My Bookshelf

A blog that's dedicated to equipping Christians to think Biblically about all of life will have many references to books. This blog is no exception: whether it's book reviews, or references to books in posts, or even my newest endeavor, book giveaways, you'll find books are an important part of what I do here.

To that end, I want to describe an important feature of this blog: the slick wooden bookshelf in the right-hand column. As its name suggests, this shelf is populated with books I think every Christian should read. But there is some ryhme and reason to it that may not be obvious at first glance.

First, there's an intentional ordering of the books. While I feel strongly about the value of every book on the shelf, the first five that appear are my Top 5 recommended books. I forced myself to put 5 of my favorites on the top, and that was hard! But I did it, and the rest also follow a general order of recommendation. In other words, I'd generally recommend the first several books even more strongly than the last several. But they're all worth your time in my opinion.

Speaking of which, how do I select books for the shelf? Are these just my personal favorites, suitable to my tastes? Actually, no: I love many books that aren't on the shelf. What I try to do is choose books that I not only love, but that I think are particularly apropos and needed for Christians today. For instance, you'll notice books on developing our minds, because that's one of the church's big needs today. But you'll also see books on topics like spiritual formation, eternal perspective, and money - topics every Christian interacts with virtually every day.

The shelf is different from books that I'm reading right now - those are listed below it. Some of the current books I'm reading now may end up on the shelf, but many won't because I want the shelf to stay focused on especially timely, useful books.

Finally, a couple features of the shelf. There is a small "next" button on the bottom right which takes you to the second "page" with more books. Also, one of my favorite features is that you can hover your mouse over any book on the shelf and it will display a short paragraph I wrote on why that book made it onto the shelf in the first place. Pretty cool!

As an added incentive to read them (plus, as a way to just have some fun) every few months I'll give one of these recommended books away in a drawing, like the one I just did last week. So peruse my bookshelf, and consider tossing a couple of these titles on your own nightstand. Some of them take some mental effort to get through, but all of them are worth it in spades.

Happy reading!