The Books I Finished in 2025

 At the end of the year, I (Nate) often enjoy reflecting on my reading in the past year. I read some great books in 2025, and here are comments on some of the best:

A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube, Patrick Leigh Fermor

As an 19-year-old in 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor decided to backpack across Europe, crossing the English Channel and then essentially walking all the way to Istanbul, staying in barns, homes, and palaces. His descriptions of the local landscapes, monasteries and villages, art, music, and people are fascinating, and what makes the book more of a treasure is the fact that much of what he saw is gone because of World War 2. But Fermor is a marvelous writer, and I plan to read the next two books in the story of his journey.  

Europe 101: History and Art for the Traveler, Rick Steves

As I read Fermor, his cultural references were so ferocious that I felt that I needed a refresher in European art / history. I enjoy watching Rick Steves’s jaunts around Europe, and his Europe 101 is a good overview to our Western cultural inheritance.

How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, Stanley Fish

The author points out that some people love words, phrases, and sentences in the same way that an artist loves the texture of his paint. I’m probably one of those people. This book helped me slow down and note the art and complexity and power of different types of great sentences. 

Walking the Nile, Levison Wood

This is explorer Levison Wood’s retelling of his record-setting walk of the entire length of the Nile River, 4,000 miles, from a spring in Rwanda to the Mediterranean Sea. On his journey, he encountered crocodiles, criminals, deadly heat, war, and some very interesting people. 

How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds, Alan Jacobs

In an era in which people’s thoughts are directed not by a careful process of thinking but by the Algorithms, Alan Jacobs has provided an excellent guide to thinking critically. 

The  Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien 

Good fantasy is not an escape from the real world, but a way to open our eyes to the moral and spiritual conflict of the world that we live in. The Lord of the Rings is full of wisdom, goodness, and truth, and it is my favorite story. 

Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman, Patrick Hutchison

April read this first and recommended this to me, and I really enjoyed it. Hutchison had a lucrative but boring job in Seattle, and he knew something was missing. He ended up buying a little fixer-upper cabin in the mountains, quitting his job, having some adventures, and finding community. 

2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke

For years, I found the film’s exploration of the relationship of human beings and our technology thought-provoking. If technology can do everything we can do, what are we even here for as human beings? (One of my favorite moments in film history is the moment David Bowman turns the supercomputer Hal off, using the most basic of human tools—a screwdriver.) Although the book is interesting, it has a lot more about the “To infinity and beyond” part of the story, and it doesn’t improve the story. I think this is one of those rare cases where the movie is actually better. 

Bleak House, Charles Dickens

My wife and I loved the 2005 BBC miniseries, so I decided to read the novel. The novel is long, but it’s a masterpiece. I love its variety of idiosyncratic characters. And no one can work death by spontaneous combustion into a story like Charles Dickens. 

Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent, N. D. Wilson

Hard to describe but really good. Meditations on our mortality, our purpose in God's design for His world, and the sovereignty of God. 

Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis

I’ve read this book many times, but I always felt I missed something in the last twenty pages or so, which become symbolic and visionary. This time I read the novel along with Till We Have Faces: A Reader’s Guide, by Christine Norvell, and it really helped. I think this is Lewis’s finest novel, with the possible exception of Perelandra. It’s a retelling of the myth of Psyche and Eros from the perspective of one of the wicked sisters, but infused with Christian symbolism. The story is ultimately about the nature of true Christian love.

Class Clown, Dave Barry

This is Dave Barry's memoir. Barry is now in his late 70’s. A good friend gave the book to me (Thanks, Mike!), and I laughed a lot as I read it. Mr. Barry is very funny, but he needs God. In between his hilarious memories, there are some surprisingly sad and surprisingly thoughtful reflections. I especially enjoyed his reminisces of his early days as a journalist.

Everything Sad Is Untrue (A True Story), Daniel Nayeri

Such a powerful story. The author recounts his early years, starting with growing up in a wealthy family in Iran. When his mother becomes a Christian, Iran’s police give her an ultimatum to turn in the other members of her underground church. As a result, she flees the country, taking little Daniel and his big sister. Daniel ends up in Oklahoma, trying to fit in with American junior high kids. Off the top of my head, I think this is only the fourth book in my life that brought me to tears. 

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, David Brooks

(Note: I technically finished this book this week, but it is so good I had to include it.) Absolutely fantastic book. Brooks shows that in our lives, people climb two mountains. The first mountain in life is the kind of success we think we want when we are young adults: we want a career, a nice house, a nice car, etc. And so we climb that mountain. But when we get to the top, we realize that these things aren’t fulfilling, and we’re empty, and we go into a valley. Then we discover a second mountain—a life of meaning and service. Brooks shows human beings are wired to have a truly fulfilling life only by totally and completely giving ourselves away for others—for another person, for a family, for a community, for God. If we don't do that, our lives feel wrong. Although I don’t agree with everything Brooks says, there is much light here. 

I read a few other books, but these were the most notable. Enjoy your reading in 2026, friends!

Books Finished 2024

Here is a list of books I've finished this year (2024):

1. How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, Franklin Foer. This is a fascinating look at the culture of soccer around the world. Understanding various places/peoples' relationship to soccer truly does explain so much about societies around the world. I found this book fascinating. (Thanks to Coach Pill for the recommendation.)

2. The Ring of the Nibelung, Richard Wagner, translated by Andrew Porter. This is a translation of the lyrics to the entire Ring Cycle of Richard Wagner. I wanted to learn more about Wagner, since he is a major influence on both Lewis and Tolkien (and is probably an even bigger influence on modern Western culture through movies/film). The Ring Cycle is loosely based on Nordic mythology, and is bleak and strange, but it certainly has power to get into the imagination.

3. The Ring and the Fire, Clyde Robert Bulla. A concise summary of the Ring Cycle in prose.

4. Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott. A fun, adventurous read with knights and maidens and Robin Hood and Friar Tuck and battles and jousts. Although this is a little sensationalistic at times, I enjoyed it.   

5. Hamlet, Shakespeare. I went on a Hamlet kick for a few weeks and read it three times. Love this play. 

6. Born Again, Charles Colson. A wonderful testimony that God does amazing, unlikely things. God sovereignly saved a cutthroat political figure and made his life a shining testimony of grace. 

7. The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester. Absolutely fascinating. The story of the relationship between an American doctor who went insane as a result of his experience in the Civil War and the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.  

8. King Lear, Shakespeare. Bleak but powerful. One of my favorite Shakespearean plays. 

9. The Road, Cormac McCarthy. I read this because of McCarthy's place in modern/postmodern American literature. Not a fan. Too dark. Proof that a worldview without God makes no sense. Dark, atheistic books like this one make me thankful for the hope I have in Jesus Christ, for life without Him would be utterly bleak. 

10. Making It So, Patrick Stewart. A fascinating look at the life of an incredible stage/TV/film actor. Stewart is mainly known for his portrayal as Captain Picard, but his Shakespearean knowledge is ferocious. I found it incredibly sad that Stewart sacrificed his relationships with his family for his career. 

11. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs. This was my second time reading this book. Jacobs is one of my favorite thinkers, and he promotes the development of a love of reading by "reading at whim" rather than seeing reading as a matter of eating one's vegetables. His views have affected me profoundly. Great book.

12. The Aeneid, Virgil. I went back and forth between translations by Fitzgerald and Fagles, depending on whether I was reading on my Kindle or in print. This work really illumines my reading of Dante even more. 

13. Driving Mr. Yogi, Harvey Araton. I'm not a Yankees fan, but I admire the team's traditions. This book was more detailed than I was interested in, but I enjoyed it.  

14. Dante's Inferno. Finished this for probably the fifth or sixth time. Read a combination of Musa's, Ciardi's, and prose translations. 

15. Cliffs Notes on Plato's Republic. (I know, I know, I need to read the real thing.) It's important to consider what makes a good society. Plato and Aristotle (even in Cliffs Notes form) make me think about very important questions I don't otherwise think about a lot. 

16. Cliffs Notes on Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. Socrates was an amazing guy. By telling his story, Plato makes us consider what makes for a truly virtuous life.  

17. The Hobbit, Tolkien. Maybe the seventh time or so. Always wonderful.

18. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe. First time through. I'm ashamed that I had never read it. I was prompted to read it when a teacher at our church pointed out that Spurgeon had actually preached a sermon on this novel. I know it's one of the first novels ever, and I respect its place as a pioneer in the genre, but in terms of the story's quality, it loses a sense of unity about three quarters of the way through, becoming somewhat sensationalistic. At the same time, it develops the theme of God's providence in some rich ways. As a side note, I would like to dive a little more into the life of Defoe after reading the afterword in the edition I read.   

19-22. The Rookies, books 1-4, Mark Freeman. As an 11-year-old kid, I read part of this subliterary series about three friends who go from playing high school ball to playing in the major leagues. I never finished the series, but I looked back on these books with nostalgia for years. A couple weeks ago, I found it online, and bought it. I'm enjoying the series not for its quality, but because it's fun to go back in time to 1989.    

Currently reading or on temporary hold:

1. A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor. Really, really enjoying this!

2. Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World, David Denby. 

2. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Walter Isaacson. 

3. Cliffs Notes on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. 

4. A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman.

5. The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien. 

6. In my daily Bible reading, I have read through the Old Testament from Genesis to Job this year. I'm currently reading the Literary Study Bible (ESV).

Recommended Reading (Updated)

 A student recently asked for book recommendations, so I updated my list. Here it is in its most current form.

Fiction

• Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis (My favorite of his novels.)
• The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (The best!)
• Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen. (All of Austen's novels are excellent. I tell students that this one is a good place to start.)
• Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
• A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens 
• A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
• Howards End, E.M. Forster
• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson 
• I love Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, but it is too long.
• Whalesong, Robert Seigel (A great YA book.) 
• Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (Thought-provoking and prophetic about our technological society.)
• The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
• The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis (Much wisdom for the Christian life, told using sort of reverse psychology.)
• Perelandra, C.S. Lewis (The whole Ransom Trilogy is very good, but this, the second in the series, is my favorite. Echoes of Paradise Lost.)
• The Giver, Lois Lowry (A profound reminder of the importance of history.)
• Henry IV, Part 1, Shakespeare (Shakespeare's plays are meant to be seen, but I love reading them. This one is hilarious but also a great coming of age story. I also love Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, etc.)

I should note that sometimes when I read fiction, I read with help—Cliffs Notes, or a critical essay, etc. There's no shame in that! 

Non-Fiction

• The literary criticism of Karen Swallow Prior, Leland Ryken, and Gene Edward Veith is excellent. All three authors have written extensively on literature/reading/books. Karen Prior has editions of some of the classics, such as Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Sense and Sensibility.
• Alan Jacobs always makes me think! I enjoyed his biography of C. S. Lewis, The Narnian. I also love his book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.
• Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand (Amazing story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympian and World War 2 prisoner. Even better for Christian readers.)
• The Boys in the Boat, Dan Brown (Awesome story of the 1936 Olympic Rowing Team. My favorite character is George Pocock, the sage-like British guy who builds the boats.)
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edward Morris (Fascinating account of Theodore Roosevelt's early years.)
• Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis (Excellent apologetics and practical advice for living the Christian life.)
• The works of Francis Schaeffer, especially How Then Shall We Live?
• The Christian Imagination, Leland Ryken (Fantastic collection of essays on literature, poetry, fiction, and writing.)
• What Are People For? Wendell Berry (IMO, you need to take what Berry says with a few shakes of salt, but he has helped me see the importance of local culture, problems with the consumer economy, etc.)
• Born Again, the biography of Charles Colson, is encouraging.
• Crunchy Cons, Rod Dreher (I feel like this book helped me find a political home, although sometimes Dreher is slightly alarmist. I also enjoyed his books How Dante Can Save Your Life and The Little Way of Ruthie Leming.)
• Engaging God's World, Cornelius Plantinga (Helped me see that all of life is sacred, and a calling to so-called secular work is a holy calling.)
• Creation Regained, Albert Wolters (The best book I've ever read on Christian worldview.)
• Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis, George Sayer (My favorite bio of Lewis, written especially with an eye towards books that affected Lewis.)
• Augustine's Confessions is uplifting. I like the poetic translation of O'Rourke.
• Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman (A warning about how media has destroyed serious political discourse. A must-read to understand today's political situation.)
• Desiring God by John Piper was very important in my spiritual development when I was in college. I have enjoyed a number of his books.
• A couple of good books on writing: The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, and On Writing Well by William Zinsser.

Poetry

• Collected Poems, Wendell Berry (Great stress relief. Beautiful and thought-provoking poems.)
• The Angles of Light, Luci Shaw (I also enjoyed her collection of Christmas poems, Accompanied by Angels.)
• Collected Poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins (Probably my favorite book of poems.)  
• The poetry of George Herbert is excellent and very edifying.
• I also have greatly enjoyed the poetry of Malcolm Guite.
• For the brave: Paradise Lost, Milton; consider reading along with C. S. Lewis's Preface to Paradise Lost. And Dante's Divine Comedy is mesmerizing. There's a helpful podcast called 100 Days of Dante, which I found (mostly) very insightful.
• Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot (After multiple readings, I still don't get it all, but I have greatly enjoyed reading it. A helpful companion is Helen Gardner's The Art of T.S. Eliot.)
• I love The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneiad (Robert Fagles' translations are my favorite). 

The Ten Books that Influenced C. S. Lewis Most.

The whole aim of an intellectual life ... is to behold the truth, and to love it for its beauty.

It’s hard to keep that foremost in mind, when we are met at every turn with a barrage of ugliness: expensive, deliberate, programmatic ugliness, such as that of the prose from the Alaska standards for reading and writing; and when the eyes of the soul are washed in the carbolic acid of relativism; and when truth is reduced to what is demonstrable by means of some measurement; and when reason is but a clever tool for procuring what will sate the appetite.

. . .

You do not read good books so that you can scramble up some tricks, so that you can write clever things about them, so that you can do well on a test and secure a prestigious job and then die. You learn about the language and about what writers do, so that you can read good books and learn to love them, because they are companions who will tell you what they have seen of the truth, and they tell you it in a way you will not soon forget.

Anthony Esolen, "Read Literature to Learn and Love the Truth"

The year 2013 has finished somewhat miserably. I have the flu, and so do my wife and daughters, so we're all currently bunkering down at home. But I always like to reflect on the previous year, and once again, I'm thankful for the Lord's goodness in 2013.

One of the ways I've enjoyed God's goodness last year is the blessing of the books I read in 2013. I usually have about five books going at once, and there's a lot of other stuff I've read, but here are most of the books I finished this year. 

Novels

Marilynne Robinson, Home

Less moving for me than Gilead, but still good. 

G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (re-read)

Too allegorical for my taste (and a little preachy), but imaginative.

E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

Enjoyed Howards End in 2012. This is also a classic. Forster is an amazing writer.

Jerome Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

Great British humor. Loved this.

YA Books

Robert Seigel, Whalesong

Possibly my favorite YA book ever. Had the opportunity to review it for Redeemed Reader (review here).

William Joyce, Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King

After my family and I saw Rise of the Guardians, based on this series, my daughter and I picked this up at the library and really enjoyed the book. And I must say that Joyce has turned my 8-year-old daughter into a reader. She read the first four books of this series and is waiting for the next one.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

A great swashbuckling adventure. Glad I finally read it.

Non-Fiction

Truck: A Love Story and Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting, both by Michael Perry

This was the year my wife and I discovered the work of Michael Perry, thanks to a friend (and I got to meet Perry a couple weeks ago!). Truck started a little slow, but I ended up loving it, and I want to read it again. Perry is a craftsman with words, and his portrayal of small-town life in Wisconsin is spot on. He’s also hilarious. Coop is a close second to Truck.

Thomas Hibbs, Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld
Excellent film/TV/culture criticism. My Goodreads review is here.

John Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ
Worth getting just for the prayers. Deepened my relationship with Christ.

Augustine, Confessions
I only read books 1-8, which are Augustine’s spiritual autobiography. After that the book is mainly philosophical. But this is a beautiful story.

Albert Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview Dense but thankfully short. Goodreads review here.

Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

Loved this book for its story, its setting, and its faith. 

Rod Dreher, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

I absolutely loved Dreher's first book, Crunchy Cons, but this book is very different. This is the story of Rod's relationship with his sister, who died of cancer in 2012. The book is very sad, but very moving. Dreher was greatly changed through this experience. My review here.

Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions: And Advice to Young Converts

Convicting. Good to re-read again and again.

R. C. Sproul, Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism

Charitable, gracious, and fair.

Francis Schaeffer, Art & The Bible

Schaeffer is outstanding on art. Goodreads review here.

 

Poetry

Luci Shaw, Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation

Wonderful meditations that rekindle our wonder at the Incarnation, as well as the life, sacrificial death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ

William Shakespeare, Sonnets.

I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, but since Shakespeare has been judged already, that says more me than it does about Shakespeare. 

Sarah Wells, Pruning Burning Bushes

This is a great book of poems by a writer whose faith is honest and real. My Goodreads review is here.

Billy Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room

A load of fun. The first book of Collins' poems that I've read.

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Finally read this, Eliot's greatest Christian poetry. “Little Gidding” is especially good.

 

Stephen Haven, The Last Sacred Place in North America

Haven is the director of the MFA program at Ashland, which I hope to begin one of these years, God willing. I really enjoyed many of his poems. My review is here.

Sadly, I didn't finish any books by C. S. Lewis, Leland Ryken, or Wendell Berry. But 2014 lies ahead.

For books are not . . . dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that should whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them . . . [Hence] as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.

John Milton