Posts Tagged ‘books’

My Favorite Books of 2019

Each year around this time I list my top books read over the past year in philosophy, theology, apologetics, fiction, and non-fiction. As much as it pains me, I’ll restrict myself to the top three in each of these categories. As is custom, I will list them with my one sentence description of the book, as written in my book log. As a bonus, this year I also include the favorite reads of Ethel and the kids! Here we go:

My Favorite Books from 2016

Stories awaken. They draw me into another world. They help me see reality through another’s eyes. As C. S. Lewis aptly put it, “in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.”[1] So, stories rattle me out of my slumber. They also teach me. I learn about space and time, hope and aspiration, human longing and evil, goodness and beauty, truth and hope. I learn—especially when reading philosophy or theology—how to think better as I pull the curtain back and peer into the depth of God or the world he has made. I am challenged to live a heroic life and to push away the temptation toward sloth. All of this, and more, from reading!

My Favorite Books of 2015

Developing intellectual virtue in an Internet age challenges me. The beep, swish or yelp of an incoming email, Facebook message, or the favoriting of a Tweet constantly pull my eyes, and with it, my heart, into the mediated world of the smart phone.

3 reasons why you should read (and my favorite books of 2013)

One of the great pleasures in life is reading a good book. I love to read. I always have a book in my hand (or nearby). I’d hate to find myself with some extra time and nothing to read—I’d probably end up (horror) wasting that time flipping through Facebook on my phone—and miss out on the chance to enter the world of story or learn a thing or two about philosophy or science or theology.

The Antidote to Shallow and Narrow Lives: or My Favorite Books of 2012

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “If only one had time to read a little more: we either get shallow and broad or narrow and deep.”[1] In this age of video, it is easy to become either “an inch deep and a mile wide”—experts of nothing, commentators on everything—or one-dimensional sycophants, people who think only of self, imagine the history of the world to be the scope of their lives, and constantly seek the stream of experience to feed their selfishness.