My Reading in 2023
Well that’s a wrap folks, 2023 was my most prolific year of reading. The first time I started and finished a book was my sophomore year in college. Over this last year, I read 100 books, a best for me by far.
I track my books on Good Reads. Their records indicate my 100 books totaled 38,460 pages. My longest book, the Grace and Truth Study Bible topped at 7,829 pages. The shortest was just 40, an outlier for brevity. If you remove the Bible from my page count, the average book I read this last year was 309 pages.
If you look at my books, you’ll see I read all of the Joe Pickett series by C.J. Box. There is one new book in the series that I’ll get to in 2024. Joe Picket is a Wyoming Game Warden. The series mixes nature and crime as Joe Picket saves the day from poachers and bandits.
For Christian books, there are three that stood out to me. First, Keeping the Heart by John Flavel was given to me at a pastoral counseling retreat. It was thoroughly heart prodding and uplifting. Francis Grimke’s book Meditations on Preaching are notes from his larger preaching work. Again, it is a shorter book with no wasted spaces. The paragraphs are those that pack a punch. I read it slowly and devotionally. It was challenging and encouraging to think of the task of preaching sermons and the discipline of listening to sermons. The third book to highlight was Philip Keller’s A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Keller is a shepherd and lay pastor who took the different stanzas of the Psalm and brought it to life with his real world examples.
I didn’t read any bad books this year. Some are better than others. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out and ask me. If you want to track your books on GoodReads, add me as a friend! I don’t plan on reading so many books in 2024. I try and set a goal of 52 a year. Any more than that is just a bonus.
Here is a link to my GoodReads Year End Wrap up: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2023/20776017