It was difficult to decide what to include because I enjoyed and profited from reading many more books than those listed below, but here are twenty or so that I'd recommend to anyone interested in the topics the books address:
- Taking Pascal's Wager (Michael Roda): A thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Blaise Pascal's famous argument for the reasonableness of belief in God.
- Knowledge and Christian Belief (Alvin Plantinga): In the year 2000 philosopher Alvin Plantinga's ground-breaking work titled Warranted Christian Belief was published. Knowledge and Christian Belief is a slimmed down version of WCB and is much more accessible to the layman interested in the epistemology of Christian belief.
- Gunning for God (John Lennox): Lennox is a brilliant Oxford mathematician who in this book has written an excellent and witty response to the arguments of New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.
- Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel): A fascinating novel about the rise of Thomas Cranmer in the court of Henry VIII.
- Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society (R.R. Reno): Both this book and the next are excellent but very different critiques of our current cultural predicament and what could and should be done about it if one is a Christian. Reno borrows heavily from Charles Murray's highly praised study of the white lower class titled Coming Apart.
- The Benedict Option (Rod Dreher): See the previous annotation. Benedict Option created a much bigger stir than Resurrecting possibly because Dreher is a well-known writer and his prescriptions sound, at least prima facie, more radical than Reno's.
- Hidden Figures (Margot Shutterly): The story of the contribution of a number of black women to the successes of the nascent American space program.
- Reform and Conflict (Rudolph Heinze): 2017 is recognized as the 500th anniversary of the protestant reformation so I read a half dozen or so books on the topic. This one and the next three were the best.
- Martin Luther (Eric Metaxas): An outstanding, entertaining biography of one of the seminal figures in Western history. Another biography of Luther, Beyond the 95 Theses, by Stephen Nichols is also very good.
- The Reformation Experience (Eric Ives): Ives discusses the Reformation as it unfolded in England under Henry VIII and subsequently his daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Very interesting history.
- Hillbilly Elegy (J.D. Vance): Vance is a bright young lawyer who writes an amazing story of his family and the dysfunctional "hillbilly" culture out of which they, and he, came. Reading his account the reader is astonished that, given his chaotic home life and early development, he not only turned his life around but graduated from Ohio State and Yale Law School.
- Infidel (Ayaan Hirsi Ali): Ali writes an eye-opening account of her life from the time she was a young Muslim Somali until, having broken from the religious oppression she endured in Africa, she fled to The Netherlands, gained an education and was elected to Parliament. Her story should be read by anyone who believes the multicultural mantra that all cultures are somehow equally valid.
- The French Revolution and Napoleon (Charles Hazen): A spell-binding account of the 1789 revolution in France with its subsequent Terror and the rise and fall of Napoleon. Hazen's book, published in 1917, was so interesting that I plan to read it again in 2018.
- For the Glory of God (Rodney Stark): I had read this some years ago and picked it up again last year because it addresses such an interesting theme. Stark explains in this book how Christianity led to the rise of modern science, witch hunts, and the abolition of slavery. He packs a lot of fascinating historical information into all of his books and this one especially.
- The Plantagenets (Dan Jones): A very readable account of the history of the early English kings. The sequel to this book, Jones' War of the Roses, about the rise of the Tudors, was also very good.
- Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert): This and the next were two classic novels I had always wanted to read and somehow never did. Madame Bovary is the story of a self-centered woman who tries to find some meaning in her dreary life through an adulterous affair. Things turn out badly.
- Ivanhoe (Sir Walter Scott): This novel, written in the early 19th century, is a fabulous tale of knights in shining armor and heroic deeds set in the early 13th century when King John ruled England and his brother Richard was returning to claim his crown. The story did much to perpetuate the legend of Robin Hood, but the most interesting aspect to me was its depiction of the shameful attitudes toward Jews harbored by people who called themselves Christians in medieval England.