My 2016 Reading List

I'm almost 2 years late with this post, but better late than never, right?  What follows is my 2016 reading list--some great stuff here.

My 2016 Reading Goal

I set a goal to read 50 books in 2016.  But, just as in 2013, 2014, and 2015, I fell short: I read 32 books in 2016.

My Rules

I only count books I read all the way through, cover to cover.  I read lots of journals and periodicals and online resources, and in my weekly sermon prep read parts of different books and commentaries, but for my reading goal, none of those count.  Why not?  I find that the concentration and focus required to read a book all the way through is different (and more valuable) than reading a magazine article or blog post or even part of a book, for example.  (Also, reading blog posts and articles isn't life-giving to me the way reading a book is.)A book that I keep thinking about months afterward, a book that adds enduring value to my life, that's a book I'll define as good.  Since I'm writing this post in 2018, books I rate well below are books that really stuck with me.I use a 5 star system in my ratings to signify the following:★★★★★  life-changing and unforgettable★★★★  excellent★★★  worth readingBooks getting less than 3 stars aren't on my Best list, which doesn't mean they were necessarily bad--just not books that I'd excitedly recommend to you.★★  read other things first★   not recommended 

The Best Books I Read in 2016 (in chronological order)

The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith, by Peter Hitchens

 Peter Hitchens has become one of my favorite writers, and I try to read everything he publishes.  He writes a column for the "The Mail on Sunday" newspaper, and blogs regularly at that site.  (His blog is particularly entertaining and informative.)  Mr. Hitchens is the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens, a man well-known for his strident atheism.  Peter Hitchens, in contrast, had an adult conversion to conservative Anglicanism, and this book is partly a memoir of that journey.Most of the work of Mr. Hitchens has an elegiac quality, a mournful look at the way the world used to be and will never be again.  He is too honest and too intelligent to believe that everything about the world of his boyhood is better than the modern world, but also too honest and intelligent to go along with the unthinking modern worship of Progress.★★★★  The Rage Against God 

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

What I remember most about this lovely novel about a blind French girl during the Second World War is the appreciation the author has for the thingness of things--old-fashioned keys, the oiled tumblers of a lock, the feel of braille on a page, worn carpet on rickety steps.  Just as Marie-Laure comes to know the world through senses other than sight, so do we, the readers, experience the reality of her world.I loved this novel all the way up until the final few pages, which I felt were a betrayal of the hundreds of pages that had come before.  Still, the best novels create a world that you live within while you're reading, and this one does it.★★★★  All the Light We Cannot See 

An Officer and a Spy, by Robert Harris

I'd heard about L'Affaire Dreyfus since high school, and I could have answered a trivia question that asked about Emile Zola and J'Accuse, but beyond that I didn't know much of anything about it, other than it involved the French army and nasty anti-Semitism.  On a recommendation from Peter Hitchens (see above), I decided to try Robert Harris's historical novel about the Dreyfus Affaire, and I've been thinking about it ever since I read it.The most remarkable thing about this remarkable story is that virtually all of the major and minor characters in the novel were actual historical people.  The story is both thrilling, sickening, and fascinating.  And, to look back with hindsight and know that within 20 years of the original event France's army would be decimated in the Great War gives the entire story a foreboding quality.(I listened to the audio version of this novel, read by David Rintoul.  He is an EXCELLENT reader, and I cannot recommend the audiobook highly enough.)★★★★  An Officer and a Spy 

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport

Tim Ferriss has this great question he asks the guests on his podcast: "What is the one book you've most gifted--given to other people--in the last year?"  For me, one of the books (the other being Rocket Fuel, see below)  I've most gifted in the past couple of years is Deep Work.  I wrote in greater detail about this book in May 2016, so here I'll just say that though I'm constantly surprised at how few people I know seem willing to do anything about the problems of distraction in our wireless world, maybe that unwillingness will give those of us who are trying to learn how to focus a competitive advantage.★★★★  Deep Work 

Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want From Your Business, by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters

Reading this book permanently changed the way I think about my role as the leader of an organization.  The argument in Rocket Fuel is simple: at the top of any organization, there needs to be a partnership between the visionary--usually but not always the point leader--and an integrator, who implements the vision.The book gives some helpful tips for finding out which role you are better suited for, and how to find your counterpart.  Very simple ideas, but powerful in practice.★★★  Rocket Fuel 

Voyage to Alpha Centauri, by Michael D. O'Brien

Michael D. O'Brien has become one of my favorite novelists, and this long novel about a long journey to our nearest solar system set in the near future has been rattling around in my mind since I finished it over 2 years ago.  O'Brien is not a science-fiction novelist, and this isn't really a science-fiction novel so much as a religious novel: in a secular future, a lonely, irascible scientist is invited to be a passenger aboard the first manned spaceship to leave our galaxy.  I found the description of the ship and the technological advances it contains as well as the bureaucratic rigidity and cruelty that the main character faces to be both believable and terrifying.  This isn't a perfect novel, and though I'm inclined to agree with this reviewer's criticism here, I actually think it stands up over time.  Of all the books I read in 2016, this is the one that has most haunted my thoughts 2 years later.★★★★1/2  Voyage to Alpha Centauri 

Advise and Consent: A Novel of Washington Politics, by Allen Drury

I read this 1959 novel over Thanksgiving break 2 years ago, but I found myself thinking about it constantly during the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh earlier this fall.  Advise and Consent is a long novel about a national political controversy, not unlike the Kavanaugh controversy in that it brings political passions to boil over.  It's about what men will do to gain power, and about how ideology causes people to congratulate themselves on their deceit.  The central act of the novel is a betrayal that is among the nastiest, cruelest things I've ever read, which has caused me to think about the Presidents in my lifetime--would these men resort to that kind of action?  I fear the answer is yes.  This is a book for anyone who loves politics (and you'd better love politics, since the book is over 700 pages long); along with Richard Ben Cramer's nonfiction magnum opus What It Takes: The Way to the White House, which I wrote about here, Advise and Consent is one of the best political books I've ever read.★★★1/2  Advise and Consent 

The Rest of My 2014 Reading List (Some Great, Some Worthless--in Chronological Order)

Silence: A Novel, by Shusaku Endo

An historical novel about Jesuit missionaries to Japan during a time of great persecution in the 17th century, Silence asks the question, Is it right to deny Christ in order to alleviate suffering?  I think the novel gives one answer, whereas Martin Scorsese's excellent film adaptation gives a contrary one.  I'd recommend both the book and the movie.★★★  Silence 

The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating, by Andy Stanley

The sermon series on which this book was based was excellent, the book less so.★★  The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating 

Tortured for Christ, by Richard Wurmbrand

A famous memoir about the evils of Communism and the horrors of Ceaucescu's rule in Romania.★★  Tortured for Christ 

Moonfleet, by J. Meade Faulkner

This is an adventure story along the lines of Treasure Island or Kidnapped--though not as good as either--written at the end of the 19^thcentury about the south coast of England during the 1750s.  A recommendation from Peter Hitchens (see above), it had me reaching for the dictionary, but I loved the antiquated speech of the characters.★★1/2  Moonfleet 

Arts and Entertainments: A Novel, by Christopher Beha

This novel made me queasy the whole time I was reading it, and I had to make a commitment finish it.  It's about a guy who sells a sex-tape that contains a scene with a now-famous ex-girlfriend.  What made me queasy was not the sex-tape (no details are given), but the nauseating sense of celebrity culture and reality television that pervades the novel, and, of course, everyday life.  This novel is a satire, and Mr. Beha clearly does not think that reality television is a good thing; nonetheless, I still disliked reading about it.★  Arts and Entertainments 

Discovering the Shepherd: a Study of Psalm 23, by G.E. Johnson

★  Discovering the Shepherd 

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, by Michael Lewis

Infuriating, because the people who did the wrong thing got away with it.  Interesting portraits of the sort of people who saw what no one else actually wanted to see, even though the evidence was there the entire time.★★  The Big Short 

Fight for the Forgotten: How a Mixed Martial Artist Stopped Fighting for Himself and Started Fighting for Others, by Justin Wren & Loretta Hunt

Justin is a friend of mine; the story of his conversion to Christianity and his subsequent adoption by a Pygmy tribe in the Congo Rainforest is one of the more amazing stories I've heard.  I'd rate this book higher, but hearing "the Big Pygmy" speak in person has spoiled it for me.★★  Fight for the Forgotten 

Reflections on the Psalms, by C.S. Lewis

Great chapters on the violent psalms and on the use of scripture.  Really insightful book.  Recommended.★★★  Reflections on the Psalms 

Dictator: A Novel, by Robert Harris

3^rd and final novel in a trilogy about the ancient Roman statesman Cicero.  Very creative.  Gave me a lot of perspective on ancient Rome, and the fall of the Roman Republic.  I liked this, but not as much as An Officer and a Spy by the same author (see above).  Certainly worth reading, though.★★★1/2  Dictator 

Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies

A very strange novel about the life of a Canadian bachelor.  Don't really know if I liked it or not.★★  Fifth Business 

Spirituality of Gratitude: The Unexpected Blessings of Thankfulness, by Joshua Choonmin Kang

Simple, holy reflections on gratitude.★★  Spirituality of Gratitude 

Unleashing Opportunity: Why Escaping Poverty Requires a Shared Vision of Justice, by Michael Gerson, Stephanie Summers, and Katie Thompson

This is the kind of book in which the authors say things like "Government and church should work together to help children." Okay.... But what does that mean?  The only part of the book I found interesting was the chapter on payday lending.  Banks usually lend money to people that can pay it back; in payday lending, the whole point is to lend money so that people will never pay it back.★  Unleashing Opportunity 

The Power of TED* (The Empowerment Dynamic), by David Emerald

The drama triangle stuff is worth the price of the book, though the little fable is a bit much for me.★★  The Power of TED* 

Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (99U)

Simple little book.  Worth reading for those who are in the creative professions and struggle with distraction.  I really liked the ideas of routine.  Reminded me of what I already knew (which is not a bad thing).★★  Manage Your Day-to-Day 

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell

I previously reviewed this book.  From that review:

Team of Teams is an interesting, thorough book (I've only referenced a very small part of its content here), but I'm not totally convinced by its argument.  General McChrystal and his co-authors argue that in our complex world, a great team or team of teams is a greater strategic advantage than a great leader.  I agree with that, as far as it goes, and I think the insights in the book about how to create an organizational culture that is adaptable and resilient are helpful.  But, I can't help thinking that part of the story of the book is also that it takes a great leader to create that kind of organizational culture.  Maybe the kind of leader who could lead that kind of change would end up thriving in any situation, complex or not.  The Admiral Nelsons of the world might just make any team successful.  A team is important, but a team requires a leader.  As Bill Hybels likes to say, 'Everything rises and falls on leadership.'  As I said, the more I read General McChrystal‘s book, the more I thought, 'This guy is impressive.'

★★  Team of Teams 

If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty, by Eric Metaxas

When asked by a passerby in 1787 what the Framers of the Constitution had been creating on behalf of the American people, Ben Franklin replied "A republic, if you can keep it."  I strongly dislike both the Bonhoeffer and Luther biographies by Metaxas--I can't stand his writing style--but I really liked this little book about America.  Highly recommended.★★★  If You Can Keep It 

The Chimera Sequence, by Elliott Garber

Look up "Beach Read" in the dictionary, and this novel about mountain gorillas and terrorists and heroic scientists would be pictured.★  The Chimera Sequence 

Laurus, by Eugene Vodolazkin, trans. by Lisa C. Hayden

After reading Rod Dreher's rhapsodic review of this modern Russian novel, I wanted to like it...but I just didn't.  I thought it was okay and interesting, but nothing close to as good as he seems to think.★ Laurus 

Streamline: How to Create Healthy Church Systems, by Michael Lukaszewski

★★ Streamline 

Leadership Axioms, by Bill Hybels

One of the many sad parts of the Bill Hybels situation this year is that Bill was someone with good stuff to say...if only he would have applied it to himself.  This is a good book, regardless of its author's hypocrisy and failings.★★★  Leadership Axioms 

With: A Practical Guide to Informal Mentoring and Intentional Disciple-Making, by George G. Robinson and Alvin L. Reid

I remember literally nothing about this book.★  With 

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande

Really interesting case studies (aviation, surgery, etc.) of the usefulness of checklists.★★  The Checklist Manifesto 

Werewolf Cop: A Novel, by Andrew Klavan

Yes, I actually read this.  And no, I have no idea why.★  Werewolf Cop 

Red Moon Rising: Rediscover the Power of Prayer, by Pete Grief and Dave Roberts

I heard Pete Grieg give a talk at a conference, and so I bought this book.  Wasn't particularly helpful to me, though I was struck by the 24-7 Prayer emphasis.★  Red Moon Rising  

The Simple Technique Anyone Can Use To Become a Better Communicator (Immediately)

I've written a very short whitepaper on a subject I care a lot about: communication.Click HERE to subscribe to my newsletter and I'll send it to you for free:The Simple Technique Anyone Can Immediately Use To Become a Better Communicator.(If you are already a subscriber, drop me a line and I'll send you the whitepaper.)

The Best Books I Read in 2015

I set a goal to read 50 books in 2015. In September, I revised my goal down to 40...and I hit it! What follows is my list of the best 6 books I read in 2015, in chronological order.

(Update: My entire 2015 reading list is here.)

My Rules

I only count books I read all the way through, cover to cover. I read lots of journals and periodicals, and in my weekly sermon prep read parts of different books and commentaries, but for my reading goal, none of those count. A book that I keep thinking about, a book that adds enduring value to my life, that‘s a book I’ll define as good. I use a 5 star system in my ratings to signify the following:

★★★★★ life-changing and unforgettable

★★★★ excellent

★★★ worth reading

Books getting less than 3 stars aren‘t on my Best list, which doesn‘t mean they were necessarily bad, but just not books that I’d excitedly recommend to you.

★★ read other things first

★ not recommended

---

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell

I read all of Malcolm Gladwell's books in 2015; Outliers is my favorite. No man is an island; any amount of success we achieve is due to hard work, of course, but it's also all about right place, right time; success is about our circumstances, our family, and our environment. ★★★★

The Radetsky March, by Joseph Roth

I read because I want to experience life; the books I like best are the ones that evoke other times and other places so acutely that, to paraphrase Robert Frost, they make me remember things I've never known. And, there is something about the vanished places that only exist in memory that are the sweetest and saddest. Since I first read Patrick Leigh Fermor's great memoirs (A Time of Gifts and Between the Wood and Water) I've loved reading works of nostos forMittereuropa, that now-vanished world of the Austro-Hungarian empire, dismantled in World War I and disappeared with murder and concrete by World War Two and the Iron Curtain. After watching The Grand Budapest Hotel, I read about Stephan Zweig, whose work was the inspiration for the Wes Anderson movie. Then, in Zweig's autobiography, I stumbled across a reference to The Radetsky March. I'd never heard it mentioned anywhere else, but it was one of the best books I read in 2015 and the sense of it will stay with me a long time after. So, what is The Radetsky March about? I like Simon Schama's remark:

'Read this and your life will change,' we say, pressing it relentlessly on strangers encountered in Daunt Books who might confuse him with Henry or Philip of the same moniker. 'So what‘s it about?' they reasonably inquire. 'Ah, well,' you say, 'it follows an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army before the first world war, stuck in a provincial border garrison doing nothing in particular except getting drunk on 180 per cent schnapps and haplessly wandering from calamity to disaster ... ' 'Oh, right, thanks,' they say, looking around for an escape route before you can add: 'Oh and, of course, all of human life sex, class, food, music, land, power, and Jews there‘s this scene where Kaiser Franz Joseph runs into an old Hasidic rabbi ... ' But you‘ve already lost them to the Man Booker shortlist table."

Franz Joseph, Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1848-1916.

The novel is an "elegiac evocation of‘the slow decay of a way of life that disappeared with the collapse of the multinational Habsburg Empire" and about the soft but irresistible pull of that empire towards destruction, and about one family's own petty paralysis in the face of that slow pull. For me,The Radetsky March is all atmosphere, elegy for a world that will never come again. (For a contemporary review of the novel that even then was looking back on a lost world, see this 1933 New York Times piece.) ★★★★

An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus' Rhythms of Work and Rest, by Alan Fadling

"If you had one word to describe Jesus, what would it be?" In An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling recounts how, when philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard answered that question, he chose relaxed. Fadling writes, "What took root in my own heart [after hearing Willard's one word description] was the desire to know Jesus as an unhurried savior." When I read that sentence last summer, I thought "YES. Me too." I read this book at exactly the right time. I had been feeling harried and shallow for months, feeling as if I could never find quiet, and feeling that God was calling me to prayer and silence. Alan Fadling's book was a blessing to me, and I recommend it to you. ★★★

Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Unset

Imagine living in a world in which all of reality--everything you could see and touch and taste and smell--was enchanted with the power of God. This is the world of Kristin Lavransdatter. Rod Dreher explains:

The late medievals were heirs to a belief system that regarded the world as enchanted. God was everywhere, and ordered all things to Himself. All of Creation (and it was Creation, not yet Nature) was a sign pointing to its Creator. It is an anachronistic mistake to think that our late medieval ancestors regarded the world as we do, except with a belief in God added to it. They did not. God and things divine were far more present in the imaginations of the people, who looked around them and saw Him. They lived in a cosmos, a universe ordered by God, pregnant with meaning and divine purpose [emphasis in the original]."

Kristin Lavransdatter is an 1,100 page historical novel (actually a trilogy of novels, published in the early 1920s), written by Norwegian writer Sigrid Undset about 14th century Norway. The novel follows the life of the title character (Kristin, daughter of her father Lavrans)

“first as a young girl enjoying bread, butter, dried reindeer, and mead in sunny alpine meadows with her father; then through her thrilling first encounters with the love of her life, the beguiling Erlend Nikulausson, during which Undset precisely renders the romantic heart of a teenage girl; and finally through Kristin‘s adulthood as a brooding but hardworking mistress of a household and mother of many sons."

Carrie Frederick Frost has an insightful essay at First Things (from which I took the above quotation) about Kristin and motherhood and faith. I will never be a mother, but I am a son and a father, and I appreciate Frost's summary of the insight that Kristin gains from motherhood:

“It is through reflection on her own experience of motherhood that Kristin is able to understand her parents’ love for her. After a decade of motherhood she considers the character of her parents’ love: That love had been strong and wide and unfathomably deep; while the love she gave them in return was weak and thoughtless and selfish, even back in childhood when her parents were her whole world. Kristin realizes that even though she loved her parents, her love for them did not approach the love they had for her, and that she now feels this same ‘strong and wide’ love for her own children. Through her maternal meditation, Kristin understands that she belongs to a lineage of love linking her children, herself, her parents, and all of humanity back to God‘s unfathomably deep, parental love."

Kristin Lavransdatter is not just about motherhood, though: like other great epic novels (e.g.War and Peace or Island of the World) it is about all of life: marriage, adultery, hatred, war, forgiveness, and the grace of God. I love this novel. ★★★★★

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

I had an insight last year: my job (or at least the most public aspect of it) is essentially creative. Every single Sunday, 47 weeks a year, I am personally and alone responsible for a 30 minute presentation that is supposed to faithfully convey Christian doctrine, bring the Bible to life, appeal to outsiders and skeptics, nourish the faithful, and, if possible, be both humorous and poignant. And then do it again in 7 days. How is it possible to make that kind of creativity and excellence routine? Ed Catmull is a computer genius in his own right, but he is also a business genius, and as a co-founder and president of Pixar he has been obsessed with creating a culture of creativity since 1986. Creativity Inc. is Mr. Catmull's attempt to put what he has learned down on paper. The result is a business book unlike most business books, and I found myself underlining sentence after sentence as I read. ★★★★

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins's dystopian young adult novel, surprised me: it was much better than I expected it to be, and I still find myself thinking about it frequently, months later. The basic story line--how a ruthless elite amuses themselves to death while exploiting the general population in order to maintain their wealth and comfort--strikes me as chillingly similar to life in modern America: we live in The Capital. I think Katniss Everdeen is a totally believable heroine, and I am impressed with Ms. Collins's creativity and vision. ★★★

---

My 2016 Reading Goal

Once again, I've set myself a goal of reading 50 books this year. What about you--do you have a reading goal for the year? [Here are my 2013 and 2014 reading lists, respectively.]

I'm recommitting to do better about blogging 3 times a week, so click here to subscribe to my blog updates, delivered right to your inbox.

My 2014 Reading List

[Léon Cogniet - The Artist in His Room at the Villa Medici, Rome]

Soviet Russia during wartime; climbing Mount Everest in canvas puttees and hobnailed boots; Hasidic teenagers in Brooklyn: these were just a few of the subjects I read about in 2014. Sure, I didn't make my reading goal, but it was a great year for reading all the same.

My 2014 Reading Goal

I set a goal to read 50 books in 2014. My actual total: 34. (Just like last year, I fell short.) But can I get a little credit for reading several huge novels? I mentioned last year that I wanted to read more fiction and literature in 2014, and as you'll see below, I accomplished that goal. (I think I'd like to add more books on theology and pastoral ministry in 2015.)

Here Are My Rules

I only counted books that I read all the way through. In my weekly sermon prep, I often end up reading parts of different books, but they don't count. Also, I read lots of periodicals and online journals, but I don't count them toward my total. Why not? I find that the concentration required to read a book all the way through is different (and more valuable) than reading a blog post or online article. Also, reading blog posts and articles isn't life-giving to me the way reading a book is.

A book that I'll remember in the future, a book that adds enduring value to my life, that's a book I'll define as good. I use a 5 star system in my ratings to signify the following:

✭✭✭✭✭ life-changing and unforgettable

✭✭✭✭ excellent

✭✭✭ worth reading

Books getting less than 3 stars aren't on my "Best" list, which doesn't mean they were necessarily bad, but just not books that I'd excitedly recommend to you.

✭✭ read other things first

✭ not recommended

---

The Best Books I Read in 2014 (in chronological order)

The Abominable: A Novel, by Dan Simmons. The first book I read in 2014, and one of the best I read all year. It's a long novel (688 pages) about a team trying to climb Mount Everest in 1924, against a background of mystery and international espionage. Author Dan Simmons takes the gaps in our historical knowledge (What really happened to George Mallory and Sandy Irvine? Why didn't Hitler put Operation Sea Lion into motion and invade England in 1940?) and connects them and fills them in in creative and satisfying ways.From Booklist, via Amazon:

It‘s 1924, and a trio of rogue climbers: mysterious WWI vet Deacon, emotional Frenchman Jean-Claude, and our narrator, brash young American Jacob, are hired to find the corpse of a dignitary lost on Everest. While they’re there, they go for the legendary summit. Right away, there‘s a complication: a fourth team member, the dead man‘s cousin and a woman, no less! But it‘s the subsequent complications that make this required reading for anyone inspired or terrified by high-altitude acrobatics: sudden avalanches, hidden crevasses, murderous temperatures, mountainside betrayals, and maybe just maybe a pack of bloodthirsty yeti. Though the first 200 pages of climbing background might have readers pining for the big climb, it is nearly always interesting, and, later, Simmons excels at those small but full-throated moments of terror when, for example, a single bent screw might mean death for everyone."

The Abominable had me constantly reaching for my atlas and looking things up on Wikipedia.

Highly recommended. ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Christ of the Indian Road, by E. Stanley Jones. I'd like to understand the culture in which I minister as well as Jones, a Methodist missionary to India 100 years ago (and a friend of Gandhi's) understood his.

Recommended. ⭑⭑⭑

Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. The story of Louie Zamperini's life is one of the more remarkable I've ever read.

Highly recommended (and I also recommend the movie, by the way). ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Last Hero, by Peter Forbath. This fictionalized retelling of Henry Morton Stanley's final trip through the Congo is terrifying and compelling. Another long novel (729 pages) that had me constantly reaching for the atlas and encyclopedia, it re-introduced me to the remarkable life of Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley was one of the most famous and lionized me in the world in the last 3rd of the 19th century, and though I'd read about him when I was a teenager, I'd forgotten how improbable, exciting, and impressive were his accomplishments. Like Louie Zamperini--although actually much more so--Stanley's life story is one of those that if you made it up, no one would believe it.

Highly recommended. ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Chosen, by Chaim Potok. Why read fiction? Fiction enables you to experience the life of another in a way that is impossible otherwise. The Chosen is about the friendship between two boys in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn during the Second World War.

Highly recommended. ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Essentialism, by Greg McKeown. I wrote about this book here. Like most of these sorts of business and leadership books, it's too long, but still worth the read.

Recommended. ⭑⭑⭑

What Radical Husbands Do, by Regi Campbell. I'd like all the men I know to read this book.

Recommended. ⭑⭑⭑

The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni. A great book on organizational leadership.

Recommended. ⭑⭑⭑

Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry. The only novel of Berry's I've ever read, it's a slow accounting of the life of a small hamlet in Kentucky, and its bachelor barber.

Highly recommended. ⭑⭑⭑

---

The Best Book I Read in 2014

Urban warfare, Stalingrad, 1942.

German soldiers at Stalingrad, January 1943.

Soviet attack, February 1943.

German POWs, Stalingrad, 1943.

Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman (translated by Robert Chandler). A novel by a Red Army journalist who lived through the Battle of Stalingrad, Life and Fate is a masterpiece and an experience that I will never ever forget. I first heard about Life and Fate as a college history student, and have had it on my someday/maybe list for 15 years or so. It's a massive novel (896 pages), and was the last book I read in 2014. Here's a good summary from Publisher's Weekly:

Obviously modeled on War and Peace, this sweeping account of the siege of Stalingrad aims to give as panoramic a view of Soviet society during World War II as Tolstoy did of Russian life in the epoch of the Napoleonic Wars. Completed in 1960 and then confiscated by the KGB, it remained unpublished at the author's death in 1964; it was smuggled into the West in 1980. Grossman offers a bitter, compelling vision of a totalitarian regime where the spirit of freedom that arose among those under fire was feared by the state at least as much as were the Nazis. His huge cast of characters includes an old Bolshevik now under arrest, a physicist pressured to make his scientific discoveries conform to "socialist reality" and a Jewish doctor en route to the gas chambers in occupied Russia. Ironically, just as Stalingrad is liberated from the Germans, many of the characters find themselves bound in new slavery to the Soviet government. Yet Grossman suggests that the spirit of freedom can never be completely crushed. His lengthy, absorbing novel--which rejected the compromises of a lifetime and earned its author denunciation and disgrace--testifies eloquently to that spirit."

Highly, highly recommended. (I'll need to write more about this separately.) ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

---

The Rest of 2014 (in chronological order)

Some of the books below are quite good, but for whatever reason, they didn't grab me in such as way to make my "best of" list above. Still, some of these books might be worth your time. Others most definitely aren't. Caveat lector.

That Used to be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented And How We Can Come Back, by Thomas Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum. The title pretty much says it all.... ✭✭

Stanley: the Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer," by Tim Jeal. After reading?The Last Hero (see above), I wanted to learn more about Stanley. ⭑⭑

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, by Rod Dreher. A memoir about returning home after the death of an only sibling. I first read about the book on Dreher's blog, which is one of my favorites. A nice book about the importance of family and community. ⭑⭑

Death by Meeting, by Patrick Lencioni. Helpful. ⭑⭑

Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace, by Heath Lambert. A book about men and pornography. ⭑⭑

FoundationFoundation and EmpireSecond Foundation, all by Isaac Asimov. I'd heard that these were ground-breaking books in science fiction, so I think I was expecting more. Good, but not great. ⭑⭑

The Tale of Three Kings, by Gene Edwards. A lot of evangelical pastor types love this book about Saul, David, and Absolom. Not totally sure why. ⭑⭑

The Anglican Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism, by John Stott & J. Alec Motyer. Not helpful to me. ⭑

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, by John Maxwell. I don't get much out of Maxwell's stuff. ⭑

All In, by Mark Batterson. ⭑

Developing the Leader Within You, by John Maxwell. Maxwell's first book, and definitely one of the worst books I've ever read. More clich‘s than a box of chocolates. ⭑

The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, by John Maxwell. ⭑

Podcast Launch, by John Lee Dumas. ⭑

Come Home: A Call Back to Faith, by James MacDonald. My mom told me about this book, and as soon as I heard the title, I thought, "I want to do a sermon series on that theme." I ended up doing the series--one of my favorites we've ever done--but I didn't find the book very helpful to me, and all I ended up using was the title (which is a great title, by the way). ⭑

An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture, by Andrew Davis. Can't beat the price. ⭑⭑

Eat This Book, by Eugene Peterson. Like?Come Home mentioned above, I got a sermon series out of this title (which I'd heard elsewhere), but didn't get much content for the actual series from the book. ⭑⭑

7 Men and The Secret of Their Greatness, by Eric Metaxas. I want to like Eric Metaxas's books because I believe in what he's trying to do and agree with his general worldview, but as with his Bonhoeffer book, I found the writing in this book to be really annoying and juvenile. Unfortunately, I just don't think Metaxas is a very good writer. Not recommended. ⭑

Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, by Michael Hyatt. Good practical stuff for bloggers. ⭑⭑

In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, by Henri Nouwen. I love the epilogue about Nouwen and his friend with special needs, speaking at a conference together. Beautiful. ⭑⭑

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to?Build the Future, by Peter Thiel. I really disliked this book; this Vox post is a good summary of my own feelings. (For another funny article on Silicon Valley arrogance and foolishness, see this New York magazine piece?about the men behind the laundry app "Washio.") Not recommended. ⭑

Not Yet Christmas, by J.D. Walt. Some nice reflections on Advent. ⭑⭑

Into the Silent Land: a Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, by Martin Laird. A reference on Rod Dreher's blog pointed me towards this book. Good stuff on contemplative prayer. ⭑⭑

I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of the above. Anything I need to be sure and read in 2015? 

P.S. Subscribe!

If you've read this far, you're committed, so why not subscribe to future updates from my blog? Click here to subscribe.