This is my list of the top 10 books that I read in 2020.
Disclaimer: Please note that I am not endorsing all decisions or opinions of the authors by including them in this list.
1. The Great Divorce – C.S. Lewis
The Great Divorce is best book that I read in 2020. This book gave me a picture of what it could look like to exist as an eternal being. In this book the narrator visits Hell and finds that the doors are locked from the inside. People from Heaven come down and try to convince the people in Hell to leave. C.S. Lewis gives tremendous insight in this book about the nature of human hope, desire, and the ultimate love in which each human heart seeks to find rest.
Quote from the book:
…it begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticizing it. And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.
2. The Horse and His Boy – C.S. Lewis
This is one of my all-time favorite books. I have read this book several times, but it was especially important reading in 2020 because I wrote a literary analysis of this book for my undergraduate honors research project for the Jane Stephens Honors Program at Southeast Missouri State University. This, my favorite of the Narnia books, is a great adventure story that also gives a picture of God’s providence and comfort throughout the troubles and dangers of life.
Quote from the book:
“Myself,” said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again “Myself,” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.
Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too.
3. Prayer – Tim Keller
I found this book quite difficult to read, and not always extremely compelling. However, I have started a consistent daily time of prayer by applying what I learned from this book. Dr. Keller is very thorough in his research and bibliography. He not only gives his own personal opinion on prayer, but he also offers a comprehensive view on many Christian teachings on prayer.
Additionally, I want to reference Dr. Tim Keller’s sermons on prayer which can be found via podcast at Gospel in Life. These sermons were also informative and helpful, especially after I had finished reading the book and needed encouragement in continuing a habit of daily prayer.
Quote from the book:
Praying is rowing, and sometimes it is like rowing in the dark – you won’t feel that you are making any progress at all. Yet you are, and when the winds rise again, and they surely will, you will sail again before them.
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien
Reading The Lord of the Rings this year was a really fun experience. I had previously read the series when I was in the fourth grader. At that time, I found the story very epic, but felt like the books were long and a bit dull. Rereading the series as an adult, I loved Tolkien’s style and didn’t find it dull or too long. His style, characters, story, and the overarching world of Middle-Earth gives the reader an incredible feeling of heroism in the face of hopelessness.
Quote from the book:
Pity filled his heart and great wonder, and suddenly the slow-kindled courage of his race awoke. He clenched his hand. She should not die, so fair, so desperate! At least she should not die alone, unaided.
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien
I debated whether to put The Two Towers or the Return of the King as the higher of the two The Lord of the Rings books in this list. Both are excellent and choosing The Return of the King over The Two Towers is no slight on this volume. The Two Towers has the iconic scene of the chase of the three hunters, one of my favorite scenes from the whole series. As I said previously, rereading this series as an adult was great and they are so much better than I remembered.
Quote from the book:
There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark. [Aragorn]
6. Who is This Man – John Ortberg
This book was another that I reread this year. Despite his recent mistakes and controversy, I have been and continue to be a fan of John Ortberg’s writing. This book in particular examines the influence that the life of Jesus of Nazareth has had on the history of the world and asks the reader to think on the question, “Who is this man?”
Quote from the book:
Maybe his [Jesus] place in history is a remarkable accident. But maybe it isn’t.
7. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C.S. Lewis
This is my second favorite of The Chronicles of Narnia books, and it is the fifth in the series. This book has some of my favorite images from the world of Narnia, including the Dufflepuds, Eustace as a dragon, and the picture in the bedroom. C.S. Lewis had an incredible ability to showcase truths in ways that are simple to understand for both adults and children.
Quote from the book:
Shall I ever be able to read that story again, the one I couldn’t remember? Will you tell it to me, Aslan? Oh do, do, do. [Lucy Pevensie]
Indeed, yes, I will tell it to you for years and years. [Aslan]
8. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
This book is a classic. I read it for the first-time last Christmas, but I enjoyed it so much that I had to read it again this Christmas season. Dickens’ story is short, but extremely moving. Scrooge is first a hateful character, then nearly a sympathetic one, and finally a transformed one. Perhaps I’m just too sentimental, but I feel a tremendous warmth and Christmas cheer as Scrooge becomes a man who “knew how to keep Christmas well.”
Quote from the book:
He told me, coming home, that he hoped that people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see. [Bob Cratchit speaking of Tiny Tim]
9. The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis
Again, a C.S. Lewis classic appears on my list. This book is insightful, funny, and convicting all at once. One criticism of this book that I have heard is that it seems to push a platonic view that God and the devils are only concerned with the state of a person’s soul and not concerned with what is going on in the world. Despite this criticism, I highly recommend reading this book and dwelling on what it shows.
Quote from the book:
When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.
10. Seven Women – Eric Metaxes
This is best biography that I read this year. It tells the stories of seven great women from the past 600 years: Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Saint Maria of Paris, Corrie ten Boom, Rosa Parks, and Mother Teresa. Metaxes does not present an unbiased historical view of these women. However, he does present the stories of these women in a way that is compelling and inspiring.
Quote from the book:
Mother Teresa was considered a saint because she was seen to personify an ideal: to love God, and to love one’s neighbor. And yet, what she did was so simple that each one of us can do it – in fact, must do it, if we are to obey the command of Christ: to feed the hungry, care for the sick, invite the stranger in, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, and quench the thirst of those who simply need a cup of water.
Caleb Friedrich 