I read fifty-three books in 2023. And here, without further ado, is my overview. As usual, I will address them more or less by genre or topic and not in the order in which I read them.

Jon Meacham’s And There Was Light is an excellent biography of Abraham Lincoln. With the abundance of Lincoln biographies already in existence it is understandable to be a bit skeptical of whether or not yet another one could really add anything new to our understanding of Lincoln. Pleasantly, Meacham manages to do that. Allan Gallay’s Walter Ralegh: Architect of Empire is a hefty book but one that I would strongly suggest for anyone interested in in first English attempts at colonizing the New World or in Raleigh himself. And yes, I spelled the title correctly; there were, evidently, numerous spellings of Raleigh’s name, and that is the one Gallay went with.

Larry Loftis’s The Watchmaker’s Daughter is a terrific biography of Corrie ten Boom. Even for those who know her story, I would highly recommend reading this book. And Ron Rapoport wrote a first-rate biography of Ernie Banks with Let’s Play Two. I did not know much about Mr. Cub before reading it other than that he was a great baseball player and always seemed to enjoy the game. Those things are true, and reinforced by the book, but it also gives a look at Banks’ personal life (difficult) and details of his career.

David Maraniss is an excellent writer and his Path Lit by Lightning, a biography of Jim Thorpe, is no exception. This, too, is a hefty book, but it would be enjoyable reading for anyone interested in Thorpe, in professional sports in America (particularly baseball and football), in the Olympics, in the boarding schools attending by so many Native American youth of Thorpe’s generation, or just in that period of history in general.

Barack Obama’s A Promised Land may be the most well-written political autobiography I have ever read. I am sure that Obama had someone helping him with it, but its readability is also a testament to the fact that Obama is a good writer and an effective communicator. I did not anticipate that Obama would change my mind on any political issues on which we disagree, and he did not, but it is worth reading, especially for anyone who enjoys presidential history. So Help Me God, by Mike Pence, is a very readable autobiography that makes clear that Pence is the decent person he seems to be. Given the way Donald Trump turned on him on January 6, 2021, Pence does an incredibly admirable job of treating Trump fairly, and even admiringly, up to that point in the book. But he makes no apologies for his actions on January 6 and reinforces, for anyone who cares, exactly why Donald Trump should not be elected president again. But if Pence doesn’t convince you, read Cassidy Hutchinson’s Enough. On the one hand, the book amazed me in its revelation of just how much power and influence someone so young was able to wield in the Trump White House (Hutchinson is only 27 now). On the other hand, and unfortunately, her first-person accounts of what went on in that White House—particularly after the elections in November 2020 and on January 6, 2021—do not shock. She famously testified before the January 6 Committee, of course, and Trump responded to her testimony—then and since—the way he usually responds to anything and anyone he doesn’t like: like a playground bully. But for the life of me I cannot see that Hutchinson had anything to gain if her story is not true.

A disappointing read was Robert Dallek’s How Did We Get Here? The subtitle is “From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump” and the book purports to show how previous presidential administrations paved the way for the election of Donald Trump. This is an important thing to understand and I was interested in knowing what a respected historian like Dallek would have to say about it. Unfortunately, this reads as chapter-long overviews of the presidents Dallek chose to include—nice, short, historical overviews that are fine in and of themselves—but that completely fail to answer the title’s question. Dallek’s own politics are revealed more often, and more clearly, than they should be in a book like this. Dallek did not include every president from TR to Trump and that might be fine. What is bizarre, though, is the fact that he did not include any president between Reagan and Trump! To think that it would be possible to show how previous presidencies led to the election of Donald Trump without addressing at all the preceding twenty-eight years and the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama is just plain foolish.

In part because of the debates around recent presidential elections—and, because of the increasing tendency of states to want to award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote—Tala Ross’s Why We Need the Electoral College is an important book. For those who understand the electoral college—including how it works and why the founders set up our presidential elections the way that they did—it will not share much that is new, but it will serve as a valuable reminder of why we should be very careful when it comes to discussions of eliminating it.

Elizabeth Rogliani’s How Progressivism Destroyed Venezuela: A Cautionary Tale struggles a bit at times but overall it is an insightful and important examination from someone who grew up there of how the progressive politics of Venezuela’s recent “leaders” have destroyed the country.

I was excited to read Mari Eder’s The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line, which tells the stories of fifteen women who “changed the course of WWII” as the subtitle states. I was particularly excited because Eder is herself a retired Army general. Unfortunately, the book was disappointing. Yes, the stories told are interesting, but Eder makes some factual blunders in the book which she should have known and/or her editor should have caught. Also, the end of the book strays into her own political opinion. On the other hand, David Denton’s The Reverend Spy was a delightful look at how a pastor was able to serve America as a spy for America, in America, during WWII. It was loaned to me by a friend or I doubt I ever would have come across it.

T. J. English’s Dangerous Rhythms is a captivating story of jazz and the influence of organized crime in the early years of jazz. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the appearance of so many jazz greats in its pages. David Kirp’s Improbable Scholars is a celebration of how a city in New Jersey has turned around a failing school system. Unfortunately, like most books of this ilk, it is a wonderful story about committed educators but falls short of anything that other places could implement in their own struggling schools. And, of course, a strong left-leaning political bias peeks through.

David Grann’s The Wager is an incredible story. If it were fiction, readers would, understandably, say, “Okay, he took it too far, that is no longer believable.” Since it is not fiction, the reader is left in awe of what humans are capable of enduring. Grann’s account of the shipwreck of The Wager in 1740 and the ensuing fight for survival and return to England was named Best Book of the Year by multiple publications and it is easy to see why. John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy tells the story of Nelson Mandela’s election as president of South Africa, and the beginning of his term in office, with rugby as the backdrop. The book was the inspiration for the movie Invictus and it offers a masterclass in dealing with people with whom you disagree in pursuit of a worthy goal. It also provides insight into how deeply rooted Apartheid was in South Africa.

Charles Person’s Buses Are A Comin’ is his first-person account of being one of the African-Americans selected to be part of the first Freedom Rides challenging the segregation of buses and bus stations. It is an important book and one that I will surely read excerpts from to my class when teaching about the Civil Rights movement.

Richard Snow’s Disney’s Land tells the story of the imagining, construction and opening of Disney Land. In the course of doing so, it provides a look at Disney as a person, his marriage, his personal interests and hobbies and his unique style of management. That Disney Land was not a flop after the chaos of its first day is a testimony to the desirability of what Disney wanted to accomplish. The book would be particularly interesting to anyone who is a fan of Disney—the man or the company.

Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin wrote Beating Guns both to address the issue of gun violence in America and to propose alternatives, such as literally beating guns into gardening tools. Some of the book comes across as a bit too Pollyanna-ish but it does ask some real questions that deserve real answers. I just do not think it is as easy as they want to make it seem.

Saying It Well, by Charles Swindoll, is essentially a primer on how to communicate effectively. What I personally found most interesting was Swindoll’s overview of how he prepares his sermons. The End of Average, by Todd Rose, is an overview of the problem of doing things based on averages. He presents evidence that while average may have its place, almost never is there anyone who actually is average. For example, the design of airplane cockpits for an average pilot resulted in a wide variety of issues for the actual pilots of those planes. The point of the book is to resist averages and embrace uniqueness.

Victory, by A.C. Green, is a collection of advice and life lessons from Green, a former NBA star. This was a book that my father actually sent to my son, but I decided to read it, too. It would be of most interest to someone who likes basketball, but I appreciated Green’s clear stance on doing what is right even when that is not popular or easy to do. Kidnapped by the Taliban by Dilip Joseph is the author’s account of exactly what the title says, something that occurred while he was doing medical work in Afghanistan. It is an engaging, and at times harrowing, story.

Ken Ham’s Divided Nation is a short book, easy to read, and is Ham’s commentary on the importance of a biblical worldview, especially in this age in which such a worldview is increasingly unpopular. Those familiar with Ham will not find a lot of new information here but it is a pertinent reminder. Roger Erdvig’s Beyond Biblical Integration is a book targeted at teachers and is an effective tutorial on doing more than just integrating biblical concepts and Bible verses into classroom lessons. Inside the Nye Ham Debate lists Ken Ham and Bodie Hodge as the authors, but Hodge is really the author. He interviewed Ham and included some of his comments in the book verbatim. The book purports to be an in-depth look at the well-known debate 2014 debate between Bill Nye, “the Science Guy,” and Ken Ham. The book does include the full transcript of the debate, which can be a valuable resource, but the book itself has some definite weaknesses. For one, while Ham is given the opportunity to provide further explanation of some of his debate answers, and Hodge provides yet more detail, Nye was apparently not given that opportunity. Granted, the book is published by Master Books, which has published most of Ham’s books and is a Christian publisher, so it is understandable that presenting the creationist side is their goal. But the book’s subtitle is “Revealing Truths from the Worldview Clash of the Century.” That should entail a deeper revealing of both sides. After all, there is no harm is exposing more of Nye’s position. If Nye was given the opportunity to expand on his answers and declined, that’s one thing, but I do not recall any mention of that being the case. The book’s other weakness is that Hodge is Ham’s son-in-law and more than once the book seems to stray into hagiography.

I am not sure if excitement would be the reaction of most people upon discovering that John Piper had written a 750-page book entitled Providence but that was my reaction, and the book did not disappoint. Piper provides a thorough examination of God’s providence, or “purposeful sovereignty,” as seen throughout the Bible. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: His Life and Relevance for the 21^st Century is written by Lloyd-Jones’s grandson, Christopher Catherwood. It is an excellent read and fulfills the subtitle’s claim.

Robert Lewis’s Raising a Modern Day Knight is not a new book by any means, but as the father of a teenage son, it seemed an appropriate time to read it. While Lewis lays out a specific plan that was adopted by him and two friends for teaching their sons what it means to be a man, including ceremonies and the creation of a family crest, many of the principles he includes are valuable even if the details of the process or not of interest.

Martin Marty is considered one of America’s preeminent religious historians, and his October 31, 1517 is a short but worthwhile overview of the Reformation. William Barker and Samuel Logan are the editors of Sermons That Shaped America. It includes some interesting choices—some of which I question really helped shape America—and leaves out others that might have been better choices, but it is worthwhile reading, both for the content of the sermons and for the introduction that reading them can provide to previously-unknown ministers and theologians.

Is Christianity the White Man’s Religion? by Antipas Harris has parts I may disagree with, but it addresses a number of relevant questions, such as why the Bible seems to endorse slavery and why Jesus is so often depicted as European. If nothing else, it effectively answers the question in the negative. C. Herbert Oliver wrote No Flesh Shall Glory in the 1950s, and it, too, effectively quashes any notion that racism is biblical. What is sad is that Harris needed to write his book more than sixty years later since the same question is still being debated. Skot Welch and Rick Wilson attempt to do the same thing in Plantation Jesus. Again, I don’t agree with them on everything, but I applaud their efforts to set the record straight on the ridiculous notion that the Bible condones slavery or racism.

Constantine Campbell’s Jesus vs Evangelicals showed promise initially. It seemed that it was going to be what I expected it to be—a look at how so many Evangelicals have abandoned, or conveniently set aside, their biblical convictions in the pursuit of political victory. But it strayed from that. Partially that may be due to the fact that Campbell lives in Australia now, but some of what he had to say left me wondering how in the world he had ever been a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. The book purports to be “an insider’s critique” but I would have to disagree. He is not as faithful an adherent to what evangelicalism is—or is supposed to be—as he would have us believe.

Joseph Stowell’s Eternity was written almost thirty years ago and I don’t know that it is still in print. I found a used copy. Stowell is one of my favorite Bible teachers and this book is among the best of his that I have read. It does not give much insight into what heaven will be like; rather, it shows how the reality of heaven should shape the lives of Christians here and now.

Fiction this year included James Patterson’s Triple Cross and Cross Down (with Brendan DuBois), both part of the Alex Cross series, and Shattered and Obsessed (with James Born) in the Michael Bennett series. I have written about both of those series before, so I will add only that this is the first of Patterson’s books co-written with DuBois that I recall reading. I do not know how much Patterson writes and how much his co-authors write, but there seemed to be a distinct difference in how Nana Mama was portrayed—and not for the better. Also, in Cross Down, Cross’s partner, John Sampson is the narrator, something that it takes a bit of getting used to. Thomas Perry’s A String of Beads is the second of Perry’s books that I’ve read, but the first featuring Jane Whitefield, who is apparently the main character in nine Perry novels. Whitefield is Native American and Perry connects that—and Native American culture and religion—to some of her abilities in protecting innocent people whose lives are at risk. That makes for some interesting character details but also sometimes seems a bit unbelievable.  I have read all of Mark Pryor’s Hugo Marston novels. Die Around Sundown is the first installment of his new series featuring Inspector Henri Lefort. Fans of Marston will likely enjoy Lefort, as well. Gabriel Allon is back at it in Daniel Silva’s The Collector. It is, of course, quite unrealistic that Allon would be able to do all of the things he does in this book, but Silva continues to create enjoyable stories that intertwine international espionage and the art world. Find Me by Alafair Burke was an pleasurable read. It leaves the reader wondering—and going back and forth—in trying to determine who to believe and who really is the victim. I was disappointed by John Grisham’s The Exchange. It was supposed to be a sequel to The Firm, but it really wasn’t. Other than the fact that Mitch McDeere makes a visit back to Memphis early in the book, and the memories that that brings, the book could have been written about completely different characters and been the same book. Jeffrey Archer’s Traitors Gate continues the ongoing battle between William Warwick and Miles Faulkner. But the plot this time centers around a theft more bold that anything Archer has written about since Honor Among Thieves. I had not read a David Baldacci book in a few years but I did read One Good Deed in 2023. It was an enjoyable read. It was apparently intended as a stand-alone book, not part of a series based on a character, but there are now two more books featuring Aloysius Archer. The book is set in 1949 and tells and interesting story. I think one of the reasons I had abandoned Baldacci books was the increasing inclusion of sex, and this book does have that too, unfortunately.

In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary in 2024 but I just finally read it in 2023. It is a wonderful work of historical fiction, telling the story of three sisters who worked against the dictatorship of General Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. A fourth sister, who was not involved, tells the story. If it were possible to remove two or three sentences from the book, I would recommend it for high school students. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is often assigned reading for high school students, and it has a lot of good things going for it. It tells the story of a Native American teenager in Washington state who decides to attend the high school in the local all-white town rather than the school on his reservation. What Alexie describes is a conflict that I have read about from others and have witnessed firsthand with a number of Native American students I have had the opportunity to work with. Unfortunately, the book also includes a lot of adolescent “humor” and references to sexual activity. Arthur Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, however, is a novel—a graphic novel—that I would highly recommend. It tells the story of Spiegelman’s father during the Holocaust and it depicts the Jews as mice and the Nazis as rats. I am not big of graphic novels and had never read one in its entirety until this one, but it is both a creative and effective way of presenting this important history.

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front were the “classics” I read in 2023. The Steinbeck book I had read in high school but wanted to reacquaint myself with it. I am not sure why I had never read Remarque’s book, but it is certainly worth reading. It is intriguing to read the perspective of a German soldier in WWI determined to oppose hatred—especially knowing what happened in Germany not many years later. I understand the book has been made into a Netflix movie, but I haven’t seen it and that is not why I read it.

So, there it is, another quick overview of another year of books. I hope it prompts you to check out a book or two for yourself.