This year was a change for me I started graduate school a little over a year ago, and the books I want to read are now waiting for me because of books I have to read are taking precedence. I have learned a couple of things about reading this year.
1.Reading books above what you typically read or are comfortable reading push you to read more efficiently and read more widely. There are books I would never have read this year if it were not for that.
2. The books I want to read I have to do in the cracks of time that are not taken by school, work and family. My list of want to read books is growing, hopefully, I can get to them in a couple of years.
3. I have to be pickier with my want to read list since I don’t have the time to read books that I find remotely interesting. I have to be more judicious with what books I choose to read.
I choose books to read
– That are books I re-read almost every year
– That deal with issues I am facing in life and ministry
– That are being talked about a lot in wider circles than the church (All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr)
– That are part of my longer term reading goals, like reading everything from CS Lewis at least once.
– I tried to read more disciplined in my devotional reading this year, by reading my bible a devotional and a commentary that went along with the devotional.
- Renaissance – Os Guinness
- Politics – Aristotle
- The Greatest Story – Kevin DeYoung
- The Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle
- How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
- Tale of Three Kings – Gene Edwards
- Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis
- Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C.S. Lewis
- Confessions – St. Augustine
- The Call to Joy and Pain. – Ajith Fernando
- Jesus Outside the Lines. – Scott Sauls
- Fools Talk – Os Guinness
- Family Worship – Donald Whitney
- The Hole in Our Holiness – Kevin DeYoung
- The Rule of Love – JV Fesko
- A Neglected Grace – Jason Helopoulos
- Reclaiming Conversation – Sherry Turkle
- Mortification of Sin – John Owen
- Saint Thomas Aquinas – G. K. Chesterton
- If You Can Keep It – Eric Metaxas
- George Whitefield – Arnold Dallimore
- A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards – George Marsden
- You Are What You Love – James K. A. Smith
- The Whole Christ – Sinclair Furguson
- All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
- The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism – Carl F. H. Henry
- The Ideal Team Player – Patrick Lencioni
- Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert – Rosaria Butterfield
- Foreign Agent – Brad Thor
- Smarter Faster Better – Charles Duhigg
- The Story of Christianity: Volume 1: The Early Chruch to the Dawn of the Reformation – Justo Gonzalez
- Making Sense of God – Tim Keller
- The Psalms of Jesus – Tim Keller
- Psalms 1-72 an Introduction and Commentary – Derek Kidner
- Impossible People – Os Guinness
- Christianity and Liberalism – J Gresham Machen
- The American Evangelical Story – Douglas Sweeney
- Order to Kill – Kyle Mills
- The Silver Chair – C. S. Lewis
- The Story of Christianity: Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day – Justo Gonzalez
- The Pastor: A Memoir – Eugene Peterson
A great list of books. However you are missing a key author, the one whom C.S. Lewis said he never wrote a book without this person in mine. His name is George MacDonald and a good book of his to start with would be Sir Gibbie.
Thanks for the recommendation. I haven’t read McDonald much. From what I have read I prefer Lewis and Tolkien
I signed up to follow your blog. I would ask you to consider following mine.
http://www.melody33.com The theme of the blog is staying near the Holy Spirit and very short articles are posted twice a week.
What was your favorite ‘first read’ book in 2016?
That’s difficult. If I had to pick just one it would be You are What You Love or Christianity and Liberalism.