Reading Recommendations--2022 Edition

 For Children

My recommendation here is quite simple—the Book of Proverbs. I plan to read through it this summer with my kids and I think that would be a good program for all families. Did you know that Proverbs was compiled with young people in mind? Youth is a great time to soak up the wisdom in that book. There are a couple of spicy passages about sexuality in the first nine chapters, so you may want to skip over those sections depending on the age of your children.

 

Fiction

My list shows me that I apparently need to get some more fiction titles on my reading list, but here are two that I can recommend to you:

 

The Genius Plague, by David Walton. This page-turner tells the tale of a viral fungus that gives people increased brain power. I know—it sounds weird, but it makes for a great story!

 

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I recently heard a “classic” described as a book that’s bound to be boring, but this classic is anything but. Be prepared—this is not a short book. I actually read this one 20 years ago and it took me an entire summer. But the payoff is worth it as this story leads you to consider the battle of good versus evil and how that battle plays out in every human heart.

 

Non-Fiction

I tend to be drawn toward war stories since they naturally make for high drama. Wars also tend to be significant turning points in history, so reading about them often helps us understand the present day. Most war stories tend to have bad language that I cannot condone, but I do tolerate it in a book for the sake of learning more about history. Two good war stories I’ve read recently are The Last Stand of Fox Company, by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin about a conflict in the Korean War, and Last Men Out, by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin about the last Americans in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Another good book in this category would be Sea Stories, by William H. McRaven, the recently-retired commander of the Navy’s SEAL teams.

 

One period of history I’d never learned much about was the fight for independence in Texas, so I filled in some of that gap in my knowledge by reading Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers, by Brian Kilmeade.

 

If you ever feel like the Bible gets misquoted and misused in present-day debates, you should know that this is not a new phenomenon. For some helpful historical context, read A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood, by James P. Byrd to see how the Bible was used by both abolitionists and slaveowners during the Civil War.

 

Christian Living

I’m a late-comer to this book since it’s been out for many years, but if you want to be encouraged by God’s kind faithfulness in the midst of dark times, you’ve got to read The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom. A book with a similar focus on God’s help in times of need is The Sacred Acre, by Mark Tabb, the true story of a high school football coach in Iowa and the impact of his faith on his whole community.

 

We all have opportunities to help people who are dealing with grief, and we’d all be better at doing that if we’d read What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts), by Nancy Guthrie.

 

The Apostles’ Creed, by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is a good book for learning some basic theology through an ancient summary of Christian faith while also seeing how some of those ideas have come under attack in the present time.

 

Heavy Lifting

In this category for this year I will recommend Simply Trinity, by Matthew Barrett. This book takes a close look at the doctrine of the Trinity, focusing on how this doctrine was understood in ancient times versus how it is often presented today. Any time you discuss the Trinity, things get deep quickly and that’s true of this book as well, yet it remains fairly readable for a general audience.