Since the beginning of the Pastor Writer podcast, I've dedicated the last episode of each year to a reflection on some of my favorite books. I think it's a great practice for anyone. I looked back through my Amazon orders, my bookshelves, my Kindle and Audible apps, and noted books that stood out. For me, books are never just read, they represent the things I've been thinking about, working on, and areas I'm trying to grow.
This year, the books really reflect my ongoing writing project, but hopefully, there are a few that will be interesting to you. Let me know what you've been reading. I'm always grateful for recommendations on books or authors that you think would fit the show.
Since the beginning of the Pastor Writer podcast, I've dedicated the last episode of each year to a reflection on some of my favorite books. I think it's a great practice for anyone. I looked back through my Amazon orders, my bookshelves, my Kindle and Audible apps, and noted books that stood out. For me, books are never just read, they represent the things I've been thinking about, working on, and areas I'm trying to grow.
This year, the books really reflect my ongoing writing project, but hopefully, there are a few that will be interesting to you. Let me know what you've been reading. I'm always grateful for recommendations on books or authors that you think would fit the show.
You're listening to episode 213 of the Pastor Rider podcast conversations on reading, writing and the Christian life. I'm your host, chase Rep, local. Well, whether you can believe it or not, it is the end of 2023, another year and really a mark. I think the Pastor Rider podcast has been going for close to five years now. So, first of all, thank you to those of you who have listened to so many of the episodes over this past year and the years before, and it's one of my traditions to always wrap the year up by offering some of my favorite books, some of my favorite conversations and reads from the year before. I always look forward to this episode, and apparently you do too. It's always one of the most played episodes, and so it's been a joy to put together this list and bring them to you and perhaps inspire you to put together a list of your own. So let's get into the best books of 2023. A quick word before we jump into our list. If you listened to the last episode with Kerry Schmidt about his book Steady Strength, you might remember that Moody Publishers has been kind enough to offer a special discount to Pastor Rider listeners. So between now and the end of the year, if you use the promo code STRENGTH, you'll receive 40% off of your order at moodypublisherscom. I very, very, very rarely take sponsorships for the podcast, but I love Moody. They do so much to help pastors and particularly lead Kerry's book around finding strength in ministry. With such an encouragement to me and I'm excited to be able to partner with Moody to offer that discount Again, use the promo code STRENGTH at checkout at moodypublisherscom between now and the end of the year and get 40% off on your order. Might be a little too late for Christmas, but you could take a little bit of that Christmas money perhaps what Christmas money is still left and use it to order a book. Be encouraged. Thanks to Moody Publishers.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned in the introduction to today's episode, it has been a long tradition for me to take the last episode of the year and dedicate it to reflecting on my favorite books, reads and conversations. I think it's actually a great practice for anyone. I look back through my Amazon orders, I look at my bookshelf, my Kindle and Audible apps and I'm trying to pay attention to which books stood out. Which books am I still thinking about, which books had an impact on me throughout the year? Those books end up representing not just things I've read, but also the things I've been thinking about and often the things I'm working on as a writer and the ways I'm personally trying to grow. That's certainly true of the list for 2023.
Speaker 1:I've been working on several new writing projects this year, and the books reflect that. As you'll see and hopefully there's a few in there that'll interest you to pick up as well Let me know what you've been reading. I always love hearing from listeners what books you recommend. Perhaps what conversations or interviews would be good for the upcoming year 2024. And I hope this list inspires you to make a list of your own and perhaps pick up some new books. So let's get into it. There are 10 books on this year's list, beginning with number one Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Speaker 1:Over the last few years, I've been reading a lot of Hemingway. There's actually going to be some Hemingway in this list in a moment as well, but if you listen to these past recap episodes, there's been plenty of Hemingway. I think I've actually read through everything Hemingway has written his short stories, his fiction, his nonfiction, outside of some of his letters and early news writing so there's been a lot. What I've really been interested in, though, is not just Hemingway, but the literature of the whole lost generation, as it's sometimes called, those writers who lived and fought in World War I and wrote in that period just after. There's some great writers from this period, including Hemingway, of course, fitzgerald and Elliot, who we'll talk about in a bit, and even CS Lewis himself falls in this category.
Speaker 1:Having served in World War I and out of that actually having come to faith and most of his work being caught up in that cultural moment of post-World War I, I'm fascinated by the sense of disillusionment that came, the optimism that so much of the West had before the war, and the sense of disillusionment, particularly with young men after the war, the horrors of the trench warfare Particularly. It's an interesting question of faith, how it impacted these individuals and their view of faith. Everyone knows, of course, scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby. You probably read it in school, but Tindra's the Night is often considered Fitzgerald's best work. It's a little bit longer but it's a really interesting novel. I went back and re-read the Great Gatsby as well, and I've been reading some of other Fitzgerald works, his short stories, and we'll probably pick up some more in 2024. But I love that period. I love these writers. Reading Fitzgerald was helpful in reading Hemingway and understanding the moment, and Tindra's the Night was a great novel Second on the list, israel A Concise History by Daniel Gordus.
Speaker 1:Well, since October of this year, obviously the world's attention has been on Israel and with it there has come many pressing conversations and many questions. I've been surprised, to be honest, how bad much of the news commentary has been and also how bad the cultural conversations have been. People seem to lack a really basic understanding of the history of Israel, let alone ancient Israel but particularly the modern state of Israel. Having opinions about really complicated situations and issues demands we actually know the history, and so I picked up this book actually long before October and was reading and studying and trying to better understand that history myself. I've always been interested in everything ancient Israel and, having been to Israel, I've also been interested in the modern state of Israel. I've been recommending this particular book, israel Concise History, to many people in my congregation or friends because I think it's a really solid introduction to the modern state of Israel and its history of formation. The author does a really good job of relating the facts and being honest about the complicated facts that play into that history. He places those facts also into the larger historical context of the moment in which Israel emerged as a modern state. You're free to form your own opinions, but I think reading books like this one in particular will help you better understand the history and form those opinions. So I highly recommend, in 2024, you read something on the facts of the modern state of Israel and Israel Concise History by Daniel Gordis is a great place to start.
Speaker 1:Number three sticking with the history category, this year I knocked out the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shire. I say knocked out because it was a major achievement of my reading for the year. I managed to listen my way through the audiobook, which is 57 hours long, but if you recognize the title, it's a historical classic and one that deserves attention. What a fascinating read it was too. There's a reason it's a classic of the genre.
Speaker 1:These days, everyone seems to think that their opponent is some kind of reincarnation of Hitler. How often do we hear talk about fascism or Hitler or Nazism? There's a lot of talk about these ideas, particularly the anti-Semitism of the current moment. But reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich proved not only illuminating to the past, but also to the present. In surprising ways, hitler is Hitler. That was one of my takeaways from the book. Not everyone is Hitler. Certainly Many of the comparisons we continue to hear in cultural conversations actually served a cheap and the real whore of what the Nazis were able to accomplish. But Hitler's particular use of political schemes and propaganda and his manipulation of religious ideas in the church, they do feel like really important lessons, warnings that I'm afraid we haven't learned. I read this book with a close friend and we had a ton of interesting conversations about it and I would recommend doing something like that.
Speaker 1:If you're going to read a book with big ideas, maybe read it or listen to it with someone else. You can discuss it. I'm considering the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire as my big book for 24, but I have already started Moby Dick as well. Either way, I'll have some sort of large goal book I'm working on next year. I'm usually trying to pick up some sort of a difficult book to work my way through the year because I think there's real benefit to that kind of discipline.
Speaker 1:Book number four the Art of Bible, translation by Robert Alter. There has probably been Robert Alter books in the past. I know there has because his book the Art of Biblical Narrative and Poetry, his translation of Genesis those have been really important books for me in my study of Hebrew and Hebrew literature. I'm not great with learning new languages, though I wish I were, and I continue to work on my Hebrew. I've been spending a lot of time this year trying to get better at languages. I've been working on a little French and studying more Hebrew, and the more I study languages the more I'm interested in how language itself impacts the culture and the kind of literature that that culture is producing. That is certainly the case with the Hebrew Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, understanding the culture and the language. They fit together into the way that we read and understand what was passed down to us.
Speaker 1:Alter has long been one of my favorite translators and commentators on the text itself, particularly because of his appreciation for literature. There's a great place in the art of Bible translation where he talks about the need for modern translators to be familiar with modern literature as well so that they know the full range of English possibilities to translate into. He compares it to the way the King James translators were aware of the literature of their day and I think he makes a really important point. I was excited to pick up this particular book because Alter reflects on his work over two decades of translating the entire Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, from Hebrew into English. This is a very short book it's not long but the reflections are fascinating and challenging and for anyone thinking hard about the actual biblical text, the language behind it and the choices we make in trying to explain, interpret and translate that text, I think Alter's reflections are not only helpful but just interesting and sometimes entertaining. The Art of Bible Translation by Robert Alter. I highly recommend it. Book no 5 Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls by Edmund Wilson.
Speaker 1:I have been doing a lot of reading on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and by a lot I mean most of the books sitting on my desk right now in one way or another are about the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was hard to narrow down all the reading I've been doing into one book, but this would certainly be it, although it's not the most academic and might not be the right place to start, which I'll explain in a moment but everyone seems to have at least heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Everybody knows the name, but very few people know what the Scrolls actually are, what they contain or the really fascinating story of their discovery. I've been studying what's in the Scrolls but I've been particularly interested in the narrative of their discovery. These Scrolls were tucked away in caves sometime around 70 AD when Israel was defeated in its revolt against the Romans really the end of self-governance for Israel and they were found to the literal day they're bought by an Israeli archaeologist the day that the United Nations votes to make Israel a state again, to give it its freedom in the two-state solution that the UN passed in 1947. It's really a remarkable story. So I picked up Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls as one of the first narratives that was written about the discovery of the Scrolls.
Speaker 1:It was published in 1955 by an American literary critic named Edmund Wilson, who actually happened to be friends with F Scott Fitzgerald, just to make a random connection. It was one of the earliest accounts of how the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found, the story around them and their early impact. Wilson was the first to write that popularly. It wasn't just an academic book, but it actually became his best-selling book and for those couple of years was popular even within the public. Edmund also visited Israel shortly after the Scrolls' discovery and had really interesting observations about those early years of Israel as a state. I've been reading as much of the original first-person accounts around the Scrolls as I can get my hands on, and Edmund Wilson's is really just fascinating to read. It's both historical but it's also about the Scrolls themselves and hopefully in the coming years you're going to see some more work for me. All of this reading I've been doing is a part of a project that will be pretty central in 2024 for me, and so certainly there'll be some more Dead Sea Scrolls stuff coming from this podcast in the future.
Speaker 1:Book number 6, the Jewish People in the First Century, edited by Safrai and Stern this is certainly the most academic book that I have on the list. Really, I would recommend the two-volume set that I've been reading through and I can't say that I finished them. They're pretty lengthy and pretty academic, but they've had such an important impact on my preaching and study of Scripture that I thought it was really important to keep them in the list. These two volumes cover both the political background as well as the cultural and social life of the Jews in the Second Temple Period. The first century before the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. I've particularly been interested in reading about the Jewish education system around the synagogues and the chapters on everyday life in that first century context. They've been really illuminating and helpful for understanding the world of Scripture and particularly the Gospels. Our church has been preaching through the Gospel of Luke, what'll probably be about a year and a half long series, and these volumes have proven really helpful. They sit right here on my desk and I've often been turning to them and they've just been fascinating to read. They really do illuminate so much of what life was like for these men and women that we read about in Luke's Gospel and the other Gospels. The books are written and edited by a Jewish scholar named Sufray, who I've basically been trying to either download or buy everything he's written because his knowledge and insights have just proved really profound for me. I think he's also a great merging of the best of Jewish scholarship, but his willingness to interact with Christian scholarship and so often you don't find those two in clear conversation and these books accomplish that Again. It's a two-volume set, the most academic, maybe the most expensive on my list, but the Jewish people in the first century by Sufray and Stern. You can pick them up on Amazon. I picked mine up, I believe, on eBay used. So search the internet and I'm sure you could find them.
Speaker 1:Book number seven the Four Quartets by TS Eliot. Well, there's been some big, long books the Jewish people in the first century, those two volumes, the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. This is certainly the shortest book on my list. It's a poem, and in my copy it's only 54 pages long. We're to start with TS Eliot. I started reading Eliot as part of my doctoral studies over the last few years, and we started by reading the Wasteland, which was a post-World War I poem written before Eliot's conversion, really about that loss of optimism, the disillusionment that was setting in after the Great War. The Four Quartets, though, was written much later, after Eliot had converted to Christianity. They're considered Christian poetry, but they're also recognized as being among the greatest writings of the 20th century. It's amazing how often people cite or reference Eliot when you're in those literary conversations. He's highly regarded, even though he's producing what most agree is Christian poetry.
Speaker 1:It's not easy reading. It's not the kind of poem you will set down and read through the 50 pages and walk away from. I wouldn't even recommend that you read it that way. I would recommend you watch some lectures on YouTube as you're working through it. Think of it as you're studying scripture. You're spending time meditating on it, working on it, trying to understand the lines and the illusions that he's making.
Speaker 1:This isn't meant to be a book that you read and then set down. It's supposed to be a book that you keep on your desk I keep mine on my nightstand and you pick it up and reread or rework through it. It's only 54 pages, after all. What you will find is that more and more these phrases and words and images will begin to come to life. They've certainly done that for me. I think it's a really, really remarkable achievement and it's quickly becoming one of the most important books that I own.
Speaker 1:It's about time. It's about the process of aging and reflection. It's about hope and faith in the midst of it. It's about memory and nostalgia. Who knows, perhaps it's reflecting things I'm thinking about as I myself am aging, but the more I try to talk about TS Eliot's the Four Cortets, the more it feels like you're cheapening it. I think it's just a book you have to sit down with. I have three books that I'm currently working on writing myself and it's telling that all three of them at this moment have in their epigraph a TS Eliot quote from the Four Cortets. What more can I say? It's giving me language and helping me think about the things that I'm working on. Not an easy poem. If you're looking for something light, this is certainly not it. It'll take work and time, perhaps the whole year, but I don't know if there could be anything I would recommend more on my list than TS Eliot's the Four Cortets, something quite different now from Eliot's Four Quartets. Number eight on our list Everyone Behaves Badly by Leslie Bloom.
Speaker 1:This book I told you there would be some Hemingway coming up recounts the true story of Hemingway's trip to Pamploma with his friends to watch the bullfights and how that trip became the source for his first novel, the Sun Also Rises, I mentioned. I'm interested in all things Hemingway for complex reasons. I'm constantly amazed that Hemingway is a writer, his craft in particular. But my interest in Hemingway is not as some kind of idol or role model hardly. Everyone behaves badly certainly has plenty of Hemingway behaving badly, but it is also a fascinating look at how Hemingway worked and how his style formed and the world around him. Hemingway is far more complex than most people recognize. Most people imagine Hemingway with a rifle over his shoulder hunting big game in Africa or on his boat catching marlins off of Cuba. And while that's certainly true, there's a lot more going on in Hemingway and in his writing than those cliche appearances which he himself helped to create.
Speaker 1:If I could recommend another book, if you are really really into Hemingway, as an honorable mention, I read Matthew Nichols' Hemingway's Dark Knight. Nichol explores Hemingway's faith and his interaction with particularly Catholic writers. There is some evidence that he experienced a personal conversion and we know for sure became a part of the Catholic Church in his second marriage to wife Pauline, who was Catholic. But Nichol actually tracks how that wasn't just a process of conversion related to his marriage but instead how his actual writing, the work that he was doing, was interacting with much of the Catholic thinking. I think Nichol actually argues it fairly well that Hemingway did have ongoing questions of faith and perhaps meaningful conversion himself. Nichol points out what I thought was interesting the amount of GK Chesterton that Hemingway, particularly in the short stories, is interacting with, and so again we're into a whole level of nerdom on Hemingway. But if you love Hemingway I would highly recommend Matthew Nichols' the Dark Knight of the Soul and if you're interested in how Hemingway began his first novel, the Sun Also Rises. Everyone Behaves Badly by Leslie Bloom. It's just an interesting read to understand the time, the culture and how Hemingway's work came to be.
Speaker 1:Book number nine, the Things they Carried, by Tim O'Brien. Tim O'Brien's the Things they Carried is arguably the most recognized account of the Vietnam War, of a soldier fighting in the Vietnam War, a collection of short stories about an American soldier on the ground. The book is actually based on many of Tim O'Brien's own experiences in the 23rd Infantry Division, though the Things they Carried is certainly fiction. I've also been listening to a lot of O'Brien interviews on writing and on writing about war. This year has seen plenty of global conflicts, plenty of conversations about war and wars emerging, and I continue to do work for a military nonprofit called the Warrior's Journey. They're a military nonprofit that works on healing invisible wounds or those wounds created, sometimes unseen, of the soul through combat, through the military experience, and O'Brien has been really helpful in exploring the effects of war on the individual person.
Speaker 1:It's not an easy book. He's dealing with a hard subject and so of course, you would expect the book itself to be hard, but it probably shouldn't be easy. He's asking us to wrestle through what, for many people, were devastating situations that had lifelong implications. The book is honest. It is remarkably real in how it's written and it's incredibly well written and structured. There's a lot to learn from O'Brien as a writer, but also a lot to learn about war itself and the consequences of war. If you're interested in war writing many people I know love war novels I think you owe it to yourself to read something of O'Brien the things they carried. It's a very different kind of war novel because it's dealing with the individual soldier, unless the action of the battles themselves. But it's an important look at war, and one that I'm thankful to have spent time with this year.
Speaker 1:Well, that brings us to number 10, our final book on the list, the Pastor's Bookshelf by Austin Cardi. I had the chance to interview Austin Cardi on the Pastor Writer podcast this year and I really enjoyed his book. It also is a perfect way to round out this list a perfect conversation, because Austin is a pastor, talking about the importance of reading for both the pastor's life but also their work and vocation. I'm absolutely predisposed to this argument, obviously, but I think he makes a compelling case for why reading matters for ministry and that reading should be broad for anybody who's serving in the church. There is a tendency in pastors to just pick up either biblical studies, books or church growth resources, and Austin expands that, helping us understand why fiction in particular is important, but why broad reading is actually an asset for any pastor. We had a great conversation about the place of fiction in the life of a pastor, and it's a topic that both Cardi and I have been personally exploring in our reading, but also our writing.
Speaker 1:I thought Cardi also offered some helpful advice on how to go about reading, literally as down into the weeds is how to take notes and mark up books, and when you should move on If you're struggling to read more or if you hear this idea I'm a pastor and I should be reading more broadly, but you can't seem to find progress. I think pick this book up the pastor's bookshelf and let Austin be a guide on how that could work. That's a goal for many. I know many who are listening to this podcast and maybe even as you think, about your own reading list from 23, or maybe goals for 2024,. We all want to become better readers, we all want exposure to better books, and Austin not only teaches you how to do that, but has some great recommendations and it could be a great book for starting off 2024, the pastor's bookshelf by Austin Cardi.
Speaker 1:Well, those are my top 10 books. There's been plenty more and, as I alluded, even some others within this list, but those are the books that have been shaping my thinking, my reading, the work that I've been doing and, as I mentioned in the beginning, I would love to hear what you've been reading. You could leave a comment on Twitter, on Facebook, send me a personal email through the website pastorridercom, but I would love to hear some of the books that have been most meaningful to you, the books that have helped you the most this year. And, again, if you ever have a particular author you think would make for a great conversation, feel free to pass that along too. More than anything, I want to end this year by simply saying thank you. Thanks for those of you who have listened and subscribed and left reviews, for those of you who have picked up the five masculine instincts. This community of listeners has just become such an important part of the work that I do and something that I'm so grateful for. I don't take it lightly that you tune in every week or two and listen to one of these conversations that we're having, and so many of you do leave feedback and comments, and it's become one of the great blessings of my life and also my work in ministry, and so I'm grateful for this podcast, but more than anything, I'm grateful for you as a listener, and I want to end the year by just saying thank you and Merry Christmas and here's to many more great books and conversations in 2024.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Pastor Rider podcast. As always, you can find show notes for today's episode by going to pastorridercom. I actually have a link to each of the books that I've mentioned in today's episode, so feel free to check those out and also, while you're there, maybe click over and subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, leave a review, and I'll make sure that by clicking one of the star ratings or typing out a short message, I'd love to get that feedback and make sure you're subscribed for great conversations. I've already been scheduling out some conversations for 2024, and I'm looking forward to more writing projects, more conversations, more good books, and I'll bring it all to you here on this podcast. Thanks again, have a great end of the year. We'll see you in 2024. What are the goals of your story?