Tales of Persia: Missionary Stories from Islamic Iran by William McElwee Miller. Mr. Miller spent forty-five years as a missionary to the Muslim people of Persia, now called Iran. These stories of God’s revealing of His son to people in Iran are written as devotional narratives to be read aloud to children, but I would like to read them myself.

Susan Creek by Douglas Wilson. “Set during The Great Awakening.” I am planning to have Jonathan Edwards as my historical mentor this year, so a book set during this time period makes sense.

John Treegate’s Musket by Leonard Wibberley.

Peter Treegate’s War by Leonard Wibberley.

Jamie Ireland, Freedom’s Champion by William N. McElrath.

Kidnapped: The Adventures of David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr: their lives, their times, their duel by Anna Erskine Crouse. Because of Hamilton, the musical, of course.

A Burning & Shining Light: The Life & Ministry of David Brainerd by Denise C. Stubbs. Jonathan Edwards edited and compiled missionary David Brainerd’s diary along with biographical notes after the missionary’s death.

In Search of Honor by Donalynn Hess. French revolution.

In Mozart’s Shadow by Carolyn Meyer. Historical fiction about Mozart’s sister, Nannerl.

Evangeline and the Acadians by Robert Tallant. A Landmark history book.

The Slave Who Freed Haiti: The Story of Toussaint Louverture by Katherine Scherman. A Landmark history book.

The Prisoners of September by Leon Garfield. French revolution historical fiction.

These books from this list by Tony Reinke are all intriguing for one reason or another:

Exalting Jesus in Hebrews by Albert Mohler. CCEC (March, 2017). The Bible study group I’m in will be studying Hebrews this spring and summer, so this book comes at just the right time.

The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together by Jared Wilson. (May, 2017).

Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk by Michelle DeRusha. (January, 2017).

Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father by Thomas Kidd. (May, 2017).

Then, because I plan to make a study of the life and works of Jonathan Edwards in 2017, the following books are on my TBR list:

A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life by John Piper.

Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography by Iain H. Murray.

Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George M. Marsden.

God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards by John Piper.

Of course, in addition to these, I hope I’ll be reading at least some of Edwards’ actual sermons and treatises.

And these are 2016 and even older titles that I didn’t get around to reading when they were new, but I want to read now:
None Like Him: 10 Ways God is Different From Us (And Why That’s a Good Thing) by Jen Wilkin.

Enjoy: Finding the Freedom to Delight Daily in God’s Good Gifts by Trillia Newbell.

A Wind in the House of Islam by David Garrison.

“My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”
~Donald J. Trump, Trump: The Art of the Deal.

“To have power without the proper vision of how to use it makes one blind. Greed makes one blind. Fear makes one blind. It is difficult to see when you walk in darkness.” ~Behind the Canvas by Alexander Vance.

“We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us: we laugh.
But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond; and on these faces there is no smile.” ~The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc.

“You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

“Disgusted alike at the facility with which the sovereign of a warlike nation could resign his people and his crown into the hands of a treacherous invader, and at the pusillanimity of the nobles who had ratified the sacrifice, William Wallace retired to the glen of Ellerslie.” ~The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter.

“It is not a question of God ‘sending us’ to hell. In each of us there is something growing that will BE Hell unless it is nipped in the bud.” ~C.S. Lewis

“Hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.” ~Tim Keller, The Reason for God.

“If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe. The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits.” ~GK Chesterton

“There are only two kinds of people we can call reasonable: either those who serve God with their whole heart because they know him, or those who search after him with all their heart because they do not know him.” ~Blaise Pascal

“Being happy in God and living righteously tastes far better for far longer than sin does. When my hunger and thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive. I say no to immorality not because I hate pleasure but because I want the enduring pleasure found in Christ.”
~Randy Alcorn, Happiness

“Remember: the most perfect machinery of government will not keep us as a nation from destruction if there is not within us a soul. No abounding material prosperity shall avail us if our spiritual senses atrophy. Do justice and fight valiantly against those that stand for the reign of Molech and Beelzebub on this earth. Love mercy; treat your enemies well, succor the afflicted; treat every woman as if she were your own sister; care for the little children; and be tender to the old and helpless. Walk humbly; You will do so if you study the life and teaching of the Savior, walking in His steps.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

“And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.” ~Abraham Lincoln, October 1863.

For the Glory: Eric Liddell’s Journey from Olympic Champion to Modern Martyr by Duncan Hamilton. The best nonfiction book I read in 2016, and maybe the best book of any kind from 2016. Mr. Liddell’s life, told from a mostly secular perspective, but wth great respect and appreciation for his faith and his God-given goodness and perseverance, is an inspiring read. I was deeply moved to read about what God can and will do with one man who determines to follow Him.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. More disturbing than inspiring, although the book had its inspirational moments. It’s hard to believe that injustices like those chronicled in this book

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. This book and the next one on this list, about ultra-marathons and ultra-marathoners, are odd picks for a sedentary 59 year old reader, but I’m always interested in being introduced to worlds and communities that are foreign to me. The world of ultra-marathon running was certainly that: foreign and fascinating.

Running Man by Charlie Engle.

Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar Mazzeo. Wonderful biography of a Polish heroine.

How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It by Arthur Herman.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller.

Happiness by Randy Alcorn. Everything you ever wanted to know about a Biblical perspective on joy and happiness, including quotes from every conceivable writer who ever wrote anything about happiness and the pursuit thereof.

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book by Wendy Welch. Almost every reader has had the thought, even if only a passing thought, of how fun it would be to own a bookstore. This book tells all about the pitfalls and perils of running a bookstore while still managing to make it sound like fun.

Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis by Abigail Santamaria. I’ll admit that I was somewhat disillusioned with Ms. Davidson-Lewis who seems to have been exactly what many of C.S. Lewis’s friends and associates thought she was: a woman who was out to seduce and marry Mr. Lewis before she was even divorced from her first husband. And she was deeply involved with Scientology, of all things, in her younger pre-Lewis days. But still, she seems to have been a complicated and multi-faceted woman, and the love of Lewis’s life. So I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill: Growing Up Billy Cody in Bleeding Kansas by Andrea Warren. Excellent children’s biography of the great showman, illuminating Bill Cody’s life as well as the times he lived in.

The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Phillip Zaleski. In this one, I was disillusioned, or enlightened, mostly about the strange life and theology and philosophy of Mr. Charles Williams, who seems to have been a Christian and at the same time a very confused and odd man. Tolkien, Williams, Barfield, and the two Lewises, Jack and Warnie, were a motley crew, and according to this telling of the story, Jack (C.S.) Lewis was the only thread that held them together as the Inklings.

The desk and sled were too big to go into any stocking, so they were wrapped in paper and hung beneath the other things. It was ten o’clock before all was done, and Papa and Aunt Izzie went away. Katy lay a long time watching the queer shapes of the stocking-legs as they dangled in the firelight. Then she fell asleep.

It seemed only a minute, before something touched her and woke her up. Behold, it was day-time, and there was Philly in his night-gown, climbing up on the bed to kiss her! The rest of the children, half dressed, were dancing about with their stockings in their hands.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” they cried. “Oh, Katy, such beautiful, beautiful things!”

“Oh!” shrieked Elsie, who at that moment spied her desk, “Santa Claus did bring it, after all! Why, it’s got ‘from Katy’ written on it! Oh, Katy, it’s so sweet, and I’m so happy.” and Elsie hugged Katy, and sobbed for pleasure.

But what was that strange thing beside the bed? Katy stared, and rubbed her eyes. It certainly had not been there when she went to sleep. How had it come?

It was a little evergreen tree planted in a red flower-pot. The pot had stripes of gilt paper stuck on it, and gilt stars and crosses, which made it look very gay. The boughs of the tree were hung with oranges, and nuts, and shiny red apples, and pop-corn balls, and strings of bright berries. There were also a number of little packages tied with blue and crimson ribbon, and altogether the tree looked so pretty, that Katy gave a cry of delighted surprise.

“It’s a Christmas-tree for you, because you’re sick, you know!” said the children, all trying to hug her at once.

“We made it ourselves,” said Dorry, hopping about on one foot; “I pasted the black stars on the pot.”

“And I popped the corn!” cried Philly.

“Do you like it?” asked Elsie, cuddling close to Katy. “That’s my present– that one tied with a green ribbon. I wish it was nicer! Don’t you want to open’em right away?”

~What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, aka Sarah Chauncey Woolsey.

The concept of a boy whose life somehow turns into a video game that he must then figure out and master was a good one. The execution was . . . meh.

I just never did understand the rules of the game or where it came from. The story/day kept morphing from one game into another: Tetris, Donkey Kong, other games that I didn’t get the references to. Maybe that lack of understanding is due to the fact that I’m not a gamer. Bryan Biggins just wakes up to find himself inside a video game nightmare. He’s in the game without having chosen to play. And he doesn’t understand the rules. And nobody else at home or at his school or in his real life seems to notice the weirdness that is the game going on around them. Except when they do notice.

That’s the first problem. Some of Bryan’s teachers and friends are part of the game. There’s a hall monitor who is normally a nice person, but who begins to act like a video game villain on this particular day. Others see the game going on, but act as if it’s normal. Others don’t think it’s normal at all, or at least the way Bryan is acting is not normal. A few of the teachers are particularly mean, even sadistic, as they send Bryan on “missions” and manipulate his score in the game. Or maybe they don’t really control the scoring at all.

And Bryan himself does weird stuff. He decides that running on foot across a street with heavy traffic with his girl-he-wishes-were-his-girlfriend would be a good way to score points in the game. So he pulls her across, endangering her life. Really? These are real cars, real traffic, but Bryan treats it as a game. (I’m told this is an element in the 80’s(?) video game, Frogger?)

Anyway, Insert Coin to Continue is a classic video gamer’s dream. Since I’m not a classic video gamer, I didn’t quite get it.