Could These Be The BEST Books of 2024? | Room For Nuance

Room for Nuance Podcast Introduction and Reading Habits

All right, we are back with another episode of the Room for Nuance podcast. I'm here with Will Stevenson.

Hi, Will. Hi, Sean.

Will, true or false, you knew you were recording this episode 10 minutes ago.

That is true.

11 minutes ago?

Yeah, probably close.

Yeah.

15 minutes ago.

No.

You did not know.

No.

And why are you here again?

That's a deep question.

It really is, actually. Let me ask you this. Do you wanna be here?

Oh, yeah, I wanna be here. I love my pastor and Sean DeMars, and I'm really excited to talk about books with you.

Books, okay. Because that's what we're talking about today.

That's what we're doing.

This is the Sean's Favorite Books of 2024 episode. And again, you're here because

Because I wanna talk to you about the books you've been reading.

And you really want that.

Yeah, and you allowed me to.

Wow, man.

So that's really cool.

This is really great. Okay, well, let's get started. So, Will, how many books do you read a year, do you think?

Oh, I'm gonna guess, on average, probably three a month.

So, 36.

Yeah.

That sounds probably about right.

Three is the math. Okay, that's

Three times 12.

Yeah, yeah.

And are you a fast reader, slow reader, medium reader?

Probably medium towards the slow end. I'm not in a rush.

But good depth, good comprehension, I think, with your reading.

I hope so.

You're the kind of guy, when I've given you stuff to read, and you come back and sort of regurgitate it back to me, I'm like, oh, you actually really understand.

Right.

Even when it's some pretty complex stuff.

Good.

I process out loud, so that's probably me figuring it out on the spot.

Oh, okay. So that's good.

I'm the opposite. I read a lot, but nothing really sticks.

Right.

When something does stick, it sticks really well.

Yeah.

Abraham Lincoln said this. He said that his mind was like steel, in the sense that it was really hard to etch something onto the metal, but once it was there, it was there for good.

Yeah.

So I make up for lack of comprehension with volume.

Something good might stick.

Throw all the noodles against the wall.

That's right.

You know, kind of a thing.

Okay.

So now I was asking you how many books you read, so I could dunk on you with my answer.

Sean, how many books do you think you read a year?

A few more than what you read.

A few.

Yeah.

But so what I do is I have a list. Every book that I read goes on the list, and then it receives a ranking. And this is not like, you know, I'm not a lit major.

Right.

You know, this is not some super complicated algorithm. You know, how clear was the prose? You know, how succinct were the arguments? It's really just how the book affected me. Did I like the book? Did I not like the book?

It's a little more complicated than that, but so my best books are like out of the many books that I read this year.

You gotta tell us how many.

I don't have to. I think now it's even better that I don't tell you.

So the thousands of books you read this year.

That's right. Or the like dozen.

Okay.

Yeah.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, so the system is very simple. If I liked the book a lot, like if I really liked it or really found it useful, it gets a bold and an underline in my Word document.

All right.

If I liked the book, fine.

It was good.

It was useful, but I didn't love it. I'm not over the moon. I'm not gonna recommend it to someone. I'm not gonna come back to it.

Yeah.

It's just a bold.

But not just an underline.

There's no underline, just a bold.

Right.

And if I don't particularly care for the book, it's just kind of whatever. It's just, I just put in the list, no bold.

Right, or no underline.

No underline.

Yeah.

And there's actually another category.

Okay.

If the book was bad enough that I didn't finish it, a DNF, if you will, I put two asterisks. Did I say that right?

Yeah.

Are there some that you don't finish that are still good that you would bold and or bold underline?

Oh, good question.

No. Yeah.

If it's good, I'm finishing it.

Yeah.

These are books that like, there's something in me that says, if I start a book, I need to finish it. But life is short of the reading of books. There is no end. So like, it may even be like, I'll get a third of the way through the book, but I won't put it on the list.

Yeah.

I just spit on you.

No.

For the viewers at home, I totally just hocked a loogie in Will's face. I, yeah. If I don't read at least half of it, it's not going to go on the list. But these are the books that like, okay, I know I should read this or I should want to read this, or there's just enough helpful stuff in here that I'm going to keep going, or it's just intriguing enough that I'm going to keep going.

But if I get past the halfway point and I'm just dying on the vine, trying to read this book, I'm just going to stop it because there's so many other good books. I'm just going to move on. But I read at least half of it.

So it's going on the list.

Yeah.

Now of the books that I read this year.

Yes.

How many?

Thousands.

Thousands. I would say that there are probably between three and five double asterisk books, did not finish books, that made their way onto the list.

Oh, only three or five.

Only three to five.

Yeah.

I try to, in my reading habits, which I think includes figuring out which books to read, I try to be a little more discerning. So I'm not just wasting time and talent and treasure, very little talent, but time and treasure on bad books.

So like the chess puzzle book that you're working through, you went ahead and blasted that one?

Is that a thing?

Oh yeah.

Oh, okay.

Oh, they publish them.

Okay.

Now this list also does not include all the reading and commentaries that I do for sermon prep. Although it has in the past. If I've made my way all the way through a commentary, it's going to go there.

But like, I've been looking at Tom Schreiner's commentary on Romans as I'm preaching through it. That's not, it's not going to be on the list.

Some of these, maybe even many of these are audible.

Is that right?

That's right. Yes.

That counts.

I think it counts. Do you think it counts?

I think it counts.

Are you being honest?

I'm being honest.

You're not just saying that because I'm your boss.

Yeah.

After we leave here, I'm going to say it doesn't count, but no, it totally counts. You're obviously sitting there. You're listening to someone's thoughts. You're thinking through it. That's the whole point.

I mean, media matters. It's not irrelevant at all.

Thanks, Neil Postman.

Yeah, that's right. But yeah, you're reading the book.

Yeah.

I actually think some books have been brought to life in a very fantastic way that makes them even better on Audible. I'm reading this book, listening actually, by Doris Kearns Goodwin on three different leaders.

And what's interesting is that they're all readers, but Franklin Roosevelt was, he said like he had to read a book out loud and he liked to have books read to him. And he liked to read books to other people.

And like reading a book without hearing it at all, he just found it incomprehensible.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

So I'm about half and half these days.

Sitting down reading versus Audible.

There are certain books, I just don't think you can do on Audible.

Right.

Maybe you can. Maybe Luke can.

I'm not a good Audible guy. Luke is for sure.

Fiction is good on Audible. If you have a really high quality narrator, books can be brought to life. But like, I just can't do John Piper on Audible.

Right.

You know, I got to look at the book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to listen to him preach it, you know what I'm saying?

No pun intended, look at the book.

Oh, right, hey, I see what you did there.

Yeah, if he would read his own books.

Just preach on them.

Oh, dude.

Just go to the sermons.

Yeah, just go to the, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like the, you know, the 21 Servants of Joy. Well, I've listened to all those. I can't go back and read the book now. I just need to go listen to them, do the Adoniram Judson one again, you know?

Ben Sasse on Prolonged Adolescence and the Vanishing American Adult

Okay, so let's get into the books. These books that we're going to talk about, I don't know how many there are. Can I count them very quickly? There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven per row. Seven, 14, 21, 28, 35.

Great.

There's like 42, maybe a little bit less, 40 books.

I'm going to guess these are bold and underlined.

These are the bold and underlined ones. These are the ones that were my favorite of the year. Okay, let's start with Ben Sass. Do you know who Ben Sass is?

Man, I know the name.

So Ben Sass is a U .S. Senator.

Yes, he is.

He's from like Nebraska or something like that. He's been featured on like the Gospel Coalition and stuff. I don't know if he's actually writing these books. I think he is. He's an intellectual. Oh, wait, he actually went to go be like the provost of a college or president of a college or something.

Yeah.

So he can write books.

Yeah.

That's what you're trying to, yeah.

That's right. I don't think he needs a ghostwriter to write this book. The title of this book is, being pulled up as we speak, The Vanishing American Adult.

Okay.

Very good.

He's just talking about, you know, how we live in this prolonged adolescence. And he's a good, clear writer. He has theological convictions as he writes. He's writing from a Christian worldview.

Yeah.

All around. Good, easy read.

Great.

Enjoyable. You don't have to have anything to say about this.

Yeah.

And if you do end up having something to say, just jump right in.

Yeah.

Now this one's interesting. This is a little novella. You know what the difference between a novel and a novella is?

It's a little novel.

I think so.

Yeah.

Maybe is that like Italian or something?

Sure. Sure.

By Michael, I hope I'm pronouncing his name right, Spiegel. S, it's like S-V-I-G-E-L.

Okay.

It's called the AI Theist. Okay. You see what he's doing there?

I do.

It's a play on the word.

AI and theist and atheist.

There it is. This is a book about what happens if an AI machine, supercomputer, whatever, through its high level learning, comes to the conclusion that actually Christianity is true. Which sounds like the kitschiest, like evangelical.

But if it is truly a logical machine.

You know, this book, I think, was my biggest surprise of 2024. I don't even remember why I decided to check it out. Maybe it was because it was like $2 on Kindle or something like that. But other than like a few editorial things that I didn't, I kind of struggle with, and I tried not to throw the baby out of the bath while they're water in the first chapter.

The writing is very good. It's clear, it's persuasive, it's engaging, it's entertaining. And it just ended up being a really fun read.

Yeah.

Is it not technical much?

It's just technical enough to let you know that this author actually knows a lot about AI and he knows a lot about philosophy and a lot about apologetics.

Yeah.

And it's character driven, good protagonists, good antagonists, you know. And it's not so long that he's beaten a dead horse, you know, he kind of gets it done and gets you out of there. When I got done, I thought, oh, that was like one of the funnest reads that I just, I didn't see coming.

Yeah, very cool.

Later in the year, he came out with AI Theist 2 .0.

Wow.

Self-published, by the way.

Sequels are always better, so.

Now for our viewers at home, Will is employing a rhetorical device called Sarcasm.

Right, because they're usually not.

Because they're usually not, that's right. And that is also true in this case.

Okay.

It is not better and it is not as good.

Right.

But it is still very good.

Still bold and underlined.

Still bold and underlined, that's how much I enjoyed it. If he came out with an AI Theist 3 .0, you know what it reminds me of? What's that, The Quiet Place?

Yeah.

The Quiet Place came out that movie, it was very original, very powerful, very well done. The second one was also good, but less good by about 15.

Shouldn't have made it, but it was good.

I mean, the money's there, brother.

You gotta do it.

And that's probably what Michael's thinking, the money's there.

Yeah, self-publishing.

Yeah.

But it was good, less good by like maybe 15%. And then the next one probably will not be anywhere near as good, but I'm a chump and I'm gonna do it.

What was the difference between the two of them?

You know, I haven't really put a lot of thought into it. So I don't know that I can answer that.

Yeah.

Okay, next one on the list. John Krakauer wrote this book, Under the Banner of Heaven, about a violent Mormon cult.

Okay.

And I'll leave it there.

What's next?

It is very well written. I think I did that one on Audible. It's very well narrated. The story is fascinating.

And I'm assuming that's nonfiction, right?

Nonfiction. Yeah, that's right. Anytime somebody can tell like a good cult story, I'm in. Yeah, is it contemporary? I think it was from like the 90s, I think.

Wow.

Endurance, Shackleton, and the Heroism of Hard Things

Next one, a New York Times bestseller, Endurance by Alfred Lansing. Do you know what this is about?

Endurance.

I don't.

Running very far. It's about Ernest Shackleton's endeavor to the Antarctic.

Oh, okay.

And they get stranded on the ice and they have to fight for their survival. And it's a story of heroism and leadership and all things impossible.

All right, give us one good takeaway about leadership from that book.

I can't.

I can't. Hey, you gotta be able to do it.

Yeah.

It is.

We gotta read it.

In case anyone's wondering, it's not like I take notes on these things and then come in here. I compiled the list. I remember what I remember.

Yeah.

All right, cool.

I'll ask the last question.

No, no, no, this is good.

I think

Actually, no, I have nothing. I was gonna try to come up with something. The book was

Quick intermission.

The book was so good, though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's so good.

Storytelling was great, intense, I'm sure.

The thing that I took away from it was like, man, these are the kinds of books that we want our sons to read. You know, like men who are doing big, hard things and encountering massive obstacles and they come out by the skin of their teeth and like, yeah, go be like that for Jesus.

Endurance.

Endurance, yeah, there it is. The next thing, I actually recommended this book to you. I don't remember if you ended up reading or not. The God of All Things by Andrew Wilson.

No.

God of All Things, this one here. Recovering the sacred in an everyday world.

It looks like a book I would enjoy, so I'm glad you recommended it.

Yeah, it's one of those books.

Yeah.

It's one of those books that because everyone was on it for a while, I just was like, I don't want to read it.

Right.

And then I finally did, and it was very good. He just looks at all these things in the world and just goes, do you see God in this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if you don't, like, let me help you see God in this.

That's great.

And yeah, I really thought you would appreciate it, but what do I know?

Thanks for bringing it back up.

Communication, Common Grace, and Learning to Be Heard

Yeah, that's right. The next one, Words That Work by Dr. Frank Luntz. This one was a bit of a slog. I read it a couple of pages at a time. He was a speech writer and then a political consultant, and his whole thing is like, let me help you understand the way people hear what you're saying, because what you're trying to say and what people hear you saying are two different things very often.

And so the best communicators are the ones who understand how, not only what they want to say, but how they will be heard. And listen, he says in 300 pages what could be said in 150 pages, but it's because it's so full of example after example, and he's a little bit selling himself, and I told this guy this thing, and he didn't listen to me, but I had to help him hear it.

As a pastor, I was intrigued to read this book because I have so often found it to be the case that I've communicated something, and somebody's heard the exact opposite of what I intended to communicate.

And so I thought, okay, this could be like a good common grace resource that will help me do better at that.

So you speak for a living, you're communicating ideas for a living all the time.

And usually if I get in trouble, it's because I've said something poorly.

Yeah, all right, dare I ask?

Dude, I was about to say, go ahead.

I'll lengthen this question out. You just think, I asked you yes.

Right, wheels are turning.

But if I were going to ask you a question, I'd ask this. What was your main takeaway? Or maybe not main takeaway, but what was like one thing that you're like, that still sits in your mind, you're employing that whenever you're preaching?

It's what I just told you. What sticks in my mind is it's not enough to have an idea of what I want to say. You have to be exegeting your listeners.

Just mindful in general.

Of yeah, how this might be heard. Which is why I value things like sermon previews so much. Before I preach a sermon, I'll sit down with someone and I'll read it out loud. And very often someone will say, well, it sounds like you're saying this.

And I'm like, what? No, how are you?

It gives you a chance to

Yeah, to do that. But it's interesting that you ask that same question again, knowing that I'll fail. I think this can be one of the bigger hindrances for people reading is they'll say, I have poor recall.

Like I read that book and I don't even know that I could tell you X, Y, or Z about it. And this is, we talk about this a lot. Reading is more about formation than information. Even if you can't recall, you know, bullet point one, two, or three from the book, if you're sitting in these ideas, they are shaping you.

Right?

They're forming you.

You don't remember any one particular workout that working out over years obviously has had an effect.

That's right.

Yeah.

Americana, Childhood Classics, and Family Canons

The next one, this one was a book I did with my kids, an American classic, Where the Red Fern Grows. An American classic that I didn't read growing up.

Right.

I probably was supposed to, but I'm sure I didn't.

It was so good, man. It felt like just a good old dose of Americana. You know, really enjoyed it.

You like that. You like that kind of genre in general, the Americana stuff.

I do.

Yeah.

It reminds me of a life I never knew.

Yeah.

You just can't forget.

Yeah, that's right. But it's also just really well-written. It's a compelling story.

Yeah.

Fun times all around. Next on the list, Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods. I think this may be like the third time I've read it. There are certain books I reread because I have to. Some books I reread because I want to.

Sometimes it's a combination thereof. I think Keller's work on a thick, deep understanding of sin through the lens of idolatry is just something that I'm always just going to go back to. He's just so helpful in that regard.

It's a good book. It's clearly written. Every time I go back into it, I'm like, I'm glad I read that.

Am I right that since he passed away, you've really made a point to go like catch yourself up or reread a lot of Tim Keller, a lot of sermons. Like you really spent some time with Tim Keller over the last couple of years.

Yeah, the same thing happened with R .C. Sproul.

Yeah.

You know, it's the classic, like, you don't appreciate your heroes while you have them. And I say hero with an asterisk next to it. Tim Keller has some ecclesiology stuff and some evangelism stuff that I'm not necessarily on board with.

And I've critiqued him publicly in episodes of Defend and Confirm and things like that. But yeah, after Keller passed away, I was like, okay, let me dive back into his preaching. They made all of his sermons available for free, finally.

He should have done that while he was alive, but that's neither here nor there. And I think my appreciation for Keller has actually grown the more I've sat in his writing.

What is the impetus there? Like, okay, like they just passed away and it's like, you know, no, I really do need to go, like, really listen to what they've said. Like, let's drive it. I mean, it almost seems like, oh yeah, we should all do that.

But like, most people aren't.

Right.

You are, so I'm just curious.

Yeah.

I think for me, it was just the reality of death. Like, I was like, dang, like he's really gone.

Yeah.

Like there's really, like whenever Keller's coming out with a new book, it's like, or whenever he would, whenever he would come out with a new book, it'd always be like, ooh, forgiveness. I wonder how he's going to do his Keller thing.

Yeah.

On this.

Same thing with Piper. Piper comes out with a book on learning. You're like, how is he going to do Christian hedonism on lifelong learning?

How do you know that he's going to do that?

Right.

You know, you know what this guy's going to do with this, how the angle he's going to take. And when Keller was gone, I was like, oh, there's no more of that.

Yeah.

You know, so let me just go back and dig in. And I think he, I'm, I'm inclined towards fundamentalism. I'm inclined towards black and white thinking. I'm inclined to be less nuanced. If I'm going to swing, I'm probably going to punch to the left.

So I just think Keller balances me out.

Yeah.

And I'm not really worried about being influenced by some of the, problematic is too strong of a word maybe, but some of the more problematic elements.

You're not going to be caught off guard. I don't think so.

Cool.

Moving on. This is a book that we both read. So now I want you to tell me three main takeaways that you

I'm ready, I'm ready.

Abigail. Shrier, Shrier, Shrier?

Shrier, I think. Shrier is where the tokens live.

Bad therapy.

Yeah.

What'd you think?

Dude, that's a great book.

Yeah.

You talking about common grace? That book is just full of common grace. So much good parental advice. Got her finger on the culture. Just like really understands the therapeutizing of our world and how it's dangerous.

And even as a non-believer, she sees just like, it's not good for our kids. And like we see Dr. Napes happening with our kids. We see like prolonged therapy, kids kind of involuntarily being put in a room with an adult that they're going to spend the rest of their life with, being told how to live.