Another year full of books! (Previous summaries: 2023,2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007…

I read 63 books for the year, a few less than last year. I keep saying I’m going to stop logging to Goodreads, but it’s so easy and I’ve kept track there for so long that I still do it. I also keep my Bookshelf site over on my own website which I prefer to link you to instead.

The list is almost exactly a 50/50 split between fiction and non-fiction.

Here’s the full list of reading, with particular standouts noted in bold:

Theology / Ministry

  • Varieties of Christian Universalism by David W. Congdon
  • The Lost World of the Prophets by John H. Walton
  • Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson
  • From The Maccabees to The Mishnah by Shaye J. D. Cohen
  • A Window to the Divine by Zachary Hayes
  • Wounded Pastors by Carol Howard Merritt
  • Lamb of the Free by Andrew Remington Rillera
  • Making All Things New by Ilia Delio
  • Reaching Out by Henri J. M. Nouwen
  • The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart
  • The Hours of the Universe by Ilia Delio
  • A Private and Public Faith by William Stringfellow

I wrote about the Zachary Hayes book this summer. It’s small and delightful. And I’m looking forward to revisiting Andrew Remington Rillera’s Lamb of the Free as a part of a book club starting next week.

Science and History

  • The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory by Tim Alberta
  • Finding Zero by Amir D. Aczel
  • The Murder of Professor Schlick by David Edmonds
  • Ringmaster by Abraham Riesman
  • The Grand Contraption by David Park
  • Neurotribes by Steve Silberman (RIP)
  • 3 Shades of Blue by James Kaplan
  • A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis
  • Space Oddities by Harry Cliff
  • The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms
  • Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman
  • Black AF History by Michael Harriot
  • Debt by David Graeber

Ringmaster is a biography/history of Vince McMahon and his WWE empire. It’s a must-read as we enter four more years of a Trump presidency that will be about image and story line rather than truth.

Graeber’s book was fantastic as social science but prompted me to think theologically.

Memoir and Biography

  • This American Ex-Wife by Lyz Lenz
  • The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon
  • An Autobiography, or, The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mahatma Gandhi

Other Miscellaneous Non-Fiction

  • Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
  • All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld
  • Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
  • How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren

Fiction

  • The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer
  • Hell Is a World Without You by Jason Kirk
  • In Universes by Emet North
  • Exordia by Seth Dickinson
  • Through a Forest of Stars by David Jeffrey
  • Sun Wolf by David Jeffrey
  • The Practice, The Horizon, and The Chain by Sofia Samatar
  • The Light Within Darkness by David Jeffrey
  • The Future by Naomi Alderman
  • Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  • The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes
  • Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
  • The Revisionaries by A. R. Moxon
  • Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
  • I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
  • The Midnight Line by Lee Child
  • Blue Moon by Lee Child
  • Do We Not Bleed? by Daniel Taylor
  • Heavenbreaker by Sara Wolf
  • Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde
  • Airframe by Michael Crichton
  • Extinction by Douglas Preston
  • Killing Floor by Lee Child
  • Die Trying by Lee Child
  • Moonbound by Robin Sloan
  • Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
  • Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
  • 2054 by Elliot Ackerman
  • Shadow of Doubt by Brad Thor
  • Tripwire by Lee Child
  • Spark by John Twelve Hawks (unintentional re-read)

Summary

I didn’t realize until I typed up the list for this post that I had run through so much fiction. Guess it was a year I needed some lighter reading. I did a quick count on the books on my to-read shelf and if I constrained myself to just those books, I might have it cleaned off by this time next year. (I mean, that’s unlikely, but it’s a decent goal.)