My Reading List for this year: A Goal

I don’t usually make a reading list for the year. I read voraciously in many directions as my interests and needs take me. I read history, and theology, philosophy, and science, a little biography and fiction – mostly science fiction, fantasy and horror. But I don’t usually make a list ahead of time.

This year, however, I’ve decided to do something. I’m going to clean out my ‘to-read’ list, I’m going to commit myself to reading those books that have been lingering at the periphery of my mind. Books that I’ve wanted to read (or re-read) but, for one reason or another, have pushed aside for other books. Also in this list are several books that I’ve recently received as gifts from friends and family.

As much as it pains me, I’m going to try to stick to only the books in this list. So I’m going to avoid the bookstores. (AHHHHH! I’m hurting already.) And I’m going to avoid the library – except for movies and music

I usually set a goal of reading 100 books a year. It’s a big goal, and I don’t usually make it. I come close. But the one hundred isn’t really the important aspect. My self-imposed list will get me about halfway there if I can stick to it. As the preacher said: “People never stop writing books, (Ecclesiastes 12:12)” and I know I’ll never get to them all, not even to all the good ones.  But these are the ones I’m going to read this year.

They are not listed in any particular order of relevance or priority:

1 – Christianity in Action: The International History of The Salvation Army – Colonel Henry Gariepy
2 – The Slavery of Death – Richard Beck
3 – Christ in the Gospels of the Ordinary Sundays – Raymond E. Brown
4 – The Land of Promise - Philip Johnston & Peter Walker
5 - Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary – Marcus Borg
6 – The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright in Dialogue – Corssan and Wright
7 – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography – John Dominic Crossan
8 – Killing Jesus – Bill O’Reily
9 – Jesus and Judaism – E. P. Sanders
10 – The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus – John Dominic Crossan
11 – The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-Blessed, Christ-Haunted Idea – David Dark
12 – New Testament and Mythology – Rudolf Bultmann
13 – She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse – Elizabeth Johnson
14 – The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome – Michael Parenti
15 – The Republic – Plato
16 – Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality – Matthew Fox
17 – Religion and Science Fiction – ed. James McGrath
18 – The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick – ed. Pamela Jackson & Johnathan Lethem
19 – The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales – Peter Rollins
20 – Tobit: A New Translation, Introduction, and Commentary – Carey A. Moore
21 – Dr. Who – The Shakespeare Notebooks
22 – Lost Horizon – James Hilton
23 – Dune: The Butlerian Jihad- Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
24 – Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World – René Girard
25 – The Phenomenon of Man – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
26 – When God Becomes Small – Phil Needham
27 – Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong -James W. Loewen
28 – Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition – Umberto Eco
29 – A Sand County Almanac – Aldo Leopold
30 – The Morning Song of Lord Zero – Conrad Aiken
31 – Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fought Back – Amy Goodman & David Goodman
32 – The Canterbury Tales – Chaucer
33 – Civil War – Lucan
34 – How to Pray When You’re Pissed at God – Ian Punnett
35 – The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story And Significance Of The First Archaeological Link To Jesus And His Family -Ben Witherington III & Hershel Shanks
36 – Chomsky on Anarchism – Noam Chomsky
37 – Wool – Hugh Howey
38 – Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements – George Woodcock
39 – Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse – ed. John Joseph Adams
40 – The (Un)Common Good – Jim Wallis
41 – Joe Hill, The IWW, and the Making of a Revolutionary Working Class Counter Culture – Franklin Rosemont
42 – Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today – Craig G. Bartholomew
43 – Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity – David Felten & Jeff Procter-Murphy
44 – Life and Fate – Vassily Grossman
45 – Between Worlds: The Art of Preaching in the 20^th Century – John Stott