Three of my favorite books from 2024, plus I'm giving one of them away!
Update, 4/17/25: Congrats to Sven from Germany on winning this year's giveaway!
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| Clarissa Watson |
AS HAS BECOME an annual tradition here at AndrewGilmore.net, I'm recapping the books I read this past year I think you will find intriguing. Many times I approach this assignment with skepticism, wondering if the exercise is mere self-indulgence, but I keep typing for two reasons.
First, I love knowing what other people are reading. I can't leave a conversation with my bibliophile colleagues or friends without inquiring about his or her latest read. Even on the beach or at a coffee shop, I try to spy book titles peaking through the finger lattice of public readers. So, my thinking goes, if I possess insatiable book curiosity, you might as well.
Second, I enjoy the giveaway tied to this tradition. Yes, the activity is somewhat self-serving in that you must surrender your email address to enter the drawing. But, as always, you can remove yourself from the list at any time with one click, no questions asked. Marketing strategy aside, I take pleasure in the act of generosity, and by sharing books I enjoyed I hope to form a bond—however tenuous—with the recipient.
This year, I am switching things up a bit. You must opt-in to be entered in the drawing. In years past I would draw a name from my existing list only to receive silence in response to the email notification. Whether the winner had no knowledge of the contest, ceased checking his email, or lay comatose in a county hospital I knew not. Therefore, even those currently on my email list must sign up for the contest. To do so, enter your email below and click "Enter the Contest."
If you're new around here, the winner, drawn at random, will receive one of the following books for free, plus a copy of my latest book, You're Utmost Is Not Enough: Trusting God When Life Doesn't Make Sense, in your preferred format.1
On to what I read.
Three Books You Might Enjoy
I had a consistent reading year by my standards, completing eight books while starting a few others that I did not enjoy and abandoned. As usual, nonfiction dominated the landscape; just two of the octet were fiction. Nevertheless, I dedicated a good portion of my autumnal reading to a thick anthology of short stories—one I look forward to finishing.
With the constant bustle of life, it seems I must always fight my exhausted brain for reading time. Yet I never regret the minutes I spend reading, and I need only pore over my TBR list to generate some internal giddiness at all of the wisdom, knowledge, enrichment, and entertainment awaiting me on my bedroom bookshelf or overstuffed Kindle library.
Here are three books I read in 2024 I think you might enjoy.
Waiting on God: What to Do When God Does Nothing
If God determines we’re going to wait, believe me, we will. We will not hurry God. The waiting is a given. But how will we wait? Since we’re going to wait anyway, we might as well wait well. Patience, then, is the art of waiting well.2
Having enjoyed Dr. Stiles's Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus several years ago, I was excited to crack open Waiting on God.
Stiles guides the reader through seasons of waiting by examining the life of Joseph—a man who had to spend years of his life waiting on God in situations that were unfair and did not make sense from a human perspective.
But if you know Joseph's story, you know God used circumstances like slavery and prison to test Joseph and to build up his character, not just for Joseph's sake but as part of a plan to save the lives of many in the midst of a widespread famine.
Stiles provides great insight into the ancient world and the text, connecting dots and highlighting subtle allusions you might have missed despite several readings of the Genesis account. For example, when Judah demanded Tamar be killed for her act of prostitution, Tamar revealed Judah's signet and staff as proof he was the patron of her services. She said, "Please examine and see, whose signet ring and cords and staff are these?" (Gen. 38.25, NASB, emphasis added).
I've read the story at least a dozen times but I never made the connection: "Please examine and see" are the exact words Joseph's brothers used when they brought the bloodstained coat to Jacob to deceive him into believing Joseph had died! Judah may have tried to forget his sin against Joseph, but Tamar's phrasing, no doubt, resurfaced Judah's guilty conscience.
Here are just a few (of many) other highlights from the book:
- Faithfulness in obscurity.
"God sees our faithfulness in obscurity as preparation for increasing influence."3
- The difference between testing and temptation.
Temptation leads to sin, testing strengthens us. God will never use the former (that's Satan's realm), but frequently tests us. "We never find God tempting us—or placing us in a situation where our failure is his goal. . . Sometimes the testing of God occurs to discover the good or evil in our hearts, but never with the goal of enticing us to evil."4
- Handling frustration when you're not living up to your potential.
"Sometimes you may find it necessary to set your gift on the shelf for a while and focus on other parts of God’s will for your life. . . God may ask you to set something aside for a season in order to develop another area (like character) or another gift altogether."5
Perhaps one of the most poignant passages comes in the introduction where Stiles writes, "In the end, if we really knew the big picture, we too would want what God wants for us—and in the exact way and timing he wants it to occur."6 We might not know the reasoning behind waiting, but God does, and we must trust that his plans are much greater than our own.
If you've ever struggled with waiting on God, you might enjoy Waiting on God.
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style
Only godless savages eschew the series comma.7
While I understand that not all readers are writers, nearly everyone, at some point, must write. As the author states, "We’re all of us writers: We write term papers and office memos, letters to teachers and product reviews, journals and blog entries, appeals to politicians. Some of us write books. All of us write emails."8
A long-time copy editor for Random House, Dreyer wrote this book to reveal (and correct) the most frequent errors that come across his desk, so to speak. As such, the book is more one long list of confusions and their clarifications organized by type. While such a proposition might sound worse than a colonoscopy, if you are at all interested in writing with clarity and accuracy, Dreyer's English is a good place to start.
And, while grammar and technical aspects of language can make for dry reading, the author infuses the subject with humor on nearly every page. Katie caught me laughing out loud more than once. Dreyer is clever in subtly breaking rules right after mentioning them to demonstrate their absurdity, to show the danger of breaking said rule, or, sometimes, to ensure you're paying attention. Dreyer concludes his thoughts on ending sentences with prepositions like this:
But to tie a sentence into a strangling knot to avoid a prepositional conclusion is unhelpful and unnatural, and it’s something no good writer should attempt and no eager reader should have to contend with.9
Dreyer also offers a simple passive voice litmus test:
If you can append “by zombies” to the end of a sentence, . . . you’ve indeed written a sentence in the passive voice.10
He also uses footnotes as a delivery method for jokes. Playing off of the previous example, Dreyer writes a sentence using the passive voice, then footnotes the sentence. The footnote simply reads, "By zombies."
In addition to lightening up the subject with humor, Dreyer does at least two things well:
1. He acknowledges and points out nonrules regarding usage.
While some teachers or authors won't even acknowledge gray areas exist, the author tells you his opinion but offers both sides of the argument. For example, Dreyer insists it is acceptable to use "none" in the plural:
If you can find fault with the sentence "None of us are going to the party," you have an ear better attuned to the English language than mine.11
2. Dreyer is not condescending.
English is a difficult language, even for the native speaker. So, I think, the temptation for those who've mastered usage is to look down upon we plebes who haven't. Dreyer doesn't shy away from telling you when some common mistakes are plain wrong, but where so many other grammar books are preachy, I never got the sense that Dreyer felt less of the reader for making mistakes—more like he wants to guide him or her to the path of clear prose.
Other tidbits:
- Only type one space after a period.
- In American English, include periods and commas inside closing quote marks.
"If there’s anything that Brits despise about American punctuation, it’s this. 'The song title does not contain a comma or a period,' they’ll growl. 'Why are you sticking it inside the quotation marks?' For some reason, 'It’s the American way' does not satisfy them. But it is the American way, and though I do see the logic of the Brit methodology, I’m certainly not going to be the person who attempts to upend universal stateside practice."13
Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud
We remain ignorant of many details, not because God enjoys keeping us in the dark, but because we have not the faculties to absorb so much light.14
Disappointment with God is the best Christian book I've read since I finished C. S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory in 2019. The book is not new—Author Philip Yancey first published the book in 1988—but this was my first exposure to an author I've heard much about.
My interest in this book was twofold. First, I've written quite a bit about similar topics. If you've hung with me the past couple of years, you know we've been discussing Job often. And my most recent book, Your Utmost Is Not Enough, explores several themes Yancey addresses such as the fairness of God and human suffering. Second, as I said, Yancey has a reputation among people I respect as an insightful author.
The subtitle is "Three questions no one asks aloud," which sets the stage for the focus of the book. Yancey writes that the longer he considered these three questions "the more I realized [they] are lodged somewhere inside all of us. Yet few people ask them aloud, for they seem at best impolite, at worst heretical."15
The questions, according to Yancey, are:
1. Is God unfair?
2. Is God silent?
3. Is God hidden?
Yancey begins by telling the tale of his friend Richard who had a severe faith crisis leading to him abandoning his faith. Using Richard's objections and disillusionment as a guide, Disappointment with God attempts to respond to Richard and the three questions about God's nature and behavior.
Yancey waits until nearly the end of the book to directly address these questions. He uses the first half to build a foundation for answering them, exploring the Bible to establish who God is and what his purposes are. For example, some claim if God would simply show himself to us, then they would believe and obey. But is this true? Yancey reminds us of God's direct revelation at Sinai and how the Israelites still turned away from him.
The author's survey of God's relationship with humans in the Bible reveals what he calls "a profound advance in intimacy,"16 a transition from God's terrifying presence at Sinai to the Immanuel (God with us) in the form of Jesus, to the Holy Spirit who lives inside of the believer. This progression is a necessary foundation for answering the three questions above.
It is difficult to encapsulate the poignancy of the book here in this short space, but what Yancey does well is appeal both to logic and to the the emotional side as well—retaining empathy and compassion for those feeling disappointment with God. I would recommend this book to any Christian because I agree that every believer will, at some point, come to question whether God is fair, silent, and hidden.
A Giveaway!
How would you like to win one these books?
I'm giving away one of the above books of your choice plus a copy of my newest book, Your Utmost Is Not Enough: Trusting in God Even When Life Doesn't Make Sense, to one lucky winner!
It's actually quite simple: subscribe to my email list. That's it.
I typically send out two emails a month, including one on the last Tuesday with exclusive subscriber-only content. But there's no obligation to stay subscribed once the giveaway ends. To sign up, enter your email address below and click the button. (No need to enter your email address again if you did so in the form at the top of this post.)
I'll leave the giveaway open for seven days (through the end of 4/14/25 CST) and choose a winner at random on 4/15/25. (Note: this contest is open to residents of all territories, but since I'm based in the US, if shipping costs to foreign countries are too prohibitive, I might substitute the prize for a gift card.)
I'll update this post with the first name and location of the winner as well as notify him or her by email.
Good luck!
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Notes:
1. I'm based in the US, but anyone, anywhere can enter. If international costs are prohibitive, I will send instead a digital gift card in the equivalent amount.
2. Wayne Stiles, Waiting on God: What to Do When God Does Nothing (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2015), Kindle edition, 15.
3. Ibid, 110.
3. Ibid, 110.
4. Ibid., 146.
5. Ibid., 130.
6. Ibid., 15.
7. Benjamin Dreyer, Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarify and Style (New York: Random House, 2019), Kindle edition, 7.
8. Ibid., xvi.
9. Ibid., 12.
10. Ibid., 14.
11. Ibid., 17.
12. Ibid., 21.
13. Ibid., 83.
14. Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), Kindle edition, 224.
15. Ibid., 39.
16. Ibid., 153.
17. This post contains affiliate links which means I receive a portion of sales at no extra cost to you.
Thank you. I may try this book by Yancey.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth a read!
DeleteThe book: Waiting on God would be my preference. I have already read 'My Utmost'.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading!
Delete