Books Read 2025

 Fiction

1.      William F. Buckley, Jr., A Very Private Plot. Buckley was not a great novelist, and his weaknesses showed as he wound down the Blackford Oakes seies. The earlier thrillers were better. 

2.      R.C. Sproul, Johnny Come Home. Sproul also was not a novelist. This was written fairly early in his adult life and is largely autobiographical, and he didn't repeat the effort at writing fiction. Stick to his theological works.

3.      William F. Buckley, Jr., Last Call for Bradford Oakes. One way to end a series of novels is to kill of the protagonist.

4.      Anthony Trollope, Can you Forgive Her. A former church member introduced me to Trollope. I have enjoyed the 3 novels I have read.

5.      Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. Re-read this for the first time since high school. I enjoyed the read and the experience of thinking about how I react differently now than then.

Nonfiction 

6.      30 Years Closer: Essays for a Modern Reformation. Most of the essays are good reads.

7.      Dorothy L. Sayers, Creed or Chaos. Gets quoted regularly by others in my corner of the universe. Enjoyed reading it.

8.      Leland Ryken, Philip Ryken, and Todd Wilson, Pastors in the Classics. A good reference resource. I will read many of the works they discuss. Some of them aren't really "classics."

9.      A.S. Ibrahim, Reaching Your Muslim Neighbor with the Gospel. A helpful read I have recommended to others.

10.  Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation. In spite of the off putting title, the author makes some good points.

11.  Holly Pivec and R. Douglas Geivett, Counterfeit Kingdom. More Christians need to be aware of the subject matter of this book, which is known as the New Apostolic Reformation. The authors have now contributed 3 brief volumes on the subject, which they show to be extreme but increasinly influential.

12.  Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up. See above comment on book by the same author.

13.  G. K. Beale, We Become What we Worship. This is an excellent work that has shown up in my preaching. 

14.  Candice Millard, River of the Gods. Millard is excellent. I wish she could produce works as fast as I rad them. If you have not read her works on the assassination of Garfield and TR's trip up the River of Doubt, do yourself a favor and get them.

15.  Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: in Search of Washington and his Legacy. I like Philbrick, but this approach was not really my cup of tea. He does a sort of travelogue to historic places.

16.  Michael Seidel, Tod Williams: a Baseball Life. An interesting summary of Williams' disciplined and erratic life.

17.  Chad Van Dixhorn, Confessing the Faith. This was ok, but I admit disappointing. Van Dixhorn doesn't deliver the historically nuanced commentary that he seems to promise.

18.  Edmund Morris, Edison. This is the most frustrating biography I have ever read. There is a lot of good information here. For reasons that to my knowledge the author never explained, the book starts at the end of Edison's life and works backward. The approach is baffling.

19.  B.M. Palmer, Sermons by Rev. B.M. Palmer, Vol. 1. Southern Presbyterian preacher bridging the Civil War era. Recommended to me, but the topical preaching doesn't really resonate in my world, and the racial views of the era are not helpful.

20.  Keith A. Mathison, Toward a Reformed Apologetics. Controversial in a Van Tillian world. I thought it was excellent and highly recommend.

21.  Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings my Soul. Some of this was helpful in pointing out macro developments in the history of hymnody, but not really my cup of tea in the individual stories.

22.  Ronald L. Kohl, ed., The Triune God. Good work on an important subject.

23.  Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants (One Volume Abridgment). The abridged version is still long and detailed, but worth the effort.

24.  Wilhelmus Á Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, Volume 1: God, Man, and Christ. This is the first of 4 volumes by the author that I read this year. Historically, he is important in Dutch confessionalism. Too pietistic for my taste.

25.  Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis: the Eastern Front. I read all 4 volumes by Churchill on the Great War. Agree with him or not on the various issues, Churchill is always worth reading.

26.  Wilhelmus Á Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, Volume 2: The Church and Salvation. See on the same author above.

27.  Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis: 1916-1918. See above.

28.  Dale Losch, A Better Way. I read this and the following book in preparation for my new ministry.

29.  Jim Pitman and Bobby Harrington, Discipleshift. See above.

30.  S. Donald Fortson III, the Presbyterian Story. I read this and the following 2 books to prepare for transfer exams to a new presbytery and denomination. Fortson is very good.

31.  S. Donald Fortson, Liberty in Non Essentials. See above.

32.  Nathan P. Feldmeth, et al, Reformed & Evangelical. See above, though this is an edited work with various authors. As with all such works, quality varies.

33.  Wilhelmus A Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, Volume 3: The Law, Christian Graces, and the Lord’s Prayer. See above.

34.  Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis: the Aftermath. This is perhaps the best of the 4 volume set. Churchill was prescient in many ways.

35.  Wilhelmus A. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, Volume 4: Ethics and Eschatology. See above

36.  Janeen Burnham, Miracles of Restoration. Written by a member of my new congregation about a boys ranch in south Missouri that our church helps support.

37.  Perry Miller, The New England Mind. Miller was an atheist who taught history at Harvard and admired the New England Puritans. Though flawed in some respects, the detailed intellectual history was engaging.

38.  Jon Meacham, And There Was Light. I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed reading this.