Here are some of my recommended best books. Enjoy!
If you’re looking for some of the best books to read, you’ve come to the right place. What you’ll find here is a list of the best books, as far as I’m concerned, and a little description about why I think they’re the best. At the end, you’ll also find a list from my family’s Great Books Reading List. Each year our family gets together around the holidays and enters a selection process about what books we are all going to read together for the next year. We pick one book per month. You’re welcome to join us on reading some of the best books. Enjoy!
Fantasy/Science Fiction:
1 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy/The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien – Tolkien is a master storyteller and world builder. Highly recommended
2 A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. Martin has created a gritty and incredibly detailed world with great plot lines, incredible action and intense political intrigue.
3 The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This was a great book with a wonderful story and a really unique perspective on magic. I loved it. Also, check out the sequel: The Wise Man’s Fear.
4 Dune by Frank Herbert. A classic story of politics, intrigue, adventure, and giant spice worms in an incredible intergalactic universe. The new movie is epic and cinematic but is only half of the story. is should have been a better movie though I have read it was a basis for George Lucas in the making of Star Wars.
5 Ilium & Olympos by Dan Simmons. A great retelling of the ancient civilizations of Troy and Greece with a couple of major sci-fi additions. I loved it and highly recommend it.
Fiction
1 Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Absolutely magnificent tale of the wild west and how wild it was.
2 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Wonderful tale of escape, treasure and revenge. Way better than the movie.
3 Gates of Fire (or any of the ancient world books) by Steven Pressfield. If you want an authentic look at ancient warfare and the brotherhood of soldiers, this will not disappoint.
4 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Extremely prescient and ironically relevant. We are destroyed by our entertainment. What could be a better commentary on 21st Century America?
5 The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Could have been under Fantasy, but since I didn’t include it there, I had to put it here. Classic tale.
Philosophy
1 Plato’s Complete Works by Plato. An absolute must read for readers interested in philosophy. So much wisdom and insight for the ancient philosopher that when you look at what he was thinking so long ago you might realize how much farther we all have to go.
2 Rhetoric by Aristotle. It is questionable to have Aristotle here at number two when he could easily take the first spot in this category, but the examination of rhetoric as the best available means of persuasion in any given circumstance should help us to understand how brands, politicians, advertisers, and even our friends and loved ones try to persuade us to do what they want.
3 Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. This work represents a major turn in the history of philosophy with a phenomenological investigation into the nature of Being itself. Though he was sympathetic to the Nazi cause (and that has been a problem for students of philosophy interested in his thought), his illumination of Dasein (the Being of human beings) is original and insightful. Word of caution – this is extremely dense and difficult to read.
4 Works of Isocrates. This may be debated but Isocrates gives a perspective on virtue and reflects my admiration for the rhetorical component in philosophical thought. (For a greater introduction to rhetoric see Aristotle and I discuss some aspects of it in this podcast and in this blog post).
5 Pensees by Blaise Pascal. I read this when I was in my early twenties and it so impacted me, particularly his discussion of distraction and the nature of the human being I’ve been back through it multiple times since and each time it still engages my thoughts and captures my interest.
6. Sources of the Self by Charles Taylor. An inquiry into how we make our self-identity.
Non-Fiction
There’s too much here and I will put up another post with some smaller categories but for the time being, here are my top 5 focused around media and culture:
1 Technopoly by Neil Postman. So prescient and insightful that you read it and see what we have become. I bought this book used on Amazon five years ago and happened to get a copy autographed by Neil himself (thought it was written to someone else) so I call that a bonus!
2 Alone Together by Sherry Turkle. Take a look at what is happening to us in our social interactions due to the monopolization of digital technologies. Turkle gives a warning that we must heed.
3 The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. Another excellent examination of how the internet is literally re-wiring our brains.
4 Black Ops Advertising by Mara Einstein. If you want to learn how digital marketing in the social media space works and how the internet giants are manipulating us by using our trust in our friends against us, this one is for you. Warning: You may never look at social media and blogs the same – this one included 😉
5 Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan. This is the one that started it all – “the medium is the message.” How simple, yet profound. It began a discussion of how our media extend our senses and reshape our entire being.
This is an incomplete list but it certainly represents some of the work that has deeply affected my own personal thinking and I believe will give you some incredible insight as well.
Great Books Reading List
Over the past 4 years, our family has had what we call “The Great Books Reading List.” We get together around Thanksgiving and come up (through a unique process) with a list of books – 1 book a month – that we will all read together that year. So I’m including those books here along with my recommendations on them. Please note that the recommendations and criticisms are mine and may not reflect everyone’s opinion on the books.
2019
January: War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy Not a good one to start the year off. I made it halfway through and still have it on the list to get back around to at some point. I probably won’t ever get there.
February: Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. See above.
March: Moby Dick, Herman Melville. Tough to slog through it. I won’t read it again.
April: The Republic, Plato. I loved this, but I like reading philosophy. Not for everyone.
May: The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevesky. Loved this book. There is deep thought behind the narrative. I’ll read it again.
June: The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt. Enjoyed it very much. Arendt has a lot to say and I think her perspective is more needed today.
July: The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas. See above. After 6 months of some pretty dense material, this was a huge sigh of relief. I loved it and will read it again.
August: 1984, George Orwell. Great, especially in light of our current technical society. More people should read this book now.
September: A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens. Enjoyed it. Not much else to say.
October: The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkein. Not only did I read this one, I read the whole trilogy. I will read it again several times, I’m sure. See above.
November: The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne. I didn’t get to it. I read it in high school but I can’t comment on it.
December: We didn’t have a book. I’m not sure but I think the year got away from us and to be fair, we were just going month to month at this time. We got more sophisticated in the selection process for the next year :).
2020
January: Phantastes, George MacDonald. I read that this was a book C.S. Lewis read which inspired him to write tales for children and adults. I confess, I didn’t have the same experience. Lewis, however, was a far more mature reader with a greater appreciation for literature than I am, unfortunately. It’s short and worth the time it takes to go through it.
February: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. I didn’t have high expectations, but I loved this book. Flew through it. The relational dynamics of people in that era were fascinating to experience. And it was a great story. I even went back later and watched the movie (which I probably would never have done if I hadn’t read the book.
March: King Solomon’s Mines, H. Rider Haggard. I liked this book but ultimately wasn’t truly satisfied with it. It was good, but I don’t think I would say it was great.
April: Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I loved this book. It’s dense and deep and dives into the motivation and degeneration of the human psyche. It’s long.
May: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. I liked it. Reading through the dialect can be a challenge for some, but it was an insight into an important and difficult time in our national history.
June: The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper. I really enjoyed this book and have read it twice. To me, it’s a great story, a great adventure, and a tale of great sacrifice.
July: David Copperfield, Charles Dickens. I must confess, I didn’t get to this. Heard good things and it made it to the list, but I can’t comment. Give it a try, though!
August: Dracula, Bram Stoker. It’s a classic horror tale and a gripping read. This was my second time through it and I enjoyed it as much as the first time.
September: Don Quioxte, Miguel de Cervantes. Didn’t get to this one either. From the family reviews, I don’t think I missed much.
October: The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis. Absolutely love this. I’m a big Lewis fan and I love these stories. I think they mean so much to me because I identify with the spiritual parallels found within. See above.
November: All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque. Great book. Brings to life the brutality of war and makes one wonder why there is still so much of it.
December: Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl. I really like this book, especially Frankle’s premise that the primary thing humans seek in life is meaning. The challenge is finding it when everything seems meaningless.
2021
January: Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll. It’s hard to believe that this book wasn’t written on a series of drug trips (and maybe it was), but the world of wonderland is fantastically imagined. The story is quick and the characters interesting, but I only liked it a little bit.
February: The Alchemist, Paolo Coelho. It’s a fable. It’s got some cool quotes like “When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed” and “When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” It’s a good motivator as you seek to move forward in your life journey.
March: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer. I think I can safely say that I have never been more impacted by a history than I was by this book. In it you see the basic human desire for power played out over an unsuspecting populace who let the tide of ambition and an diabolically efficient propaganda campaign run its course in their country, across the European continent, and to ultimately embroil the world in war. The parallels to aspects of political leadership, theory, strategy, and practice today on all sides of the political aisle are frightening. It’s a must read!!
April: The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad. It’s on all the lists of great books to read. I read it. It was intriguing to hear that it was the inspiration for the movie Apocalypse Now, but I wasn’t too much of a fan. Once is enough.
May: Persuasion, Jane Austen. Having loved Pride and Prejudice, I thought this would be on par. For me, it wasn’t. It was tough to get through and the infatuation I had with Austen’s other work didn’t carry over. I’m sad because I was hoping for that same experience. It just didn’t happen.
June: Les Miserables, Victor Hugo. So this thing was like 700 pages. I was interested in the story, however, I think my conscience was seared from seeing the movie adaptation of the musical. I still remember sitting in the theater, really excited to experience this thing that people have talked so much about (I had never seen the play), and hearing the cast sing every…single…line… of dialogue. What a downer. So I never read it and one of our members mentioned that there’s a lot of delving into French politics that distracted from the story. Anyway, I probably won’t be getting back to this anytime soon.
July: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. I never had to read it in High School, as many have, and I wonder why it wasn’t assigned. Anyway, it’s a great book and has such relevance in our age of fake news and censorship.
August: I Claudius, Robert Graves. I love Ancient Rome and that period of history. I got about two thirds of the way through and just got uninterested. Maybe I’ll finish it up, maybe not. Maybe that’s all you need to know about it.
September: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson. I enjoyed this book. More so, it speaks of that dual nature in all of us. A timeless and practical call to reflect on our own nature.
October: The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I learned a lot from this book. It compliments the Third Reich book well and continues the same theme – the unchecked power of ideologies played out on a populace by ambitious leaders who find themselves in positions of great power. As the cliché states, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
November: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle. I really enjoyed this book, though the climax moments of the tales resulted in too simple of solutions that seemed unsatisfying. And, in remembering them, they all seemed to be the same. It was an escape and I probably won’t read it again, though I absolutely love the movies with Robert Downey Jr. and will watch them anytime they are on TV.
December: The Hobbit: J.R.R. Tolkien. I loved it. I think Tolkien is a master of epic prose and his writing is not only poetic, but simple. That’s difficult to do. Not to mention the unlikely hero of a hobbit. I’ll read this again.
2022
January: Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis. This is a must read for any Christian to understand their faith better, and even more so for non-Christians who’s understanding of the Christian faith has been completely distorted by “Christian charlatans” and a hostile culture.
February: Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. I started it and just couldn’t do it. You have to realize that other people get to pick books on this list, so I gave it a shot (probably not a fair one, admittedly) and I won’t go back.
March: Animal Farm, George Orwell & The Time Machine, H.G. Wells. Two small books put into the same month. I loved Animal Farm and suggest everyone reads it as inoculation against the power of overcontrolling governments who redefine terms and move the goalposts to accomplish their purposes. The time machine I was less favorable about. I didn’t really care for the story and while the picture of humanity hundreds of thousands of years in the future was interesting, it was just ok for me.
April: Mao’s Last Revolution, Roderick MacFarquhar. I’m just into this one now. Really enjoying it and the final update will come soon. You can see I’m behind. Again, another commentary on unchecked power and the mystery of how a nation can turn evil on the whim of a political leader.
May: All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr.
June: Meditations, Marcus Aurelius.
July: Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
August: Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
September: The Call of the Wild, Jack London
October: Dune, Frank Herbert
November: To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
December: The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas