Books Books Books (3.0)

The past few years I have done a comparison of what I planned to read and what I actually read in addition to coming up with a specific reading list to read for the next year. This year has been a year of change and so I won't have a thorough reading list for next year (but I have ideas!). I started using audiobooks this last year and so my reading goals have become much more fluid. I read a total of 61 books this year, ("read" as in consumed with my ears or eyes). Italicized titles in this list are books that I listened to.

Between the World and Me (Ta Nehisi Coates)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Frederick Douglass)

The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin)

The Two Kingdoms (Brad Littlejohn)

Blood Rites (Jim Butcher)

Dead Beat (Jim Butcher)

Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson)

Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Perdido Street Station (China Mieville)

Feet of Clay (Terry Pratchett)

Foundation (Isaac Asimov)

God Emperor of Dune (Frank Herbert)

Heretics of Dune (Frank Herbert)

Chapterhouse: Dune (Frank Herbert)

The Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)

A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess)

The Player of Games (Iain Banks)

Cibola Burn (James SA Corey)

Breakfast of Champions (Kurt Vonnegut)

The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Interview With the Vampire (Anne Rice)

Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)

Underground Airlines (Ben Winters)

Sunshine (Robin McKinley)

Hillbilly Elegy (JD Vance)

Homebrew Industrial Revolution (Kevin Carson)

Evicted (Matthew Desmond)

Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)

The Big Short (Michael Lewis)

Ender’s Game Live (Orson Scott Card)

The Last of the Doughboys (Richard Rubin)

Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

The City & The City (China Mieville)

A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald)

Boneshaker (Cherie Priest)

Moby Dick (Herman Melville)

The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

The Anubis Gates (Tim Powers)

East of Eden (John Steinbeck)

Inferno (Dante)

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

The Winter of Our Discontent (John Steinbeck)

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

Railsea (China Mieville)

The Coming Storm (Michael Lewis)

The Fifth Season (NK Jemisin)

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke)

Lullaby (Jonathan Maberry)

New Spring (Robert Jordan)

The Census Taker (China Mieville)

The Devils (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

The Wright Brothers (David McCullough)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Seth Grahame-Smith)

Artemis (Andy Weir)

A Game of Thrones (George RR Martin)

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician (Anthony Everitt)

A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin

Right Ho, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse)

Hardcopy: 21 books

Audiobook: 40 books

I started listening to audiobooks in late May and made it through 40 this year. If I extend it through and entire year, and get more disciplined at reading in my spare time, I hope to get through 100 books in 2019. This last year I largely quit reading theology. I plan on continuing a break from theology in the next year, with the exception of possibly turning Vos' Reformed Dogmatics into a devotional.

I read a few biographies I wasn't planning on this year. Because of that, I have decided to make next year heavy on biographies. There are a number of biographies that I want to read this next year: Dostoyevsky, Vos, Luther, Rasputin, Vlad, Cleopatra, Hannibal, Bill Waterson, JFK, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, and Lovecraft. These are the ones that have come to mind while looking ahead.

This year I finished the other 4 major Dostoyevsky novels and finally read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I want to continue to read Russian literature as well as branch out to French and Egyptian literature. I also plan on working through the other major Steinbeck novels, and while I'm running around American literature, possibly jumping into more F Scott Fitzgerald and taking my first steps into Hemingway. Steinbeck and Dostoyevsky were both situated as two of my favorite authors since this year rekindled my love of both.

NPR has a list of 100 sci-fi/fantasy books to read. When you break down all the series into individual books, it actually comes out to 352 (by my count). I have read 35 of them. 2019 will be a year where I will be hopefully making some progress on this list. This coincides with my plan to read through the Dresden Files (not on the list) again in preparation for book 16, and my desire to start exploring more steampunk books. China Mieville was a gem for me to discover this year. I read my first PG Wodehouse last week and I loved it. I hope to read my first Wendell Berry this week and I expect to love it as well. If that is accurate, PG Wodehouse and Wendell Berry are two other authors that, along with Kurt Vonnegut, I hope to read a lot of in 2019.

Two books that have come up through twitter that I hope to get to are the Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges and Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin. I also hope to finish the last book and a half in Dante's Divine Comedy. I was hoping to have them all finished this year, but life happened.

Looking back at the books that I finished, there were a number of books that stuck out to me. My favorite books of the year were: The Fire Next Time, Perdido Street Station, Neverwhere, Evicted, The Brothers Karamazov, The Winter of Our Discontent, Anna Karenina, and A Wizard of Earthsea. My least favorites were: Foundation, An Interview With a Vampire, A Tale of Two Cities, Moby Dick, and Artemis. I don't regret having read any books this year, however.

Looking forward to 2019, there are many books that I plan to read. I have learned to be flexible and hold these reading plans loosely, which is why this year is very non-specific for my goals. Lets see how I do. 2020 will be the year I plan on getting back into some more dedicated theological reading, but this next year I just want to relax. Shoot for the stars and fall into the ocean: that is my philosophy for reading in the coming year. What a deep and surprising ocean it will likely be.

Books Books Books (2.0)

I read a lot this year. Less than I had hoped, but more than I've read in a long time. Like last year, my 2017 reading list is listed below. Books that I did not read are shown with strikethrough text. Underneath that is my projected list for 2018.

2017

The Road To Serfdom (FA Hayek)

Bird Box (Josh Malerman)

The Four (Peter Leithart)

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

Messiah The Prince (JK Wall)

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs)

Paul (Herman Ridderbos)

Summer Knight (Jim Butcher)

The Desire Of Nations (Oliver O’Donovan)

Abaddon’s Gate (James SA Corey)

The Sirens Of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut)

Dune Messiah (Frank Herbert)

The Homebrew Industrial Revolution (Kevin Carson)

Anathem (Neal Stephenson)

*The Gift Of Death (Jacques Derrida)

The Coming Of The Third Reich (Richard Evans)

Howard’s End (EM Forster)

A Meal With Jesus (Tim Chester)

Defending The Faith (DG Hart)

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien)

Furiously Happy (Jenny Lawson)

Two Towers (JRR Tolkien)

Christification (Jordan Cooper)

**Le Morte d’Arthur (Thomas Malory)

**We Become What We Worship (Greg Beale)

Men At Arms (Terry Pratchett)

**The End Of Protestantism (Peter Leithart)

The Aeronaut’s Windlass (Jim Butcher)

Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)

(Books that I read that weren't on the original list)

The Covenant Of Grace (John Murray)

Resurrection And Redemption (Richard Gaffin)

What Is The Mission Of The Church (Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert)

The Book of Isaiah and God’s Kingdom (Andrew Abernethy)

Children of Dune (Frank Herbert)

Screwtape Letters (CS Lewis)

Pauline Eschatology (Geerhardus Vos)

Seeing Christ in All of Scripture (Westminster faculty)

The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (John Murray)

The Abolition of Man (CS Lewis)

Death Masks (Jim Butcher)

The Great Divorce (CS Lewis)

**God in our Midst (Daniel Hyde)

**Jesus and the Desert Tabernacle (JV Fesko)

**Books that I am currently in or plan on finishing before the new year.

2018

Black Experience in America:

Critical Race Theory (Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado)

Between the World and Me (Ta Nehisi Coates)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Frederick Douglass)

The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin)

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)

The Power of Unearned Suffering (Mika Edmondson)

Two-Kingdom Theology:

Calvin's Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church (Matthew Tuininga)

Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms (David VanDrunen)

Kingdoms Apart: Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective (Ryan C McIlhenny)

The Two Kingdoms (Brad Littlejohn)

Wholly Citizens (Joel Biermann)

Fiction:

Blood Rites (Jim Butcher)

Dead Beat (Jim Butcher)

Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson)

Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Perdido Street Station (China Mieville)

Feet of Clay (Terry Pratchett)

Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)

Foundation (Isaac Asimov)

God Emperor of Dune (Frank Herbert)

Heretics of Dune (Frank Herbert)

Chapterhouse: Dune (Frank Herbert)

The Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)

North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell)

A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess)

The Player of Games (Iain Banks)

Cibola Burn (James SA Corey)

Nemesis Games (James SA Correy)

Breakfast of Champions (Kurt Vonnegut)

Aeneid (Virgil)

The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Interview With the Vampire (Anne Rice)

Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)

Underground Airlines (Ben Winters)

Sunshine (Robin McKinley)

The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin)

Theology:

Against the Gods (John Currid)

The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Edward Fisher)

The Structure of Biblical Authority (Meredith Kline)

The Mystical Presence (John Williamson Nevin)

God Dwells Among Us (GK Beale)

Making Room (Christine D. Pohl)

The Coming of the Kingdom (Herman Ridderbos)

Perspectives on Pentecost (Richard Gaffin)

The Desire Of Nations (Oliver O’Donovan)

Primeval Saints (James Jordan)

Assorted Non-Fiction:

Hillbilly Elegy (JD Vance)

Homebrew Industrial Revolution (Kevin Carson)

Evicted (Matthew Desmond)

Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)

The Big Short (Michael Lewis)

Damning Words (DG Hart)

Every year that I have had a reading list now (4 in a row), I have made the list more ambitious. For 2018 I have 52 books listed, an average of one a week. The reason is that I am going to be pushing 40 books this year and I had at least 2 months of very little reading. I can do better. Swing for the fence and maybe you'll get a triple, probably a single of a double, but maybe a triple; certainly no home run though because you're not that good. At least that is what I always say.

One of the things that I haven't done with my reading list thus far is to have a concentrated area of reading. That is why one of the main differences with my plan for next year is that I picked two topics that I wanted to focus in on and then read a number of different books on each topic. I picked the black experience in America and two-kingdom theology.

I chose 6 books for the black experience in America. Because I have heard the term used by advocates and critics, and only have a vague idea of what it is but have never thought deeply about it, I chose a book on Critical Race Theory. In addition to that I chose a well known book from the Harlem Renaissance for a perspective on African American arts. I also chose a book from a former slave, a book by a civil rights activist in the 60s, and a book by a civil rights journalist in the modern, post-Ferguson era. Finally I chose a book written by a black Orthodox Presbyterian pastor on MLK Jr. The goal was to have some breadth of reading and to help me think more empathetically. In short, listen to experiences of others that I will never have myself and assume that they're being honest about their experiences and how they perceive the world. In other words, treat my black neighbor how I would like to be treated.

I chose 5 books of two-kingdom theology, all from different perspectives. One from David VanDrunen's project, representing to a degree the Escondido school of thought. Another short book from a classically reformed view. A third book that I chose was the doctoral thesis on Calvin's view of the two-kingdoms from a former student of VanDrunen. This book I view as very valuable since it is a critic of the Escondido school of thought, but from one who has a level of familiarity and respect that I think is missing in a lot of other views. The fourth book I have is a neo-calvinist critique of two-kingdom theology. Finally I have a book on the two-kingdoms from a Lutheran. I have my own bias toward VanDrunen, but I wanted to read broadly on this topic as well. Learn to be fair and charitable with criticisms and alternative views.

Last year I opened up my reading list to have democratic influence to mixed results. I finally gave myself permission to give up on a book (Furiously Happy) and I choked through a few others that I didn't really like (Frankenstein and Anathem). But with Bird Box and Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, there were some gems as well. This year I added a few books due to recommendations as well, and I elected to give Neal Stephenson (author of Anathem) another chance because I want to like him. Two years ago I read Dune, this last year I read books 2 and 3 in the first trilogy, but next year I'm planning on reading the entire second trilogy. I absolutely love the world, and hopefully by 2019 I will be starting the process of rereading Dune once I have read the 6 Dune books. I am aware books 4-6 get really weird and a lot of fans of the first three never finish them. I am still hopeful.

Finally my favorites. Lets say I'll limit it to a top 5 (in no particular order). Dune Messiah. The Book of Isaiah and God’s Kingdom. The Pauline Eschatology. The Aeronaut’s Windlass. We Become What We Worship. The Pauline Eschatology was one of the most challenging books I have read, but it was so rewarding (and I know I have only scratched the surface finding the gems within). The Aeronaut's Windlass was one of the easiest books I read. I wasn't sure if I'd like it because it is a steampunk story but I absolutely loved it, and it may have turned me onto steampunk (there is a steampunk book on next years list and now I am exploring steampunk bands...please send help). And finally, Dune is just my favorite world to date...challenged only by the world of the Dresden Files. Here's to hoping 2018 is an even better, more disciplined and productive, book year.

Books Books Books

Looking back over the last year, I read a lot more than I did in 2015. The following is my projected reading list for last year. Books I did not get to are shown with strikethrough text. My projected reading list for 2017 is underneath the 2016 list.