buckets, and Twenge knows that. But she helps us understand the cultural aspects that, in part, define each group. She takes us inside their thought life, their dreams and fears, their mindset and approach to life. If you want to better understand the people around you, this is a book that will get you there.

If it wins a Pulitzer, it’s probably a pretty good book. Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead is worthy of the prize. It’s the story of an Appalachian boy born into poverty in a culture addicted to opioids. His life is representative of so many like him. There are hopes and dreams that lift and inspire, and then there is the hard reality of life in the real world that brings you back down. Piggybacking off Charles Dickens, Kingsolver transports the Victorian novel to the American South, showing that times haven’t changed much, even if many years have passed. It’s a story that sticks with you, as all great novels should.

Taxi. Cheers. Frasier. Friends. Will and Grace. Those are classic TV shows. Those were all directed by James Burrows. To direct one of those would make a career. Burrows did all those and more. Sometimes, you just need a nice, light read about show business. I do, anyway. I like to sprinkle one in every now and then. I’m currently reading a book about The Big Bang Theory, which, as it just so happens, Burrows directed both pilots for (yes, there were two pilots, and they are vastly different from one another). Burrows tells his story of becoming a director and stumbling into all these great shows. Part of his luck was the right place, right time kind of thing working in the golden ages of television. Nowadays, with so many streaming options, it’s hard to imagine a show reaching the heights of any of Burrows’s greatest hits. That makes this book part nostalgia for those of us who remember those golden ages, and it’s a trip down memory lane told by someone on the inside that makes this book so wonderful. I’m sure you watched at least one of his shows. Who didn’t in the 80s and 90s? So, I’ll go out on a limb and say you’ll probably find something enjoyable in these pages.

If anything plagues our times, depression and anxiety do. It’s been well documented. I don’t know many people who don’t struggle with one or both to some degree. So what should a Christian think about it? There have been a few books written on the topic, and I’ve read several of them, but this one was the most helpful to me, perhaps because it does not come from our times. Sometimes, it’s yesterday that can speak life into today. Richard Baxter is best known for his book The Reformed Pastor. He was an insightful pastor himself who knew how to help the suffering. The collected wisdom of this book will help your soul sort things out if you suffer from depression or anxiety. It helped me.

Russell Moore is a gift to the Church. He’s been through the wringer, too. As a lifelong Southern Baptist pastor and convention leader, he was at the forefront of some of the toughest times the denomination ever faced. And he faced it as a Christian should, with full integrity and faith. But that doesn’t mean it was easy. It wasn’t at all, as he explains in this book. In his own voice, Moore helps us see the problems evangelical America faces and the path forward by God’s grace. If you feel a bit denominationally lost, this book will help you find your way. If you worry about the state of evangelicalism, this book will both affirm and comfort your worries. If you need a shot of reality, this book will give you the proper dose. It’s honest and real, and that’s what we need right now. Like an altar call, Moore invites us into a new life with God.

Some books are best described as a tome. This is one of those books. It is 600 pages, which, in a way, doesn’t sound like a lot, but I promise it’s a lot. Holland takes us through history, all the way back to Jesus, and shows us how thoroughly Christian our Western world is. Yes, perhaps we are secularizing in some big ways, but the light of Christianity still illuminates our thinking. The Christian ethic deeply shapes us. Where else did our modern ideas of justice, equality, science, and liberalism come from? Christianity has done more to influence, and still does more to influence, our modern world than anything else. This book explains why that’s true. If you want to understand our world better, read this book and Christopher Watkin’s Biblical Critical Theory alongside it.

I didn’t read all this book this year. I finished this book this year. I actually started it in 2020, reading alongside a friend of mine. We would read a chapter and then discuss it over a Zoom call over lunch. Those were weird times, weren’t they? But now that I’ve finished the book, it can finally go on the list. Here’s the best endorsement I can give of it. It’s the single best one-volume systematic theology ever written. Okay, I haven’t read all of them, but I’d read plenty, and even if I hadn’t, it would be hard to imagine a better one. Why not buy this book and read a little each day? I promise you won’t regret it.

I don’t know how Gavin produces as much as he does, but now that he lives near me, I’m going to ask him. Maybe I’ll go watch him work because it has to be something to behold. Not only does he write a ton, but he also has a great YouTube channel with videos packed with information and insight that I couldn’t produce in a year. I always love finding a single book to recommend on a topic. On the topic of Humility, this is the book. Every Christian should buy a copy and read it, and then buy a copy and hand it out.

You have likely heard about people leaving the church. Who are they? Jim Davis and Michael Graham, with the research help of Ryan Burge, tell us who they are. By looking at certain nuanced stereotypes and using real data to extrapolate across a wider spectrum, they show us how certain types of people view the church today. Many are leaving, yes, but not all hope is lost. It turns out that those who have left would come back if one thing happened. What is that thing? Read the book to find out. Just kidding, it wouldn’t hold that back. The one thing is so simple it’s almost insulting to our intelligence. Most of those people would return to church if someone they knew invited them. Isn’t that amazing? You don’t need all the answers to our culture’s hot topics. You don’t need to be a great apologist. You just need to be kind and welcoming. But, as with everything, being prepared certainly helps. This book will prepare you and equip you. It will help you understand and motivate you to make a difference. In a day when the church is losing people all the time, what if we took 2024 as the year to invite them back in?

Here’s another big book. It’s one you should have on your shelf. In his classic style, Piper dives deep into the waters of God’s providence, bringing the Bible with him. Perhaps the thing that strikes you the most as you read is how many scripture passages help us see God’s providence. If you want to understand how God works, this book will help you. It’s not one man’s opinion. It’s grounded in the Bible. Piper serves as our tour guide, pointing out all the ways we can find God’s wonderful work in this world and our lives.

Another Western. This one is different from The Sisters Brothers. First, it’s older. Second, it’s not funny. It’s the story of a famous gunman nearing the end of his life. He has cancer, and there is nothing the doctors can do. So he goes to El Paso to the one man he thinks can help and lives the rest of his days there, with enemy after enemy coming to try and do him in now that he’s weak. But he outwits them all, determining how his life ends. It’s a classic Western story. If you like the genre, you’ll like this book.

The great thing about Jared’s writing is that there is at least one book a year, and they always make this list. Full disclosure: Jared is one of my best friends. We’ve known each other since before his first book was published. But his books don’t make my best-of lists each year because of his friendship. They make them because they deserve them. Jared is a great writer, which undersells him quite a bit. He’s the best. And his books are always the best because they come from a heart that loves Jesus and knows him well. In this book, Jared writes about his friend Jesus and helps us revel in the glory of knowing him as our friend. Some of us feel beat up by life. Some of us wonder if Jesus even likes us. But in the Bible, Jesus calls us his friends. If you want to know what that means, this book is for you.

If there is one man who is transforming our world more than anyone else today, it is Elon Musk. He’s an odd guy, which I think you have to be to do what he does. He’s super-smart. He takes incredible risks. He uses all he has to do what he thinks is best for the world. He’s as innovative as anyone in history, if not more so. From Tesla to SpaceX to X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk has his hands in a lot of different areas. How did he get there? This book by the great biographer Walter Isaacson shows us how. He tells us the amazing parts, the good parts, and the bad parts. It’s an honest biography, which is all we can really ask for. Musk is a transformative figure, and knowing those transformative figures is important, I think. So, if you’re looking for a biography to read in the new year, why not pick this one up? I don’t think you’ll regret it.

The wide variety of books that exist never ceases to amaze me. There are books on topics I’ve never even considered. This is one of those books. Amanda Ripley defines High Conflict as what happens when conflict goes from mere disagreement to us vs. them, good vs. evil thinking. Basically, it is what we see in modern politics. What we find on cable news. What we overhear in our local coffee shop, where the conservatives hang out with the conservatives and the liberals hang out with the liberals. But it’s more than high-brow politics. It reaches across cultures. It affects street gangs. It affects how Jews in New York and conservative communities in Michigan interact (yes, that’s a real example used in the book). If you want to understand the high conflict of our age, this is the book to explain it. I found it fascinating, and I think you will too.

I have a rule in reading. If Greg Lukianoff writes it, I read it. I don’t agree with everything he says or thinks. I don’t agree with anyone 100%. That would be too boring. But Lukianoff understands our culture better than almost anyone. He researches it. He thinks about it. He looks at it honestly and assesses it with clear eyes. In this book, he dives into the cancel culture plaguing today's society. He shows the danger it poses and how it affects people all along the political spectrum. Conservatives are as prone to it as liberals. It’s a shocking reality that feels too common. If you are concerned about cancel culture and want to explore how we can get out of it, this book is for you.

Have you ever read a book about math? Forget your school days. I’m talking about as an adult not taking a math class. I hadn’t until this one. I work with math all day at work. I don’t even really like math. So why would I read a book about math? Because this one is fun and entertaining and teaches you something all at the same time, and i like books like that. The bad drawings are just a gimmick. The drawings aren’t that bad. They stem from Orlin’s teaching days where he would use his bad drawing to communicate the mathematical concepts to his students. It lightened things. It engaged them. And he’s turned that into a series of popular books and blogs on math. Fascinating. Orlin explores why the triangle is the strongest shape and how that impacts everything we use every day, like our houses. He explains why we can’t trust statistics. He talks about Ted Wiliams, the last man to hit .400 in a season. He talks about probability and insurance and the lottery and all kinds of other things that are mathematical, even though we don’t think of them simply in those terms. I don’t know who this book is for. I didn’t think it would be for me. So, if you’re just looking for something interesting, why not give this a try? I really think you’ll like it.

Over Thanksgiving, my friend Kelsey asked to borrow a memoir. I found the one she wanted on my shelves and gave it to her, and then she asked if I’d read Esau McCaulley’s latest book. I hadn’t, though it was on my to-read list. She told me I had to move it up the list. So I did. I listen to Kelsey. She’s wise and smart and insightful and one of my favorite people in this world. Her recommendation did not disappoint. Esau is a great writer, and his story is one that I’m glad he told. Writing about one's life can’t be easy. There is always so much pain and sorrow, even if it’s a good life with a lot of happy moments. But those who share in a hopeful, Christ-centered way help us see that, in many profound ways, we’re all alike. We all sin. We all are sinned against. We all need Jesus, and he offers himself to everyone. His experience as a black man in America is not my experience. He faced things I will never face. I hurt for him in those experiences. But he also shares my common humanity. He wrestles with what it means not to be defined by what we do but by who God says we are. We all have a family history that is complicated and wonderful at the same time, and it takes some people a lifetime to come to terms with it all, if they ever do. Esau shows us how we can do it. If you want to read a great memoir this year, this is the one I recommend. Listen to Kelsey. She knows what she’s talking about.

“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.“ “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” “Here’s the pitch by Downing. Swinging. Here’s a drive into left center field. That ball is gonna be … outta here! It’s gone! It’s 715! There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron.” Baseball is the best. There’s just no way I won’t ever believe that. Baseball has given me more joy than any other sport ever has, and there isn’t a close second. Baseball has also given me more pain than any other sport ever has, and there isn’t a close second. I’m a Braves fan, after all. But let’s forget about the pain. Let’s talk about the great moments. That’s what Posnanski does in this wonderful book. (Though it is ironic that the best moments are also someone else’s worst moments, but let’s not think about that right now.) The title promises 50 great moments, but there are actually 108. Posnanski can’t help himself, and I love him for that. I wish this book were twice as long. To relive some of these moments was great. Some I never knew. Some I wasn’t born for. Some I remember like they were yesterday. If you are a baseball fan, this book belongs on your shelf. You’ll love it. I sure did.

Job is considered one of the Bible’s wisdom books, and Eric adds wisdom to wisdom. If you are suffering (and who of us won’t at some point?) this book will help you understand your suffering. It doesn’t give every answer to every question. Not even the Bible does that. But it does point us to the God who is with us in our suffering, and that is worth more than any answer ever could be.

Chipper Jones was my favorite baseball player growing up. I wore number 10 because he did. I played third base because he did. He was a lifetime Brave, and I am a lifetime Braves fan. He played baseball the right way throughout his career, even during the height of the steroid era. He is the best switch-hitter to ever play. So, yeah, I loved this book because I love Chipper Jones, the baseball player.

Sometimes you just need to read a book that isn’t too heavy. This one certainly qualifies. That’s not to say it doesn’t have poignant moments. If you’ve ever watched The Office, you know how they can sneak some meaningful moments amid hilarity. This book is basically an oral history of the show. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at all the actors and actresses and writers, and staff members that made the show so great. The one thing that constantly stood out throughout the book was Greg Daniels’s impact. There are some nuggets of leadership held in this book that surprise and make you laugh.

This is my must-read novel this year. Steinbeck’s saga that retells the story of Cain and Abel is so well-written and so engrossing. It’s a long read but well worth every minute.

As a leader at my company, in my church, and inside my home, anxiety is a constant enemy. I have my ups and downs, my good times and bad times. Anxiety, for me, is basically a constant, but certain times are far worse than others. This book helped give me some tools for managing it and understanding the effect it has on others—and the effect others’ anxiety has on me. If you’re a leader, this is a must-read.

If you were around Twitter in 2016, you might remember a bit of debate raging on your timeline. No, I’m not talking about the Presidential election. I’m talking about the Trinity. I followed the debate as closely as I could, but honestly, I just didn’t have the proper vocabulary or understanding at the time. I felt as if I was constantly playing catch-up as I listened and read these wise pastors and scholars discuss. Matthew Barrett was one engaging during that time, and this book is, in part, a result of that. It is clear and engaging. You don’t need to be a scholar to understand it, but you’ll feel like one when you’ve read it.

I love reading Bible commentaries. I know that makes me a nerd, but I don’t care. When it comes to commentaries, I like things that are thorough and well-researched. I like my commentaries to have insight I can’t get anywhere else—not because it’s heretical, but because it just goes where others don’t or can’t. Leon Kass’s commentary on Genesis checks all of those boxes. Kass is not a Christian himself. He is a Jew. But what he does helps us understand what the book of Genesis is saying from a historical and literary perspective. He doesn’t make connections Christians would. There is no talk of Jesus. In that regard, there is much to be desired. But that doesn’t mean we can discount the immense value of the work. If you’re a fan of the book of Genesis, as I am, this is a must-read for you. You will find it fascinating.

I like to think I like art, but really, I don’t “get it." Maybe you’re that way too. If so, Ramsey’s book will help you understand some of the greatest works of art in the world. In addition, he will help you see the connection of art to Christianity. Many of the greatest works of art are explicitly Christian works, and the artists were intentional in their artistry. Here is a book that’s worth picking up and savoring. Don’t read it too fast, and take time to look up the works to truly grasp the wonder of it all.

C.S. Lewis is objectively one of the greatest writers and thinkers to walk this earth. How did he get that way? One way is his deep understanding of Medieval times. I know that sounds weird, but this book makes the argument, and it succeeds. Lewis understood the great books. He was more than conversant in them. They swam around in his head all the time and permeated his thinking. If you love Lewis as I do, this book will help you understand him more.

Sometimes you just need someone to give you some good news. Sam Storms does that in this book. It’s a book about sin, which doesn’t sound like good news, but it is so gospel-soaked that you don’t leave a chapter without feeling deeply loved by Jesus. God’s forgiveness of our sins is the best possible news in this world, and there isn’t a single one of us that doesn’t need to understand how forgiven we truly are.

Truman’s book made a lot of “best of” lists last year, but it took me a year to pick it up. Some books help us understand our times a little better. Truman’s work certainly does that. He dives into the LGBTQ+ issues and explains where the social thinking behind them came from. Taking you back into the history of philosophy, you’ll walk away from this book with a better understanding of our times that will equip you to think more clearly about what’s going on because you understand how we got here. One critique I have about the book is that I wish he spent more time providing some solutions to our modern age. But that’s probably another book of the same length. This is step one: understanding.

I won’t say this is a great beach read because I don’t think people read books like this on the beach. But I did. Ferry takes us through the history of Western thought and shows how we got to where we are. Combined with Truman’s work, it really helped me understand the foundations of modern philosophy. His chapter on Christianity is worth the price of the book. Though not a Christian himself, he cannot deny the immense impact Christianity has had on the world for good. Christianity simply answers the deepest longings of our soul better than any other philosophy ever has. Pick up this book to learn more.

My guess is you’re seeing this book on some “best of” lists this year. For good reason. It’s the kind of book that comes along every so often where anytime someone asks what fiction to read, this book pops up in the replies. It’s a surprising book. I didn’t expect the depth of emotion in it. The story of an immigrant family finding their way in America but with a deep Christian faith at the center. It’s funny and heartbreaking and breathtaking all at the same time.

Okay, it’s confession time. Until the year of our Lord, 2022, I had never read the Lord of the Rings books. Furthermore, I had never seen the movies all the way through. I saw the second in the theater when it came out because my friend and I didn’t see anything else on the list that interested us. We chatted through most of it and walked away thinking, “Meh.” Here’s my take. I was just too young and stupid. I remember Ray Ortlund saying he tried reading the books when they first came out, but he didn’t find them interesting. Then he picked them up years later and couldn’t put them down. He realized the books hadn’t changed at all, but he had. He had lived enough to give meaning to Tolkien’s epic story. I won’t say any more about the others immediately after. I included all three books on The Best list this year. How could I not?

Here was a book I was absolutely floored by. I picked it up during a week off at a used bookstore and sat down on my porch one morning to read it. I read it all the way through that same day. I couldn’t put it down. So much of what Reeves says in this book resonated deeply with my heart. It is about evangelicalism, but not in the way you might think. It’s about the gospel and why evangelicalism is simply the best way to explain the kind of people the gospel creates. This is a book that I carry with me all the time and refer back to. It’s marked up like you wouldn’t believe. I open it about once a week and flip through the pages. It now sits on my shelf next to Ray Ortlund’s The Gospel because these two books just make such a great pair.

I saw someone whose literary taste I admire talk about this book on Twitter. If Twitter ever fails, this is one of the things I will miss most—finding books I would never know to pick up. Keegan’s little novel is a Christmas story about the small things that make a big difference. It’s a short read—only 70 pages. I read it in one sitting but carried it with me for far longer. It is one that I will re-read every now and then simply for the beauty of the prose and the story.

I don’t consider myself an angry person, but like everyone, I get angry sometimes. What is going on during those times? Ash helps us understand by taking us inside God’s word on the matter. There is righteous anger. There is sinful anger. And it’s hard to know the difference sometimes. Even more, it’s hard to know how to deal with our anger properly. If you struggle with anger or want to understand it better, this is the book for you.

I love Backman’s novels. This one is the next in the Beartown saga, continuing the story and wrapping up some loose ends the others leave untied. Like all his books, you’ll be surprised by how moved you are by people you know are made up because their stories are all too real in this world.

Here’s a rule to live by: if Bob Dylan writes it, read it. He wrote a biography years ago called Chronicles: Volume 1. Volume 2 never came out. Maybe that’s intentional. I don’t know. It was a great read, and I wish there was another one coming. But here’s at least something new from Dylan. He calls it a philosophy of modern song, but it’s more accurate to say it’s Dylan riffing on some great tunes. Of course, he dips into philosophical items from time to time, but there doesn’t seem to me to be a cohesive philosophy springing from the pages. It doesn’t matter. Dylan’s insight into these classic songs and his retelling of them in his unique personification is worth every penny.

Sometimes it’s good to hear from different parts of the world. We can get so caught up in what’s happening here. I understand why that happens. But every now and then, we need to look outward and listen to Christians from other, more difficult parts of the world. Here’s a book that does just that. Taken from sermons from Chinese pastors during the COVID pandemic, this book will encourage you to look to Jesus as your only hope. I listened to this book, which I always recommend if books are a complication of sermons. Throughout, I found myself convicted and encouraged. You will be too.

I read anything Tim Keller publishes. He is, in my opinion, one of God’s greatest gifts to the church in his generation. This new book on forgiveness is one everybody should put on their shelves. It is a wealth of wisdom on what the Bible says about forgiveness and how, through Christ, we have the resources and power to forgive because we have been forgiven by God.

Some stories are so amazing you can barely believe they are real. This is one of those stories. Enslaved in Auschwitz, Walter Rosenberg was one of the few who escaped and lived to tell his story. Along with another man, he found a way to warn the world of what was really going on. The problem was, no one did anything about it. The story is wild and heartbreaking and a warning all at once. It’s one of those Holocaust stories that should be told and retold again and again.

Some books come along that are must reads. This is one of them. If you want to understand how we got where we are, Scrivener will help you see. The air we breath is thoroughly Christian, even if our culture denies that permeating past. Our modern sense of freedom, justice, equity, and all the rest finds its roots in the Bible. We can ignore the Bible if we want, but we can’t deny its influence.

Perhaps nothing is more commonplace in the Christian world than apathy to the things of God. How do we get back to the place of passion? How do we restore our zeal? Uche Anizor gives a great gift to the church in this book taylor made for our modern malaise.

Warren is a fantastic writer. She writes with a heart that feels deeply for the things of God and with a mind that thinks deeply about him too. This book on suffering is one I will revisit as my life shifts and shapes, because no matter what happens in life, suffering is a friend that visits us often.

Sometimes a book encapsulated a ministry. Jared’s ministry is one to pastors. It’s to the Church. It’s to those serve the church, who go to church, we need the church to be the church. He is Jared’s magnum opus. It’s the distillation of a lifetime of thinking about the church through the lens of the Bible. If you’re in ministry at any level, this is a must read. If you’re a pastor, it’s required reading.

By general rule, if Tim Keller writes a book, I read it. Keller’s godly insight has helped thousands of people throughout his gifted ministry. This book is no exception. The resurrection is the turning point of history. Keller takes us inside that great hope. Buy this now and save it for Easter time. It’s the perfect book to help you see the magnitude of Jesus’s victory.

Each year I try to take an author and read through their corpus. The past two years have been interrupted by life, so I haven’t been able to stick with that plan. I didn’t even pick an author in 2021, but throughout the year i realized I was reading a lot of Eugene Peterson. I had never read anything by him before, so everything felt new and fresh to me. Then this great biography came out and I picked it up. What I found was a book that was about Peterson but also read like him. Some biographies tell you about the subject. Good ones helps you see the subject’s importance in the world. Great ones introduce to the subject himself. This one is the latter kind.

I love a good western, and this is a good one. I’m obviously not the only one to say that. This book won a National Book Award in 1992. It’s the story of John Grady Cole who finds adventure in Mexico chasing horses. It has enough action to make for a good western and enough remarkable scenarios to make for great fiction.

I used to think the Beatles were overrated. The popish songs of their early days felt cheap and shallow. But maybe the problem was I just never met a real Beatles fan. If I had, maybe seeing the band from a fan’s eyes would open mine. Sheffield is about as big of a fan as one could find. This book is really nothing more than a series of essays on his love for the Beatles. I picked it up while on vacation in Florida and read it in between shuffling the kids from the beach to the pool. It was the perfect beach read. Easy. Light. Funny. Engaging. And now I listen to the Beatles a lot. One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was McCartney’s newly released book of lyrics.

Alexis Cole did something really difficult to do. She wrote a book about George Washington that covers his life in all its grandiosity while providing something new and fresh. The layout of the book is great. The content is thorough. It’s the kind of biography of a man of legend that only a woman could write, and I’m glad she did.

Erik Larson’s books are legendary at this point. He can take history and make it sound fictional. He can tell a story containing multiples stories without missing the main point. In this story of Germany’s air raid war on England during World War II Larson takes us inside the British and German governments and all the various players. It is hard to believe people lived through these events, and it’s hard to believe a book could relate it all so well.

It wouldn’t be a best of list on this website without at least one Ortlund book. This year’s has two, and I read four Ortlund books by four different Ortlunds this year. Ray’s book on porn is probably different than what you expect unless you know him. It’s not legalistic. It’s not shaming. It’s not a pointed finger. It’s an invitation to a better life. Through a series of letters written to younger men, Ray brings us into difficult and awkward conversations about a real problem in the world today. He’s blunt but loving; pointed but caring; convicting but inspiring. It’s a book everyone—especially men—should read.

Most people know Andrew Peterson from his music. But more and more are getting to know him through his writing, and I mean that literally. Peterson writes with his heart wide open. He takes us inside his thoughts and intentions and fears and desires. This book is written memoir style and features lots of trees. Maybe that doesn’t sound interesting, but I promise it is. It’s well-written and devotional. It’s a testament to the grace of God in the ordinariness of life and creation.

Here is the second of the Ortlund books I read in 2021. Gavin is a great thinker, and I truly mean great. Here you will find a reasonable man searching for reasonable answers in what feels like an unreasonable world. What I appreciate is Gavin’s willingness to not start immediately with his firmest Christian beliefs. Instead he starts with the kinds of questions all seekers must start with and builds from there. He ends with a strong defense for God, but not in a way that is off-putting to those still thinking it through. This is the kind of apologetic we need today.

Some authors reach the level of “I’ll read whatever he writes.” Doerr reached that level with his Nobel Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a crazy title for a book. It sounds too out there, and when you start reading it you might think, “I don’t know about this one.” But stick with it for the first 100 pages and you’ll race to the end. It’s a complex novel with multiple storylines throughout different centuries. But it’s really one story, and it’s a good one.

Alan Noble understands our age. He gets inside one of the common messages we hear every day, “you are not your own.” He counters, of course, with scripture. But before he gets there, he lays the foundation of the world in which we live so that when we hear God’s word in the face of our current situation, we’re ready for answers. It’s a book well worth reading and thinking about for a while.

At the beginning of the year, one of my best friends gave me a first edition copy of Vanauken’s book. Somehow, I’d never even heard of it. I soon found out it was far more popular than I realized. As I began to read, I could tell it was going to be one of the best books I read all year. It certainly lived up to the hype. It’s a well-written love story, written as a memoir. Full of insight and wisdom, you can tell the man writing understands the gospel knows how to apply it to life.

I think I have one of Jared’s books on this list every year. That’s a testament to two things. First, Jared writes a lot. Second, all of his books are very good. I’ve known Jared a long time—before he had a book published! As one of my best friends, it’s easy to include him on the list of my favorite reads of the year. But it’s not just because I love him. It’s because his writing deserves every top book list. The Gospel-Driven Church is Jared’s attempt at helping others move their church from one of pragmatism to gospel-centeredness. It’s an important work. If you’re a leader in a church, it’s a must have. if you’re a part of a church, it’s a must have. If you love the church, it’s a must have.

I had heard of this book. I had been told to read this book. I had let this book sit on my shelf for years. This year, I finally picked it up and read. Why did I wait so long? I’ve never heard a bad word about this novel. I’ve never heard anyway say, “You know, I read it and it was just okay.” I’ve never heard anything but praise. I now see why. It’s perhaps the perfect novel. The story is captivating, but it’s the way it’s told that makes it great. It’s full of intrigue and hope and suspense and surprise. It has everything a great novel must without anything it doesn’t need.

While I was reading Peace Like A River, Enger’s latest book showed up in the mailbox. I picked it up as soon as I could. To my surprise, I liked it just as much as Peace Like A River. I didn’t think I would. I was wrong. Virgil Wander is of a different sort from Peace Like a River. It’s a character study, but not a boring one. The same excellent writing style is present here, and it gives the same feeling as you read it—as if you’re reading something that will outlast these times and reach into the next.

I was first introduced to Whitehead last year with his successful The Underground Railroad. Here, he moves ahead about 50 years in America and finds the same kind of racism alive and well. While the characters are fictional, the story is based on true events. What Whitehead does for us—especially white readers like me—is take us back in time to show us how things really were in the racist South. He does it in such a way that it’s mark is lasting. I was so enthralled in the story that I finished it as my kids rode rides at our county fair. I couldn’t put it down. Beware. This isn’t an easy read. But it’s a necessary one.

I had bookmarked this book in 2018 when I saw it make some top book lists for novels. It intrigued me but the library copy was checked out and the wait list was long. Then i forgot about it. When I remembered it, I found several others I knew had recently read it and recommended it. So I picked it up and blazed through it. The writing is superb but it’s the story in this one that grips. It’s not an easy read (it’s about the rape of a teenage girl), so beware entering into it. But in our moment, it does a good job (I think) of showing the systems and powers that keep a story of rape under wraps for so long and the difficulty of being believed in a world that would rather protect the abuser than the victim.

Randy Alcorn is one of those writers who not only talks the talk but walks the walk. Therefore, what he says holds immense weight. His case for giving freely of your money and possessions is compelling because it comes from the Bible. He’s not trying to trick you into giving money to his ministry. He’s not trying to guilt you into giving more than you should away. He’s trying to help you see that the path to joy in Christ includes sacrificial giving, and that’s not a new secret; it’s an ancient one. My wife and I have talked about this book often throughout the year and are re-working our lifestyle to see what changes we can make.

As a freshman in college, I would take long drives. In Lexington, Kentucky, there is a lot of open space. Where was I going all those nights? Nowhere, really. I wasn’t trying to arrive; I was going because I couldn’t stay where I was. I was looking for a place to be, knowing the place I was wasn’t it. Have you been there? The 4th century Bishop of Hippo, Saint Augustine, has. He didn’t have a car, but that didn’t stop him from going, and he has something to say to all who wander. That is what James K.A. Smith wants us to see in his latest book, On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts. He wants to hop in the car with us, but he’s bringing a friend along for the ride. And he’s not just any friend. He’s “a prodigal who’s already been where you think you need to go” (xi).

I’ve loved Andrew Peterson’s music for a long time. His ability for writing a song is second to none. And he’s no newbie to writing books either. But this one is something different for him because it’s an exploration of the ins and outs of creativity rather than a creative result. His humility shines through it all. He’s a man whose career proves he knows what he’s talking about, but even if it didn’t, this is the kind of book anyone would want on their shelf. I found in him a friend—someone i could resonate with, someone with whom I felt could spend many good hours with me talking around the coffee table. This is one of those books I’ll re-visit, and with as many books as there are to read in the world, onyl a few rise to the level of re-visit-worthy.

Here’s a book you’ll want on your shelves if for no other reason than to remind you that our current moment isn’t the only important one. As an Evangelical, this book helped me reach back in time to church history to find common friends who wrestled with many of the same things we wrestle with today. It’s so easy to disconnect ourselves from the past thinkers, but that is to distant ourselves from the blessings of God that they were. We need retrieval. And we need it more today than perhaps ever before. Gavin gives us a road map here.

I’ve been working on creating and cultivating good habits in my life for a long time. And I’ve come a long way. Of course, there is still room to grow, and that’s why this book is here. James Clear understands the power of habits. What he gives here is a sound set of reasons to change your life by changing your habits. At this time of year, when we’re all setting resolutions and thinking about what we want to do and accomplish next year, the key to getting from here to there is habits. Change small things—atomic things—and make a big impact. I’ve found that to be true in my life, but when it comes time for goal-setting, i rarely think about the little things that need to change for the big thing to come to pass. Well, this book helps me see how foolish that is and gives me a new hope to accomplishing all that I desire.

It’s hard to find many people today who aren’t affected by anxiety and/or depression. For the past five years or so, I have been afflicted with anxiety. It’s better now, because I’ve been working on it, but it wasn’t always so. I’ve been paralyzed by it. I’ve not wanted to get out of bed or go to bed because of it. I’ve been worried over and fixated on small things that in the end don’t matter at all but in the moment feel like the only thing in the world. J.P. Moreland has been there too. This book is a gift to all who struggle. It’s not self-help. It’s God-help. His insights are based on the Bible and where he brings in so-called “secular” insights, he shows how they’re a gift we can gladly accept. If you struggle with anxiety or depression or someone you know does, here’s the book to buy.

I was too young to watch Larry and Magic play. Their classic NCAA finals game happened before I was born. They both won an NBA Finals before I was born. By the time of the Dream Team in 1992, both were on the back-end of their careers. So I grew up a Jordan kid. Forever, the epitome of basketball greatness is the image of His Airness. But I also knew Larry and Magic were great players. I just didn’t ever really know their stories until this book. Since then, I’ve been teaching my two basketball-playing boys about them. We’ve watched YouTube videos of highlights. I’ve stopped clicking through the TV channels as I see Larry or Magic on NBA TV talking about the glory days. If you don’t know much about how great they were, this book seems to do it justice. It’s enjoyable to read and one of those rare sports memoirs that are worth your time.

I saw one of my friends post something about this book a while ago, so I picked it up and started reading. What I found inside was sooooo good. I was amazed I hadn’t heard anyone else talking about it. Then all the book lists for 2019 hit the internet and suddenly I realized this book was like the best-kept secret of the year. It’s filled with practical wisdom about pastoring. Never having gone to seminary and having only on-the-job training, as it were, I found this book to be both an affirmation of the duty and an encouragement to go deeper into the job. Shepherding God’s people is not easy; it is glorious.

This was a weird book. Winner of the Man Booker prize last year, it reads like a series of letters recounting the events leading up to and days after the death of Abraham Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son. Grounded in the historical fact of the young Lincoln's death and his father's grief, the book takes those facts and greif and stretches them into a tale of the afterlife that includes some not-so savory characters, a reverend, and the young,recently deceased Lincoln boy. They all exist in this ghostly otherworld—not heaven and not hell. Over the course of the book, they all vanish from this ethereal world into whatever lays beyond. Mixed with both humor and sorrow, Saunders’s book takes the reader on a weird journey that at it’s best takes you inside the intense grief of a father and makes you feel all the feelings you never want to feel again. It also shows us the hopelessness of a world without a real Heaven and a real Savior who gives real assurance.

My first biography of 2018 was a good one. I wish-listed this book when it released late last year and picked it up on Audible to give it a go. Leonardo da Vinci was a fascinating guy. He took his art seriously and created masterpieces by pulling from experiments and observations in science, math, and geography. This multi-disciplinary life gave him insights many never attain. The Mona Lisa’s smile, for example, is a masterpiece in itself, never mind the rest of the painting. He studied the muscles of the lips, even peeling the skin off of cadavers to find the proper movements. His notebooks are filled with insights and observations well ahead of his time. If they were publish in his lifetime, it’s very possible we would recognize Leonardo as the father of science and math in the same way, if not more so, we admire him for his art.

Pohl traces the history of Christian hospitality from the first century down to today. In doing so, she presents the biblical case for welcoming strangers and serving the least of these. It’s an eye-opening look at the importance hospitality has played in the growth of Christianity throughout the centuries. It is especially helpful, I think, for those of us living in the individualized Western world, where our privacy is prioritized and hospitality fits in the most extreme margins of our lives.

Jacobs’s book is a great achievement. It’s a short book that helps us think. Is there anything more needed today than the ability to think well? I think not. In a fractured world, the ability to think rightly is one of the great assets one can bring to the table. But the problem is that so many don’t care about thinking well. They just want to feel well. Thinking and feeling are not at odds, but if we aren’t careful, feeling can overtake us. To think well means we must face our feelings and interpret them through different lenses. If our only desire is to seek, kill, and destroy those on the other side, our ability to think will be greatly hindered. If, however, we seek to understand one another and are able to face the fear of being wrong, we will find that our ability to think increases a hundredfold. In this book, Jacobs does a service to us all. He disarms our need to be right and gives us tools to help us think.

Chernow’s biography of Grant is a masterpiece. It’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. Part of that may be my surprise at how misunderstood Grant was both in his own time and today, especially in the southern part of the US. Grant is not given the respect he is due in the South. He is seen as a drunk idiot who had numbers on his side during the Civil War. Robert E. Lee is the real hero for southerners but it is Grant who deserves the respect and honor of a great general. He may not have been the most important president in our country’s history, but he was certainly the most important general. For as bloody and devastating as the Civil War was, it could have been much worse had another man been running the army of the North. Grant was a gentle man who sought peace and equity to a world at war, both ideologically and physically.

Westover’s life has been nothing short of remarkable. Growing up in a Mormon home separated from the world, she never went to school until the stepped foot on the campus of BYU. She taught herself enough to score a high mark on the ACT and parlayed that into a stint at Cambridge and Harvard. Westover is the America Dream in action, rising above her circumstances to achieve great things. But this story is not about her achievements. The title of the book is a bit misleading as well. You would think it’s about how she educated herself and arrived in the world. Instead, it’s a story of family and struggle. It’s about the hard things of life and how those hard things cut families off from one another and bring them back together. It’s a sad story in many ways, with hope sprinkled in when most needed. It’s a great book that takes you inside the family dynamics that can result when a father is an end-time prepper and the family is beset with mental illness.

I had no idea who Larry Norman was until I read this. His story is amazing and tragic and confusing. The book was written so well I forgot I was reading a biography. I felt like I was living life alongside Larry Norman. When I reached the end I was sad it was over and wished so many things had worked out differently for him.

When a poet writes prose, you know it’s going to be imaginative. But Wiman doesn’t stray too far into the obscure with this book. He deals with faith in light of his cancer. Suffering didn’t destroy his faith. In many ways, it created it. With writing that is, at times, overwhelmingly brilliant, Wiman gives us a look at the insides of a man on a journey toward Christ. He doesn’t have it all figured out (who of us does, really?) but he’s honest about what he sees. And what he sees is Jesus.

It’s been 50 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. Was assassinated outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Fifty years later, many wonder how King’s dream is fairing. It’s not as true as he hoped—as we hoped. Instead, racial tension still pulses through our country. It’s a news-cycle staple so long after the death of the Civil Right’s most glorious decade. Garrow’s biography of MLK won the Pulitzer Prize in 1897. So it comes with substantial critical acclaim. It is well deserved, from what I can tell. Garrow tells the story of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) through a compelling narrative. King was a man marked by conviction. He believed in non-violent action more firmly than anyone else of his era. He stood tall and that standing cause many to hate him. Eventually, it led to his assassination. King was a complicated man, as all men are. He was not perfect. No man is. But his legacy of fighting for justice lives on today. And one day, though it won’t come easy or quickly. His dream will come to life in fullness.

If you want to understand the African-American experience in the church, read this book. I saw my friend Jared Wilson post a picture of this on his Instagram account a while ago. I added it to my wish list that day and forgot about it until I had some Amazon money to spend. A year ago I decided to diversify my reading population to include more authors of color. I realized I was living inside a white bubble, and I didn’t know how to break out. So I started reading. Through that reading, I’ve learned to see the black experience in America with new eyes. I have not experienced what they have, but I believe them when they say it’s hard. And this book helped me see the gospel in the African-American experience. It should be required reading.

I enjoyed this book as much as any other I read this year. I always like reading about the Bible and how one preaches the Bible, but what Carter offers is more than just that. It’s a look at the historical importance of preaching Christ from all of Scripture. He opens with the question of if one can be faithful to preach Jesus as the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. He goes on to present a case as to why that’s the only way to preach it. But through the pages, he takes us down the paths of those who would argue against it, and he shows why they’re wrong not only because of their hesitancy to see Christ but because they’re being intellectually dishonest even as they seek intelligence. Carter’s work is a gift to the church and to every gospel preacher.

What an important book! I’ve loved Rosaira Butterfield since the day she came and spent the weekend with us at Immanuel Church a few years ago. Her faith is real, and it is evident. She’s warm and hospitable in conversation and her words to the church are as important as ever. If we are to make a mark on the world with the love of Christ, we must cultivate homes to house that love and invite others into them. Hospitality is a gospel command—one we’ve too long ignored.

I saw this book make the rounds last year. It seemed almost everyone loved it. I finally got around to checking it out. I had to wait quite a while from my library. It was worth the wait. The story follows a man sentenced to imprisonment in a hotel. He can’t leave without being shot on the spot. The entire story takes place inside the walls of a great hotel in Moscow. The characters are fully-formed, well created, and interesting. The story is told beautifully through great writing. I highly recommend it.

This is a story of hate—at least that’s what our narrator, Mr. Bendrix proclaims in the opening pages. But whom is the focus of the hate? Well, that all depends on where you are in the story. It begins with a hatred for a husband, then turns to a hatred for a mistress, and ends with a hatred for God—or at least that’s what Mr. Bendrix would lead you to believe. A hate-filled story this is not, though it does include plenty of it. Rather, this is the story of one adulterous woman’s way to God and the man who loves her is left to deal with the after-effects. He tells God he hates him. But that’s quite the change from before. At least he recognizes someone there to hate. One has to wonder whether he even understands his story of hate. He got it wrong so many times before. Perhaps he’s wrong again.

Reading John Webster is like diving into the deep end of the theological pool and drowning. But you don’t mind it at all. It’s the kind of theological weight that lights your heart on fire. Webster places thoughts in your mind, wrapped in biblical truth and glory, that come alive and dance in your mind for days. The focus in this volume is on God’s holiness. God’s holiness has never felt so massive to me. If you need a sense of God’s wonder, buy this book today.

Whew. This book has been on my “to read” list for a long time. I’ve never heard a bad review. I see why. It’s beautifully written. The story is compelling without being overwhelming. The truth laced throughout is poignant and profound. Jayber Crow is the town barber, and if you want to know the truth of the world, it’s best to go sit in his shop for a while. You can’t get much better than this novel. It’s worth a re-read for me, probably next year.

Maybe the best debate in sports is the topic of the greatest pitcher of all time. So many have a strong case: Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, Greg Maddux. Roger Clemens, and so on. But one name I rarely see mentions is Satchel Paige. That’s probably because he spent most of his career in the Negro Leagues, only breaking into the Majors late in life. Ask anyone who faced him, and they’ll say he was the best. He had innumerable pitches. He could throw them all. He was fast. He was accurate. He was entertaining. He was the whole package. And, amazing as it sounds, he pitched his last Major League game at the age of 59. He was, and is, the best pitcher of all time. I’ll argue that until the day I die.

If you care at all about the Lord’s work in this world, read this book. Lovelace combines devotion, history, and biblical exegesis to create a history of revival. So many of my heroes in the faith point to this book as an influence, and I understand why. Written in 1979, it is still as relevant, if not more so, than at the time of publishing. Lovelace says at one point, “There are not many Evangelical theologians of hope.” I wonder, are there more today? This book will help us become them.

How many top books lists did this make? It should have made all of them. A book about books is hard to pull off in an interesting way. It’s hard to comment on the source material and make a meaningful contribution. But Prior does just that. She gives fresh insight to old works while contributing something new to the world. In arguing that books show us the virtues we must live by, she models those virtues through her writing. It is kind, humble, loving, and everything else that is good. Furthermore, she makes the reader long to read the great books of the world. She accomplishes her goal: to urge the reader to read well.

Moore’s book on the family was totally different from my expectations. I’m not sure what I expected. I knew it’d be good. Moore is always good. But I didn’t expect it to be this good. You’ve never read anything like this. Moore’s biblical insight on the family is for everyone, because we all have a family of some kind. You cannot pick this book up, read it cover to cover, and not be changed in some profound way. Not only are Moore’s insights profound, his writing is, as always, superb. I both laughed and cried throughout. The chapter on aging is worth the price of the book. I read the final pages aloud to my wife and was surprised to find myself moved to tears. Even after a first reading, the power is still there.

Frederick Douglass is one of America’s most important men. A slave turned freedom fighter, Douglass did as much as anyone in America to change the attitudes about slavery. He’s an American hero that everyone should know more about. Blight’s biography does the man justice. It’s honest and thorough, encouraging and insightful. It’s long, but well worth the effort.

Very few men have helped me as much as Tim Keller. Through his writing and preaching, I have gained insight into the Bible that I think about daily, and that’s not an exaggeration. In his latest book, Keller uses the minor prophet book of Jonah to help us see the glory of Jesus. What struck me most about this book is that it really is a 101 course on Keller’s ministry. So much of what he’s written and spoken about over the course of his life can be found in this little book.

John O’s book on prayer is simply exceptional. It helped me think about the way I pray—or don’t pray—with my church. Focusing not only on personal prayer but corporate prayer, he shows us that God has more for us than the stale prayers we tend to pray together. God has all the storehouses of his grace for us, and if we’ll learn to pray together, we’ll grow together in Christ.

This was the first book I read in 2017. It was also one of my favorites. I was interested as soon as I saw it compared to To Kill A Mockingbird. While I wouldn’t go that far, it is a great book. It centers around an eleven-year-old girl named Annabelle living in a rural Pennsylvania town during the height of Wold War II. While the war rages on thousands of miles away, she must fight her own battle with the new girl, Betty. Then, mysteriously, Betty goes missing. Everyone points to the local homeless man, Toby (the Boo Radley of the story, as it were). Annabelle believes Toby is a good man, even if no one else does. And she’s right. Wolk’s novel, though one intended for a youthful audience, brings to light issues of injustice in ways similar to Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. But whereas Lee’s focus was on the injustice done in the sphere of racism, Wolk’s is done in the sphere of classism. Thoroughly relevant for our times, this book is beautifully written and one of my favorites of the year.

I try to take an author each year and read all of his or her works. This year, I attempted to read all of Bunyan’s books. But life got too busy and Bunyan wrote too much for me to keep up. So I abandoned this dream. But I didn’t abandon it before I read Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and I’m so glad I didn’t. Bunyan’s testimony of God’s grace is told in beautiful prose and heart-piercing honesty. Bunyan understood what it was to be lost, and he understood what it meant to fight for assurance. In fact, for a long time, Bunyan didn’t see how God could love him. He believed he had committed the unpardonable sin and God was therefore just to condemn him. But God didn’t condemn. God covered his sin with grace. Where Bunyan’s sin abounded, God’s grace abounded more. How did Bunyan know this? By wrestling with God. And in the end, God blessed him and all of us who read his words.

My favorite post-apocalyptic novel last year was Station Eleven. My favorite this year was McCarthy’ The Road. The Road is the story of a father and son making their way down a dangerous road, avoiding cannibals, thieves, and other assorted bad guys. It’s a simple story, really—one of survival. But deeper than that, it’s the story of a father’s love for his son, and a son’s love for his father. McCarthy’s writing is piercing at this point, plunging to the deep parts of the heart. There were many times I had to stop reading for a while. I have three boys of my own, and the writing was so moving, I couldn’t bring myself to continue until the sun rose on the next day.

In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines Sprung from cages out on highway nine, Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin' out over the line H-Oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap We gotta get out while we're young `Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run You know the rest. Born to Run is a classic American rock song, and Springsteen is a classic American rocker. I’ve always admired his writing through song, and here he gives us his writing through prose in his story. As he says, “Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.” Perhaps the most enjoyable part for me was the way he related to his band. He was the man. There was no doubt about that. But what makes Springsteen Springsteen is the band standing behind him. It’s Clarence Clemons’s saxophone, Max Weinberg’s drums, Steve Van Zandt’s guitar, Patti Scialfa’s vocals. And you can tell Bruce loves them. To hear this musical genius talk about all the other musical geniuses alongside and behind him (and even those out in front of him that gave him a chance) makes one appreciate the artist even more. Springsteen is a hard-working rock-star what never seemed to take anything for granted. He came from nothing to make his mark on the music world. In America, we think we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and many look at Springsteen as a model for that. But like his famous song, Born in the U.S.A., the popular understanding isn’t the truth. The truth is it takes a band—in this case a world class one—to make an American classic.

Sinclair Ferguson’s book made many top books of 2016 lists. But I didn’t read it until the beginning of 2017. I see now why it made those lists. Ferguson’s writing is both heart-lifting and educational all at the same time. He explains the controversy in terms any layman can understand without toning down the theological nuances that made it what it was. Every generation has a time when theology starts to feel mushy, when churches and Christian organizations make compromises that cut out the glory of the gospel. Being aware of how this was done in the past helps us see how it might be happening in the present and gives us tools to fight it in the future. Who knew that a modern book about another, 250-year-old book, Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity, could be so relevant today and be written in such a way as to inform and transform? Ferguson must have, for he has written it. The key point of contention in the Marrow Controversy was this a common one. What comes first: repentance or grace? Refuting both legalism and antinomianism, Ferguson shows us how we need the whole gospel from the whole Christ to have the whole of salvation.

Some books are surprising. You pick them up out of curiosity and then you find yourself enjoying it so much you never want it to end. This was my experience with Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog. Growing up, I was a big fan of Nike products. I still have a Nike hat I received for Christmas. It has a pocket on the side that I used to tote things around in, mostly my brand new pocket knife. As I grew, I became less brand-loyal, but I’ve always admired Nike’s products and design. Now, thanks to this book, I’m going to be wearing my first new pair of Nike’s in a long time. The most surprising thing about Shoe Dog is that it stops early in Nike’s story. We never hear how Michael Jordan took the brand to new levels. But we do hear about how Nike started, and what it took to get it to someone like Jordan’s caliber. It wasn’t easy. No business is. But it worked because everyone involved cared enough about the product to make it as good as it could be. They weren’t selling a brand. They were selling, at first anyway, a shoe—a running shoe. And that running shoe was going to be the best in the world. In the end, even if all their racers didn’t win gold medals, Nike won the world.

To think the underground railroad was a real thing in this country is sickening. It’s a heart-breaking reality that for so many, the only way to freedom was a tunnel burrowed under the earth, far from the light of day, hidden in secret, protected by bravery and blood. What a shame our country’s story includes these stories. It should have never been and it should never be again.

Some people are blessed with so many gifts it seems multiple lifetimes would be warranted. Kalanithi was one of those people, and yet the irony is he only had 37 years to do it all. He was a neurosurgeon and, as he was dying, an author. He who once helped bring healing couldn’t heal himself. He didn’t even have time to finish his own book. His wife took the pen and completed his final thoughts. But through these pages he gives us eloquent insight into what it’s like to be a part of a healing plan for a patient and what it’s like to be a patient. It’s the fullness of life and death wrapped in 250 pages.

This is the modern classic for writers on writing. The first part is not what you’d expect. It’s a memoir. But it shows the reader on the front end what King is going to explain on the back end. Writing is not easy, and anyone who thinks it is simply hasn’t tried to do it well. Writing well is like emptying your body of your heart and then cutting into the heart to find the stuff that makes you live. How can one do that? Isn’t that what we all ask when we read something well-written?

I’ve read parts of this book before and I’ve heard Ray preach through Romans 8. But when I was teaching Romans earlier this year at church, I picked this up to read all the way through for the first time. I knew what was inside but what’s inside of Ray’s books never get old. No one proclaims the truths of God’s grace quite like Ray. Attending Immanuel Church for years, I had the privilege of not only hearing these glorious truths proclaimed but seeing the man who proclaimed them lay hold of God moment by moment. It’s that reality with God Ray has that gives his books even more power. This is not a theological treatise as much as it’s a “can you believe this?!” evangelistic endeavor.

Our country’s history is ugly and sad. We may not always get that sense if we pick up the history books of our childhood. But history, as we know, is written by those who win. Our country is in many ways great. But it is in many ways deeply bad. Racism has plagued this country from it’s founding and, it seems, will plague it much longer than any of us want to believe. In this book, Wilkerson takes us along on the journey of some who made their way from the racist south to a new north and west. But what they found there was just as racist as what they left behind. It seemed no matter where they went, their skin did them in. This book, however, is not all hopeless. The reality of their lives were sad, but the insight into their hearts could help us all as we look beyond ourselves. Wilkerson’s real gift may not be only in the retelling of the massive migration of the twentieth century. It may be in opening the eyes of the majority culture who didn’t even know it was happening. Read it and weep, for the reality of our history is the reality of our future if we refuse to learn and change.

I can’t get my act together, so this book is applicable to me just from the title. But knowing Jared, I know what he means about not getting one’s act together. In many ways, he can’t either. Who of us can before the holiness of God? But that is not a cause for despair. Jesus comes to all who have given up on their best laid plans and have fallen into his saving grace. He lifts us up and gives us legs to follow him. Discipleship can be a wrong-headed endeavor unless one understands that the discipler is only a disciple of Christ himself. He needs from Jesus the same thing he wants others to have. Jared’s gospel is a little sweaty and ragged around the edges. It’s well worn. It’s smudged. It’s an old hymn. It broadcasts on a different frequency. It’s been both a welcome mat and a place mat. It’s burning a hole in his pocket. It’s a Narnian wardrobe. It sometimes feels as light as a feather. It’s a handful of crumbs. But, as he says at the beginning of each chapter, it’s much more than all of that. It’s bigger than we imagine and deeper with grace than the grave our sin can dig. No one exults in the gospel like Jared. Trust me. I know. I’ve seen him do it in writing and in person for over a decade.

Have you ever read James Baldwin? You have to read James Baldwin. There’s nothing more to say. Buy this book and read it. Today. If you want to understand so much of today’s discourse, from the NFL protests to black lives matter to #MAGA, this book will help.

When you get done with Baldwin’s book, pick this one up. I wonder if you’ve ever heard of any of the contributors? If not, why not?

This year marked the 500th year of the Reformation. And no book was a pivotal during the Reformation as Galatians. Perhaps one would expect to see Luther’s commentary on Galatians in this list. It is a remarkable book, but one I didn’t read all the way through this year. Stott’s commentary is a worthy replacement.

Our criminal system is broken. We lock people away for extraordinary amounts of time for small crimes. Something must change. Bryan Stevenson is trying to change it. His story and the stories he tells are inspiring and eye-opening. What can we all do to help?

A few people had recommended this book to me and it wasn’t until I was in the middle of sermon preparation one day that I finally picked it up. I was soon sucked in. That wasn’t great for my sermon prep time but it made the sermon itself much clearer. We are what we love. That’s such a simple statement but the truth of it is so profound, only God could reveal it to us.

Everyone remembers the Dream Team: the 1992 USA Men’s basketball team that went to the Olympics and took the world by storm. But how well do you really remember the Dream Team? It was made up of all kinds of personalities and talent. I love sports books, and this was my favorite this year. Not the best written one I read, but the one that I, for whatever reason, enjoyed the most.

What a beautiful book. For all who suffer, this book will take you inside the mind and heart of a sufferer to find that God is nearer than ever. Ramsey encountered a serious illness a few years ago, and out of the crucible of that affliction came the beauty of this book. Only God could use such things.

Jen Wilkin is such a gifted Bible teacher. My wife has benefited from her, and over the Thanksgiving break I picked up this book and read it in one day. Wilkin finds a way to say eternal things in fresh ways. She doesn’t have any new ideas but explains God’s ideas very well. If you want a book that takes you inside of who God is, this book will do it.

This book isn’t even out yet, but I found a copy in Jared’s office when I was visiting this fall and he told me to take it. I’m glad the world will soon receive this gift. We all want to live in the power of Christ. How do we do it? This book will help us see that it’s really not as mysterious as we want to make it. God has given what we need.

Marriage books are in no short supply. I’ve read many of them, and this one is near the top of the list. Ash helps us see the importance of having God at the center of our marriage. If he isn’t, we will certainly be, and we know how well that turns out, don’t we?

Warren’s book won the Christianity Today Book of the Year award. It’s well deserved. No book I read this year helped me personally as much. It caused me to slow down, to notice God, and to worship him in the everydayness of my life. It’s not a complex book. The simplicity of it is what’s so striking. It’s honest and devotional. I loved it.

I noticed this book making the rounds when it came out. Anderson is a wonderful writer in the line of Wendell Berry. Her style is easy to read. Her insight into Jesus’ humility and our union with him as the way toward humility is practically helpful at every level. If we aren’t right at the root, we’ll never be right, and the only way to get right at the root is to be uprooted from this world and rooted in Christ.

Rutledge’s 600-page work was all the rage this year, and I understand why. It’s beautifully written, theologically serious, and richly devotional. She highlights the utter depersonalization and bloody humiliation of Jesus’ crucifixion and the cosmic influence of it all the stretches down to today and into eternity.

Talk about a book that sticks with you! I read this in January and I still think about it. The characters have depth and complexity. The story is heartbreaking and powerful. Set in France during the German occupation in World War II, this is the story of a woman and her children doing their best to survive. Murder, death, suffering, and hope mix together to make a compelling read. It does have many very sad episodes. So sad, in fact, that I recommended my wife not read it. It depicts the harshness of war and makes me long for the return of Jesus. But if you can handle heartbreak in a book, this is well worth your time.

2016 was the year of Alexander Hamilton and Ron Chernow's biography is great (I read this in 2016, as well), but McCullough's John Adams is my favorite biography this year. Hamilton was a genius and his life is more than fascinating. Adams was a genius in his own right, with a story a bit more boring. What drew me in, though, was not necessarily the strengths of Adams but his weaknesses. He was a vain man and he was aware of that. His mind was sharp and his tongue was sharper. He foresaw the leadership prowess of George Washington and recommended him as both commander of the Continental Army and first President of the U.S. But he worried too much about his place in history. In the end, however, Adams is firmly planted as one of the foremost influences in American history, and McCullough captured it well enough to win a Pulitzer for the work. HBO also used this book to create the miniseries John Adams, which I recommend as well.

This was the first of the Theologians on the Christian Life books I've read. And perhaps that's a good thing. This book is simply wonderful. If you want to understand the ministry of John Newton and his impact on the world, this book succeeds. I found myself highlighting so much that I wonder why I didn't just put a big mark on the cover saying, "Visit Often". Reinke both understands Newton well and is himself a wonderful writer. This book is fantastic. It is a diagnostic for the soul. It is helpful and beautiful. I can't recommend it enough.

My favorite novel of all time is To Kill a Mockingbird. I've loved it since I was a child. It's the only novel I've read more than 3 times. It's an American masterpiece. And so, when it was announced that Mockingbird's sequel was going to be released, I was, naturally, very excited. But the reviews tempered my excitement. I bought the book on June 9, 2015 (thanks, Amazon purchase history) but didn't read it until February of 2016. I kept putting it off because I was afraid to lose Atticus Finch, the protagonist of To Kill A Mockingbird. I shouldn't have waited so long. Yes, this book fails to reach masterpiece status. But I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. What I got was a really good book – even with its flaws. As a stand-alone, this book would have disappointed. But as a sequel to a well-loved book, it pleased me. It didn't please because Atticus is revealed to have racial biases. I, like the rest of America, am disappointed by that. But to be able to be disappointed in a fictional character, to me, proves the genius of the creation. A complex, fictional man with moral inconsistencies is a man far more real than most novelists can dream up. This book made me think about my own life and my own moral and value complexities. And I'm not sure what more you could ask of a novel.

Man, I'm thankful for John Frame. He takes really complex ideas and says them simply. I have no education at all in philosophy and I feel so behind in the philosophical ideas that have shaped the Western world. Frame's big book made me feel competent. He surveys the landscape of Western philosophy and theology from as far back as he can go with the Greeks all the way to the 21st century. If you're like me and need some help understanding these things, this book is the answer. It is the best I've seen. Just a helpful tip on big books like this. I take them 10 pages at a time. For example, last year I read John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. It's massive, and one of those books I feel I have to read. 10 pages a day had me finishing that mammoth in three months. If I can do it, you can too.

Full disclosure, Jared is one of my best friends. Even if he wasn't, though, this book would make the list. It's absolutely wonderful. It's an apologetics book without the rigidity. I would classify it as a devotional apologetics book. Maybe that category doesn't exist and, if not, Jared created it. It is the perfect balance of solid truth wrapped in loving adoration. The reader feels Jared's love for Jesus, and, honestly, there is no better apologetic than that. The last chapter is, through my most objective lens possible, a masterpiece. Jared is one of, if not the, best pure writers in the Christian world. If you haven't read him, do yourself a favor and do so immediately. If you’re a Christian, you can't read this book and not love Jesus more. And if you’re not a Christian, maybe this is the book that can help you understand why so many people love Jesus.

I think Jhumpa Lahiri is one of the finest novelists and short-story writers today. Her characters are lovable and fallible, rich and complex, morally-alive and prone to temptation. She does justice to the mundane much the same way John Updike used to. I recently saw where she said, "I like to be plain. It appeals to me more. I don't want to sit around and have my language just be beuatiful." But her writing is both plain and beautiful. This book takes you through the life of two brothers from India whose closeness is ruptured by a move to America and a sudden death. It is a story that engrosses you in their lives, takes you inside their homes, and shows you the feelings of their heart. It accomplishes all that a great novel should.

A flight from Russia brings a deadly disease to America. It spreads quickly, and the end of the world seems to be at hand. The characters are put in the precarious position of fending for their lives and making life work after most people have disappeared. What do you do when cities become empty? A Shapkespearian travelling symphony gives us the answer. I'm not usually much for post-apocalyptic novels. I had this on the shelf for a while before I finally picked it up, and I'm glad I did. The pace is quick, the story is evolving, and the resolution is satisfying. If you're into this kind of end-of-the-world story, this is for you.

Each year, I choose an author and read all his/her works. 2016 was the year of Francis Schaeffer. I read all 22 of his major works. It was a good year. I’ve been asked by several people which book of Schaeffer’s I would recommend. This is always the first book I suggest. I'm forever changed by his writing ministry as a whole, but this book helped me see the way of the spiritual Christian life. It’s not mysticism. It’s biblical. It’s not inward looking. It’s outward, and upward-looking, to Christ. Not all of it was new to me, but the totality of it helped me more than any other book this year. If you want to know what the moment-by-moment-ness of the Christian life looks like, this will show you. Schaeffer wrote many great books, but this is the one I give to people who want to read him.

This book was flat-out captivating. The Comanche Native American tribe was harsh, violent, and tragic. Gwynne tells the story as if it was a novel. It's amazing that any of it is real. The vividness of the events takes you inside the terror this tribe could illicit. Just a warning: don't read right before bed. It has staying power.

This book got a lot of airplay this year, and for good reason. It's very well-written. Vance is in his early thirties - even he admits that's an early age for a memoir - but his life and insight demand an audience. He never mentions our current political climate (the book was released before the rise of Trump), but if you want to understand how we got here, this book helps us see. Focusing on a largely forgotten and ignored people group in America, especially in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, Vance takes us inside the complex history and present reality of the subgroup of Americans known as the hillbillies. They’re simple people in some ways, and extremely complicated in others. Vance’s place in the family of such people gives the story a first-hand account, and what he reveals is fascinating. Tragic, enlightening, insightful, and captivating, this is one of those books that stays with you. Along with Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, I think this should be required reading for all Americans. If you want to understand our times, pick it up.

If you're a pastor, or serving heavily in church leadership, this book is like a fresh drink of water. It's so soul-refreshing. None of us are the perfect leader. We all have limits and ministry takes us to those limits on a regular basis. How do you rest in your limitedness while serving Christ? How do you follow Jesus closely while serving people tirelessly? This is one of those books that can serve two purposes really well: it feeds pastors, and it helps church members understand the pastorate. So even if you're not in church leadership it is worth reading to better help you pray for your leaders.

I could put about five more Schaeffer books here but this book really helped me. It is prophetic. Written 30+ years ago, this book shows us what a post-Christian world looks like. If you want to understand the age we live in now, visit this book from the past. It will show you what's going on. If someone released it today I would be amazed at their insight into our modern plight. That it was released in a different century altogether amazes me.

Ray was my pastor for 7+ years, he's my dear friend, and he's written perhaps the finest book available on Paul's words in Ephesians 5:32, "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church." Ray is insightful and pastoral, as always. This book not only puts on display the beauty of marriage but also the beauty of Christ, the one who makes all things beautiful. I loved my wife more after reading this and I loved God more. This book is a theological juggernaut. It's short enough to read in one sitting and profound enough to think on for a lifetime. It is a fresh word for an ancient gift. Oh, and by the way, I don't know anyone whose marriage I want to emulate more than Ray and Jani's. They're the real deal. For that reason, too, I can read this book without even a question in my mind as to his heart on this subject.

This book is getting a lot of pub right now, and rightfully so. It’s amazing that I hadn’t heard of it until this year. It was written in the 1960s and yet has made a move to popularity in 2016 – even having a movie released late this year. The setting is Japan in the 17th century. Jesuit missionaries sail the ocean to find another priest who supposedly has apostazied. On their jounrey to find their friend, they visit village after village to find Christians in each. Japan is rife with persecution. Christians are being killed left and right. When these priests encounter the mastermind behind all the terror, they too have a choice to make. Will they stay faithful, or will they lose their faith? Can the gospel take root in the swamps of Japan, or will it rot? It is incredibly well-written and deeply insightful. It has many layers, and therefore is not a book to pick up and read quickly and thoughtlessly. I wish I had read it slower.

A fascinating look into a man who spewed hate – especially hate towards Christians. Taunton was a good, and surprising, friend of Hitchens. Their friendship revolved around debates but went much deeper. Hitchens would defend the character of his friend even if he could not defend his faith. Hitchens had no time for fakers but he did make time for sincere believers – even though he hated all that they believe. What Taunton relates in these pages garnered lots of attention. Many thought he was intimating a death-bed conversion of Hitchens. He does not such thing. Instead, he shows us a man who was thinking things through as he neared death but who never would believe. He’s the example of the hardened heart. He dies without accepting Christ. If you want to see what a man looks like who refuses to believe and the hopelessness that creates, this book will show you.

I had this one on my list for a few years. Finally, I saw it on sale for Kindle and picked it up. In the same vein as Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried (which also makes my list – see below), Redeployment is a series of stories of soldiers making their way in the world during and after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The stories are compelling and well-told. This book won the National Book Award in 2014, and I now see why. My only regret is that I waited so long to read it. The heartbreak of war doesn’t end when the last gun is fired. It comes home with the men and women who were sent. We would do well with so many veterans in our midst, and without a war big enough to call most of our country into its battlefields, to know what these few brave soldiers face on a daily basis.

So intriguing. I read this because I couldn’t think of anything else to read at the time. Turns out, it’s the Downton Abbey of books. I had no idea the White House staff (butlers, cooks, maids, etc.) stayed on from administration to administration. But they do. And the stories they tell, which are actually quite few due to their vow of silence and regard for privacy of the families, are incredibly interesting. This book humanizes the presidents in a way very few other things could do for me. To see these folks love one president only to see him move out a few years later and then accept another family made me feel their anguish, and wonder at their determination and resilience in their work. This book shows their sacrifice and humanity. Turns out Washington is filled with humans after all.

The best book on war I've read. A friend loaned this to me over a year ago, and I finally picked it up. O’Brien writes on the complexities of war: the glory, the horror, the comradery, the ugliness, the beauty, the heartbreak, and the lasting effects. The events take place during the Vietnam War. It’s not about the war itself as it is about the men who fought it. Taking us inside the soldier’s mind is a hard thing to do, but O’Brien does it well. As much as I was able, I felt like I was standing there beside him.