I love to read. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

Meditation and Communion with God: Contemplating Scripture in an Age of Distraction by John Jefferson Davis. Davis’ aim in Meditation and Communion with God is laudable: restore biblical meditation to a healthy place in the Christian life. To do that he sets out to prove how meditation on God’s word—in faith—is nothing less than real communion with the triune God. His theological proof rests on the nature of our God as Trinity, the reality of inaugurated eschatology, and the vitality of our union with Christ. I find his arguments winsome and unassailable in their biblical foundation. Readers looking for a rich theological meditation for contemplating Scripture would be wise to turn to Davis’ book. Beware, however; this is not breezy reed. It’s full of philosophical and scientific discourses and has, somewhat surprisingly, only one chapter on the actual practice of meditating on God’s word.

George Müller of Bristol and His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God by Arthur Pierson. A prominent pulpiteer in the 19th century, a trailblazer in the Scofield Bible, and successor to Spurgeon at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Arthur Pierson was also a friend of George Müller. Published in 1899 this book recounts the life of Müller, with particular attention to his life of prayer. And what a life it was! Müller is rightly remembered as a giant of prayer. Prayer consumed his life and was his delight. Pierson says, “If a consecrated human life is an example used by God to teach us the philosophy of holy living, then this man was meant to show us how prayer, offered in simple faith, has power with God.” It’s always challenging to one’s own prayer life to read about Müller’s, and this book stirred me afresh. There were also some fascinating vignettes Pierson offered, such as how Müller turned him from postmillenialism to dispensational premillenialism.

Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating. An influential tome in the realm of “contemplative prayer,” Open Mind, Open Heart is Father Keating’s most popular and accessible book on Centering Prayer. What is “centering prayer?” Keating answers, “Centering prayer is awakening to the gift of contemplation.” Essentially, it is a technique of letting go of one’s thoughts, emotions, and inhibitions in order to experience “interior transformation” and “divine union” with God. It’s all very mystical and spiritual, but in the end it sure seems like little more than a Catholic version of transcendental meditation. Unless you have to read this book for a doctoral seminar on “20th Century Spirituality” you really ought not bother with this one.

Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke. When I see a publisher announce a story “connecting a fateful encounter with Bonnie and Clyde to heroic acts at the Battle of the Bulge and finally to the high-stakes gambles and cutthroat players who ushered in the dawn of the American oil industry,” I’m immediately hooked. Especially when the great James Lee Burke is the one doing the telling. The narrative is moving, the tension is tight, the history is fascinating, and the setting is grand. Burke’s sense of place is masterful and his prose often majestic. This is a Novel as Big as Texas—and I loved every bit of it.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Every so often I hear about some debut work of fiction storming up the best-seller lists, generating much conversation, and can’t resist putting my literary feet into the water. The Girl on the Train is smash hit strikingly familiar in style to Flynn’s Gone Girl, but one that still manages to stand on its own merits. The plot line is quite dour on the whole, but oh my! does Hawkins grip and enthrall. She grabs your attention from the start and relentlessly advances her tale with surprises at every turn. Like many immediate hits, some will loathe The Girl on the Train and others will devour it. I found myself absorbed for two late night readings; does that qualify as devouring?

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