One of the best parts of summer when I was a kid was bringing an overstuffed backpack home from the bookmobile. I’d walk through that book-lined bus like a raccoon at the county dump, grabbing whatever looked interesting in the moment. Some of those books were gems that I’ve reread as an adult. Others probably should’ve stayed on the shelf. But part of the adventure was tearing through my borrowed stack to find the treasures among the trash. Now I don’t have as much time to spend reading, so it’s more important that I separate the wheat from the tares before I invest my precious hours of summer freedom. I’m sure you’re in the same boat. That’s why the editors at The Gospel Coalition have compiled a (non-AI-generated) list of reading recommendations for you to enjoy this summer. Winfree Brisley L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (Starfire, 1990; orig. 1908) In recent years, it’s gotten harder to find good novels that don’t explore dark themes, promote unbiblical agendas, or include explicit scenes. So I decided to take a break from modern fiction and go back to this children’s classic. Working through the eight-book set has been a refreshing reminder that simple themes like imagination, nature, and friendship can delight adults and children alike. Sam Allberry, One with My Lord: The Life-Changing Reality of Being in Christ (Crossway, 2024) If you want an edifying beach read that will grow your theological understanding, this is it. Allbery makes the rich doctrine of union with Christ so relatable and understandable that you’ll wonder why you don’t read more theological books. It’s a relatively quick read that could have long-lasting effects on your spiritual life. J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark (Banner of Truth, 2012; orig. 1857) Ryle accomplishes what few are able to do. He offers expository engagement with Scripture in a devotional format that’s accessible and applicable. This volume was a delightful companion as I recently read through Mark. I look forward to reading his volumes on the other three Gospels as well. Collin Hansen Hampton Sides, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (Doubleday, 2024) Not many real-life adventure stories can surpass the drama and trauma of Captain Cook’s landings in the Hawaiian Islands. Sides is up to the challenge as one of the best narrative nonfiction writers. You’ll be not only captivated by the story but also challenged by the legacy of this clash of cultures. David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023) I hear more often about my interview with Brooks compared to most other Gospelbound episodes, probably because he combines the profound with the practical. This book will teach you about humanity, but it’ll also help you love humans better. Who doesn’t have room to grow in that way? Alex Duke, From Eden to Egypt: A Guided Tour of Genesis (Zondervan Reflective, 2025) Moses is a master storyteller, and Genesis is his masterpiece. Duke does this inspired book justice as he zooms in on overlooked clues and zooms out to behold the progress in God’s plan of redemption. Whether you think you already know everything about Genesis or you don’t know your Joseph from your Jacob, this book will help you see the divine in the details. A lively book deserves this lively treatment. Megan Hill George Walter (ed.), The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry (Penguin Classics, 2007) Since visiting the (excellent!) World War I museum in Kansas City earlier this year, I’ve been rereading the poetry that came out of that dark period. The poets’ raw wrestlings with what it means to be a dutiful soldier in a war that often makes no sense bring me to tears—but those poems also communicate deep emotions and explore the world’s complexity in ways that strikingly contrast to our highly curated, sound-bite-only, social media age. Mike Gayle, All the Lonely People (Grand Central, 2022) “Show, don’t tell” is the mantra of the good writer, and Gayle’s novel about a curmudgeonly senior citizen from Jamaica who doesn’t think he needs community is a delightful kind of show. If you’re familiar with Jonathan Haidt (Anxious Generation, 2024) or Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone, 2000), you’ve already been told that loneliness and isolation are the great problems of our age. If you’ve read the news, you know plenty of statistics about immigration. But it might take an engaging story like Gayle’s to reveal that the loneliness epidemic sometimes looks like the grumpy guy next door, that immigration looks like leaving everything familiar, and that the balm for both may simply be you showing up with a smile. (Bonus: Gayle’s The Museum of Ordinary People is also a fun read.) Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods (Harper Collins, 2004; orig. 1932) One of my methods for coping when it’s really hot is to pretend it’s winter. I tell myself that a blizzard is howling outside the door and the warmth I feel is simply the welcome blast of heat from a roaring wood stove. I’m not sweaty; I’m thawing out. Somehow, it works. Lately, I’ve been reading the Little House books aloud with my daughter, and I expect them to work a similar magic on sweltering August nights. We aren’t hot; we’ve just escaped a panther attack in the snowy woods and are now telling the tale as we warm up together around the fireplace. Betsy Childs Howard Annie Dillard, An American Childhood (Harper and Rowe, 1989) Many memoirs focus on the extraordinary, but I’m partial to an ordinary story well told. Dillard’s Pittsburgh childhood was traditional rather than tragic, yet her ability to describe the dawning consciousness of a young girl awakening to the beauty of the world is anything but ordinary. It’s refreshing to read about the happy childhood of a girl who would grow into one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th century. Lyle W. Dorsett, Seeking the Secret Place: The Spiritual Formation of C. S. Lewis (Brazos, 2004) We’re living in a time of renewed interest in spiritual formation, particularly among college students. This book tracks the personal habits, authors, and practices that shaped C. S. Lewis’s spiritual life from the time of his conversion on. Dorsett draws on Lewis’s correspondence as well as oral interviews, delivering for the reader fresh Lewisian gems. Various Authors, British Library Crime Classics (Poisoned Pen Press) I love mysteries. I prefer Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers to most modern sensational crime thrillers, so I was pleased to discover the British Library’s series of rereleased titles from the “Golden Age” of crime fiction. My library has an extensive collection of these volumes, and it’s likely yours does too. Jared Kennedy Lucy S. R. Austen, Elisabeth Elliot: A Life (Crossway, 2023) A little long for a beach read, but full of surprises. Elliot’s personal and theological journey is fascinating—from Brethren churches to the Episcopal church, from a fundamentalist high school in the South to Wheaton College, and eventually to reading Tillich in Ecuador’s jungles. Austen is a strong writer and a thorough historian. She introduced me to Elliot’s mature writings on Israel and nuanced musings on other hard topics, which were new to me. If you like thought-provoking biographies, you’ll enjoy this. John Starke, The Secret Place of Thunder: Trading Our Need to Be Noticed for a Hidden Life with Christ (Zondervan, 2023) An accessible book to read but much more challenging to apply. Starke argues it’s possible to be socially and culturally diminished while thriving spiritually. In fact, he shows that it’s sometimes necessary and often preferable. I found the last two chapters—on silently abiding and on times of stagnant growth—to be deeply convicting. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age (Zondervan, 2024) Irving-Stonebraker champions both tending to neglected stories from the past and keeping or retrieving the best of its thinking and traditions. She’s an apologist for history in an era obsessed with fads and breaking news. I particularly appreciated her desire to draw from the past—her Anglican tradition’s Book of Common Prayer and practices that follow the Christian calendar—to pass on the faith to the next generation. Brett McCracken Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper’s Magazine Press, 1974) If you’re planning to relax in nature this summer—whether on a trip or just in your backyard—Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic could be a lovely literary companion. If “Christian nature writing” were a genre, this would be its Brothers Karamazov. It’s a masterpiece. Structured around the four seasons in Dillard’s corner of home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the book elegantly reflects on God’s handiwork and what it reveals about him. Jon Fosse, Morning and Evening (Dalkey Archive Essentials, 2024) The Norwegian Catholic writer Fosse is a contemporary literary giant who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023. This little novella, originally published in Norway in 2000 but only recently published in English, is a good introduction to his unique style and existential themes. “Beach read” isn’t a descriptor I’d use for this story, set on two days in the life of a man named Johannes (his day of birth and his day of death). Still, lovers of literature will appreciate Fosse’s ambitious approach to language: elliptical, meandering words that evoke Terrence Malick’s cinema and seek to capture a purity of meaning that feels both quotidian and numinous. Garrett Soucy, Between the Joints & the Marrow (Fernwood Press, 2024) I think every Christian should aspire to read at least one book of poetry each year. (Summertime is especially conducive to reading and writing poems, I find.) This new volume from rural Maine poet Soucy—who is also a pastor, folk musician, husband, and father of 11—is a great place to start. Touted as “an imaginative guided tour of the Bible,” the volume contains one poem inspired by each biblical book. Often surprising and frequently beautiful, these poetic words are potent reflections on God’s Word. Ivan Mesa Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings (Tor, 2010) Some of the best-written sagas—rich in both character- and world-building—belong to the often overlooked genre that J. R. R. Tolkien popularized more than half a century ago. Sanderson stands as one of the most prolific and imaginative fantasy writers of our time—and, I’d argue, the best. The Way of Kings, the first installment in The Stormlight Archive, is a masterclass in epic storytelling: sprawling, intricate, and deeply human. If you’ve been hesitant to dive into fantasy, let this be your entry point. You can thank me later. Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire (Portfolio, 2023) This is probably the number one book I’ve commended to friends to take stock of their personal and professional lives. Martell’s approach might seem extreme (“build an empire”!), but I appreciate his dogged intentionality with life, and his concepts are easy to understand and implement. This would be especially helpful for entrepreneurs, pastors, and leaders of organizations, big or small. John Newton, Wise Counsel (Banner of Truth, 2009) What a beautiful, soul-nourishing book. Grant Gordon has collected the correspondence of John Newton—pastor, hymn writer, and slave trader turned abolitionist—written to a young minister, John Ryland Jr. But it’s more than just letters. It’s filled with pastoral wisdom through the ups and downs of life and ministry. Even if you’re not a pastor, I think you’ll be encouraged by this book. Andrew Spencer Ben Palpant, An Axe for the Frozen Sea: Conversations with Poets About What Matters Most (Rabbit Room, 2025) Truth, goodness, and beauty leave us longing for more. The transcendentals are at the heart of the 17 interviews with Christian poets in this book. There’s helpful discussion about language, poetic form, and the way faith and work intersect. As I read an interview every evening, this book encouraged me to read more poetry, to savor it, and to think about the God-given beauty in the world around me. D. M. Lloyd-Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors, 2nd ed. (Banner of Truth, 2024) This book is a collection of 19 talks given by Lloyd-Jones from 1959 through 1978 at the end of the Puritan Conference at Westminster Chapel, London. Much of the conference was filled with academic content, but these essays are much lighter and more practical in tone. Reading these lectures was encouraging. They reveal that our contemporary struggles are nothing new. Lloyd-Jones had to wrestle with division, nationalism, and battles over orthodoxy just as the Puritans had before him. Louis Markos, Passing the Torch: An Apology for Classical Christian Education (IVP Academic, 2025) Summer is a good time to think about why we educate our children. Markos is always interesting, and this book is no exception. People engaged in or considering classical education will benefit most from reading this book. However, even those committed to more modern educational methods can benefit from reading because Markos builds his case for education from humanity’s nature and condition. Cassie Watson Aimee Joseph, Demystifying Decision-Making: A Practical Guide (TGC/Crossway, 2022) Maybe you don’t want to spend your leisurely beach hours thinking about the stressful decisions in your life. But perhaps you’ll think about them anyway, and this book can guide you to do it wisely. As I’m preparing to get married, I have to make constant weighty decisions—What choices should we make for the wedding? Should we rent or buy a home? What do we want our lives to look like in five or ten years? Joseph has brought greater clarity and peace to this season by pointing me to God’s sovereignty amid all my decisions and God’s desire to cultivate faith in me amid uncertainty. Andy Crouch, The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place (Baker, 2017) Also in the “preparing to get married” category is Crouch’s guide for families on how to wisely approach technology. My fiancé and I want to be intentional about the role of tech in our new shared life, even before we have children. No matter who lives under your roof, you could benefit from thinking through how this modern world is affecting your habits, affections, and character. Why not use your summer to reflect so you’re ready to make life-giving changes in the fall? John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (Crossway, 2019; orig. 1678) As the familiar rhythm of summer comes around again, it’s helpful to remember that this world isn’t going to endlessly churn through the seasons. History is heading somewhere. Christians are pilgrims on a journey to the Celestial City—to heaven where our God dwells. If we’re to live as those on a pilgrimage, aware of this life’s dangers and snares, there’s no better guide than Bunyan’s classic allegory. You’ll come away encouraged by God’s provision for us as people passing through this world. If you’re on vacation with your kids, you could pick up a children’s version of the story instead—multiple versions are available. Sarah Zylstra Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage (Basic Books, 2015) I couldn’t put down this true story of explorers attempting to cross Antarctica on foot in 1915. I was surprised at what human beings will do, despaired over their plight, and was amazed at the sovereignty of God in their rescue. Especially admirable was the way Shackleton cared for his men—leaders today would do well to learn from his bold decision-making, savviness in keeping up morale, and tender care for the men in his command. Ellen Raskin, The Westing Game (Penguin, 2004; orig. 1978) A quick and clever mystery you can read to, or with, your middle schoolers. Lots of room for conversation about truth and lies, pure and crooked motivations, and the beauty of unlikely friendships. Brian Smith and Ed Uszynski, Away Game: A Christian Parent’s Guide to Navigating Youth Sports (David C. Cook, 2025) Every sports parent should read this, no matter what level his or her child plays at. It’s gracious, winsome, full of research and statistics, focused on the heart, and gospel-centered. The authors give a beautiful vision of what sports are for, how our current sports culture has exploited that, and ways Christian parents can make different choices, be a witness, disciple their kids, and further the kingdom. Highly recommend.