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Must Reads on Leadership & Personal Development
- Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership, by Steve Farber
- Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, by Robert K. Greenleaf
- Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, by Simon Sinek
- Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
- Hannibal, Hummers and Hot Air Balloons: High-Performance Strategies for Tough Times, by William C. Jeffries
- Good to Great, by Jim Collins
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni
- Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee
- Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl
- Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving, by James W. Sipe, and Don M. Frick
- Drive, by Daniel Pink
- Radical Candor, by Kim Scott
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, by John Maxwell
Must Reads for Christianity
Church History/Theology/Philosophy
- Church History In Plain Language, by Bruce Shelley
- According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible, by Graeme Goldsworthy
- Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, by Wayne Grudem
- The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life, by A.W. Tozer
- Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, by N.T. Wright
- The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin
- Treatise on Religious Affections, by Jonathan Edwards
- The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius
- Receiving the Day, by Dorothy Bass
- The Sacrament of the Present Moment, by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
Discipleship/Relationship with God
- Knowing God, by J.I. Packer
- Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, by John Piper
- Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, by Henri Nouwen
- The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Long Journey Home, by Os Guinness
Apologetics
- Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
- The Mind of the Maker, by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Prophetic Untimeliness, by Os Guinness
General Christian Reading
- Through the Gates Of Splendor, by Elisabeth Elliot
- The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
- What’s the Difference?: Manhood and Womanhood Defined According to the Bible, by John Piper
- The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, by Sally Lloyd-Jones
- Heretics/Orthodoxy & The Everlasting Man, by G. K. Chesterton
Must Reads for Education/The Great Conversation
- How to Read a Book, by Mortimer J. Adler (and his other books)
- Rethinking School & The Well-Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer
- A Sense of Wonder & Gates of Excellence, by Katherine Paterson
- Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do, by Daniel T. Willingham
- A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning, by James V. Schall
- The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, by Alan Jacobs
- The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil, by James Davison Hunter
- Tend the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination, by Vigen Guroian
- The Abolition of Man, by C. S. Lewis
- The Christian Imagination, by Leyland Ryken
- When I Was a Child, I Read Books, by Marilynne Robinson
- Caught Up in a Story: Fostering a Storyformed Life of Great Books & Imagination with Your Children, by Sarah Clarkson
Must Reads for YA/Children’s Lit
- Where the Red Ferns Grow, by Wilson Rawls
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O’Brien
- Five Little Peppers series, by Margaret Sidney
- A Wrinkle in Time quartet, by Madeline L’Engle
- The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis
- The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (if they fit this category)
- The Giver quartet & Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry
- The Berinfell Prophecies & The Door Within trilogy, by Wayne Thomas Batson
- The Princess and the Goblin, by George MacDonald
- Orbiting Jupiter & Straw Into Gold, by Gary D. Schmidt
- The Ashtown Burials & the 100 Cupboards trilogies, by N. D. Wilson
- Men of Iron, by Howard Pyle
- Hittite Warrior, by Joanne Williamson
- Anne of Green Gables series, by L. M. Montgomery
- Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
- The Witch of Blackbird Pond & The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare
- Jeeves series, by P. G. Wodehouse
- Lord Peter Wimsey books, by Dorothy L. Sayers (if they also fit the category)
Must Reads on Work
- The Call, by Os Guinness
- The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art, by Erwin Raphael McManus
- Do More Better: A Practical Guide To Productivity, by Tim Challies
- What God Thinks About Business, by Jeff Van Duzer
- The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One, by Margaret Lobenstine
Must Reads on Film
- Through a Screen Darkly: Looking Closer at Beauty, Truth, and Evil in the Movies, by Jeffery Overstreet
- Making Movies, by Sidney Lumet
- Outside Holly Wood: The Young Christian’s Guide to Vocational Filmmaking, by Isaac Botkin
- Hollywood vs. America, by Michael Medved
- Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue, by Robert K. Johnston
- Hollywood Worldviews: Films with Wisdom and Discernment, by Brian Godawa
- The Art of Watching Films, by Joseph M. Boggs
- The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures, by Donald Spoto
Must Reads on Dating/Marriage/Love
- The Love Dare, by Stephen and Alex Kendrick
- The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman
- The Four Loves & Til We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis
- Sacred Singleness: The Set-Apart Girl’s Guide to Purpose and Fulfillment, by Leslie Ludy
- Love Without Limits, by Nick Vujicic
Must Reads for Biographies
- Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas
- Confessions, by Augustine of Hippo
- The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom
- Chariots of Fire, by William J. Weatherby
- The Practice in the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence
- To End All Wars, by Ernest Gordon
Must Reads on Beauty
- The Evidential Power of Beauty, by Thomas DuBay
- Beauty Will Save the World: Rediscovering the Allure and Mystery of Christianity, by Brian Zahnd
- Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life, by Makoto Fujimura
- A Different Beautiful: Discovering and Celebrating Beauty in Places You Never Expected, by Courtney Westlake
Must Reads on Culture
- Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman
- Truth and Authority in Modernity, by Lesslie Newbigin
- In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton, by G.K. Chesterton
- Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity, by Nancy R. Pearcey
- Me: America’s Deadly Obsession, by Peter Heck