October Reading

1. The Latin Letters of C. S. Lewis - C. S. Lewis & Don Giovanni Calabria
2. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie
3. All Hallows' Eve - Charles Williams
4. The Road Not Taken and Other Early Poems - Robert Frost
5. The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle
6. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
7. The Lair of the White Worm - Bram Stoker
8. The Golden Key - George MacDonald

Fantastic Fiction

Greetings!  Happy Friday to you!
After looking over my shelves, here's some recommended reading from the fiction category.  I've placed these in alphabetical order by author's last name.

I consider the following to be Fantastic Fiction:


Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

L. Frank Baum - The Wizard of Oz

Alan Bennett - An Uncommon Reader

Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights

John Bunyan - Pilgrim's Progress

Albert Camus - The Stranger

Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales

G. K. Chesterton - Father Brown, The Flying Inn, The Ballad of the White Horse, Four Faultless Felons, The Ball and the Cross, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Manalive, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Man Who Knew Too Much

Agatha Christie - 4.50 from Paddington, Murder on the Orient Express

Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG

Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol, The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield

Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov

Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

E. M. Forster - A Room with a View

Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane

William Golding - Lord of the Flies

Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows

Roger Lancelyn Green - King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table

Graham Greene - The Power and the Glory

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm - Grimm's Fairy Tales

Ernest Hemmingway - The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises

Homer - The Illiad, The Odessey

James Howe - Bunnicula, Howliday Inn, Nighty-Nightmare, Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

Washington Irving - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle

Rachel Joyce - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Alice Kimberly - The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman

Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera

C. S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces

George MacDonald - Phantastes, Lilith, The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie

Thomas Malory - Le Morte d'Arthur

Herman Melville - Moby Dick

John Milton - Paradise Lost

Christopher Morley - Parnassus on Wheels, The Haunted Bookshop

George Orwell - Animal Farm

Ovid - Metamorphoses

Christopher Paolini - Eragon

Frank Peretti - The Visitation, The Oath, This Present Darkness, Piercing the Darkness

Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Gold-Bug

Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson & The Olympians

Barbara Robinson - The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Thomas Rockwell - How to Eat Fried Worms

J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter

Dorothy Sayers - Clouds of Witness, Striding Folly, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion

Charles M. Sheldon - In His Steps

Mary Shelley - Frankenstein

Lemony Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events

John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men

Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Bram Stoker - Dracula

J. R. R. Tolkien - Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings

Leo Tolstoy - The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Anthony Trollope - The Warden

Jules Verne - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Virgil - The Aeneid

H. G. Wells - The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau

Charles Williams - Descent into Hell, All Hallows' Eve

P. G. Wodehouse - Right Ho, Jeeves

September Reading

1. The Four Loves - C. S. Lewis
2. The Great Divorce - C. S. Lewis
3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
4. Miles of Smiles - Bruce Lansky
5. Revise Us Again - Frank Viola
6. Go Set a Watchman - Harper Lee
7. The Ultimate Fender Book - Paul Day & Dave Hunter
8. The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum
9. The Dark Tower and Other Stories - C. S. Lewis
10. The Diary of Samuel Pepys: 1662
11. Descent into Hell - Charles Williams
12. Guitar World Presents Stevie Ray Vaughan

August Reading

1. The Summer We Read Gatsby - Danielle Ganek
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
3. Thrones, Dominations - Dorothy L. Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh
4. Poor Folk - Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. The Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume One: 1660
6. The Wisdom of the Shire - Noble Smith
7. Heaven Bound: Creating a Funeral or Memorial Service for Your Pet - Paraclete Press
8. The Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume Two: 1661
9. The 40 Most Influential Christians - Daryl Aaron

July Reading

1. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
2. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemmingway
3. 4.50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie
4. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T. S. Eliot
6. 84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff
7. Playing for Pizza - John Grisham
8. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin
9. Biblical Preaching - Haddon W. Robinson
10. The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend - Katarina Bivald
11. The New City Catechism

May Reading

1. George MacDonald: An Anthology - C. S. Lewis
2. God in the Dock - C. S. Lewis
3. Living the Braveheart Life - Randall Wallace
4. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
5. The Sacred Journey - Frederick Buechner
6. Church Elders - Jeramie Rinne
7. Song of the Sun - St. Francis of Assisi
8. Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life of G. K. Chesterton - Kevin Belmonte
9. The Magician's Nephew - C. S. Lewis
10. The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien
11. Clouds of Witness - Dorothy L. Sayers
12. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
13. One for the Books - Joe Queenan
14. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam - Edward Fitzgerald
15. Right Ho, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
16. Unidentified Flying Oddball - Vic Crume

April Reading

1. 1 Peter: Message of Encouragement - John H. McClanahan
2. The NIV Application Commentary: 1 Peter - Scot McKnight
3. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
4. The Most Reluctant Convert - David C. Downing
5. C. S. Lewis: Images of His World - Douglas Gilbert & Clyde S. Kilby
6. Letters of C. S. Lewis - W. H. Lewis & Walter Hooper (editors)
7. Reading Spenser: An Introduction to The Faerie Queene - Roger Sale
8. Mere Christianity - C. S. Lewis
9. Jane Austen - Peter Leithart
10. Preparing for Easter: Fifty Devotional Readings - C. S. Lewis
11. Lilith - George MacDonald
12. Spirits in Bondage - C. S. Lewis
13. Spenser's Images of Life - C. S. Lewis with Alastair Fowler

February Reading

1. C. S. Lewis: An Apologist For Education - Louis Markos
2. Dancing on the Head of a Pen - Robert Benson
3. Striding Folly - Dorothy L. Sayers
4. C. S. Lewis At The Breakfast Table - James T. Como
5. The Silver Chair - C. S. Lewis
6. The Song of Songs - Marcia Falk
7. The Laws of Marie de France - Robert Hanning & Joan Ferrante
8. Four Quartets - T. S. Eliot
9. The Pilgrim's Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness - David Mills
10. The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library - Alice Kimberly (Cleo Coyle)
11. Letters to Heaven: Reaching Beyond the Great Divide - Calvin Miller
12. William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back - Ian Doescher
13. Cupside Down - Terry Cliett

December Reading

• An Experiment in Criticism - C. S. Lewis
• A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
• The Practice of the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence
• Clive Staples Lewis: A Dramatic Life - William Griffin
• The Southern Poets - William Lander Weber
• The Chimes - Charles Dickens
• Glorifying God: A Yearlong Collection of Classical Devotional Writings - Thomas Watson
• Holy Bible: English Standard Version
• A Severe Mercy - Sheldon Vanauken
• The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
• That Hideous Strength - C. S. Lewis
• Walking with Bilbo - Sarah Arthur
• Diary of a Jackwagon - Tim Hawkins
• C. S. Lewis, My Godfather: Letters, Photos and Recollections - Laurence Harwood

Top 20 Books Read for 2016

I should make two clarifications.  First, this is not a list of books written in 2016.  This will be obvious to most.  Second, the title of this post is greatly misleading because I have excluded all books written by C. S. Lewis and all books about C. S. Lewis that I read this year.  Just click on the links to see those posts.  OK, I should also admit that my number one book for this year is connected with C. S. Lewis.
Also, there is one particular and unique book that I do not include in a list such as this, and that is because it belongs on a plane of its own--the Bible.  If you read nothing else, read the Bible.  Read the Bible before you read anything else.  This year (as is my habit of some years now) I read through the Bible.  I chose the English Standard Version.  I try to select a different English translation to read through each year.
One other thing of note.  The final count of books read this year is 143.  This is the most I've read in a single year, and this list comes from those 143 books.
Without further ado, here is my list.

1. A Severe Mercy - Sheldon Vanauken
2. The Two Towers - J. R. R. Tolkien
3. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
4. Tremendous Trifles - G. K. Chesterton
5. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
6. Reading Between the Lines - Gene Edward Veith, Jr.
7. The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
8. The Princess and Curdie - George MacDonald
9. The Warden - Anthony Trollope
10. Dracula - Bram Stoker
11. The Quotable Chesterton - Kevin Belmonte
12. Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues - Mark Eddy Smith
13. At Home in Mitford - Jan Karon
14. Murder in the Cathedral - T. S. Eliot
15. Pymalion - George Bernard Shaw
16. Bunnicula - Deborah and James Howe
17. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
18. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Jessie L. Weston
19. The Book of the Duchess - Geoffrey Chaucer
20. Electra - Sophocles

Top Seven Books for Pastors

I read over 130 books this year.  Of those, a good portion were about Christian ministry in particular, or Christian living in general.  Here's a list of seven of those that I would definitely recommend.  Of course, this list is not limited to pastors.  All Christians would benefit from reading these books.  Blessings!











7.  Lessons from the Ladder - Neil Joiner
6.  Jesus Swagger: Break Free from Poser Christianity - Jarrid Wilson
5.  The Power of Positive Praying - John Bisagno
4.  Pastors in the Classics - Leland Ryken, Philip Ryken, and Todd Wilson
3.  The Book on Leadership - John MacArthur
2.  Who Moved My Pulpit? - Thom S. Rainer
1.  Praying the Bible - Donald S. Whitney