Reading 1000 Books

I came across this article Read 1,000 Books a Year (yes, you can!). It is a fairly aggressive goal but it got me to thinking that I should compile a list of 1000 books to read. Maybe you could help me with this. What would you include in your list? I am thinking that in my book list I would include the following list of categories:

apologetics
biblical geography
biblical study
biographies
commentaries
counseling and coaching
discipleship & Christian living
favorite authors
fiction (general)
fiction (historical)
health and wellness
history
leadership
life changing books
ministry
personal development
preaching
recreational reading (just for fun)
relationships
theology
travel

Primarily what I would want to include is books that are life transforming, books that have had a significant impact on men and women. Do you have any suggestions? What are the books that you have read that you would recommend to others to read? What books would you recommend to your sons and daughters?

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Comments

Christian Alexander

Very engaging list indeed. I would suggest these books.

A History of God by Karen Armstrong
Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere by Savanah Guthrie
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis
Educated by Tara Westover
Judaism & Christianity : the differences by Trude Weiss-Rosmarin
Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell
God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--And Why Their Differences Matter by Stephen Prothero
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans
Aeneid by Virgil
With by Skye Jethani
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem
Lit by Tony Reinke
Untangle your Emotions by Jennie Allen
Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa TerKeurst
It's Ok That You're Not Ok: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand by Megan Devine
The Shift by Colby Martin
Holy Subversion by Trevin Wax
Knowing God by JI Packer
The Reason for God by Tim Keller
The Iliad by Homer
The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus by Rich Villodas

I might have more when I get home to look at my shelves.

Bill Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306029#Comment_1306029

Christian has suggested some excellent ones.

Since you have a way to go to get to 1,000, I would add these that have made a difference in my life

The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis).
What's So Amazing About Grace (Philip Yancey)
The Prodigal God (Tim Keller)
The Wounded Healer (Henri Nouwen)
When God Interrupts (M. Craig Barnes)

Michael Kinch

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306029#Comment_1306029

Thanks Christian

Michael Kinch

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306058#Comment_1306058

Christian has suggested some excellent ones.

Since you have a way to go to get to 1,000, I would add these that have made a difference in my life

The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis).

What's So Amazing About Grace (Philip Yancey)

The Prodigal God (Tim Keller)

The Wounded Healer (Henri Nouwen)

When God Interrupts (M. Craig Barnes)

Thanks Bill. Much appreciated.

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306058#Comment_1306058

A few good fiction authors are Kristin Hannah, John Grisham, James Patterson, Tom Clancy, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Herman Hesse, J.D. Salinger, Albert Camus, Margaret Atwood and Jojo Moyes. Here are some more books that are on my favorite lists.

Heralds of God by James S. Stewart

Saving Eutychus by Gary Miller and Paul Campbell

The Christian Ministry by Charles Bridges

Him We Proclaim by Dennis Johnson

Holman Bible Atlas

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever

Preaching as the Word of God: Answering an Old Question with Speech-Act Theory by Sam Chan

A Vision for Preaching: Understanding the Heart of Pastoral Ministry by Abraham Kuruvilla

Let the Earth Hear His Voice by Greg Scharf

Crossover Preaching: Intercultural-Improvisational Homiletics in Conversation with Gardner C. Taylor by Jared E. Alcántara

Preaching in the New Testament: An Exegetical and Biblical-Theological Study by Jonathan I. Griffiths

Holman Illustrated Guide To Biblical Geography: Reading the Land

Expository Exultation by John Piper

Preaching Christ from the Psalms by Sidney Greidanus

On being a pastor by Derek Prime and Allastair Begg

The Road to Modernity by Gertrude Himmelfarb

One with Christ by Marcus Peter Johnson

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306062#Comment_1306062

I am going to subtly bump this in hopes of a response of our more seasoned forum members. I have Rosie P, MJ Smith et al in mind. I think this is a great question and one worthy of a seasoned answer. Blessings to all.

1Cor10 31

I knew that Spurgeon had said something about reading. He supposedly had more than 12,000 volumes, whatever that means! So I googled to get his quotes. Do as you deem fit with these quotes.

“Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.”
“We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure time, is to be either reading or praying.
“Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them…digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be ‘much not many.'”
“Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”
“An ounce of heart knowledge is worth more than a ton of head learning.”

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306279#Comment_1306279

I have Rosie P, MJ Smith et al in mind. I think this is a great question and one worthy of a seasoned answer.

When I was still in grade school, my sister gave me a paperback book of a life-time reading plan - a book she was dutifully working through. I was thrilled ... but quickly found some of the books to be real drags ... not of interest to me, assuming knowledge I really didn't have ... I had already devoured Eugene O'Neill plays not even understanding that I didn't understand them. My senior year of high school, Mrs. Jones took us through The Odyssey, Aristotle, The Aeneid, The Divine Comedy, Faust ...and I learned to understand when I did and did not understand "ancient," "classic" writings. I also learned to hate prescribed lists. I learned that for me reading has to be organic following my current interests and questions and building on what I have already read. I love reading lists as suggestions of books in new fields or new aspects of a field or contemporary takes on things I have read in years but not as prescribed reading lists. I tend to read ~100 books a year as I have found I read less as I age; I don't know why. This year is biased towards popular critiques of religion, broad scriptural canons, and anti-Catholic apologetics, the latter falling accidentally into the humorous category. The former, providing a sharp critique of the state of America with statistics that literally terrify me. The third topic is my effort to understand the progressive Christians' propensity for broadening the canon in use and the conservative Christians' propensity to limit the canon in actual use. This is the area in which I have learned how much I did not know even regarding the tradition in which I was raised. As for the historical aspects, I knew I didn't know but my interest has been piqued especially by Jenkins. Last year leaned towards comparative religion, religious teaching stories, comparative sanctoral cycles, and contemporary literature. Next year? too early to predict.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306366#Comment_1306366

I learned that for me reading has to be organic following my current interests and questions and building on what I have already read. I love reading lists as suggestions of books in new fields or new aspects of a field or contemporary takes on things I have read in years but not as prescribed reading lists.

Ditto.

What I like and find connects to my life and reading history might not connect with you.

I am away at a conference this week, and at the moment I cannot connect to my home computer, so I don't have access to my lifetime list of books I've read. Thus I can only draw from the ones that are in my "Finished" collection on Kindle or tagged as FINISHED on Logos.

Here are some highlights, in no particular order:

Fiction:

Dostoyevsky, Crime & Punishment
Voltaire, Candide
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Edwin Abbott Abbott, Flatland

Memoir/Autobiography:

Eugene Peterson, The Pastor

Biography:

Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

Nonfiction:

Eli Parser, The Filter Bubble
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
John Dyer, From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

Spiritual Writing:

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

Children's Classics:

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

But seriously, follow your heart and serendipity. Read what interests you that you stumble upon or that something else you've read references. Lists like the above are only ideas for you to check out. Don't make reading a chore or something to check off your "to do" list, or you will not love it.

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306366#Comment_1306366

I learned that for me reading has to be organic following my current interests and questions and building on what I have already read. I love reading lists as suggestions of books in new fields or new aspects of a field or contemporary takes on things I have read in years but not as prescribed reading lists

I agree with this statement. In my younger years I aimed to read 12 books a year. Then 24 books a year and plus 12 each year after. I had to dedicate some reading time when there are no other disturbances around at first. Now I can read just about anywhere. I do much like you MJ with your reading habits. Thanks everyone. I benefited a lot from this post.