My Top Ten Books of 2024

     I archive my books on Goodreads. I also review each book I read. In 2024, I read 50 books totaling 20,571 pages, an average of 430 pages per book. The shortest book I read at 92 pages was C. I. Scofield's book on the Holy Spirit. The longest book I read at 1500 pages was the John R. Rice Reference Bible. Today's post contains my top ten books for the year. For those who are interested, I also maintain a recommended reading list here; it contains hundreds of recommendations spread across a couple of dozen categories.

     Enjoy.

The Treasurey of David, Volume 1, Parts One and Two, C. H. Spurgeon - As a long-time pastor, I have often sampled from these volumes in preparation for one sermon or another. But in preparing to teach an extended series from the psalms (one Sunday School lesson on each psalm) I decided to read them in their entirety, beginning to end. I have found them as rich in reality as they are in reputation. The staggering amount of content, good content, is matched only by Spurgeon's peerless ability as a wordsmith. It isn't often that I read a book/commentary on the Bible and think to myself, "Well, there isn't anything else left to say." This is one of those rare cases where I feel that way.

In the edition I have the print is tiny and the pages thin. It makes for laborious reading yet I have found myself more than amply repaid. I am quite sure that to whatever extent you read them - sampled here and there or read as I am doing straight through - you will come to the same conclusion I have.

Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson - Isaacson has done it again. He has shown us a man, and in showing us the man has shown how/why that man has changed society, and why it matters that he has changed society. Well written, as always. Mostly kept himself out of it, except for the occasional left-leaning criticism. Strikes me as fair i.e. even-handed. He praises Musk in some places; in others, he takes him to task, not personally, but historically, so to speak. The only fault I can really find in this as biography is that it was written too soon. The tale of Musk's life is not yet told. Mid-life biographies are always sketchy things.

Isaacson does an outstanding job tracing the arc of Musk's life from gritty South Africa in a broken family to Canadian immigrant to dot com millionaire to risk taking space pioneer. It is a marvelous tale, and an insightful one. You come away with a sense that you understand what makes Musk tick. It contextualizes the Musk you see in interviews and on Twitter. I know I'll never look at the guy the same again.

As for Musk. Wow. I've read biographies of all of the robber barons of the 19th century, trains, oil, banking, etc. I've read biographies of the movers and shakers of the internet era, Brin, Zuckerburg, Bezos, Thiele, etc. Musk is more impressive than any of them save Rockefeller. And he matters more than Rockefeller. I told my wife, "If Musk lived 2000 years ago, he would be on the back of an elephant leading an army conquering Rome." He risks everything. Constantly. It has produced big wins and big losses both, but more of the former b/c it is generally intelligent risk.

Musk the person/man is much less impressive. Foul mouthed. Serial adultery/practical polygamy. As horrible to work for or more than Steve Jobs. OTOH, I can't see him falling into a second juvenile childhood like Bezos is doing. He will press hard to the end, I think.

Back to the book... I think we need to read books like this b/c we need to understand the forces shaping our society. You must understand that to know where we are going next. With Musk, I feel terrified encouragement. What he has done for the cause of free speech alone is enormously important in the medium term. Much less so, with electric cars. Much more so, with space. And who knows what he will do next?

My compliments to Isaacson. He has done society a great favor to peel the mask back and show us the man.

When Pride Still Mattered, A Life of Vincent Lombardi, David Maraniss - This is my first Maraniss book, and my first bio of Lombardi. Together, they became an interesting discovery. Maraniss writes clearly here, following a mostly chronological order, but resisting the impulse to turn this into a dissection of football/football games. It isn't. Oh, he discusses both and in some detail, but this is absolutely a biography rather than a sporting history.

As a biography then this work stands or falls. And stand it does. Maraniss shows us Lombardi's neighborhood/family milieu, his education, and the influence of his church. He spends substantial time on his college career at Fordham, weaves in his marriage, and then relays his early struggles to find his footing. Then we see his coaching career, high school, West Point assistant, NFL assistant, the legendary years in Green Bay, and finally the sudden sunset in DC. Throughout, Lombardi's family plays an integral role in the book as it would have in his life.

Good biographies are measured on two things, in my mind. First, do they hold my interest? Second, do they give me a flavor of the age and a sense that I really know the man? Maraniss does both well here.

Sports biographies are not my usual forte. Glad I stepped out of my comfort zone for this one.

The Frontiersman, Allan Eckart - What a delightful discovery this book was. I've read thousands of history books. Eckert wrote history in such a way that it seems a series of connected short stories ala Louis L'Amour. And he did a staggeringly good job of it. This particular work traces the settlement of Kentucky and Ohio, and the Indian wars in which they were birthed. Eckert does this via a focus on two individuals primarily, Simon Kenton on the American side, and Tecumsah on the Indian side. In the process we see religion, warfare, technology, torture, economics, geo-politics, geography, massacre, and nature. Most of all, we see the human interest side of it all. What a generation that was, a generation of struggle and loss and triumph.

I finished it this morning. As I sit here, the superlatives that come to mind are many. I will resist the urge to spill them across the page. I read fifty books, give or take, in a typical year. Suffice it to say, it is the best book I have read so far this year. Simply superb.

Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen - As an author, Annie Jacobsen was a delightful surprise. As a book, Nuclear War: A Scenario was terrifying. I've read more books than I can count, and while I have read sadder books and deeper books and more important books, I have never read a book that scared me more than this one. In my life.

Jacobsen, who has clearly done her homework, writes a bit like the early Tom Clancy back when he was good. There are lots of acronyms, albeit explained. There is tension, then mesmerizing tension, then horrifying tension, then terror, and each of these are carefully attached to what comes before. Intellectual honesty compels me to mention that she stretches her scenario nearly to the breaking point in order in order to write it. The Soviets are really going to launch all out war even though they know the Americans know it was North Korea that struck them? Really? China is just going to throw in at the last minute because several hundred thousand of her people died on the border? Neither of those are believable to me. But all else was eminently believable, and I do not doubt her analysis of the results at all. Additionally, I think this is precisely the type of profound thought exercise national leaders should engage in, and I dearly hope they will read this book.

It is a good thing I am a Christian. That grounds me and contextualizes such fears with the sovereignty of God and the great arc of redemption in Christ. But if it were not for that, this book would give me an untreatable ulcer for the rest of my life.

What a book. Wow.

The Other Side of Calvinism, Laurence Vance - I came to this work at the tail end of a several year personal study of Calvinism. In the course of that, I read works both pro/con for intellectual integrity's sake, though I freely confess I am certainly not a Calvinist. I saved it for last because, frankly, it is massive. Took me most of a year to plow through. I'm glad I did.

Vance opens the work with an almost 200 page history of the primary players (Augustine, Calvin, Armenius) and the arc of the development of Calvinism as a doctrine. The next 400 pages are spent on a deconstruction of Calvinistic doctrine. The final 200 pages are appendices, bibliographies, footnotes, and indexes. And may I say in relation to this latter section, I don't think I have ever read a more scrupulously detailed and cited doctrinal work in my life. There are thousands of footnotes. It is one of the clear strengths of the work.

I have given it here a five star rating. The writing itself does not deserve that. Vance repeats himself in places, and in others allows his personal animosity/snark too much reign. He also functions as if more arguments for his position are better even if they aren't better. Though grammatically correct, the book could have used a strong editor. Having said that, the work still deserves a five star rating for several reasons. First, the sheer volume of work that went into it. Second, his approach includes hundreds of quotations from respected Calvinist writers to establish the truth of his claims regarding their positions. This helped me immensely, being largely ignorant of those writings for the most part. Third, he fearlessly tackles both the large and small, the forest and the trees. He discusses the overarching failures of the structure, and the apologies offered for it, but he also delves into the individual passages and words in great detail.

I have no doubt that Calvinists have a negative view of the work. That does not concern me. What does concern me, what drove me in fact, was my search to find a detailed, heavily cited defense of an anti-Calvinist position. Well, I can stop looking and so can you. This is definitely it.

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham - Adam has done it again. This is as good as his book on Chernobyl, at least. Though the scope is smaller (a tragedy vs a civilization threatening event) the approach is similar. He traces the biography of the individuals involved, how the technologies evolved, and how the culture of political and performance pressure produced man-made errors. His blow-by-blow narration of the event itself kept me on the edge of my seat even though I already knew the result. Finally, he discusses the follow-up investigations, and how the truth came to light. 

For me, this book has moved Adam up into the rarified air of the must read historian. Writing an outstanding book once is remarkable. Doing it again is awesome. My compliments, Mr. Higginbotham.

The Wide, Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, Hampton Sides - Hampton Sides has done it again, a balanced historical account written in an absolutely compelling fashion. If Sides is not on your must-read list as a modern historian I don't know who is. 

In this work, we find the dramatic account of the last voyage and death of the great British seaman and explorer, James Cook. Sides gives us some context, but largely confines the story to exactly that. We see the ships, the men, the officers, the food, the medical issues, the map issues, all of it. We travel with Cook into the Pacific, partake of the baleful delights of Tahiti, bump into the Hawaiian islands, and taste the useless Arctic quest for the Northwest Passage. Finally, we are back to Hawaii for the gripping account of Cook's reception as a god and murder thirty days later. Lessons abound, in morals and economics and religion and leadership and hubris. 

If you haven't read Sides, start. Anywhere, but this work is as good any. And keep reading. He makes history come alive. 

1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, Charles Mann - I picked up this book with some trepidation. I do not have much use for revisionist history, especially of the left-leaning woke variety. And much of what gets written about this era of American history recently is precisely that. To my surprise and gratification, this wasn't. Rather, it was a thought-provoking and absolutely balanced view of a wide variety of aspects of this era of history. 

Mann does a staggeringly good job of bringing up the original historical take, tracing that historical take along its development, and then applying modern information to that take. It isn't revisionist near as much as it is corrective - of left-leaning revisionism. Whether the discussion is disease or archaeology or economics or politics or weapons or transportation or communication or ethnology or demographics, Mann does an excellent job of showing us the Americas prior to Columbus. The picture that emerges is much more complex than our childhood textbooks showed us, and yet humble at the same time. 

Good book, and earned a rare five stars from me.