Books I read in 2015

In 2015 I read fewer books than 2014 but I definitely grew as a reader.  I always thought that reading more was how you grew as a reader but it’s not true it’s reading better books. It’s reading books that are beyond you that grow you as a reader.  Mortimer Adler says this about reading books –

“Too often, we use that phrase (well-read) to mean the quantity rather than the quality of reading. A person who has read widely but not well deserves to be pitied rather than praised.”

I have been someone who has read widely but not well. This year I began to change that. I hope to continue to do so in each successive year.

I love what Mortimer Adler says about good books at the end of his book on how to read books. He says:

“A good book does reward you for trying to read it. The best books reward you most of all. The reward, of course, is of two kinds. First, there is the improvement in your reading skill that occurs when you successfully tackle a good, difficult work. Second – and this in the long run is much more important – a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable-books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life….These are matters about which you cannot think too much or too well. The greats books can help you to think better about the, because they were written by men and women who thought better than other people about them.”

This was always my problem I was reading books to become more knowledgeable but that knowledge was limited because it addressed only a specific problem. When you read better books. When you read the books that your favorite authors, favorite author, favorite author wrote you see things differently. You no longer have knowledge about a topic you see more deeply, you enter the conversation rather than catch the highlights, because you see the border picture you see the whole argument not simply parts of it.

Here are the books I read in 2015.

1. Platform by Michael Hyatt
2. The Martian – Andy Weir
3. Expositional Preaching – David Helm
4. The Lion The Which and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis.
5. A Tale of Three Kings – Gene Edwards
6. Out of the Silent Planet – C.S. Lewis
7. Creativity, Inc. By Ed Catmull
8. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – by J. K. Rowling
9. The Tale of Despereaux by Katie DiCamillo
10. Show Them Jesus by Jack Klumpenhower
11. Culture Making by Andy Crouch
12. John Newton: From disgrace to amazing grace by Jonathan Aitkin
13. The Prodigal Church by Jared Wilson
14. What does the Bible really teach about homosexuality? By Kevin DeYoung
15. The Things Of Earth. by Joe Rigney
16. The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis
17. True Spirituality – Francis Schaeffer
18. Hand in Hand by Randy Alcorn
19. The Republic by Plato
20. Finding Truth by Nancy Pearcy
21. Preaching by Timothy Keller
22. A Free People’s Suicide by Oz Guinness
23. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
24. Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets – J. K. Rowling
25. Judges For You – Tim Keller
26. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
27. Prince Caspian by CS Lewis
28. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
29. Poetics by Aristotle
30. Theogony by Hesiod
31. How to Read a Book Mortimer J Adler
32. The Survivor – Vince Flynn
33. Prometheus Bound – Aeschylus
34. Oedipus The King – Sophocles
35. Hippolytus – Euripides
36. Apology – Plato
37. Clouds – Arisophanes
38. The Bacchae – Euripides