My Ten Favorite Books of 2023

Thanks to my sabbatical, I read more this year than most years. That means it was especially tough to narrow this down to ten. But I hope I can recommend a book or two for you. So in no particular order, here goes:

Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? Timothy Keller

You might think such a subject–so basic to the Christian faith–doesn’t need any further explaining. As a pastor, I can testify that you would be wrong. People today struggle with so many aspects of forgiveness:

–How can I forgive someone when I’m still angry, hurting, or both?
–How can I forgive someone when I literally hate them for what they’ve done?
–If I forgive, won’t it enable them to continue hurting me, or others?
–What if the other person refuses to apologize, doesn’t want reconciliation?
–Isn’t forgiveness just a tactic that abusers in the Church use to escape responsibility?
–What if I can’t forgive myself?

I can’t think of a better book to address those and other important questions. Honestly, sensitively, and most of all, scripturally, Keller helps us see the miracle of forgiveness and apply it to our lives. These truths will produce freedom.

On a separate note, Keller passed away this year. I will greatly miss his preaching and writing. But he leaves behind an amazing legacy. With his consistent emphasis on the Gospel, this is a perfect last book for him.

Glad You’re Here: Two Unlikely Friends Breaking Bread and Fences Walker Hayes, Craig Allen Cooper

One of the most enjoyable books I’ve ever read. This is the story of a struggling singer/songwriter and a minister, and the friendship that changed both their lives. It’s told by both men with humor and honesty. I wasn’t familiar with Walker Hayes before reading this, so you’ll enjoy the story whether you’re a country music fan or not. Reading this book will inspire you to take your relationships seriously; God does amazing things when we go out of our way to love someone else. If I had the money, I would buy a thousand copies of this and give one to every Christian I know.

Jerusalem: The Biography Simon Sebag Montefiore

I love Jerusalem. I’ve been there four times, and it’s my favorite city on earth. Walking the ancient cobblestone streets of the Old City, seeing little Hasidic boys, with their ringlets and black suits, playing in the streets, I feel completely safe. Yet I also know that the City of Peace, as it’s called, has often been anything but. Wars have been fought over this city for millennia. I knew the stories from the Bible, but very little else before reading this book.

Montefiore has a vested interest in his subject. He’s descended from Moses Montefiore, the businessman who carved out a place for the Jews in modern Jerusalem in the late 1800s. He is also a fantastic writer. There are amazing, memorable stories in every stage of Jerusalem’s history, and he tells them exceptionally well. If you like history, or if you simply want to better understand how things in Israel came to be the way they are today, this is the book.

Everything Sad is Untrue Daniel Nayeri

What a beautiful book, funny, heartbreaking, and moving. Nayeri, his mother and sister immigrated to the US when he was a boy. They were forced to leave Iran in part because of his mother’s conversion to Christianity, and landed in Oklahoma. Nayeri writes from the viewpoint of his junior-high self, which means there is plenty of, well, junior-high-boy humor. But it makes the story more involving for the reader. Instead of a dry recollection, you feel like you’re experiencing this new place along with a very young boy. You discover what it’s like to treasure the place you’re from, with all its traditions, stories, and food, while trying to fit into the place you now live…to watch people you love and trust make bad decisions that make your life more difficult…to find adults who truly care and can inspire you to be what God created you to be…and most of all, how telling your story can change the people around you.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry John Mark Comer

This is one of those books I cannot say I “enjoyed.” But it certainly was useful to me. This is my first time reading Comer’s work, and he is a thoughtful, challenging writer. He has chosen a subject–hurry sickness–that is incredibly relevant for our time. I would have appreciated more biblical exposition. And I found some of his points of application on the discipline of simplicity unconvincing, and perhaps more reflective of living in the cultural environment of Portland than the water I swim in here in Texas. But overall, I found his work here incredibly convicting, especially in his chapter on “slowing.” I have put several of his suggestions into practice, and it really has made a difference in my life and emotional health. In short, I think most people I know need to read this book.

The Time It Never Rained Elmer Kelton

For most of my life, my grandfather, a rancher and dairyman, had this book on his shelf. When he passed away in 2010, I inherited it. I assumed, based on the wordplay of the title, that it was folksy cattleman’s humor, like Ace Reid’s “Cowpokes” comics, that grandpa loved. I figured I’d read it someday when I had time to laugh at stories about Yankees, city-slickers, rednecks, uppity women, unreliable horses and stubborn bovines. Then I saw the title on a list of “Best books about Texas,” and began to make more serious plans to read it.

It still took me a few more years to start. I’m glad I finally got around to it.

This is no comedy, although there are certainly some humorous lines and witty dialogue. This is an often heartbreaking story of a West Texas rancher, Charlie Flagg, and his attempt to survive the long drought of the 1950s. Charlie loves his place, a vast spread where Comanches once roamed, and he and his wife have run the ranch since buying it from an old German when they were young. Lupe Flores has been his right-hand man for almost that long. He and his family live on the Flagg’s place, and they are major characters in the story, too. In fact, Lupe’s son Manuel becomes more a son to Charlie than his own boy, the vain and talented Tom, who seems more interested in becoming a rodeo star than handling his responsibilities at the ranch. Charlie is hard-working and principled to a fault; he is the one rancher in the area who refuses to accept government subsidies (“I’ve always paid my own way”).

Throughout the book, the pressure on Charlie to budge from his stubborn self-reliance will continue to grow. Will he give in and accept government help to keep his ranch from dying? Will Tom show up for his dad when he needs him most? Will Charlie be able to keep paying Lupe, so the Flores family can stay? Most of all, will it ever rain again?

As someone who grew up around Texas cattlemen, I appreciated how Charlie and the other characters sound like the men I knew. Kelton has the dialogue just right. And although I never lived through a drought that long, I know the anxiety over “when will it rain?” Most of all, I love how he has captured something in Charlie Flagg. Not a perfect man by any means, but when people wonder why Texans are the way they are, I think they should read this book. In many ways, today’s Texans are descended from Charlie, and they bear that independent spirit, for both good and bad.

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle Jon Meacham

This is a very readable, enjoyable biography of Lincoln. I appreciate two things especially: First, Meacham uses Lincoln’s own quotes whenever possible to tell the story. Since Lincoln is, in my opinion, one of the best speakers in American history, that is a fine choice.

Second, as a Christian, I appreciated Meacham’s nuanced view of Lincoln’s evolving faith. Lincoln was never a member of any established church, and was sometimes accused by his political opponents of being an infidel. But he knew Scripture well, and used it so effectively in his speeches. His Second Inaugural address is more of a sermon than a political speech, for example. Some scholars explain this contradiction by saying, “It was a highly religious time, and Lincoln was a consummate politician. He spoke in the language voters needed to hear, even if he himself didn’t believe it.”

But Meacham shows instead a more complicated story, one I first encountered in the book Lincoln’s Battle With God, by Stephen Mansfield. Lincoln’s father was a devout Baptist (and an abolitionist, by the way). Since for some unknown reason father and son did not get along (Abraham didn’t even attend his father’s funeral), Meacham speculates that in his young adulthood, Abraham rejected his father’s religiosity. He even famously wrote a book maligning Christianity, which his friends, wanting to save his future political prospects, destroyed.

But later on, his views on Christianity seem to have shifted to viewing the faith as, at least, a useful tool for moving people toward compassion toward their fellow humans. Then, when his son Willie died during the Lincoln presidency, Abraham met frequently with a local pastor, who became a sort of personal chaplain. His writing and speech about Christ in these times sound much more like that of a sincere, if still questioning, believer.

Abraham Lincoln was a complicated man. He was very much a political creature, and Meacham shows many times when he took more moderate stands than we (or abolitionists of the time) would like, even at times defending the superiority of the white race. These things, we assume, he thought necessary to get elected and push needed reforms in a way that would succeed. By the end of his life, however, Meacham argues the Lincoln had come around to seeing black Americans as fully worthy of the same rights as whites. He was exactly the man we needed in our nation’s darkest moment. The main emotion I felt as I read this wonderful book was a longing for political leaders who actually put the good of the people–all the people–ahead of their own party, and their own career.

Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools Tyler Staton

Staton is connected to another author on my list. He followed John Mark Comer as pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland. I didn’t know this when I picked up the book, however. It has been a personal goal to build a more faithful, effective prayer life this year, and I’ve read quite a few books on the subject. Some have been very old, others relatively recent. All have been helpful in their own way, but this was my favorite.

In short, this is a book for people who feel like failures at prayer. It’s inspiring, honest, enjoyable, challenging. Unlike many books on prayer, it’s not hard to read. Staton does a terrific job of weaving personal stories into Scriptural exposition in a way that keeps the reader engaged. He also tackles tough questions, such as, “Why wouldn’t God answer a prayer that is clearly for the good?” This book will not only help you clarify the purpose of prayer; it will make you want to pray!

A Prophet Without Honor Joseph Wurtenbaugh

Despite the title, this isn’t a Christian book. Instead, it’s quite simply the best alternate history book I’ve ever read. I don’t even remember how I heard about this book; I was intrigued enough by the description to spend a couple bucks to buy it on Kindle. There have been many, many novels that start with the question: “What if Germany had won the War?” This one, however, asks “What if officers in the Wehrmacht had succeeded in overthrowing Hitler before the War ever started?” The way that scenario plays out is believable and ingenious.

Another thing that sets this story apart is that it’s told entirely through letters, journal entries, excerpts of (fictional) memoirs, and newspaper articles. Together, these build a portrait of a young German nobleman who grows to hate the Nazis, and becomes the center of a conspiracy to bring them down. Aside from the main character, nearly everyone else in the story is a real historical figure–even our own Dwight Eisenhower plays a key role, although nothing like his contributions in real life. Wurtenbaugh does a great job of giving each character a distinct voice, and the story is so well-told, you forget at times that it didn’t actually happen this way.

Imagine Heaven: Near Death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilirating Future that Awaits You John Burke

Well-written, engaging book that attempts to tie near-death experiences to Scriptural promises about Heaven. That’s quite a tightrope to walk, since: 1. Some aspects of NDEs don’t seem to have a Scriptural basis. 2. Biologically, we don’t really know what’s going on in an NDE. 3. People of all faiths–and no religion at all–report very similar experiences in their NDEs. Burke has a plausible explanation for all of these objections. I’m not saying I’m convinced absolutely by his arguments, but they definitely gave me quite a bit to think about.

But the big draw is the many, many NDE reports that Burke quotes from verbatim, giving you story after story of what people experienced when they briefly “died.” These stories are fascinating, whatever you might believe about NDEs. Personally, I found myself getting excited about what happens when this life is over. The Bible calls that hope, and it’s a very, very good thing. This book is for anyone who needs more hope.

Honorable Mention:

The Resilient Pastor Glenn Packiam. As title indicates, this book is written for pastors, specifically to help us stay in the work in a time when so many clergymen are walking away. I loved it, but since it’s focus is so narrow, I didn’t include it on my list. You might benefit from reading what pastors are going through today, though.

Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen Scott Sauls. This book almost made my list. It’s about how God uses the painful circumstances of our lives to produce growth in us.

Premonition and Retribution Randy Ingermanson. The second and third books in a trilogy (which I started last year) about two modern-day people who are stuck in Jerusalem in the time just after the New Testament. Highly enjoyable.

The Lincoln Highway and The Rules of Civility: These are the other two books by Amor Towles, who wrote A Gentleman in Moscow, which I loved. Even if these two weren’t quite the same level, they were wonderful all the same.