My Year In Books
I was really surprised when I looked at Goodreads to see what I’d read this year…there was a whole lot more than I thought…too much to post here.
Perhaps it’s because I no longer have the luxury of uninterrupted time to read that it seems as if I’m not reading much at all.
Turns out that I’m not as close to illiterate as I imagined myself to be…that’s an encouraging thing for the New Year…
God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible
By: Esther J. Hamori
Revelation for Normal People: A Guide to the Strangest and Most Dangerous Book in the Bible
By: Robyn Whitaker
Being Elisabeth Elliot: The Authorized Biography: Elisabeth’s Later Years
By: Ellen Vaughn
By: Ellen Vaughn
John for Normal People: A Guide through the Depth & Drama of the Fourth Gospel
By: Jennifer Bashaw
By: Kaitlyn Scheiss
By: R.J. Smith
Dispatches From The House of Death
By: Bill Conroy
Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America
By: Russell Moore
By: Daniel G Hummel
Death, the End of History, and Beyond: Eschatology in the Bible
By: Greg Carey
The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?
By: Jim Davis
Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom
By: Peter Guralnick
Discipleship On The Edge: An Expository Journey Through the Book of Revelation
By: Darrel W. Johnson
Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes
By: Tremper Longman III
The Hebrew Bible with commentary
By: Robert Alter
There are also the books I’m always reading…C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Charles Bowden live in my house and chat amiably with me almost daily.
My routine for years has been to read during the day, then in the evening I listen to audio books before I fall asleep.
I’ve got about seven books I’m listening to on rotation now…I love the “Great Courses” on Audible especially the ones dealing with history.
Bart Ehrman and N.T. Wright are my most listened to authors on Audible…they both seem to write a book a month…
Podcasts are my playground, and almost all the ones I listen to are sports related, although I just added the Holy Post to my list.
I will confess that I never miss an episode of the Dale Jr. Download…do with that what you will…
Michael,
All in all a balanced list, which is a good thing! Books make us who we are…
Bashaw’s book on John looks interesting. I read part of the intro on Amazon and thought, ten buck on Kindle? Sure, I’ll go for it.
Happy New Year Michael
Duane,
Thanks…I left off the comic books…but there were a few. 🙂
Happy New Year, Mike!
Bashaw’s book is worth about 10 bucks…a bit too cute for me.
As she sits at her moms bedside in California, my wife is wrapping up the 2nd volume of the Elisabeth Elliott biographies. She keeps calling me to share interesting tidbits. There’s so much the general evangelical population did not know about her. I checked on Amazon for the reviews, and several people gave it one star because, essentially, there bubbles were burst about how the perceived EE. She was unique and paradoxical.
PH,
I think the Elliot bios are worth reading for just that reason.
I didn’t know there were a bunch of one star ratings…but it doesn’t surprise me.
These are not hagiographies…
Michael,
I curious to see where Bashaw’s deconstruction/reconstruction process took her, at least at the time of publishing this work. It appears we have similar experiences of having to rework the Baptist convictions we were taught. Warren Gage has spoke much about the need for a “comedic imagination” (from a literary sense) in reading Scripture, and it appears that Bashaw has traversed a similar path. I’m always interested in reading those who get a doctorate and then pursue a non-conventional path of some type. Often such a journey irritates academics, of such I know of first hand. One, things though, this ideal of “John for Normal People” is too narrow in scope. “Normal” can only accurately be defined as a setting on a clothes dryer.
pstrmike,
It may be helpful to some folks…but I’m unfairly comparing it to Leon Morris and we all know I’m not normal… 🙂
I greatly enjoyed the Great Dechurching as an active evangelist….
My initial plan to start the year is to finish a biography of the late and great singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.
dan,
Music bios are usually good reads…