 | 27 Servants of Sovereign Joy: Faithful, Flawed, and Fruitful; Piper, John
5/5 Excellent, readable, biographies of 27 believers. Hard to choose between them, but the biographies of Judson and Paton are particularly gripping. |
 | A Praying Church; Miller, Paul
3/5 Miller’s earlier book, The Praying Life, is superb. This follow-up helpfully applies many of those thoughts to corporate prayer. Some suggestions for corporate prayer seem a little too trusting of the ‘messiness’ of spontaneous contributions, in my opinion. Others seem wise and practical. |
 | The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog; Sire, James W.
4/5 Extremely helpful overview of nine worldviews. Sometimes the level of detail is a tad exasperating. |
 | Set Your Voice Free; Roger Love
5/5 An excellent, all round book for speakers and singers. |
 | The Great Boer War; Farwell, Byron
5/5 A delightful read of a heartbreaking war. |
 | Communion & Disunion: Discussions on Biblical Fellowship and Separation; Bauder, Kevin
5/5 Probably the best and most succinct work on the doctrines of fellowship and separation. The collection from various periodicals Bauder wrote for makes it slightly repetitive and choppy, but this does not detract from the quality of the whole. |
 | The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 – 1963; Lewis, C.S.
4/5 I don’t often take three years to finish a book, but this collection of letters was a small mountain to climb. Here and there, some wonderfully illuminating insights. But also, as you’d expect, plenty of mundane, pedestrian stuff. Certainly Lewis would never have expected that his letters would be read by more than the original recipients. |
 | Reverence: Renewing A Forgotten Virtue; Woodruff, Paul
2/5 An attempt to ground reverence in morality that is secular and areligious. |
 | An Infinite Fountain of Light: Jonathan Edwards for the Twenty-First Century; Marsden, George M.
4/5 Marsden’s knowledge of Edwards is unparalleled and his summary of his theology is excellent. |
 | My Dear Hemlock; Dillehay, Tilly
4/5. Read to my girls. Excellent ‘version’ of the Screwtape letters, aimed particularly at women. |
 | Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age; James, Samuel
5/5 Finally, a book that deals not only with the content of the web, but with its form. Rage, consumption, meaninglessness, dislocation, distraction, are among its many insightfully handled topics. A book about living wisely on the web. |
 | The Old Man and the Sea; Hemingway, Ernest
3/5. An odd book. |
 | Studies in the Sermon on the Mount; Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn
4/5 |
 | The Only Way To Happiness: The Beatitudes; MacArthur Jr., John F.
3/5 |
 | The Beatitudes; Thomas Watson
4/5 |
 | The Beatitudes for Today; John Blanchard
3/5
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 | The Scarlet Letter; Hawthorne, Nathaniel
4/5 Hawthorne’s writing style is elevated, without being pretentious. The power of guilt, the terror of hypocrisy, and the liberation of a singleminded industriousness are all exemplified in Hawthorne’s work. |
 | The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God; Piper, John
5/5 Re-read. Together with Desiring God, The Pleasures of God is the able, theologically rich defence of Piper’s doxological-affectional theology. Rich and heartwarming |
 | Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser; Clark, Roy Peter
4/5 Great collection of writing tips from a very eclectic group of writers. |
 | Birthright: The Coming Posthuman Apocalypse and the Usurpation of Adam’s Dominion on Planet Earth; Alberino, Timothy
2/5 What began as a decently argued work of speculative theology (albeit with unnecessarily lofty erudition) devolved into some rather wildly unsubstantiated ideas about aliens being extraterrestrial biological entities involved in human abduction supposedly for their own purposes. An unfortunate nosedive for what began as an unusually perceptive and creative book. |
 | The Gospel According to John; Carson, D.A.
4/5 |
 | The Gospel According to John; Morris, Leon L.
4/5 |
 | John; Harris, Murray J.
3/5 |
 | The Gospel of John: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition; Bruce, F.F.
3/5 |
 | Signs of the Messiah: An Introduction to John’s Gospel; Köstenberger, Andreas J.
3/5 |
 | Merlin (The Pendragon Cycle, #2); Lawhead, Stephen R.
4/5 Lawhead cleverly weaves historical fact and Christianity into a tale without the usual modern penchant for Arthurian paganism. |
 | The Elements of Style; Strunk Jr., William
5/5 Walks its talk by being concise, clear and without verbal frippery. Mandatory reading for any writer. |
 | Logic and the Way of Jesus: Thinking Critically and Christianly; Dickinson, Travis
4/5 A sound and yet accessible look at logic for the Christian thinker. Recommended for both students of logic and also those wanting a broad overview. |
 | The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives; Willard, Dallas
3/5 Some of Willard’s thoughts are an eclectic mix of psychology, philosophy and theology. However, two of his insights are potentially revolutionary: the place of the body in instantiating spiritual habits, and the power of the disciplines to shape the rest of our spiritual lives. In this second insight, Willard makes a distinction I haven’t found often in other writers on the spiritual disciplines. Willard distinguishes between the regular practices of the Christian life (which are a matter of obedience) and the formational spiritual disciplines (which are voluntary) which are used to shape the tone of the whole spiritual life.
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 | The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition; Wilson, James Matthew
3/5 Great beginning, but eventually just too dense to wade through. |
 | The Reason for God; Keller, Timothy J.
4/5 Certainly one the clearest and most intelligent responses to sceptics of Christianity. Here and there marred with a too-lenient view of evolution, and occasional social justice leanings that could be taken in the wrong direction. Still a very good all-in-one book for the secular critic of Christianity. |
I just downloaded Digital Liturgies. Your list is both inspiring and challenging.
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