What I Read in 2019

If you're struggling with reading as much as you'd like, may I suggest a trip (sans children of course) to the beach?

Link Hoang

This past summer Katie and I visited the gulf coast where I finished two books on my list and made my way well into a third. In fact one day on the shore, I had to trudge my way through the white sand and back up to our condo's Wi-Fi so I could purchase and download another book on my list. It was glorious!

Katie and I at the beach.

But even if you can't get away this year, the best approach, of course, is consistent small steps towards a goal. On a typical day, I only read two to four pages and yet on average I finish eight books per year--a paltry number for the avid reader to be sure, but twice as much as the median reader in the United States. All with minimal (but consistent) effort!

With that preamble out of the way, here are three books I read in 2019 I think you might like:

The Unbeliever’s Greatest Question (And How to Answer It)

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon

Did you know I write some articles only for my email subscribers?

This month, I wrote about a problem that haunts all humanity, especially the unbeliever. Here's how it begins:

Toward the end of a book called If God Made the Universe, Who Made God?, the editors included an essay titled, “Intellectuals Who Found God”. It’s a short section, detailing the conversions of six men to Christianity. The piece included no introduction or concluding thoughts—just disparate transformation stories of six “intellectuals."

What I found interesting about these stories is that nearly every one involved someone rejecting God because of the existence of evil. For example, the write up on Aurelius Augustine says, “[Augustine’s] biggest problem with Christianity was its failure, in his opinion, to deal adequately with the problem of evil. If God is all powerful and all good, how can evil exist, and exist so prevalently and powerfully in the world?”

In C. S. Lewis’s blurb, the author wrote that, "[Lewis’s] great concerns were with whether Christianity was unique and how it could solve (or not solve) the problem of evil."

These two men, of course, went on to overcome those objections and devote their lives to Christ. But how did they overcome them? Is their critique of Christianity valid?

 Want to read the rest? Just enter your email below, and I'll send you the entire article.

You got it!

Check your email to get the rest of the article.

What I Read In 2016

One of the reasons I wanted to become an author is because of my love of reading. I am fascinated by books, and can’t visit someone’s home or office without spying what’s on his or her shelf. (Don’t take me to a library unless you’re in it for the long haul.)

Because I always find it interesting what other people are reading, I thought you might enjoy knowing which books I have been reading. (By the way, I’m on Goodreads, and if we’re not friends, we should rectify that absurdity right now.)

Eli Francis

This list is not exhaustive. These are simply the books I read in 2016 I thought you might find interesting. (The links to each book are affiliate links, which just means I get a small commission if you buy them. It doesn’t cost you any extra.)