Best Reads for 2024 - Pastoral and Ministry

Because of my new gym walking habit, I read more books in this category than any other.  As a result, a picked a few more “best” books than I usually choose.  Honestly, I could have picked 10 more books in the “best” category – picking the couple handfuls I did was challenging.

The Thrill of Orthodoxy:  Rediscovering the Adventure of Christian Faith by Trevin Wax.  This book is an amazing reminder of the awesome nature of Christian orthodoxy.  Wax does an especially good job of addressing the various ways our modern world, under the guise of theological or personal freedom, actually narrows and limits the remarkable things God offers us in Jesus Christ.  Progressive society, which thinks it has more freedom, has actually settled for much less than God offers us in Christ.

Competing Spectacles:  Treasuring Christ in the Media Age by Tony Reinke.  At first glance, I thought this was a worldview books with spectacles being the lens through which we see the world.  But in actuality, when Reinke speaks of spectacles, he is speaking of the way the world around us seeks to draw attention to itself (celebrities, politics, etc.).  Reinke argues that no matter how attractive or absorbing the spectacle is that society offers us, the ultimate “spectacle” that should draw our attention is Christ crucified.

Ministry in the New Realm:  A Theology of 2 Corinthians by Dane C. Ortlund.  As I prepared to preach through the book of 2 Corinthians in church, I read this wonderful little book as preparation.  I am so glad I did.  Ortlund does a wonderful job of drawing out the themes in this magnificent book, enabling the busy pastor to get a birds-eye view of the book and greatly aiding his preparation.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt.  This is the first book on my “best” list that was not written by a Christian, but is so timely and helpful in so much of what is going on in the world.  Haidt argues that smart phones, social media and online gaming have changed childhood, bringing with them increased anxiety, immaturity, depression, and many other problems. 

Truth We Can Touch:  How Baptism and Communion Shape our Lives by Tim Chester.  This short book is a excellent book on the ordinances/sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  Chester is a bit more “presbyterian” than me, so I did not agree with him on everything, but despite that the book is excellent for bringing out the deeper meaning and prompting personal reflection regarding these tangible gifts from God that provide pictures of our salvation.

Bad Therapy:  Why the Kids aren’t Growing Up by Abigail Shrier.  This is the other ministry “best” book not written by a believer.  That said, this is a remarkable expose of how the so-called therapy that is offered our kids, especially in public schools, is so damaging.  Continually hunting for trauma, foregoing actual parenting, “saving” kids from any risk that actually brings growth and resilience, and over medicating them are some of the many issues Shrier addresses.  And she is very clear – both therapists and parents are guilty in equal measure.

Shepherds for Sale:  How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda by Megan Basham.  This book was a bit terrifying.  Basham has the evidence of how prominent pastors have been bought and paid for by leftist organizations to promote their agendas under the guise of biblical truth.  Others have fallen into the trap of being so enamored by the attention of the secular media that they are willing to fudge truth for the praise of men.  A wonderful reminder to me – preach the Word!

You’re Only Human:  How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic.  As a person who has, in the past, had a tendency to work too many hours and not take enough time off, Kapic’s book is a good reminder.  He speaks of all the ways we are limited as human beings and how those limits, rather than being a curse or a frustration, are actually blessings God has built into our lives.

Uprooting Anger:  Biblical Help for a Common Problem by Robert D. Jones.  This book so wonderfully biblical.  As a person who has struggled with anger in the past and a person who has to counsel others struggling with anger, this book has so much practical, Scriptural wisdom.  It will be a wonderful tool to share with others or use as a basis for counseling.

The Heart of Jesus:  How He Really Feels about You by Dane Ortlund.  This little book – only 100 pages – is a distillation of Ortlund’s book Gentle and Lowly.  Although I read and enjoyed Gentle and Lowly, this book is wonderful because the same truths are there, but in a package that is much more digestible and much less intimidating for those who are not avid readers.  What is the heart of Jesus toward you?  Read it and find out!

Great books, but did not make it into the “best” category:

Trusting God even when Life Hurts by Jerry Bridges

Warfield on the Christian Life:  Living Life in the Light of the Gospel by Fred G. Zaspel

Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas

Voices from the Past, vol. 2, by Richard Rushing, ed. 

Owen on the Christian Life:  Living for the Glory of God in Christ by Matthew Barrett and Michael A. G. Haykin

Word Centered Church:  How Scripture Brings Life and Growth to God’s People by Jonathan Leeman

God’s Grand Design:  The Theological Vision of Jonathon Edwards by Sean Michael Lucas

Understanding Scripture:  An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability and Meaning by Wayne Grudem, C. John Collins, and Thomas Schreiner, eds

The Flourishing Pastor:  Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership by Tom Nelson

The Toxic War on Masculinity:  How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes by Nancy R. Pearcey

Heart of the Holy Land:  40 Reflections on Scripture and Place by Paul H. Wright

The Saints of Zion:  An Introduction to Mormon Theology by Travis S. Kerns

Is the Commission Still Great?  8 Myths about Missions & What they Mean for the Church by Steve Richardson

Can We Trust the Gospels? By Peter J. Williams

Israel and the Church:  An Israeli Examines God’s Unfolding Plans for His Chosen People by Amir Tsarfati

Reactivity:  How the Gospel Transforms our Actions and Reactions by Paul David Tripp

Gospel-Shaped Marriage:  Grace for Sinners to Love like Saints by Chad and Emily Dixhoorn

The New Creation Model:  A Paradigm for Discovering God’s Restoration Purposes from Creation to New Creation by Michael Vlach

Malachi:  God’s Unchanging Love by Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus:  A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi

From Weakness to Strength:  8 Vulnerabilities that can Bring out the Best in your Leadership by Scott Sauls

Crucial Accountability:  Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior by Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan, Switzler

Live Your Truth and Other Lies:  Exposing Popular Deceptions that make us Anxious, Exhausted and Self-Obsessed by Alisa Childers

The Advantage:  Why Organizational Health Trumps everything else in Business by Patrick Lencioni

The Titus Ten:  Foundations for Godly Manhood by J. Josh Smith

The Joy Switch:  How your Brain’s Secret Circuit Affects your Relationships – and how you can Activate it by Chris M. Coursey

The Prodigal God:  Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Timothy Keller

The Secular Creed:  Engaging Five Contemporary Claims by Rebecca McLaughlin

Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell

The Unwavering Pastor:  Leading the Church with Grace in Divisive Times by Jonathan K. Dodson

Reforming Joy:  A Conversation between Paul, the Reformers and the Church Today by Tim Chester

Budgeting for a Healthy Church:  Aligning Finances with Biblical Priorities for Ministry by Jamie Dunlop

 

Best Reads of 2024 – Fiction

Here are the best fiction books I read this year.  Nothing disappointing on this list, but there are definitely some series that I started and were good, but in the long run not worth my time to continue.  As should be obvious from my list, this is the year I discovered C. J.  Box’s Joe Pickett series.  I have not read as many books from a single series in one year for a long time.

I am currently reading the latest Brandon Sanderson Stormlight book, and it will be followed by the last book in Tad Williams’ current fantasy series (Last King of Osten Ard) -  I am pretty sure both of these books will show up on next year’s best list.

Open Season by C. J. Box.  This is the first of Box’s Joe Pickett series.  Just about any of the books listed below could be here in the best list – Open Season is probably not his best.  But none of the 9 I read were anything but excellent.  Joe Pickett is a game warden in Wyoming who regularly finds himself in the midst of a murder or other kind of mystery.  The TV series streaming on Paramount got me interested and while I enjoyed the TV show, the books are just wonderful.  Nothing too deep – just a fun, fast-paced adventure/mystery/thriller.  A perfect “comfort food” read.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson.  This one surprised me.  Brandon Sanderson broke Kickstarter a year or two ago with his secret project books.  Crowd-funded $41 million for them!  I did not join, but picked up the books after release.  I really enjoyed Tress (on last year’s best list) but I thought my favorite would be The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook (see below).  That was actually me least favorite of the 4.  Yumi was the book I was not sure I would even buy, but I am so glad I did, because it was another favorite.

The Bookseller of Inverness by S. G. MacLean.  Another surprise.  This was a $0.99 deal on Kindle at Amazon.  I like good historical fiction, so I thought I would give it a try.  Set in Scotland in the 18^th century, this book is mystery set in the years after Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion that ended at the battle of Culloden.  Slow-moving, but very absorbing and atmospheric, this is historical mystery writing at its best; it gives C. J. Sansom, one of my favorite authors, a run for his money.  Looking forward to more of her books this year.

The Bone Ships by R. J. Barker.  A third surprise and another super cheap Kindle purchase.  This is the first book of the Tide Child Trilogy.  Barker does some wonderful world-building, creating a fantasy world ruled by sea power and ships that are crafted from the bones of sea monsters.  But, what happens when the sea monsters die off?  Or when one last sea monster appears again?  This is swashbuckling naval adventure at its finest.  And the best part – no foul language and no sexual content!  Just a great story.

Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome by Robert Harris.  A fourth surprise.  I read and enjoyed Conclave by Harris and found one of his historical fiction novels set in ancient Rome for a few dollars on Amazon.  This is really excellent – the first book of a series on the life of lawyer Marcus Cicero.  It is full of Roman political machinations and legal drama – almost like an ancient, early day John Grisham novel (think The Pelican Brief or The Firm, just set in ancient Rome).  I look forward to the rest of the series.

Other good reads, just not on the “best” list:

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Artemis by Andy Weir

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi (Interdependency, #1)

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi (Interdependency, #2)

The Last Emperox by John Scalzi (Interdependency, #3)

Savage Run by C. J. Box (Joe Pickett #2)

Winterkill by C. J. Box (Joe Picket #3)

The Frugal Wizards’ Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

The Tower of Fools by Andrzej Sapkowski (Hussite Trilogy, #1)

Trophy Hunt by C. J. Box (Joe Pickett #4)

Out of Range by C. J. Box (Joe Pickett #5)

In Plain Sight by C. J. Box (Joe Pickett #6)

Free Fire by C. J. Box (Joe Pickett #7)

Blood Trail by C. J. Box (Joe Pickett #8)

Below Zero by C. J. Box (Joe Pickett #9)

Dragons of Deceit by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance Destinies, #1)

Conclave by Robert Harris

 

Best Reads of 2024 - History and Biography

Entering the New Year, I look back at my reading list from the past year.  This year, I hit a personal record 103 books read for the year, but I almost consider that number cheating.  In the summer of 2023, I started reading during my walking “coffee breaks” during days in the office.  I walk a mile in the gym and read while I do it.  Thus, I have managed to go through a few more books than I have in past years.  Of course, the books I read while gym walking are not deep, 500-page theological tomes – who wants to carry that around, plus I often read those with a note pad alongside.  That said, some of the “gym walking” books made it into my list of best books of 2024. 

One book that is not listed in any of these posts does not fit any category but was hugely impactful in my life.  As a guy who struggles with blood sugar issues, I would highly recommend Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood Sugar by Jessie Inchauspe to anyone who needs it. 

Here is a list of the best history and biography books I read this year, along with others I would recommend and a few that disappointed.

The Savage Storm:  The Battle for Italy, 1943 by James Holland.  James Holland’s books occur regularly on my “best of” lists.  He is one of my favorite military historians right now – a great blend of scholarship, insight and a writing style that drives the story in a novel-like fashion.  This book is about the American, British and Canadian invasions of Italy and the battles that followed.  I am currently reading the sequel to this book – Cassino, 1944 – which carries the story on into central Italy.  In addition, check out his informative and chatty podcast – We Have Ways of Making You Talk.

The Necessary War:  Canadians Fighting the Second World War 1939-1943, vol. 1 by Tim Cook.  Tim Cook also shows up regularly on my best list – he is one of the best Canadian military historians writing currently.  The Necessary War is the first volume of his history of the Canadian military during World War 2.  He covers it all – land, sea and air – with an interesting style, discussing both the decisions made in Ottawa as well as the experiences of the average soldier, sailor and flyer.  Volume 2 – Fight to the Finish – is in my “to read” pile for this year.

King:  A Life by Jonathon Eig.  This is a fascinating and very balanced biography of Martin Luther King Jr.  Eig does not stand him on a pedestal, but neither does he spend the whole book in character assassination.  There is much about Dr. King that is praiseworthy, like his courage and commitment to civil rights that was rooted in a biblical foundation.  That said, Dr. King was far from a paragon of personal virtue – the book makes it clear he was a serial adulterer during his lengthy marriage to his wife.

The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans.  The years between the world wars of the 20^th century were a painful, troubled time, nowhere more so in Interwar Germany.  The Coming of the Third Reich is the first volume in Evans’ trilogy on the Nazi Party prior to and during World War 2.  In this volume, Evans tells the story of how the political and economic fiasco that was the Weimar Republic ushered in circumstances that enabled Hitler to from obscurity to power in a few short years.

The Cold War:  A New History by John Lewis Gaddis.  We have achieved enough historical distance from events such as the Cold War to enable historians to write insightful books about those events.  Gaddis’ book is an example of this – this is high level history that shows the trends and decisions of those decades, whether made in Washington or Moscow, and focuses especially on the importance of individual actors (Pope John Paul II, Reagan, Thatcher, Solidarity in Poland) who made choices and took stands that finally broke the world out of the Cold War stasis.

Challenger:  A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham. I am not an engineer – I leave that to sons-in-laws and nephews – but even as a non-engineer, I was both fascinated and horrified by this book.  It reads like a gripping detective story; a cover-up of serious design flaws in the Space Shuttle and the brave people who risked their livelihood to expose them against the will of government functionaries.  Unfortunately, good people had to die before that happened.  And as Higginbotham makes clear, even after the Challenger disaster, the bureaucrats at NASA did not learn their lesson.

Revenge of the Tipping Point:  Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering by Malcolm Gladwell.  My brother-in-law Stephen has recommended Gladwell’s books to me more than once.  When I saw this one on sale at Costco, I figured I would give it a try.  What a fascinating book.  Gladwell is the one who popularized the idea of a “tipping point” that brings about change.  But what happens when the tipping point is misused, manipulated or leads to tragedy?  What happens when people use the tipping point as an opportunity for social engineering?  Covering topics like COVID-19, gay marriage and opioid epidemic, Gladwell shows what happens when the tipping point becomes a tool in the hands of society.

The Eastern Front:  A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 by Nick Lloyd.  This is a follow-up to Lloyd’s previous book on the Western
Front in World War 1.  Lloyd covers the initial battles on the Russian front, the battles over Serbia, the Italian front, the war in the Balkans and the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917.  Especially fascinating are his discussions of the relationship between Germany and its weaker partner Austria-Hungary as well as the internal debates of the leaders of the Entente about where and how to use their military resources to bring about victory on the battlefield.

More great books, although not quite good enough to make it to my best list:

Leyte Gulf:  A New History of the World’s Largest Sea Battle by Mark E. Stille

Pax:  War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age by Tom Holland

The Blazing World:  A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 by Jonathon Healey

Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril by King Abdullah II of Jordan

Our Ancient Faith:  Lincoln, Democracy and the American Experiment by Allen C. Guelzo

There Will be Fire:  Margaret Thatcher, the IRA and Two Minutes that Changed History by Rory Caroll

The Impulse of Victory:  Ulysses S. Grant at Chattanooga by David A Powell

The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield by H. W. Brands

The Mounties March West:  The Epic Trek and Early Adventures of the Mounted Police by Tony Hollihan

President Garfield:  From Radical to Unifier by C. W. Goodyear

The Rise of the G. I. Army: 1940-41, The Forgotten Story of How America Forged a Powerful Army Before Pearl Harbor by Paul Dickson

The Wide, Wide Sea:  Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

Throne of Grace:  A Mountain Man, An Epic Adventure and the Bloody Conquest of the American West by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

Left for Dead:  Shipwreck, Treachery and Survival at the Edge of the World by Eric Jay Dolin

Monte Cassino:  Ten Armies in Hell by Peter Caddick-Adams

Against All Odds:   The Untold Story of Canada’s Unlikely Hockey Heroes by P. J. Naworynski

Stampede:  Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike by Brian Castner

The End of Everything:  How Wars Descend into Annihilation by Victor Davis Hanson

An Unfinished Love Story:  A Personal History of the 1960’s by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Checkpoint Charlie:  The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Iain MacGregor

Snow and Steel:  The Battle of the Bulge 1944-45 by Peter Caddick-Adams

White Knights in the Black Orchestra:  The Extraordinary Story of the Germans who Resisted Hitler by Tom Dunkel

The Holy Fox:  The Life of Lord Halifax by Andrew Roberts

House of Lilies:  The Dynasty that made Medieval France by Justine Firnhaber-Baker

Henry V:  The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones

The Darkest Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950: The Battles That Saved South Korea--and the Marines--from Extinction by Bill Sloan

 

Books that disappointed on some level:

Children of Ash and Elm:  A History of the Vikings by Neil Price (he lost me when he mused extensively about “transgender Vikings…”)

Battle for the Island Kingdom:  England’s Destiny 1000-1066 by Don Hollway ( I am not sure how one can make such an interesting time filled with interesting characters such a dull read)