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 \u201ctop 5\u201d favorite reads. I usually add to my to-do list the desire to write a short blog post about these top 5. It hasn\u2019t happened in a few years, but I think it\u2019s 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:<\/p>\n
1. Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals<\/em><\/a>. 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\u2019t agree with everything here, there are many valuable insights.<\/p>\n “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\u2014and work with them, rather than against them\u2014the more productive, meaningful, and joyful life becomes.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n 2. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome<\/em><\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n 3. Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menahem M. Schneerson, The Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History<\/em><\/a>, Joseph Telushkin. This biography details the life of the guy I first knew as the \u201cMessiah,\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 4. Paul: A Biography, N. T. Wright<\/em><\/a>. The author knows how to write an enjoyable book, and this work puts all of Paul\u2019s 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\u2019s letters), it was a valuable read on a subject that we know too little about. (45-minute sermons handle trees much better than forests.)<\/p>\n “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.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n 5. Memories After My Death: The Story of My Father, Joseph “Tommy” Lapid<\/em><\/a>, by Yair Lapid. I can\u2019t remember what prompted me to read this book, but I loved living through Israel\u2019s history again, from the subject\u2019s 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\u2019s son.<\/p>\n “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 \u201clife goes on.\u201d 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.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Honorable mention:<\/p>\n Under Jerusalem<\/em><\/a>, 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\u2019t know about. He could have left his own political beliefs out and made the book even better, but I still recommend it.<\/p>\n The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey<\/em><\/a>, by Candice Millard. A little-known adventure story after Roosevelt was president.<\/p>\n A Week in the Life of Rome<\/em><\/a>, James L. Papandrea. My favorite in the \u201cWeek in the Life of\u201d series.<\/p>\n Eagle of the Ninth<\/em><\/a>, by Rosemary Sutcliff. A classic that\u2019s a fun read with the family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 \u201ctop 5\u201d favorite reads. I usually add to my to-do list the desire to write a short\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-things-i-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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