2017 Reading List

Books:

1. The Pilgrim's Regress by C. S. Lewis (01/15/17)
2. Meno by Plato (01/22/17)
3. LOTR: Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien (02/07/17)
4. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (02/13/17)
5. The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (02/16/17)
6. Outlaws of Time: The Legend of Sam Miracle by N. D. Wilson (02/21/17)
7. The Complete Tales of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (04/05/17)

Shorter Works:

1. Mathematics, the Mirror of Civilization by Lancelot Hogben (01/05/17)
2. Mathematics in Life and Thought by Andrew Russell Forsyth (01/09/17)
3. Space by Henri Poincare (01/13/17)
4. Mathematical Creation by Henri Poincare (01/14/17)
5. Chance by Henri Poincare (01/17/17)
6. Definition of a Number by Bertrand Russell (04/01/17)

2016 Reading List

2016 Book List

Books:

1. The Place of the Lion: A Novel by Charles Williams (01/02/16)
2. Art for God's Sake by Philip Graham Ryken (01/05/16)
3. The Owlings: A Worldview Novella by Daniel DeWitt (01/08/16)
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling (01/25/16)
5. Hood by Stephen Lawhead (01/28/16)
6. Apology by Plato (02/07/16)
7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (02/29/16)
8. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) (03/29/16)
9. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (04/15/16)
10. 100 Cupboards by N. D. Wilson (04/26/16)
11. The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (04/27/16)
12. Dandelion Fire by N. D. Wilson (05/11/16)
13. The Chestnut King by N.D. Wilson (05/26/16)
14. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (06/01/16)
15. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (06/08/16)
16. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (06/19/16)
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (07/01/16)
18. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (07/15/16)
19. Emma by Jane Austen (07/25/16)
20. The Art of War by Sun Tzu (08/01/16)
21. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (08/04/16)
22. The Tales of Needle the Bard by J.K. Rowling (08/06/16)
23. Out of Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis (08/07/16)
24. Perelandra by C. S. Lewis (08/12/16)
25. That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis (08/22/16)
26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (09/10/16)
27. Poetics by Aristotle (09/21/16)
28. Wordsmithy by Douglas Wilson (10/11/16)
29. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (10/17/16)
30. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (11/2/16)
31. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (12/30/16)

Shorter Works from The Gateway to the Great Books:

1. Contentment by Plutarch (01/12/16)
2. The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent by John Erskine (01/13/16)
3. How should One Read A Book by Virginia Woolf (01/22/16)
4. Of Beauty by Francis Bacon (01/22/16)
5. Of Discourse by Francis Bacon (01/22/16)
6. Sketch of Abraham Lincoln by Nathaniel Hawthorne (01/25/16)
7. Death of Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman (01/25/16)
8. Definition of Number by Bertrand Russell (01/26/16)
9. Of Studies by Francis Bacon (02/08/16)

How about you? What are you reading in 2016?

The 50 Books I Plan to Read in 2015

I want 2015 to be a year where I do more intentional reading than I have in the past. As such I have made a list of 50 books I am going to try to read this year (but not necessarily in this order). Some of them are rereads (such as Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia which I intend to read every year) but most I have never read before. I may read some books not on this list (especially those assigned in my current classes) but I intend to read at least these this year. I want to do this every year and then keep a list of what books I read each year so I can look back on the list and see 5-10 years later what I read and when. So what do you plan to read this year?

1. The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Andreas J. Kostenberger (01/10/2015)

2. Jesus, The Final Days by Craig A. Evans & N. T. Wright

3. The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton

4. Out of Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis (01/12/2015)

5. Perelandra by C. S. Lewis (01/15/2015)

6. That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis (01/21/2015)

6. Come Let us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics, edited by Paul Copan & William Lane Craig

7. The Omnipresence of Jesus Christ: A Neglected Aspect of Evangelical Christology by Theodore Zachariades

8. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

9. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

10. Mere Apologetics by Alister McGrath

11. If I Had Lunch With C. S. Lewis by Alister McGrath

12. Real Christianity by William Wilberforce

13. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

14. A Shot of Faith to the Head by Mitch Stokes

15. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

16. Think by John Piper

17. The Real Face of Atheism by Ravi Zacharias

18. Euthyphro by Plato (06/15/2015)

19. Whatever Happened to Truth by Andreas J. Kostenberger

20. The Man Who Knew too Much by G. K. Chesterton

21. 1984 by George Orwell

22. Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis' Chronicles by Joe Rigney

23. Lives by Plutarch

24. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

25. Jack's Life by Douglas Gresham

26. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (03/03/2015)

27. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

28. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

29. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

30. Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis

31. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

32. A Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

33. The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

34. The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis

35. The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

36. The Giver by Lois Lowry (01/24/2015)

37. History of the Church by Eusebius

38. The Apologies of Justin Martyr

39. Christian Reflections by C. S. Lewis

40. Miracles by C. S. Lewis

41. An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

42. Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis

43. Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

44. On Fairy Stories by J. R. R. Tolkien

45. C. S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet by Alister McGrath

46. Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis by George Sayer

47. George MacDonald by C. S. Lewis

48. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

49. David Copperfield by Charles DIckens

50. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Books I Didn't Plan to Read This Year (But Did Anyway):

51. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (2/7/15)
52. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry (3/7/15)
53. Messenger by Lois Lowry (3/8/15)
54. Son by Lois Lowry (3/11/15)
55. Gorgias by Plato (7/20/15)
56. The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers (12/20/15)
57. The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis: Volume 1 (12/21/15)
58. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (12/28/15)




***Highlighted titles are ones I have completed reading so far.***

A Case for Being Bookish

In our fast paced electronic world today who has time for books anymore? Even if we had the time why should we spend it reading a book? After all, anything we want to know we can Google and have our answer in an instant. What possible reason, then, could compel the modern man to stop, sit down and read a book from cover to cover? Honestly it is a difficult and daunting task to try and convince a person of today to give reading a book a try. If they want entertainment they have movies, television and an iPod/iPhone for that. If they want to know something they do not already know then there is Google and Wikipedia for that. It seems then that books have outlasted their purposes and are antiquated mediums for things we can now access so much more expediently.

One of the greatest difficulties of convincing such a person that they ought to read books is that they wouldn’t read an argument for doing so. If they started to read an essay like this one they probably would have stopped at the end of the first paragraph and said “exactly.” But for those who would continue reading I am probably preaching to the choir by now. Even so, let us discuss the matter of why people ought to read books, lots of them, and good ones. After all someone might read on by the grace of God and those of us who are already convinced can at least sharpen our thoughts on the matter and then make a Youtube video to try and convince the others.

One of the best reasons for becoming bookish, that is, for becoming a person who surrounds themselves with good books and actually reads them, is because books communicate both entertainment and knowledge in ways those other mediums cannot. Consider, for instance, how the mind interacts with the written word in a story as opposed to how it engages a movie. Had you never seen the movie adaptation of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, but only read the book, what might Orcs have looked like in your mind? Consider further if you had read it for the first time when you were twelve years old rather than thirty years old? Do you think that the way your mind would have imagined Orcs would be the same when you were twelve as opposed to thirty? Likely not.

One of the important differences between story in books versus story in film is that it is the mind of the person reading a book who sets the limits on mental images and conception of characters and events. Certainly words can paint a gruesome picture at times but, generally speaking, our minds can limit a character in our imagination to what we can handle. So a twelve year old conception of an Orc is not nearly so gruesome and horrifying as what a thirty year old might conceive of. Yet when we experience an Orc in the movie version of The Lord of the Rings one’s mind is filled (indeed forced) by someone else’s depiction and whether you are ready for it or not, there it is. In this way the visual arts and film are more violent towards the mind because they force upon us at once images that can never be unseen whereas books allow our own experiences to shape how we see an perceive characters and events. While other reasons could be given for seeking our entertainment from books rather than movies or television the freedom of mind, and in some cases the security of it, is a good reason. Movies imagine for you and they tell the audience what they must see and therefore both limit the imagination of some or hoist upon the minds of other something they weren’t ready for. Books allow the audience to see any number of realities as the story churns on but movies paint one blunt picture without any give.

How about when it comes to gaining information? Why are books more valuable than our instant resources like Google or Wikipedia? One of the primary reasons they are better is because they give us rooted information rather than disconnected information. By rooted I mean information that is fixed within a context to help gain a more meaningful understanding. What is better, I ask, to learn a word by looking it up in a dictionary or to learn it by reading it being used in context? How much more likely are you to understand the nuances of that word and how it relates to the real world if you discover it in conversation rather than on the word of the day calendar? This is not only the case with vocabulary but when you read books you learn about people, cultures, eras, philosophies and more and you experience them as living and breathing things rather than cold isolated factoids. Information is meant to be learned and experiences in context because we are not trivia machines that are meant to learn answers to questions but then not really understand our own answers.

These are but a couple of simple reasons to become bookish and a great many more could be given. Most of those reasons come back to the same basic idea, however, that books engage the mind in a way no other medium does and they provide a tailored experience to each person. As Schall has said “The same book can move another’s will and understanding differently than it does our own. We ourselves are receptive to different books at different times in our lives. It is quite possible for one to get nothing out of reading a book, whereas someone else, reading the same book, goes out and changes the world.”