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One Sentence Reviews of the Best Reads of 2014

Life is short. Read fast. The following books were the best ones I read all year from each of my reading categories.

Professional Development

Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind by Gerald GraffClueless

I teach through They Say, I Say, a writing text by the same author, and this book provides the background for how and why rhetoric works, in addition to why we’re teaching it all wrong in school.


Fiction

Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami

Dance

In this story, we follow an interesting, easy-going protagonist searching for answers while absorbing Murakami’s metacommentary on capitalism and consumerism.


Non-Fiction

The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life by Armand Nicholi

Question

Freud and C.S. Lewis are a strange combination and at times, the comparisons are stretched a little thin, but they have far more in common than most realize and this book does an excellent job of articulating that.


Classic

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein

After revisitng this text for the first time since high school, I was pretty surprised when I learned how much Milton’s Paradise Lost influenced the monster, a reference completely lost on my high school mind.


Faith

Eden and Afterward: A Mockinbird Guide to Genesis by William McDavid

Eden

This book examines compelling literary aspects of scripture and “traces the first notes of the songs of grace which plays throughout the entire bible,” according to the Goodreads review.


Parenting

Brain Rules for Baby by John MedinaBrain Rules for Baby

This book allows you to understand your baby’s brain development all the way from pregnancy to age 5 to see what small changes you might make to help cultivate a creative, kind, and socially astute young person.


Biography

C.S. Lewis: A Life, Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet by Alister McGrath

CSLewis

This biography is a full picture of the man behind the fantastic stories and important philosophical contributions to the Christian faith.


Children

Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker Rees

Giraffes

A fun-filled jungle dance overwhelms Gerald, the clumsy Giraffe, until the surprise ending that not a single jungle animal ever saw coming.


Time Management

What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matthew Perman

What's Best Next

This book provides a healthy critique of most time management and goal setting techniques that have gained the most traction without bashing them and while introducing a healthy new approach to getting things done.

About The Author

12 thoughts on “One Sentence Reviews of the Best Reads of 2014”

  1. Props to you for having 2 books concerning C.S. Lewis on here! And I love “Giraffes Can’t Dance” as well! I read “The Question of God” for one of my classes this semester and was so fascinated by it; great read.

    1. I agree! The Question of God was really interesting. Lewis and Freud have so much more in common than one would think and Freud was extremely conservative despite the way he is always portrayed regarding sex. What kind of class assigned that text?

    2. My Speculative Mind class (it’s a general ed. at my college). We talked a lot about different worldviews and applied them to topics like marriage, abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality (to name a few).

    1. If I had to choose one (this was so hard to do), I would probably say Eden and Afterward. No other book stayed with me quite as long as this one. It focused on the book of Genesis, but it caused me to look a littler differently at all of scripture. Thanks for reading! Let me know if you check out any of these books.

  2. Pingback: One Sentence Reviews of the Best Reads of 2015 – Book Oblivion

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