Last year I went through all the lists of 2019 and selected 22 books that looked really interesting and I thought I should read. I have to date, only read 2 of those books. I have acquired 5 others which are languishing somewhere. Although there’s still time!

Reflecting on how that exercise has gone has taught me a few things about my reading. It shows that I’m not a very disciplined reader. I read whatever I’m interested in at the moment of decision and not in what I thought I should read months prior. This is, in part, due to the fact that I’m quite an eclectic reader. Even my selections from last year and this year don’t really reveal threads and focus. A little self-improvement, some current affairs, a couple of random novels, some theology and a decent chunk of Christian books of varying subjects. This eclecticism means that my decision making when it comes to reading is more subject to whim than I might like. I’m also a magpie reader – the shiny new thing catches my gaze over the slightly dusty object acquired in the distant past when it was a shiny new object.

It’s also highlighted that I still have a really strong preference for reading paper books as opposed to reading on my Kindle or screen. I own far more books digitally (in part because I got a lot of free ones) than I do physical books. But I read far more paper books than physical books. The majority of the books that are unfinished are on Kindle. The books from last year’s list that I actually went out and got are on Kindle.

At this point I have two options, one is to give up on digital books or to build the habit of reading more on the Kindle. I probably need to do an extensive road trip where I’m forced to travel light. That should do the trick.

In the light of all this, the best way to look at the following list is not to see it as some sort of plan. History has taught me very clearly, that it is most definitely not a plan. It is optimism. It is aspiration. It is what I am interested in right now. It is a list that may prove to be closer to fiction than non-fiction. But here it is and there are some good books on it!

1. Ross Douthat’s The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success (recommended by Tyler Cowen)
2. Joseph Heinrich’s The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (recommended by Tyler Cowen, Andrew Wilson)
3. Alan Jacobs’s Breaking Bread With the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind (recommended by Naomi Alderman,)
4. Martin Latham’s The Bookseller’s Tale (recommended by Mark Mason)
5. Dane Ortlund’s, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (recommended by Andrew Wilson, Tim Challies, David Qaoud, Gilly Down, Jared Wilson)
6. Carl Trueman’s, The Rise And Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism and the Road to Sexual Revolution (recommended by Andrew Wilson, Tim Challies)
7. Katie Mack’s The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking) (recommended by Jason Kottke)
8. Jennie Pollock’s If Only (recommended by Sheridan Voysey)
9. Andrew Le Peau’s Write Better: A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality (recommended by David Qaoud, Tim Challies) Also on my 2020 list.
10. Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (recommended by David Qaoud). I think this was on my reading list for this year so I really need to get to it
11. Tom Holland’s Dominion is another I never quite got to in 2020 (recommended by Richard Roper)
12. Marilynne Robinson’s Jack (recommended by Russell Moore)
13. Richard Bauckham’s, Who Is God? Key Moments of Biblical Revelation (recommended by Russell Moore)
14. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall – lots of people have read and recommended her third book The Mirror and the Light (Andrew Wilson, Jason Kottke, Rachel Jones, several from The Spectator) but as I haven’t read the first one, I should probably start there.
15. J. T. English’s Deep Discipleship: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus (recommended by Jared Wilson) *update*
16. Hauerwas & Willimon’s Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (recommended by Jared Wilson) *update*

*All the links to Amazon are affiliate links so if you choose to buy something after having clicked on the link, I get a small cut which I will use to spend on one of these books.