In 2019, I read 51 books. That’s down from 2018 when I read 66 books. Of the 51 books that I read, 14 were books that were reviewed for publishers (that’s about 27% of my total 51). 9 of the books were from my reading plan (about 18% of my total 51). My reading plan for 2019 contained 24 books total, so I didn’t quite get through half of the books that I planned to get through.
I’ve been doing this for about 5 or 6 years and I continue to set myself up to be as successful and efficient as possible, but focus has never been one of my strengths and I easily get like a dog with a squirrel when it comes to books. Distracted. But having a list is helpful to provide some amount of focus that I don’t have without it.
Out of all the books that I read in 2019, these were among the top. Two of the five of them have reviews written on them by me, click on the titles to get to those reviews.
Tod Bolsinger “Canoeing the Mountains”
David Kinnaman & Mark Matlock “Faith For Exiles”
Will Mancini “Church Unique”
Simon Sinek “Start With Why”
Ryan Thomas “You of Little Faith”
Here are the other books read this year:
Mark Achtemeier “The Bible’s YES to Same Sex Marriage”
Vicky Beeching “Undivided”
Nadia Bolz-Weber “Shameless – A Sexual Reformation”
D.A. Carson “Basics For Believers”
Edmund Chan “A Certain Kind”
Francis Chan “Letters to the Church”
Phil Collins “Not Dead Yet”
Andy Crouch “Culture Making”
Dominic Done “When Faith Fails”
David Duchovny “Bucky F*cking Dent”
Shusaku Endo “Silence”
Christopher L. Heuertz “The Sacred Enneagram”
Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers “I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening)
Brian Hunter “The Hunter Equation”
Wayne Jacobsen, Arnita Taylor, and Robert Prater “A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation”
Skye Jethani “Futureville”
Beth Felker Jones “Faithful – A Theology of Sex”
Erik Larson “The Devil in the White City”
Lecrae “Unashamed”
Justin Lee “Talking Across the Divide”
Patrick Lencioni “Death By Meeting”
Tremper Longman III “Confronting Old Testament Controversies”
Bryan Loritts “Right Color Wrong Culture”
Eric Mason “Woke Church”
Alister McGrath “Narrative Apologetics”
Cara Meredith “The Color of Life”
Henri Nouwen “Adam: God’s Beloved”
Barack Obama “The Audacity of Hope”
Kevin Palau “Unlikely”
Jackie Hill Perry “Gay Girl, Good God”
Kara Powell and Steven Argue “Growing With”
Thom Rainer “Scrappy Church”
Jim Russell “Between the Ears”
Fleming Rutledge “Three Hours – Sermons for Good Friday”
Scott Sauls “Irresistible Faith”
Francis Schaeffer “The Church at the End of the 20th Century”
Nelson Searcy and Jennifer Dykes Henson “The New You”
Kim Walker-Smith “Brave Surrender”
Steven K. Smith “Ghosts of Belle Isle”
Ron Stallworth “Black Klansman”
P.L. Travers “Mary Poppins”
Dee Ann Turner “Bet On Talent”
Timothy B. Tyson “The Blood of Emmett Till”
Dan White Jr. “Love Over Fear”
Albert L. Winseman, D. Min, Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D., and Curt Liesveld, M. Div. “Living Your Strengths”
J.R. Woodward “Creating a Missional Culture”
Ravi Zacharias “The Logic of God”
When it comes to focus, I’m not always very good. At this point in my life though, I’ve learned that it’s a weakness and so I’ve tried my best to create guardrails along the way that help me to stay a little more focused than I naturally would. White boards. Notebooks. Post-It notes. Whatever it takes to help me get brought back to center after veering off the path. Yearly book plans, for me, act as a sort of guardrail to help me stay somewhat focused on what to be reading.
In 2018, I read 66 books. That’s two less than 2017. Of the 66 books that I read, 29 were books that were reviewed for publishers (that’s about 44% of my total). 11 of the books were from my reading plan (about 17% of my total). My reading plan for 2018 contained 30 books total. Considering that I read the same number of books from my reading list in 2017 and 2018, I think lowering the number makes more sense for 2019 (I will post the Reading Plan for 2019 next week).
I love to read. It’s not uncommon for me to be in the middle of 3 or 4 books at a time. I have stacks of books that I am waiting to get into. I have a reading plan that I do my best to follow throughout the year (check it out 
Words matter. So does what you believe. When you can express in words what you believe, you’re doing very well. Beliefs that help you connect your story to the bigger story are important as well. Michael Horton believes that this is essential and the key element to living our lives. He writes, “The plot with Christ as the central character ties it all together. Every story in the Bible points not to us and how we can have our best life now, but first to Christ and how everything God orchestrates leads to redemption in him.”
Since I graduated from college, I’ve spent two decades in two distinctly different fields of work. I graduated with a civil engineering degree and worked for consultants while I got a Master’s degree in environmental engineering.
Confessions of a Recovering P.K. 