Favorite Books

I was going to end the year by listing my 5 favorite books of 2007, but I've decided instead to just list some of my favorite books of any year. These are books that I have read and re-read and that have had (and continue to have) a profound effect on me. They are also books that I seem to continuously recommend or loan out. There are plenty of great books that I left off the list for the sake of brevity or because they deal with a very specific topic (for example Richard Abanes' excellent One Nation Under Gods, which is about Mormonism).

This list is somewhat sloppy and incomplete, much like my reading habits.

I have also removed the section on my blog where I listed the books I'm currently reading, books I've recently finished and books I'll be reading next. These lists always felt a bit pretentious to me and I did a lousy job of keeping them updated (probably because every time I did I felt like I was being pretentious).

Here's the list:

The Bible - I use an NIV Wide-Margin from Zondervan which is no longer available. I like wide-margin Bibles because I can write notes in them (that's a picture of mine above). The NIV is not my favorite translation; I actually prefer the NRSV; but I haven't found a decent wide-margin NRSV Bible yet. I can't stand the King James or The Message.


Bible Study:
How to Read a Book - Mortimer Adler
How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth - Fee & Stuart
The Untold Story of the New Testament Church - Frank Viola
Poet & Peasant/Through Peasant Eyes - Kenneth Bailey
Reading the Bible with the Damned - Bob Ekblad

Bible Commentary:
The Expositor's Bible Commentary - Frank E. Gaebelien
For Everyone Series - Tom (N.T.) Wright

Theology:
Theology for the Community of God - Stanley Grenz

Church (Ecclesiology):
Rethinking the Wineskin - Frank Viola
Who's Your Covering - Frank Viola
Pagan Christianity - Frank Viola
Missional Church - Darrell Guder, editor
The Externally Focused Church - Rusaw & Swanson
Paul's Idea of Community - Robert Banks
The House Church - Del Birkey
The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace - M. Scott Peck


Sin & Salvation:
Missing the Mark: Sin and Its Consequences - Mark Biddle
The Inescapable Love of God - Thomas Talbott
Hope Beyond Hell - Gerry Beauchemin


Eschatology (the End Times):
Revelation: Four Views - Steve Gregg
Last Days Madness - Gary DeMar
End Times Fiction - Gary DeMar
Whose Promised Land? - Colin Chapman
Christian Zionism - Stephen Sizer


Church History:
The History of Christian Thought - Jonathan Hill
Backgrounds of Early Christianity - Everett Ferguson


Misc/Other:
The Universe Next Door - James Sire
The Christians Secret of a Happy Life - Hannah Whitall Smith
Amish Grace - Kraybill, Nolt & Weaver-Zercher
Addiction & Grace - Gerald May
Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
Searching for God Knows What - Donald Miller
Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship - N.T. Wright
The Challenge of Jesus - N.T. Wright
A New Kind of Christian - Brian McLaren
The Story we Find Ourselves In - Brian McLaren
The Last Word and the Word After That - Brian McLaren
The Little Book of Biblical Justice - Chris Marshall
The People Called Quakers - D. Elton Trueblood
Quaker Spirituality (Selected Writings) - Harper Collins Spiritual Classics
Amusing Ourselves to Death - Neil Postman
The Life of Rev. John Murray - John Murray

Anyone care to list some of their favorites in the Comments section?