This post simply contains a list of books I read in 2012, with short reviews for each book.
My goal is to average one book per week. At this rate, a person can only read about 4000 books in their lifetime. I own way more than this number of books already, which is depressing for me to think about! I already own more books than I can read! It certainly makes me choose wisely which books I spend time reading!
Here is my count so far:
- Initial Estimate: 1500
- 4000 Books 2010: 45
- 4000 Books 2011: 69
- 4000 Books 2012: 52 – See Comments Below
- 4000 Books 2013: 57
- 4000 Books 2014: ??
- Total so Far: 1723
I welcome review books
Though I am very careful about which books I read, I am always open to reviewing books. If you send me a copy of your book, I will usually read it within one month, and will post reviews in a regular blog post, on Amazon, and as a comment below. If you have a book you would like me to review, contact me through the contact form on my About page.
I like to blog about books with other bloggers
Another thing I like to do is read and blog about books with other bloggers. Check out the short list of some of the books I plan to read this coming year. If you see one or two you want to read along with me, or if you have a different suggestion, contact me through the contact form on my About page.
Some people just seem to collect books. I don’t want to make too close a comparison, but my late older brother had a whole two walls of his second lounge room full of books, and I doubt he read half of them. We used to sleep in that room when we visited, so we had fun exploring them all, but I always wondered why he did it – must have cost tens of thousands of dollars.
My suggestion: browse them all, lend out the ones you don’t think you’ll read. : )
That is exactly the problem. I only keep the ones I think I’ll read… I have gotten rid of all the rest.
70%% of them are reference books (Bible commentaries and so on), so even if I don’t “read” them, I will use all of them as I continue to research and write about Scripture and Theology.
1. A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolikien’s Road to Faerie
by Verlyn Flieger
I have been curious about our relation to time for many years now. It may seem like a bit of a fringe topic, but how one views time affects how one views God, others, our memories, and our dreams.
CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien frequently discussed the issue of time during their years of friendship, and both wrote about their view of time in their books, usually in the form of stories.
Verlyn Flieger has studied this issue in depth as it relates to the writings of JRR Tolkien, and so I wanted to see what Flieger had learned.
I ended up with a better understanding of Tolkien’s view of time, especially as it relates to memory and dreams. Tolkien seems to have believed in a form of higher consciousness that could freely move over the field of time. Also, he seems to have believed in a form of ancestral memory, through which we gain some of the memories from our ancestors.
This book talks about some of this, and how Tolkien used his writings to explore the issue of time and time-travel through dreams and memory.
The book is somewhat difficult to read in parts, and so I only recommend reading it if you are interested in learning more about what Tolkien though about time.
2. Phantastes
by George McDonald
I read this book because it relates to the book above about JRR Tolkien and time. It is a fictional story, similar to the stories by CS Lewis about a person who travels to another world and experiences adventures there.
In this case, a young man travels to a Faerie world, where he falls in love and experiences numerous adventures, before returning to his own world.
The story was creative, but lacked focus and a well-organized plot.
3. A Voyage to Arcturus
by David Lindsay
Again, I read this book because it deals with my interest in our relation to time and traveling to other worlds.
This book reminded me a lot of the Space Trilogy
by CS Lewis. A man travels to another world where he encounters beauty and grace, as well as death and destruction. He learns some lessons about good and evil, and about the universal forces behind both.
Unlike Lewis’ novels, the book is not a Christian book, and so the story has less of a “moral” than the books by Lewis, but is still creative, imaginative, and well-told, but did leave me confused in many areas.
For example, the story begins with a seance, and just as we are starting to get to know the characters, the entire scene and cast shift, and it is almost as if the story begins all over again with a new set of characters. It was very strange.
Also, I did not understand the ending. I won’t say what happened because I don’t want to spoil it, but I just had trouble figuring out exactly what happened. Lindsay probably could have done a better job closing out the book in a way that made more sense. Maybe it’s just me….
4. The Relational Way
by M. Scott Boren
I bought this book because I am interested in helping churches become more missional in their structure, focus, and relationships. The subtitle of this book was “From small group structures to holistic life connections.” This led me to believe that the book would take us beyond small groups, and into real life connections with real people at work and in the community.
It didn’t. Not really.
Instead, it just talked about ways to make church home groups and small groups more effective and meaningful. I suppose this is a step in the right direction, but I think that in general, the idea of “small groups” as a program or ministry of the church (whether it is of first or secondary importance) falls far short of the the radical change that is needed to truly be the church in the world.
Churches should not start small groups with the purpose of hoping to support the church. Churches should tell people to “leave their church” and join community groups in the city and town which already exist an in this way, incarnate Jesus among people.
Holistic life connections is not about starting or tweaking any church program or ministry, but rather abandoning the whole sinking ship, and joining with community groups that already exist, not as a way to support and prop up “the church,” but for the purpose of being the church.
However, if a church wants to reject this sort of radical change, and just ramp up their small group programs, I suppose this is a decent book for that purpose.
5. Christian Reflections
by C. S. Lewis
I love everything by C. S. Lewis, and am trying to read through everything he has ever written (that I can find, anyway). This is a book of collected philosophical and theological s, most of which appear to be transcripts or manuscripts from lectures and talks he gave at various places and various times during his career.
The s range from the place of Christianity within literature and culture, all the way to talking about Lewis’ distaste for church music and 20th Century European Historical Criticism.
Most of these s were more technical than other s from Lewis, and most readers will probably find the content and ideas a little too advanced for their taste. I got bored by several of the s, especially since the questions which were being asked during the life of C. S. Lewis are not really being asked any longer.
Nevertheless, I did find his s on Church Music, the Psalms, Petitionary Prayer, Biblical Criticism, and The Seeing Eye (about the possibility of aliens on other planets) to be insightful and “classic C. S. Lewis.”
6. The War of Art
by Steven Pressfield
This is a book which every author should read. Christian authors might be a little put-off by his use of profanity and his idea of God and angels, and praying to the Muses, but the premise behind the book is sound: There are forces at work to keep us from being and doing what God has made us for, and until we fight off those forces and get to doing what we were created for, we will be miserable.
The demonic force which keeps us from doing our work is identified by Pressfield as “Resistance.” It is anything which keeps us from writing, from sitting down and doing the hard work of putting words on paper. Resistance can even be good things, but if it keeps us from doing what God made us for, then it needs to be defeated and overcome. In this way, the life of the artist and author is a life of war.
The book is a hard-hitting call for authors to buckle down and get to work writing.
If you need some encouragement to get writing, or you need someone to shout at you to sit your butt in the chair and start tapping out some words, this is a good book. I will probably keep it by my writing desk, and every time I feel tempted to go check the news or my email for the hundredth time, I might pull out this book and read a few pages.
…Of course, I suppose that even reading this book could be a way that Resistance tries to keep us from our writing. Well then, read the book when you cannot write, like while sitting on the toilet. That’s where I read my copy. Too much information…
7. The Mystery of Christ
by Robert Farrar Capon
This book made it on to my Burning Books list. I have been a proponent of the radical free grace of God for about fifteen years now, by which we get eternal life as a completely free gift of God, with no strings attached, and no works required on our part to gain, keep, or prove that we have eternal life.
This is one of the best books I have read which defends and explains this central truth of the biblical gospel.
But the book is no dry theology book. Drawing on his vast counseling experience as a pastor, Capon lets us listen in on six counseling sessions he has with various people as they deal with various sins, doubts about faith, and issues with life. The issues range from a woman who is having an affair, to another woman wants to know about reincarnation and astrology.
The reader gets to listen as Capon gives alarming, yet shockingly refreshing, answers to their questions and fears. After these counseling session chapters, Capon provides a chapter where he tries to anticipate and answer all of our objections to what he told the person in his counseling sessions. For most of the book, he puts these questions and challenges in the mouths of a diverse “discussion group” which meets to discuss his counseling sessions.
Throughout the book, Capon presents a view of grace, the universal forgiveness of all sins, and the presence of Christ in everybody at all times which is contrary to most of what is taught and believed in most churches today, but which seems to be closer to the radical grace of God which is presented in the both the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
I strongly recommend this book! Even if you disagree with most everything Capon says, you will still be challenged to think about the central claims of the Gospel.
8. Towers of Midnight
by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
This is another book I read just for fun. Sometimes you need to put down all the books on Scripture and Theology and just read a good story.
I have been reading this series of books since the first one came out in 1990. This was the thirteenth book in the series, and to be honest, I am getting quite tired of the series. I keep thinking every book will be the last one. But no, each book of 300,000+ words moves the plot forward a tiny bit, then leaves you hanging. The story is well told and creative, but I just want the series to be done already!
I see that they are coming out with the fourteenth book in January. From what I can tell, that will finally be the last one. I sure hope so.
If you like “fantasy” novels with Kings, Queens, magicians, monsters, and so on, then this is a good series to read. But if I were you, I would wait until the series is complete before you start reading them, or else like me, you will end up frustrated at the conclusion of each book.
9. From Text to Tradition, A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism
by Lawrence H. Schiffman
I read this book, not primarily because I was interested in finding out how the Jewish Rabbinic tradition developed, but to learn what I could about how the Christian scholarly/church tradition is developing. As I watch Christian theology and church tradition fall into a tradition that is rooted not so much in Scripture as in history, I was hoping to learn how and why the Jewish tradition developed as it did, and see if there were any similarities to how our own tradition is developing.
The book was insightful in many ways, and I learned a lot about the development of the Jewish Rabbinic tradition, but I am not sure that there are many hard and fast similarities between it and the developing Christian tradition.
The book points out that the Jewish tradition was solidified in large part due to the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and the attempts by Jewish scholars to make sense of how to apply the Torah to life in the absence of a Temple, and as the Jewish people faced persecution at the hands of various governments and emperors over the next 400 years.
There is no clear equivalent to a single Temple in Christianity, and so the circumstances which led to the development of the tradition are not likely to happen within Christianity.
I suppose there are some similarities to what happened to Christian theology when Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 AD. There might also be some similarities in modern times with the movement away from the institutional church with it’s buildings and clergy. It will be interesting to see how Christian theology and practice develops in response.
10. Eusebius: The Church History
by Paul Maier
For the full review of this book, see this post.
11. The Thunder of Silence
by Joel Goldsmith
A colleague asked me to read this, otherwise I never would have picked it up. And to be honest, I am not thrilled I read it.
I am just not into this sort of stuff. The book is supposedly based on the teachings and ideas of Jesus, but boils down to a pop psychology, “believe in yourself and all will be well” type of message.
The basic gist of the book is that if you just recognize that nothing is good and nothing is evil, then nothing can have power over you, and the karma of the universe will come back to give you health and blessings.
What a load of crap.
While I agree that many of the things we call good and evil are not inherently good and evil (a knife, cancer, alcohol, etc), these things can be used for very good or very evil actions. This is the glaring flaw in the book. He kept writing about inanimate objects, and diseases as being morally neutral. Fine. But it is what people do with these things that causes good and evil.
12. Exclusion & Embrace
by Miroslav Volf
This book had such promise. I was thrilled with the primary question it asked, namely, “How can we love and accept those who have done so much evil in the world, and especially to us?”
Here is how Miroslav frames the question: “How does one remain loyal to both the demand of the oppressed for justice and the gift of forgiveness that the Crucified offered to the perpetrators?”
Yes, the ultimate question about forgiveness, grace, mercy on the one side, and justice on the other.
A great question.
Sadly, I was not happy about Miroslav Volf’s solution.
His ultimate solution was “forgetfulness.” He says that even God will forget our sins (pp. 131-140). I hesitate to disagree with one of the world’s leading theologians, but I just cannot make sense of such a solution (even though my wife agrees with him!). Since memories of sin are intricately connected with all of life, if we were to forget about injustice and sin, there would be gaping holes in our memories for eternity. Most of us would have huge blank spots in what we remember from our life. Won’t we wonder what was there? Won’t we wonder why a large portion of our life is one big black spot?
How is eternal amnesia and divine Alzheimer’s the best solution to the problem of forgiving those who sin?
I just cannot accept it.
For me, and maybe it is simplistic, but I think the reason God can forgive all is because He knows all. I believe that when we get our glorified bodies, we also will know fully as we are fully known, and as some other theologian has said, “To know all is to forgive all.” Maybe that is naive, but for now, that is what I believe.
I did, however, really enjoy how he dealt with a wide range of theologians and viewpoints on the issue, and his defense of his position was truly quite engaging. Also, the chapter at the end of the book on Violence and Peace was extremely challenging.
Here are a few quotes from that chapter:
“If one decides to put on soldier’s gear instead of carrying one’s cross, one should not seek legitimation in the religion that worships the crucified Messiah.”
“Show me one warring party that does not think its war is just! Simple logic tells us that at least half of them must be wrong. It could be, however, that simple logic does not apply to the chaotic world of wars. Then all would be right, which is to say that all would be wrong, which is to say that terror would reign–in the name of the gods who can no longer be distinguished from the devils” (p. 306).