Saturday, December 31, 2016

The Year’s Best Reads (2016)

Of the 73 books read in 2016 (besides the Bible itself), I found the most challenge, information, enjoyment, and overall appreciation in the following. The ones in bold typeface represent the ones I recommend the most heartily. Of course, you might well smile when you see that all of the re-reads are in bold but why not? I read them again and again because they are, in fact, outstandingly excellent.

Books read for the first time:
* The Snakebite Letters (Peter Kreeft)
* The Smoke at Dawn (Jeff Shaara)
* Fool’s Talk (Os Guinness)
* Cheaper by the Dozen (Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey)
* The Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss)
* Bob Flame: Rocky Mountain Ranger (Dorr Yeager)
* The Damsel in Distress (P.G. Wodehouse)
* Vandemark’s Folly (Herbert Quick)
* The Battle of Gettysburg (Frank Aretas Haskell)
* The Overcoming Life and Other Sermons (D.L. Moody)
* hand in Hand (Randy Alcorn)
* Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (Colin Duriez)

Books that were re-reads:
* Heaven (Randy Alcorn)
* The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas)
* Twenty Years After (Alexandre Dumas)
* The Vicomte de Bragelonne (Alexandre Dumas)
* Louise de la Vallière (Alexandre Dumas)
* The Man in the Iron Mask (Alexandre Dumas)
* The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
* Out of the Silent Planet (C.S. Lewis)
* Perelandra  (C.S. Lewis)
* That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis)
* Manalive (G.K. Chesterton)
* Orthodoxy (G.K.Chesterton)
* The Magician’s Nephew (C.S. Lewis)
* The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
* The Horse and His Boy (C.S.Lewis)
* Prince Caspian (C.S. Lewis)
* The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis)
* The Silver Chair (C.S. Lewis)
* The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis)
* The Black Arrow (Robert Louis Stevenson)
* Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
* Ben-Hur (Lew Wallace)
* The Church Before the Watching World (Francis Schaeffer)
* The Chimes (Charles Dickens)
* A Christmas Longing (Joni Eareckson Tada)