Review of 2024 Readings
For nine years, I've participated in the GoodReads yearly reading challenge. Here's a review of what I read last year.
For this month’s Newton Library Update, I decided to write something different and list the books I read last year.
In 2016, I discovered GoodReads’s yearly Reading Challenge. That first year, I read ten books with a goal of 16. Since then, I’ve planned more reading time into my weeks (and I’m not homeschooling anymore) and have increased the number of books I read a year.
For 2024, I challenged myself to read 30 books, and I completed 36. My husband says children’s books shouldn’t count. However, a friend on GoodReads, a retired college professor and professional writer, lists children’s books she has read. So why can’t I?
Here’s my list.
Hillsdale’s Great Books Assignments
I’ve been slowly working my way through a Hillsdale College’s free online literature course. I completed the “Classical Children’s Literature” in 2023. Now, I’m working on “Great Books 101: Ancient to Medieval.” As a literature major, I did not read much from this time period, so I’ve enjoyed this new educational experience. I was also pleasantly surprised by the ease I could read these translations of ancient literature.
The Iliad by Homer
I had only read a junior version of this story before. Following the old adage for fiction writing, “show, don’t tell,” Homer graphically describes battle scenes with pierced eyes and dismemberment. I could only read these sections in short doses. The gods are crazy, but I became more familiar with them.
I skipped Odyssey because I read it on my own one summer while in college. If you want to experience a quirky version of this classic story, watch Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012).
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
This 64-page play is not hard to follow after watching the Hillsdale lecture.
The Aeneid by Virgil
Fortunately, this story doesn’t have quite as much violence as The Iliad, and I also had to make a mental shift from the Greek god names to the Roman ones. I appreciated that both books provided glossaries.
The David Story was the next book on the list. I only read a short segment because the author seemed to be a Progressive who rejected the supernatural. I also skipped reading the Book of Job as I’ve read that Bible book a few times.
I am now reading The Confessions of St. Augustine.
Christianity
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1937)
I originally read portions of this book for the “Intro to Ministry” course I took in college. Having read Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer biography the year before, I wanted to read some of Bonhoeffer’s original writings. This classic work teaches on the Sermon on the Mount and stresses the importance of not treating Christ’s grace cheaply.
Religionless Christianity: God’s Answer to Evil by Eric Metaxas (2024)
Metaxas wrote this as a sequel to his book, Letter to the American Church, urging American Christians to wake up and stand against evil in the culture and not sit on the sidelines like the 1930s German church did.
Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution: A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First by Alister E. McGrath (2008)
My husband Doug read this for his church history seminary class. He asked me to read it to provide us with discussion material during our long drives on our road trip. In turn, he read a scholarly book I had read to discuss with me.
The dangerous idea is allowing laypeople to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves. For a thousand years, the Western Church, which became the Roman Catholic Church, guarded against wide access to the Bible, fearing people would form heresies. But in doing so, the Church developed a biblical illiterate population.
Author McGrath traces through history both the positive and negative effects of having the Bible available in the language of the masses.
Rose Guide to End-Time Prophecy by Timothy Paul Jones (2011)
We picked this up at a Christian bookstore in Lynden while RVing over Mother’s Day weekend. Rose guides are full of charts, graphs, and maps. The author presented the four major views of eschatology in a balanced manner.
If you ever wanted a clearer understanding of pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, premillennial, postmillennial, and amillennial, this book is for you.
Worldview and Apologetics
Living in the Daze of Deception: How to Discern Truth from Culture’s Lies by Jack Hibbs
In his direct, plain style, Pastor Hibbs warns Christians about deceptions that occur both inside the church and in the greater culture that can lead Christ followers astray and explains how to develop biblical discernment.
The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond by Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett (2019)
The two authors address a contemporary form of apostasy called deconstructionism. This term means different things to different people. Some use it to describe their examination of their faith. But more commonly today, it represents the rejection of biblical faith by adopting a form of postmodern thought. The book closes with hopeful ideas for those trying to reach loved ones who are wandering away from the faith.
Live Your Truth and Other Lies: Exposing Popular Deceptions that Make Us Anxious, Exhausted, and Self-Obsessed by Alisa Childers (2022)
In her third book, Childers examines a form of relative truth, known as Progressivism, that has captured today’s culture, including many of our churches. She demonstrates that biblical truth is the same today and forever for all people.
Hijacking Jesus: How Progressive Christians Are Remaking Him and Taking Over His Church by Jason Jimenez. See my discussion of this book.
A Grand Illusion: How Progressive Christianity Undermines Biblical Faith by David Young (2019)
Young offers a defense of apostolic Christianity against Progressivism, which has invaded many churches. He begins with a brief history of liberal theology, then explains the teachings of Progressive theology, and ends with how to respond to it biblically.
Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen (1946)
On the heels of World War II, this former professor of Westminster Theological Seminary exposes the beliefs of modern liberal theology, the forerunner of today’s Progressivism. Machen states that “...modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs to a totally different class of religions” (7). Being an older book and written by a seminary professor, it’s more scholastic. The author systematically goes through the core doctrines of faith and contrasts the liberal view with the orthodox view.
Social and Political Issues
Youth Books
Catechism on the Constitution, revised from the 1828 edition, a Wallbuilders publication by Arthur J. Stansbury
This slim volume is based on an early 19th-century textbook that teaches children the US Constitution in a Q&A format. A former homeschool mom recommended it to me, and I found it to be a great refresher course on our federal constitution. This should be used in schools today.
The Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies by Connor Boyack
The author teaches teens (and adults) how to think critically about the news and how the public is often manipulated to believe a wrong narrative provided by the government or powerful people. Each short chapter ends with a discussion and summary of points.
Adult-Level Reading
Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation by Pete Hegseth and David Goodwin (2022)
I’ve read several works on the history and philosophy of education, and this one introduced a new concept to me, the Greek word paideia, the missing ingredient in American education ever since the progressives took over the education system over a century ago. It’s one reason why our schools don’t produce educated and virtuous citizens. The authors describe the hijacking of education by Progressives and offer Christian classical education as the antidote to our nation’s educational woes. The book is based on Hegseth’s five-part documentary for FOX Nation, The Miseducation of America. I highly recommend this book.
Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver (1948)
In this philosophy text written shortly after WWII, English professor Richard Weaver warns about the rejection of universals, the transcendent, and objective truth and how the espousing of relativism dumbs down culture and erodes Western Civilization. A challenging read.
The Myth of Separation: What Is the Correct Relationship between the Church and State?: and Examination of the Supreme Court’s Own Decisions by David Barton, Wallbuilders (1992)
Barton examines numerous court cases showing that the original intent of the First Amendment was not to keep church influence out of government, but government influence out of the church.
Every School: One Citizen’s Guide to Transforming Education by Donald P. Nielsen (2014)
Nielsen was a businessman who served on the Seattle school board in the 1990s. He discovered that lasting reform in the schools could not be accomplished at the local, school board level, but must be done at the legislative level.
He offers some good ideas, recognizing the manipulation of teachers’ unions and the ineffectiveness of teacher certification. However, I believe the whole system needs to be scrapped.
Biography
Saving My Assassin: A Memoir (The True Story of a Christian Attorney's Battle for Religious Liberty in Romania) by Virginia Prodan
In this page-turner autobiography, lawyer Virgina Prodan describes her life growing up in communist Romania, becoming a Christ follower as an adult, and then fighting for the religious liberty of pastors and other Christians persecuted by the communist government.
Plans for 2025
I plan to continue to tackle the growing stack of books on my nightstand that cover the topics of education, worldview, and apologetics in addition to completing the Hillsdale College literature course. The course includes
The Inferno from Dante’s The Divine Comedy. This will be new to me.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. I read part of this tome in a semester-long 400-level course in the original Middle English. I may read some in modern English.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I read in college and have in my Norton Anthology.
What do you plan to read this year? Share in the comments.