Oceans Never Fill

I love reading, and I find it difficult to ever choose a single, or even top five, favorite book. So, I’m making no attempt to limit my list. These are books that have been instrumental in shaping my worldview, or I’ve found them beautiful and thought-provoking. Read widely, read about things you love, read about things you know nothing about, read things you agree with, read things you don’t agree with. 

“Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors” 
C.S. Lewis

Literature

The Brothers Karamazov, By Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Gulag Archipelago, By Alexandr Solzhenitzn

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy By J.R.R. Tolkien

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Little Women, By Louisa May Alcott

Silence By Shusaku Endo

The Winter of our Discontent By John Steinbeck

For Whom the Bell Tolls By Ernest Hemingway

Poetry

Slavery: A Poem, By Hannah More

The Four Quartets, By T.S. Eliot

The Age of Anxiety, By W.H. Auden

Modern Novels

The Hunger Games Trilogy and Prequel, By Suzanne Collins

All the Light We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr

History/Biography

They Thought They Were Free, By Milton Mayer

The Sea Wolves, By Lars Brownworth

A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael By Elisabeth Elliot

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot By Ellen Vaughn

Faith/Christian Living

Mere Christianity, By C.S. Lewis

Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, By Frederick Buechner

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert By Rosaria Butterfield

Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies By Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, By Tony Reinke

The Gospel Comes with a Housekey, By Rosaria Butterfield

Life Together By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Confessions By St. Augustine

The Spirit Speaks to the Churches Expository Series, General Editor Kent Hughs

Revelation: A Shorter Commentary by G.K. Beale

Ethics/Philosophy/Womanhood/Racism

Ethics, By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What’s Wrong with the World, By G.K. Chesterton

Bloodlines By John Piper

The Twilight of Atheism, By Alister McGrath

Fear and Trembling By Soren Kierkegaard

Let Me Be a Woman, By Elisabeth Elliot

(A)Typical Woman, By Abigail Dodds

Jesus and the Feminists By Margaret Elizabeth Kostenberger

What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality By Kevin DeYoung

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self By Carl Trueman

Marriage

A Wedding Sermon From Prison, By Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Found in Letters and Papers from Prison)

This Momentary Marriage, By John Piper

Parenting

Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family By Paul David Tripp

Give Them Grace, By Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson

The Read-Aloud Family, By Sarah Mackenzie

Books and Ideas, By Charlotte Mason

Children’s Books 

Fool Moon Rising, By T. Lively Fluharty

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread By Kate DiCamillo

The Wingfeather Saga, By Andrew Peterson

The Mysterious Benedict Society, By Carson Ellis

The Phantom Tollbooth By Norton Juster

The Wind in the Willows By Kenneth Graham

The Chronicles of Narnia By C.S. Lewis