As I evaluated my reading habits at the end of last year, I began to recognize a diminishing ability to give sustained attention to the longer and more involved discourses and arguments contained in books. So one of my goals this year was to read more books. Cover to cover. I set a specific goal and ended up surpassing it by 60%. It was a good year for reading.
Here are some of the best things I read this year. This is not nearly the complete list and it is a mixture of both old and new, and secular and sacred. It is not an endorsement of everything that is in these books, but all these books encouraged, helped and challenged me in particular ways.
Biblical/Theological books:
- Heath Lambert, Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace
- Denny Burk, What is the Meaning of Sex?
- J. D. Greear, Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
- Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot
- Jonathan Aitken, John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace
- John Dyer, From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology
- Robert Jones, Pursuing Peace: A Christian Guide to Handling Our Conflicts
Non-biblical books:
- Laura Hillebrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (maybe the best biography I’ve ever read)
- Peter Nichols, A Voyage for Madmen
- Frank DeFord, The Old Ballgame: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball
- Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (you have to like grammar, words, and writing to appreciate this book!)
Words of Grace 