Monday, December 30, 2013

Best Books I Read in 2013

I'm going to take a bit of a pause in my paraphrasing of AB Bruce's Training of the Twelve as I reflect on the past year and do some goal setting for the New Year. Here is a list of the top ten books I read in the past year in no particular order. Some of these books are old and some are new, but each of them impacted me in some way in the past year.

  1. Training of the Twelve - AB Bruce (2nd time reading this book, got a lot more from it this time)
  2. Spiritual Leadership - Richard Blackaby
  3. Killing Kennedy - Bill O’Reilly
  4. Mandela - Martin Meredith
  5. No Easy Day - Mark Owen
  6. T4T A Discipleship Re-Revolution - Steve Smith
  7. Surfing For God - Michael John Cusick
  8. In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership - Henri Nouwen
  9. Daily Life at the time of Jesus - Miriam Vamosh 
  10. Finding God in It’s a Wonderful Life - Greg Asimakoupoulos.  
What have been your top reads of 2013?


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3 comments:

  1. JaredDecember 31, 2013 at 9:49 AM

    10. Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
    9. On Becoming Babywise - Gary Ezzo
    8. T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution - Steve Smith
    7. Harmony of the Gospels (HCSB)
    6. Life Together - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    5. A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail Lermontov
    4. Christ the Center - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    3. Life and Fate - Vasily Grossman
    2. Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T.E. Lawrence
    1. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

    Thanks for posting Al!

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  2. UnknownDecember 31, 2013 at 10:04 AM

    Hey Jared, thanks for posting. I notice you have two of Bonhoeffer's books. Have you read the biography by Eric Metaxas? I found it excellent. I also notice you are reading some classic Russian literature. Have you read anything by Dostoyevsky? I was very much into that literature when I lived in Latvia - trying to understand the Russian soul. I found them fascinating, but tough sledding. My favorite book in that regard was, The Brothers Karamazov. I have not read Fathers and Sons; it looks challenging and interesting.

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  3. JaredJanuary 1, 2014 at 10:58 AM

    Hey Al! I haven't read the Bonhoeffer bio, but I'll put it on my to-read list! And yes, I'm doing the same thing you did in Latvia - trying to understand the Russian soul. I was hooked in by Tolstoy back in college, and read through a lot of Dostoyevsky as well. Brothers Karamazov was definitely my favorite of his. A burning question after reading War and Peace was, well, what's the rest of the story? How did the country wind up falling under Stalin and all the oppression / atrocities that happened during that period? Fathers and Sons and A Hero of Our Time both do a good job illustrating where a lot of the unrest began - with disaffected / dissatisfied young men. If only someone had been able to introduce them to laboring for Jesus in the kingdom! ;)

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