For about 15 years I have faithfully kept track of the books I have finished. For some, I make a brief note of its value. At the end of the year, I like to try to identify my “top 5” favorite reads. I usually add to my to-do list the desire to write a short blog post about these top 5. It hasn’t happened in a few years, but I think it’s still worth doing, and perhaps success this year will make it easier to succeed next year as well. Here are five books I enjoyed last year and would recommend, in the order in which I read them:

1. Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. This book is eerily reminiscent of Ecclesiastes. The author gives no indication of faith, but the principles he shared, gained through lots of observation and study, align very well with those of Solomon. Though a believer naturally won’t agree with everything here, there are many valuable insights.

“All of this illustrates what might be termed the paradox of limitation, which runs through everything that follows: the more you try to manage your time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, and freedom from the inevitable constraints of being human, the more stressful, empty, and frustrating life gets. But the more you confront the facts of finitude instead—and work with them, rather than against them—the more productive, meaningful, and joyful life becomes.”

2. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, by Adrian Goldsworthy. I kept thinking how I wish I had known this history thirty years ago. My problem, exposed in part by this book, is that I started with a narrow focus (biblical period, land of Israel) and have only slowly worked outward to the larger context of the Roman world. New Testament students would benefit from knowing the Roman empire better, and this is an enjoyable entry. I listened to the audio version.

3. Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menahem M. Schneerson, The Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History, Joseph Telushkin. This biography details the life of the guy I first knew as the “Messiah,” as so heralded by the Lubavitcher signs around Jerusalem. I worked in the LA headquarters of Chabad for a few months shortly after the Rebbe’s death. But I had no idea what a great man he was. He was not the Messiah, to be sure, but his influence is astonishing. This one taught me much about Judaism and leadership. I wish I could have read it 30 years ago. I listened to the audio version.

4. Paul: A Biography, N. T. Wright. The author knows how to write an enjoyable book, and this work puts all of Paul’s life in order and gives it meaning. Though I disagree significantly in several areas (including his adoption of the New Perspective on Paul and the Ephesian imprisonment for Paul’s letters), it was a valuable read on a subject that we know too little about. (45-minute sermons handle trees much better than forests.)

“The second thing we can be sure of is that he prayed, he studied, and he figured out all sorts of things. Faced with his letters (written a decade and more later), dense as they are with concentrated argument, we cannot imagine that when he wrote them he was breaking entirely new ground. He could no doubt improvise on the spot, but in his mature thought he gives every evidence of long pondering. Saul spent a silent decade deepening the well of scriptural reflection from which he would thereafter draw the water he needed.”

5. Memories After My Death: The Story of My Father, Joseph “Tommy” Lapid, by Yair Lapid. I can’t remember what prompted me to read this book, but I loved living through Israel’s history again, from the subject’s childhood in the Holocaust through his career in journalism and then politics. As the title hints, it has the fascinating twist of being written in autobiographical style (first person), but by the subject’s son.

“Whole months of my life disappeared. I cannot say what I was doing during that time, I was on autopilot. I would rise in the morning without understanding why, go to work without being able to explain to myself what I was doing there, people would pass by and say good morning as if such a thing were possible. At one point I swore I would punch the next person who dared tell me that “life goes on.” Life does not go on. When a child of yours dies, your life ends all at once and you become a different person starting a different life.”

Honorable mention:

Under Jerusalem, by Andrew Lawler. I think I know a lot about Jerusalem and its exploration in the last 150 years, but Lawler dug up a lot I didn’t know about. He could have left his own political beliefs out and made the book even better, but I still recommend it.

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard. A little-known adventure story after Roosevelt was president.

A Week in the Life of Rome, James L. Papandrea. My favorite in the “Week in the Life of” series.

Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff. A classic that’s a fun read with the family.

Whenever I finish a book, I write it down on a list. On average, I read or listen to about 30-40 books a year. In recent years, I have made a list of my favorite books of the year, but I never seem to make it to writing a short summary for the blog. But this year I decided to set the bar low in order to motivate me to both start and finish.

As I surveyed my list of the year’s books, I noticed that I had a high proportion of books that I considered very good. I think that this is because many of my choices are based on recommendations. I benefit from the recommendations of others, and perhaps you can benefit from what I have found interesting or useful this year.

My list proceeds in the order in which I read these books.

Make It Stick, by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. This is the only book on this list that I read twice this year. After reading it through, I decided that I wanted my entire family to read it. If you want to learn how to remember what you learn, this book will teach you. I think that my college- and high-school-aged kids definitely benefited from it. Many of its principles I had already learned by experience, but it was very helpful to see it written out in a systematic and careful way.

Coming Out of the Ice, by Victor Herman. This reads like a Russian version of Unbroken. Written by an American who somehow survived the gulags of Russia, this story kept me riveted and amazed. The print version may be hard to find, but the audiobook is on Audible.

Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover. This is another autobiographical account of a survivor, but this one is of a young woman coming out of a Mormon fundamentalist family in Idaho. Very engaging.

Polio: An American Story, by David M. Oshinsky. I have found that I love well-written history books, and there was no better time to read this than when I was learning about Covid. I realized how ignorant I was of disease, vaccines, and the American conquest of what once was a terrifying scourge for infants, children, and FDR.

Alaska, by James Michener. I haven’t read a Michener book in probably a decade, but I figured that our vacation in the 49th state was a good time to pick this one up. Michener is such a good storyteller, and though he claims that the book is fiction, I learned a whole lot of non-fiction along the way.

Hunting Eichmann, by Neal Bascomb. Perhaps those who know the story of Adolf Eichmann’s capture in Argentina would find this account less gripping, but I was ignorant going in and I loved every minute. I also learned a lot about the hunt for Nazi criminals in the 15 years following WWII.

The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown. On the surface, who really cares about the story of crew of rowers at the University of Washington in the 1930s? But Brown weaves a fascinating account that connects family hardship, the Great Depression, boat design, Nazi Germany, and the beautiful sport of rowing. Perhaps my favorite of the year.

Can We Trust the Gospels?, by Peter J. Williams. I read this after I assigned it to my NT Survey class, because I was quite confident that it would surpass the book I wanted it to replace. But the book was better than I expected. Well-researched, compelling, and concise.

Thoughts for Young Men, by J. C. Ryle. This is the only book on this list that I had read in a previous year. I read it together with a son, and every Saturday when we would meet, I would marvel at how very good that week’s chapter was. I recommend it to all, young and old, men and women, and I wish it could be required for all college students.

It may be worth noting that I listened to the audiobooks for 5 of these 9 books (Coming Out, Educated, Polio, Hunting, Boys). Because I primarily listen to audiobooks while exercising, I try to choose books that will prove sufficiently distracting. One that won’t make this year’s list is the 35-hour monster I’ve been in the middle of for nearly two months now: Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow. It’s been a great return to U.S. history, and it’s never boring.