One of the secrets to writing and editing well is reading a lot. It’s an important part of our jobs as we publish books and evaluate others for the annual book awards. The editorial team at The Gospel Coalition loves to read. We read to get ideas. We read to understand the world better. We read because we love stories.
As the year draws to a close, we want to share our favorites with you. We’ve covered some of these books here at TGC with book reviews or podcasts. However, many were discovered along rabbit trails in research or from recommendations by friends. No matter how we found these books, we hope you enjoy them too.
Winfree Brisley
Mark Vroegop, Waiting Isn’t a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life (Crossway, 2024)
In a culture of instant downloads and same-day delivery, we have fewer and fewer occasions to wait—and perhaps more frustration when waiting can’t be avoided. We’ve come to assume waiting is a problem to be solved, but Vroegop encourages us to embrace it. His thoughtful, biblical perspective on waiting has provided great fodder for discussion in my church small group this fall. Regardless of age or life stage, relationship status or vocation, everyone in the group is waiting on something. Vroegop’s book has helped us connect over a common struggle and grow together in waiting on the Lord. [Read TGC’s review.]
Beth Moore, All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir (Tyndale, 2023)
Growing up, I knew Beth Moore’s name because I often saw it on book covers in my mom’s basket of devotional materials. Her books and Bible studies equipped and encouraged a generation of Baptist women, like my mom, who were eager to study the Word and apply it to their lives. And she set an example for girls like me, that we could teach and write about the Bible. I didn’t know what to expect as I picked up her memoir, but I couldn’t put it down. Moore is a captivating storyteller, taking readers along for the twists and turns of a hard and complicated life, both personally and professionally. It was a good reminder that as much as we might feel like we know people by reading their books or following their social media accounts, there’s always more to the story. Though it was hard to read at times, Moore’s story is a hopeful one, because she ultimately tells it as a story of God’s faithfulness.
James M. Hamilton Jr., Psalms Volume I and Volume II (Lexham Academic, 2021)
I gathered a stack of commentaries on the Psalms this year for a writing project; these volumes by Hamilton were invaluable. His particular care in analyzing the psalmists’ use of chiastic structure improved my understanding of each psalm and gave me a clearer sense of how to lead others through it. His exposition is thorough and insightful, and his connections to Christ are well established, never seeming forced. Hamilton’s extensive study and understanding of the Psalms comes through on each page, but he conveys it all in a way that points me again and again to the beauty of God’s Word and how carefully each part is crafted.
Kendra Dahl
Abigail Favale, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory (Ignatius Press, 2022)
I appreciated this book on many levels. Favale is Roman Catholic so I differ with her on some theological conclusions. Still, I found her beautifully written perspective refreshing. More people should read this to be equipped to engage in thoughtful discussions about our culture’s ever-shifting approach to gender and identity. [Read Themelios’s review.]
Edmund P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament (P&R, 2013; orig. 1988)
I love biblical theology, so I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to pick up this classic. But I read it this year with a group of women from my church and we all enjoyed it. Clowney helps readers look at the Old Testament with fresh eyes, showing Christ not as a rabbit-out-of-a-hat but as a true presence in the text.
Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Zondervan, 2023)
Tim Keller’s teaching and writing played a significant role in my spiritual formation, as it did for many others. But despite noticing Keller’s humility, I’d never given much thought to what shaped him. I enjoyed this glimpse into his life and thought (especially after just reading Clowney, one of Keller’s big influences). I especially loved Hansen’s approach to this intellectual biography; it challenged me to think deeply about what’s shaping me.
Collin Hansen
Allen Levi, Theo of Golden (pub. by author, 2023)
Levi introduces us to the fictional city of Golden, where we meet the kind of characters who welcome readers into their friendship. There’s beauty all around us in this world when we see as God does. Levi lends us his lenses to see how God is making all things new. Stories may end, but the best characters stick with you forever.
William Heinesen, The Good Hope (Dedalus, 2010)
This portrait of an imperfect, though faithful, pastor may seem exaggerated but nevertheless highlights important aspects of ministry. Set in the late 17th century on the Faroe Islands, the book recounts how evil preys on the simple people of Tórshavn. It’s not hard to relate to the pressure faced by Heinesen’s protagonist to capitulate under the oppressive and corrupt government.
Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Penguin, 2024)
Every book by Haidt jumps to the top of my to-read pile. But many people especially anticipated this one. His thesis is that technology, particularly smartphones, has made childhood much more stressful, resulting in rising levels of mental illness among minors. Already Haidt’s work has changed policies in schools, states, and even nations. Haidt’s research is compelling if also extremely concerning. It should change the way you raise your family.
Megan Hill
Mary Ropes, The Story of Mary Jones and Her Bible (Gospel Standard Trust Publications, repr. 2013)
I sometimes wonder if the reason we don’t see more extraordinarily godly children is because we don’t even believe it’s possible. It simply doesn’t occur to us to expect that children would be captivated by thoughts of Christ or compelled to serve him wholeheartedly. The true story of Mary Jones—who saved her pennies for six years and then, in 1800 at the age of 15, walked 26 miles barefoot to purchase a Bible in her native Welsh—gives me a vision for what childhood piety could look like. More than that, it gives me a vision for piety at any age. Lord, grant me a hunger for your Word like that of Mary Jones!
Leif Enger, Peace like a River (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001)
I read this with my book club over the summer and immediately passed it along to my teen son and then to my husband. Enger’s story of a family fracture is a rich exploration of human response to both virtue and injustice. Perhaps because of its young narrator, Peace reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird and Everything Sad Is Untrue—stories in which the reader confronts moral complexity through the fresh eyes of a child. What’s more, for the Christian reader, Enger’s frequent allusions to biblical themes and stories are fascinating to parse.
Jeanne Birdsall, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy (Yearling, 2007)
I’m always looking for bedtime read-alouds for my 7-year-old daughter that are interesting to both of us. Birdsall’s novel (the first in a series of five books) is a contemporary story that feels charmingly old-fashioned. The Penderwick sisters are reminiscent of classic girl-protagonists like Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters or Noel Streatfeild’s Pauline, Petrova, and Posy—girls with varied strengths and interests whose ordinary life together becomes an engaging adventure for the reader. And although the Penderwicks are preteens living in 21st-century western Massachusetts, there’s not a phone or tablet in the whole novel. And why would there be? These girls’ lives are brim-full of backyard soccer games, brownie baking, book reading, pet sitting, and a little spying on their mysterious neighbors. It’s a book I would have devoured as a child, and I’m not ashamed to admit I love it now as an adult.
Betsy Childs Howard
Dale Ralph Davis, 1 Kings: The Wisdom And the Folly (Christian Focus, 2008)
Davis’s commentaries on the Old Testament have fed me spiritually for the past decade. Davis aims to increase the personal piety of the reader rather than pronounce on manuscript anomalies. His work isn’t only meaty and intelligent; it’s a pleasure to read. Though I’d read it twice before, I found this commentary on 1 Kings especially helpful in an election year. The Lord sets up kings and deposes them. He orchestrates the rise and fall of nations. He also shows mercy and care to his faithful servants and is a refuge for all who put their trust in him.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret (Oxford World Classics, 2012; orig. 1862)
This classic novel has the page-turning plot of a thriller told with Victorian restraint. After the disappearance of his friend, Robert Audley determines he must not only find him but hold those responsible for his disappearance to account. Audley’s quest transforms him from an idle loafer to a man of purpose. I enjoyed the thoughtful authorial commentary on the human condition woven through the mystery.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter (HarperCollins, 2008; orig. 1940)
One of my favorite parts of parenting is the opportunity to revisit classic books as an adult. The Long Winter tells the story of the winter of 1880–81, which the Ingalls family passed in De Smet, South Dakota. Because the region was hit by blizzard after blizzard, snow accumulation prevented trains carrying food and coal from getting through. The whole town faced the threat of starvation. While the story is told from a child’s perspective, an adult reader senses the tremendous pressure her parents feel during the crisis. The Ingalls will live in my memory as an example of patient perseverance in the hardest times.
Jared Kennedy
Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage, 1990; orig. 1927)
Cather’s 1927 classic tells a story set during the late-1800s growth and institutionalization of Catholicism in the American Southwest. Cather doesn’t hide the features of the New World Catholic faith that most trouble orthodox Protestants. She tells of unaccountable priests abusing power, syncretism with Mexican folk belief, and the veneration of Mary. Yet Cather’s episodic Western—replete with desert adventures, a dramatic rescue, Native American spiritualism, and even the appearance of cowboy Kit Carson—humanizes the Catholic Southwest. Cather focuses on the friendship of two missionary bishops from France, Jean Marie Latour and Joseph Vaillant, who go west not to find gold or adventure but to plant gardens, baptize children, and shepherd souls.
J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (IVP Academic, 1993)
This is a more technical expansion of Motyer’s lay-level volume on Isaiah in the Tyndale OT Commentaries series. I wish this volume had a more up-to-date layout—with printed Hebrew rather than transliterations and an English translation of the text. But despite these weaknesses, Motyer’s commentary is so well written that it can be read straight through devotionally. Motyer provides careful linguistic and poetic analysis and clear outlines for preaching and teaching. His focus is on giving an apologetic for Isaiah’s unity and preexilic date and on expounding its rich intertextual connections and theology. He ever has his eye on Christology and Isaiah’s significance for the church.
Colby Newton, SEC Football: How a Regional League Became a National Obsession (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024)
I read Heisman: The Man Behind the Trophy, co-written by John M. Heisman and Mark Schlabach, more than a decade ago. Since then, I’ve been fascinated by well-written college football history. Newton’s book fits the bill. I particularly appreciated his chapter on the first nationally televised SEC game—the 1969 matchup of Alabama and Ole Miss that was delayed by The Lawrence Welk Show—and his section on Nick Saban’s legacy.
Brett McCracken
Garrett Soucy, Between the Joints and the Marrow (Fernwood Press, 2024)
I love a good book of poetry, and this just-released collection from Soucy (of the folk duo Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Soucy) is unlike any other. Soucy describes the project as “an imaginative tour of the Bible,” with one poem inspired by each of the Bible’s 66 books. Poetry is, in part, meant to make the familiar strange and to slow us down so we can savor and digest big ideas and majestic beauty. Soucy’s poems absolutely accomplish this. Some left me with phrases and images I’m still thinking about. It’s a book to read slowly, perhaps as a poetic companion to your devotional Bible reading.
Sean DeMars, Rebel to Your Will: A Story of Abuse, Father Hunger and Gospel Hope (Christian Focus, 2024)
I read this in two sittings and sometimes had to pause to catch my breath or regain my emotional composure. It was a visceral experience in the best sense, cinematic in its use of language to convey raw emotion and remembered trauma. Books like this remind me no drama in life rivals the drama of the transformations made possible by God’s amazing grace. Read this to boost your faith—and give the book to others who need reminders that nothing is impossible with our resurrecting God.
Byung-Chul Han, Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity (Polity, 2024)
This was the year I (and many others) discovered the brilliance of Han, the contemporary philosopher whose insights on contemporary culture are both pithy and profound. I read five of his essay-books in 2024, but Vita Contemplativa was my favorite. I underlined almost every sentence. It’s a radically countercultural book that subverts the logic of our optimize-your-life technological society. But that’s why it’s prophetic and important.
Ivan Mesa
Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Knopf, 1974)
While I anxiously await the fifth and final volume of Caro’s biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, I finally got around to reading his first book, The Power Broker, which celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this year. How does a book about a New York bureaucrat continue to captivate readers? Perhaps it’s Caro’s brilliance as a writer with his turn of phrase; or his singular ability to pull back the curtain on how one man exercised such power to change the architecture of New York City; or his uncanny ability to showcase the use of power for good and ill, often in the same person; or his meticulous method of “turning every page” in an effort to understand people and events. Of course, it’s all of the above and more. Caro is rightly heralded as a one-of-a-kind writer that’s in short supply these days.
John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (Penguin, 1990; orig. 1969)
From January 29 to November 1, 1951, Steinbeck began each writing session of his work on East of Eden by “warming up” with a letter to his editor, filling the left-handed pages of his notebook with these letters while drafting the novel on the opposing page. East of Eden is a favorite of mine, and reading this behind-the-scenes collection gave me a greater appreciation for Steinbeck’s magnum opus—and just the motivation I needed for my own writing projects. We see the final product of East of Eden, but the letters show that every writer’s life continues apace. For Steinbeck, as for many writers, the “grist of life” both prevents and is the fuel of creativity.
Cal Newport, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout (Portfolio, 2024)
Newport—my productivity sherpa—came through again in his latest work, where he urges, “Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality.” He confronts the cult of pseudoproductivity and advocates for a slower, more steady pace. Much of this book consolidates Newport’s “best hits”—tactical strategies showcased in his New Yorker articles and his podcast, The Deep Life. I especially appreciated the ample use of historical examples, featuring figures like John McPhee, Benjamin Franklin, Jane Austen, Jack Kerouac, Ian Fleming, Lin-Manuel Miranda, John Grisham, Neil Gaiman, and J. R. R. Tolkien, which shows how creativity often springs from the fodder of ordinary life.
Andrew Spencer
Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices (Banner of Truth, 2021; orig. 1652)
I found this gem by reading Megan Hill’s review, which is part of our Rediscovering Forgotten Classics series. Since then, I’ve given away half a dozen copies and recommended it to many more people. Brooks is practical and theologically precise as he details ways that Satan can lead us into temptations of various kinds. More importantly, he offers useful ways to resist Satan’s devices. Though first published in 1652, this Puritan book lays down messages that can help us today. I’ll come back to it regularly as I fight against sin in my life.
Jerry Seinfeld, Is This Anything? (Simon & Schuster, 2021)
This book made me laugh. Seinfeld was a cultural phenomenon during my high school years. First period on Friday usually kicked off with someone rehashing the funniest moments from the most recent episode. This book is a collection of Seinfeld’s standup material over the decades he’s been doing comedy. It’s funnier when you read it in his voice. But it’s also an exercise in thinking about how words work. Reading the book carefully is good for those who speak or write for a living.
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (Penguin Classics, 2011; orig. 1901)
I read a lot of nonfiction books, though I majored in English in college. This year, I made an effort to fit more fiction into my diet to invigorate my imagination. Kim is a classic story. Though some criticize it as being pro–British Empire, it has a critical edge. Simultaneously, it reflects Kipling’s deep affection for India, his birth country. The story follows the titular character, the orphan child of a British soldier, on his adventures. This is a coming-of-age novel about a boy who fits somewhere between the native and colonial societies.
Cassie Watson
Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004)
This novel is from the perspective of an elderly widow looking back on the joys and hardships of her life in a small community. As I read, she taught me how to inhabit with gratitude the place and time where God has put me. And how to “live right on” amid life’s sorrows. Berry is also a poet, and even his fiction sounds like a song. I’d often reread sentences—and read them aloud—for the pure joy of them. This was my first Berry novel, and it was so moving that I’ve added his other books to my Christmas wish list.
Thomas Charles, Thomas Charles’s Spiritual Counsels (Banner of Truth, 2022; orig. 1836)
This is a collection of essays, letters, and papers from 18th-century preacher converted during the Welsh Methodist revival. I first heard of this book when one of my favorite podcasts drew from the first two essays for a four-part series on pride and humility. Revisiting those essays in print was well worth it. The rest of Charles’s writings are likewise filled with piercing biblical insight and warm-hearted application. I’ll return to this volume often.
Amy Baik Lee, This Homeward Ache: How Our Yearning for the Life to Come Spurs on Our Life Today (B&H, 2023)
Over the past few years, little has influenced my faith more than deepening my longing for heaven. I’m learning to see all the beauty of the world—in birds and trees, in friendship and music, in the godliness of believers—as foretastes of the life to come. Lee explores these everyday beauties and invites us to yearn more for their true fulfillment in our heavenly home. Her writing reveals her as a kindred spirit; she quotes L. M. Montgomery, Wendell Berry, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien. I only had one major problem with this book: It’s just the kind I’d want to write someday, and Lee has already done it.
Sarah Zylstra
Ben Mcintyre, The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War (Viking, 2018)
I love mysteries and biographies, and this book is the best of both. Set in Russia and England during the Cold War, it teases out the secret and complicated life of Oleg Gordievsky, a double agent who worked for MI6. Well researched, beautifully written, and suspenseful, this one was hard to put down.
Melissa Kruger, Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age (Harvest House, 2024)
I’ve got two teen boys, and as they move through high school and college, we’re constantly renavigating our relationship. Do you still need your mom to make you a haircut appointment? To check you’re in church on Sunday? To pay your tuition? On days when I don’t know what I’m doing, Kruger’s book is a fresh reminder that my job is mainly to attend to my own heart and relationship with Christ. Highly recommend it, whether your kids are toddlers, teens, or out of the house.
Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary (Vintage, 2019; orig. 1922)
If you’re a fan of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot—or Nick and Nora Charles—the Tommy and Tuppence series will be a delightful read. The Secret Adversary is mystery, adventure, and romance all tangled up together in post-WWII England. It’s clever, fun, and quick enough to be a good vacation read. And if you enjoy it enough to want more, it’s the first in a series.