Yes, I know, it’s the first day of spring. Yes, I know the whole “2022 book list” thing expired about four months ago. But here I am anyway, posting my reading list from last year. It’s something I’ve made a habit of for several years now. (You can look at my last few years worth of joy-ride reading here.)

I do this for two reasons. First, I know that I certainly like to snoop on other people’s reading lists. I’m always trolling for new ideas and I always find goodies from other people. Second, I like to keep myself informed of my own reading pace. I use Goodreads to track my books and usually set a “reading challenge” goal for myself each new year, which lets me see my own pace. 

Of course, joy reading means you can’t be dogmatic about it. For whatever reason, I read fewer books in 2022 than the previous two years. And I’m already fifteen books deep in 2023. So be it. I don’t over-analyze my own reading habits. The rule is simple: Read all sorts of things, all the time.

Fake Awards

I usually make up some fake awards as a sort of summary of highlights and lowlights, so here are this year’s winners:

• Best for My Brain: Given some of my own training and interests, I was bound to like this book, but Brock and Sutanto’s Neo-Calvinism was really just excellent stuff.
• Best for My Heart: I really loved reading slowly through Holmes’ A Theology of the Christian Life. Highly recommended for the theologically inclined.
• Book I Remember the Least: Jacob’s Breaking Bread with the Dead. Sorry. I know this opinion is Verboten, but I think most of Jacobs’s work is overrated. 
• Surprisingly Useful: Bobby Jamieson is a friend of mine and he didn’t pay me to say this. Nor do I mean that I wasn’t expecting Bobby’s book to be useful. But I read his The Path to Being a Pastor to consider recommending to my students and actually found it very instructive and edifying for myself. Well done.
• Most Over-Rated: Stavrakopoulou’s God: An Anatomy. I think this book was supposed to be some kind of creative breakthrough in biblical studies, but it turned out to be a fairly dull experiment in Amelia Bedelia pseudo-metaphorical interpretation.
• Nerdiest: Duncan’s hilariously titled Index, A History of the was really as good as you would hope. Fully of historical nuggets and rampantly fun prose. 
• Most Likely to Make You Break into Song: Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley is a beautiful but tragic memoir about the change of an era in a small, Welsh coal town. Read with tissues at hand.

The Full List (by category)

Bible & Theology

1. Dean R. Ulrich, Now and Not Yet: Theology and Mission in Ezra-Nehemiah
2. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, God: An Anatomy
3. Russell D. Moore, The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home
4. Cynthia Long Westfall, Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Mission for Men and Women in Christ
5. Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan
6. Christopher R. J. Holmes, A Theology of the Christian Life: Imitating and Participating in God
7. Peter J. Gurry and John D. Meade, Scribes and Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible
8. Kevin DeYoung, Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction
9. Kevin DeYoung, What is the Mission of the Church? 
10. Bobby Jamieson, The Path to Being a Pastor: A Guide for the Aspiring
11. Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 
12. Rachel Joy Welcher, Talking Back to Purity Culture: Rediscovering Faithful Christian Sexuality
13. John G. Crawford, Baptism is not Enough: How Understanding God’s Covenant Explains Everything
14. Michael J. Kruger, Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church
15. Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change: Genesis 1:1-2:4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms
16. Cory C. Brock and Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, Neo-Calvinism: An Introduction

Philology & Linguistics

1. Peter Martin, The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight of the English Language
2. Jonathon Green, Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries they Made
3. Dennis Duncan, Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age
4. Klaus-Uwe, Introduction to Cognitive Pragmatics

Biography

1. Stephen J. Nichols, R. C. Sproul: A Life

History & Politics

1. Simon Goldhill, What is a Jewish Classicist? Essays on the Personal Voice and Disciplinary Politics
2. Crawford Gribben, Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest
3. Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation
4. Alan Jacobs, The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
5. Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it
6. Matthew Rose, A World After Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right
7. Simon Jenkins,  A Short History of Europe: From Pericles to Putin

Miscellaneous Nonfiction

1. David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
2. Jeremy Wade, How to Think Like a Fish and Other Lessons from a Lifetime in Angling
3. Tristan Gooley, How to Read Water: Clues & Patterns from Puddles to the Sea
4. Anthony Esolen, No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men
5. Doug Wilson, Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life
6. Alan Jacobs, Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind
7. Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know

Pop Psychology

1. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
2. Gary L. Thomas, When to Walk Away: Finding Freedom from Toxic People
3. Debbie Mirza, The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist
4. Aundi Kolber, Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us Out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode

Fiction

1. John Grisham, The Whistler (The Whistler 1)
2. John Grisham, The Judge’s List (The Whistler 2)
3. John Grisham, The Boys from Biloxi
4. John Grisham, The Guardian
5. Gregg Hurwitz, The Survivor
6. Gregg Hurwitz, Dark Horse (Orphan X 7)
7. Gregg Hurwitz, The Tower
8. Stephen King, Salem’s Lot
9. Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
10. Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley
11. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (HP 1)
12. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (HP 2)