I didn’t consume as many books this year as I typically do. My freelance company had its biggest year of the 22 years I’ve been in business. Many of my nights and weekends were consumed with the production and promotion of my latest book, which dropped on April 12. And for some reason, I struggled to listen to any book but my own in the months before and immediately after it officially debuted.
What I found within the books on the list below were ideas and language that resonated with my soul. These thoughts and words kneaded a heart I’d laid bare to the world for months. These authors’ anecdotes and antidotes carried me from one therapy session to another. My reviews and rankings are influenced by how these books fit into my story this year. So, you’ll notice the order doesn’t match the consensus of either Amazon or Goodreads reviews—though I’d give almost all of these books at least 4 out of 5 stars.
Caveats noted, here are the books I finished in the order I’d recommend.
The Small and the Mighty
Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement
I binged Sharon McMahon’s book so hard, it might as well have been fed intravenously into my left arm. This incredible collection of somewhat obscure biographies brims with fascinating context descriptions, engrossing vignettes, verifiable facts, and wild connections. My imagination fully formed the scenes she described, especially after I Googled her subjects to see these heroes’ faces. In an era dominated by revisionist history and malignant demagogues, McMahon calls us to see the humanity that our history textbooks couldn’t capture. In a culture awash in social media influencers, she gives her readers and listeners agency and hope to take the kinds of actions that actually make a difference in the future of our respective communities. Her examples showcase what a winsome resolve can do to change the course of our nation. Her nonpartisan approach calls the book’s audience to unity around human decency and love of neighbor. I needed to hear all of this, especially from McMahon’s passionate narration of the audiobook.
Amazon: 4.9 out of 5 Goodreads: 4.57 out of 5
An Immense World
How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
You can read Ed Yong’s incredible book two ways: (1) as a mind-blowing introduction to all of the physical senses that other creatures have that most humans do not or (2) as a series of beautiful metaphors for how to understand people who experience the world very differently than we do. Yong centers this fascinating and approachable volume of scientific discoveries on Umwelt (pronounced, “UM-velt”), our respective perceptions of our surroundings through the unique variations, combinations, and proportions of our senses. Whether you believe in a world origin based in chance or design, each chapter of this book will expand your awe for the world we inhabit.
Ghosted
An American Story
After listening to this book, I’m not surprised that Nancy French successfully attracted so many celebrity ghostwriting clients. While her religious tradition and geographic culture differed greatly from mine, I commiserated with her and her husband’s journey to abandonment by their former tribe. French’s riveting vignettes reveal the incredible love of her admirable husband and the shape of the shadows of the American church. French’s life encapsulates the waypoints of disillusionment experienced by those who’ve watched the Christian industrial complex chase power instead of justice, choose jingoism instead of inclusion, and value the status quo instead of compassion. I have a feeling most people who’ve grown disenchanted with evangelical culture—especially women—will recognize familiar scars and similar yearnings to the ones French describes in this memoir. Her book reminded me that justice isn’t up to us but being faithful with what we know is.
The Seven Primal Questions
Take Control of the Hidden Forces The Drive You
I listened to Mike Foster’s book in one fell swoop. I kept hiking until I got to the last “page” of the audiobook, and then I drove home and ordered print copies for my wife and my therapist. I felt so seen, so understood. Foster gave me words to describe my internal machinations and external actions. Actually, he synthesized them all down to just the three words of my primal question. Seven weeks later, I got choked up describing this to one of Foster’s good friends around a campfire. Thankfully, Foster doesn’t stop at helping readers understand their wounds, triggers, and insecurities. He demonstrates how answering “Yes!” to others in their lives constitutes their respective primal gift to those also-hungry hearts.
Healing What’s Within
Coming Home to Yourself—and to God—When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering
Chuck DeGroat followed his important book which critiqued unhealthy church leaders with an approachable book about addressing the malignant tumors we find in our respective hearts. DeGroat reframes common counseling models, synthesizing them to the three questions the Creator asked Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden: Where are you? Who told you it had to be this way? And where have you taken your hunger? The professional counselor vulnerably uses his unique journey of pain and recovery along with stories of people he’s counseled. If you have friends who will go to church but won’t go to therapy, this book might help them do overdue work or even give permission to get professional care.
Invisible Jesus
Coming Home to Yourself—and to God—When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering
So many lines and chapters of this book resonated with my growing disenchantment with the American version of Christianity, its churches, and its platformed voices. I connected with the assertion that maybe those who are walking away from the Christian industrial complex are those who see Jesus best, who take his teachings the most seriously, and who most want to follow his example. I appreciate that the authors aren’t bitter expats but instead a current theology professor (Scot McKnight) and an active pastor (Tommy Preson Phillips). Together, they call congregations and unaffiliated Christians alike back to the red letters of the Bible for the sake of the Gospel.
How to Know a Person
The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
David Brooks’ latest book is worth its retail price just for its content regarding of “inverse charisma.” That’s the idea that you can woo people into favorable views of you by how you listen, how you draw out the parts of them that they long to share, and how you make them feel about themselves. This book challenges readers to (1) avoid trying to impress strangers with exploits and (2) grow their safety quotient in friendships so that others receive the gift of secure attachment.
Hurt and Healed by the Church
Redemption and Reconstruction After Spiritual Abuse
I’m not just the author of this book. I’m also a reader and listener who benefitted from hearing my own words. I also needed the notes from the various editors who shaped its content and the therapy sessions that helped me not publish sentiments that don’t align with Jesus’ heart. I spent more than $40,000 on the production and promotion of this book because I believe in its potential. That belief has been affirmed by emails, direct messages, and texts from other readers as well as incarnate conversations with those who can unfortunately commiserate with my pain. In case you’re wondering if this book takes abuse, trauma, or truth-telling seriously, I was disowned for telling my story and temporarily threatened with a lawsuit by someone (now anonymously) referenced in this book. I got emotional multiple times while reading the audiobook version in the studio; I’m grateful the producer kept those recordings in the final version. I return to those sections of the audiobook regularly for a cathartic lump in my throat.
Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let’s Dance.
Experience Real Joy in a World Gone Mad
Don’t let this title fool you. This book isn’t filled with emotional bypassing. These pages aren’t a collection of glib clichés or religious escapism. No, Brant Hansen tells stories of real people who are finding and making beauty in the midst of cultures that resist it but crave it. Then he calls the reader to look for similar ways to do the same. I originally bought this book only because I’ve been profoundly impacted by Hansen’s previous books, podcast episodes, and conference sessions; but you’ll find dog ears and lots of highlighter marks in my copy.
Pivot
The Priorities, Practices, and Powers That Can Transform Your Church into a Tov Culture
I absorbed Scot McNight and Laura Barringer’s sequel to A Church Called Tov, during a week where my faith community was raising flags about the health of its co-leader: me. So, my antennae were tuned for this content. I found the authors’ remedies to be more countercultural than counterintuitive—more difficult to do than to understand. They balanced big-picture ideas with practical small steps for people of various levels of ministry involvement.
Sticky Notes
Memorable Lessons From Ordinary Moments
Matt Eicheldinger is the middle school teacher we all wish we’d had. And he’s the kind of man we all would love our kids to experience. I first ran into his stories on Instagram reels. This book’s tales are mostly short, but they’re packed with the kind of truth that can be found only with curiosity and humility. Educators may enjoy this even more due to commiseration with classroom dynamics, but every reader can find something their heart needs to hear in Eicheldinger’s reflections on his interactions with students.
How to Piss Off Men
109 Things to Say to Shatter the Male Ego
My wife and I bent over laughing, reading some of the comedy bits that comprise the first portion of Kyle Prue’s book. But the indelible imprint of this book will be the last section about how the comedian wrestled with his own anger—how it made him curious about his own insecurities. While the jokes poke at the precarious egos of different kinds of men, Prue (as a straight, white male) also critiques the permission men feel to ask similar questions of and make similar statements to women. The more you know about pop culture, the more of these digs you’ll understand.
Why We Remember
Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters
Whether you believe the human brain is the result of intelligent design or infinitesimally-small chance, genetical anomalies becoming dominant traits, and billions of lucky breaks in a row, you will finish this book in awe. I was wowed by what specialists know about the various sections of the brain as well as by the ways medical doctors and scientists have been able to map and track how and where thoughts emerge in the brain. Charan Ranganath proves a great guide for this journey, not only because of his professional expertise but also because of his contagious curiosity. Only in the last few pages of the book does Ranganath address the title of the book, and I’m not angry about his answer—especially after the path he follows to those pages. The observed science of the last section of this work coincides with what I’ve been learning about how the various sections of the Hebrew Old Testament and Christian New Testament were actually written and the influence of communal memory on oral tradition.
The Brave In Between
Notes From the Last Room
Amy Low is dying. And her looming death has juxtaposed gnarled enigmas and newfound clarity. Instead of walking the reader through her cancer journey chronologically, she unpacks the ordeal thematically yet in a way that reveals mile markers as they develop. She builds suspense even though her fate is known and maybe near, but she doesn’t dip into didactic clichés about her audience’s assured but eventual demise. Readers and listeners ride the emotional roller coaster with her. The privilege of Low’s access to superlative and serendipitous healthcare could lead some readers to jealousy, but I was rooting for her sovereign connections to result in her being part of the statistical anomaly for those with her diagnosis.
If I Don’t Laugh, I’ll Cry
How Death, Debt, and Comedy Led to a Life of Faith, Farming, and Forgetting What I Came into This Room For
I purchased this book after Molly interviewed me on her podcast. Her winsomeness and vulnerability made me want to hear her story. And what a story! While she and I had very different childhoods living an hour away from each other, her style of storytelling made it feel like I was watching her vignettes instead of just listening to them. (I recommend the audiobook, as Molly adds so much color to the written words.) In this memoir, Molly deftly juxtaposes confidence and self-deprecation, longing and gratitude, sorrow and silliness.
Scared to Life
Tales of a Good God Who Reveals His Heart When Ours Is Racing
This is the book with which I’d rather be associated. I prefer podcast interviews, plane conversations, and fireside chats as “Adventure Guy” instead of “Church Trauma Guy.” But I returned to this book this year in the same way Julia Childs reached down and pulled out the dishes she’d put in the oven before the ones she was filmed assembling. These stories showcase proof that the recipe worked, and this book is filled with evidence of the faith reconstruction my latest book claims is possible. The print version includes evidentiary photos, and the ebook presents them in full color. The audiobook quality is nowhere near as good as that of my most recent book, as it wasn’t produced in a professional studio. But you can see or hear my heart in whatever format you engage.
The Shamshine Blind
A Novel
I don’t know if you should trust my review, as this was the first fiction book I’ve read in four years. But this book was worth breaking my nonfiction streak. Paz Pardo starts with a fascinating premise for an alternate history of America in which we were conquered and colonized by a foreign power with a very different take on biological warfare. It’s written as a police procedural where law enforcement agents are trying to uncover a web of organized crime, but the reader is discovering a different way to look at emotions as weapons and neurodivergent people as gifted citizens.
Your Jesus Is Too American
Calling the Church to Reclaim Kingdom Values Over the American Dream
The strength of Steve Bezner’s book comes from the stories of how he and his church have resisted what Christianity has become in the United States. While I had hoped for more content critiquing Christian nationalism, I was inspired by a faith community that leaned into the discomfort inherent to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. I was personally convicted by the examples in this book because I tend to donate money instead of time, and I mail encouragement cards instead of sitting in awkward moments.
Purposefooled
Why Chasing Your Dreams, Finding Your Calling, and Reaching for Greatness Will Never Be Enough
While some of this manuscript sounds a lot like what you’d expect from Tik Toks or reels filmed by a mom with five kids and thousands of Instagram followers, Kelly Needham also offers some assertions that prove countercultural and maybe even subversive in America’s Christian industrial complex. In an era of people striving for influence through social media platforms and recognition in large incarnate gatherings, Needham suggests that followers of Jesus can be malignantly formed by such aspirations. She calls readers and listeners to humility and obscurity in a winsome way.
Forgiveness After Trauma
A Path to Find Healing and Empowerment
Susannah Griffith has the bona fides to write this book, but she could’ve published a much more compelling and authoritative work after a little more time away from the traumatic events she describes. It would also benefit from more outside source material. You’ll have a better chance of connecting with this book’s content if you approach it as a memoir instead of a how-to guide.
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