Okay, it seems everyone is posting their “Top 10 Books of 2018” list this week (I’ve seen a bunch on Twitter) so I’ll get into the act. I listen to audio books while driving around, which allows me to get through a lot of material. What follows is my recommendation list. Most academic books on biblical studies never make it to audio. Unseen Realm is an exception, so I included it.  Researching and writing it was life-changing for me so I think it will be for others.

In no particular order:

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage

  • Honestly, “incredible” doesn’t even begin to describe it

The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts

  • There are reasons Newton’s papers are still not entirely published — his theological heterodoxy being one. Very interesting.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

  • Just awesome. Every snowflake in contemporary America should be chained to a desk and forced to read it.

The Wright Brothers

  • They succeeded where Da Vinci failed. Simple trial-and-error method married to keen observation of birds and tenacious perseverance. An amazing story.

American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

  • Didn’t know much about him. He’s now on my top-five list of great, honorable men I wish I had met.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

  • Absolutely soul-crushing. A book for our times whether we can stomach it or not.

Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government’s Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis

  • This book is now the place to start for a broad overview of government interest in these areas.

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

  • A life-changing book. Data-driven explanation as to why the medical and nutritional community gets this entirely wrong. The author cites study after study, clinical trial after clinical trial. Basically, the real answer was discovered and well known in the first half of the 20th century, and then ignored. Pretty stunning. (I’ve lived the solution. I used to be 60 lbs heavier. I used the right strategy without knowing what I was really doing).

Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day

  • Maybe someday I’ll be this ingenious. Probably not.

The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible

  • So far the best thing I’ve produced. If you want to understand Scripture and biblical theology better, it will help you. Writing it helped me.