In response to a recent post by Joel over at Token Lines Suggesting Rhythm, here are the first 15 books that came to mind that “will always stick with me” :
- Desiring God, by John Piper
- The End for Which God Created the World, by Jonathan Edwards (in Piper’s God’s Passion for His Glory)
- The Religious Affections, by Jonathan Edwards
- The Pursuit of God, by A. W. Tozer
- The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkein
- The Odyssey, by Homer
- The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
- The Defense of the Faith, by Cornelius Van Til
- Abide in Christ (and Waiting on God), by Andrew Murray
- Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
- Kingdom Prologue (and The Structure of Biblical Authority), by Meredith Kline
- Mainspring of Human Progress, by Henry Grady Weaver
- Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
- A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon VanAuken
- Through Gates of Splendor, by Elisabeth Elliott
There are many other books (and especially other articles by Lewis, Packer, Sproul, Ryle, etc.), but these were the first fifteen books to come to mind (but not necessarily in order of their influence).
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I totally forgot to add Religious Affections to my list. What’s wrong with me?
It’s a tough list to keep to 15. Were you like me, wishing you could extend it to 20 or 30? When I think about it, I think it’s authors rather than particular books that “stick” with you.
@Micah: Hey Micah! I completely agree about extending the list; I could’ve kept going. (I cheated a little by lumping two books into one.) Nice to have you drop by…I’m headed over to check out your list now.
I’m in total agreement about the difficulty. I cheated even more and not only had multiple books by one author, but I twice included sets of books as single entries! (LOTR, Narnia). Though I guess technically Tolkien wrote LOTR as one entity…
Also, I don’t know if I’ll be banned from your blog, but I still haven’t gotten around to reading Religious Affections yet (gasp).
Thanks for the link, Aron.
@Joel: you are forgiven. For now.