Reading

Books that shaped me. This shelf is always being rearranged.

Faith

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. The case for the faith laid out plainly, without shrinking any of it.

Growing in Christ: A Thirteen-Week Follow-Up Course for New and Growing Christians by The Navigators. My wife, my younger brother, and I went through this one together, memorizing scripture and working through the hard questions every believer meets: spiritual attacks, the problem of evil, prayer, and more.

Devotions for Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas. An incredible devotional to walk through while my wife was pregnant and we were getting ready for our baby boy. It brought us together to ask how we wanted to raise our children, and drew us closer as spouses and as parents.

Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, in its Bible study form. We worked through this with our group of friends, starting before any of us were married. It surfaced questions about marriage that were good to wrestle with ahead of time.

Ideas and Living

12 Rules for Life, Beyond Order, and We Who Wrestle with God by Jordan B. Peterson. The first two set out rules for a meaningful life, one against chaos and one against too much order; the third reads the stories of Genesis and Exodus as maps of how people meet God. Good for anyone after biblical truth without too much preaching.

The Lazy Investor by David Mann. A short, plain case for passive investing over hands-on portfolio management: how to set a personal investment plan, keep costs and taxes low, and match your own tolerance for risk, all without the get-rich-quick noise. An easy read on the basics you need to put together a successful lazy portfolio.

The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert Sears. This one just gives you the stats, without telling you what you should or should not do. It shares the author's own perspective from running a children's clinic, but never imposes anything on the parent. A great read for deciding what to do for your precious little ones, especially after the vaccine scare of the last few years.

Fiction

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, all seven books, following Harry from his first year at Hogwarts to the end of the war with Voldemort. Worth trying the illustrated MinaLima editions if you can find them. The wider wizarding world is a fun read too: The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a slim book of wizarding fairy tales, and Quidditch Through the Ages, a mock history of the sport.

The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Hobbit is the doorway, a single quest there and back again; The Lord of the Rings is the long war for Middle-earth that follows; and The Silmarillion is the deep history behind both, the myths and the making of that world. Incredible, and the well this site draws its voice from.

The Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The collected stories and novels of the London detective and his companion Dr. Watson, who reason their way through cases from the fog of Victorian England.