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Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind... Romans 12:2

Best Books of 2004

by Ben House

My wife has a real problem. I don't know if it's characteristic of all women or just her. She doesn't understand the nature of owkr. By that I mean real work, the kind of work that I do. It's not that my wife does not work hard herself; she just does not grasp my great labors.

Let me illustrate this. Most evenings, she is in the kitchen for several hours cooking and cleaning. Along with that she is bathing the children and getting clothes and lunches ready for the next day. Meanwhile I am at my workstation; some would call it a couch. I prop up several pillows, adjust the lamp, and read. Usually I have several books to read from along with a magazine or two I would love to be doing housework or home repairs or rebuilding a carburetor, but I have to read. First, I have to read my homework assignments for the classes I teach: I cannot expect my students to read if I am not reading. Second, I have to read from books related to the subjects I teach. Since I teach history and literature, almost every book ever written is related to our current classroom topics. Then I have to read something as a diversion, a bit of cultural rounding not found in the ongoing required reading. And what about my soul? I have to read something to nourish the soul.

To add to this marital problem, I have over the past year been successful at writing book reviews that have been published or posted on the Internets (plural by executive Presidential decree). Now more than ever I have to read; then I have to write—this too is work. I keep explaining to my wife how important my book reviews and articles are to my literary career. She keeps asking a most unliterary question, "What do they pay?" Once in a fit of anger I responded by saying, "I guess you would prefer if I were a lawyer and made millions of dollars and hated my job." Her answer to that was likewise not very literary.

In the future, I hope someone does do a review of my reviews. For now I have to settle for what future biographers will call "the years of obscurity." In this time of obscurity, I have found much delight in ranking and commenting upon my favorite reads over the past years. Now that 2005 is here, I can now announce my favorite books read from 2004.

The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding by David Hall (Lexington Books, 2003)
Bible-believing people are being given the credit (or blame) for President Bush's re-election. But Christians have roots in this land preceding the recent election. America's founding and greatness can be ascribed in large part to our Christian heritage. (Of course, the real credit and glory is God's alone.) In particular, America was founded and established primarily by John Calvin's theological heirs. Dr. Hall's book overwhelmingly proves this case which is vital to understanding America's colonial and early national history. The aforementioned Calvinists, along with other continental European Christians, English Puritans, and Scottish Covenanters, laid the groundwork for what would become the American experiment. This book has no shallow end, but it is worth the effort to swim through.

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein (Hill & WAng, 2002)
In the 1964 election there were only five red states. Only about 40% of the American voters cast ballots for the conservative Republican candidate. The campaign was so divisive that it would have made Michael Moore look like Santa Claus. The astounding victory of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson seemed to assure a golden age of Big Brother/Great Society Liberalism, leaving the conservative movement to limp off like an old dinosaur in search of a blade of grass. But some things flame up quickly while others smolder for a long time. The spark that made the difference was Ronald Reagan, who made his maiden political address during the 1964 campaign. Any study of current American politics should begin with this book.

Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford Press, 2004)
Everyone knows the painting—a stern Washington standing at the helm of a boat crossing the ice-filled Delaware River. This is a wonderful account not only of the battle of Trenton, but of the whole campaign with an overview of the War for Independence. Fischer is a fine historian who writes with wit and eloquence. He has taken one of American history's most exciting stories and told it fully and told it well. This book shows how Washington's leadership, blessed by providential circumstances, turned the course of the war. Before the crossing of the Delaware, the American cause looked hopeless; after the crossing, the British commander began to lose hope of winning the war.

The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi (Free Press, 2002)
Francis Schaeffer once said that most people get their worldviews the same way they get the measles. Not so with Lewis and Freud. Both of these man carefully and laboriously erected worldviews based on upbringing, World War I, examination of religious beliefs, and prodigious reading and thinking. Freud abandoned his father's Jewish beliefs for atheism. Lewis abandoned atheism for Christianity. Read a hundred writers and thinkers, and you will still have to narrow the choices down to either the worldview of Lewis or Freud. This may be one of the most defining studies of the twentieth century yet written.

The Idiot by Fydor Dostoevsky (A New Translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Everyman's Library)
One of my yearly reading patterns is to tackle a great big Russian novel each summer. Last year I read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina; this year, Dostoevsky's Idiot. I did not enjoy The Idiot while I was reading it. Often I was as confused and lost as any American would be in a vast Russian landscape. But if it's a classic, I plod on. Only after I finished the book and backed away did I see it. The message is that in this warped and wicked world, a truly good man, trying to save it, is really only an idiot. Dostoevsky reminds us that only in Christ's atoning work is there any hope.

Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth (Houghton Mifflin, 2003)
This book appealed to me because of a growing interest in J.R.R. Tolkien and a long-time interest in World War I and the Twentieth Century. Tolkien was part of the university-educated class of men who made up the bulk of the British army's officer corps. These bright young lads, fresh from the fields of soccer and halls of Oxford and Cambridge, headed off to war carrying copies of The Iliad. Many did not survive the horrors of trench warfare. In the introduction to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien points out that only one of his close friends survived the war. Tolkien himself survived the war itself because, providentially, he became ill and was removed from active duty. More amazingly, he survived the pessimistic hopelessness that engulfed the Lost Generation of the war's survivors. The battlefields of WWI would be recreated in the descriptions of Mordor, but the merry men of the Shire, not the evil minions of Mordor, would ultimately triumph in Tolkien's Christian vision.

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
Re-reading this book for school last fall, it was a case of love at third sight. Cooper has his critics, most notably and enjoyably, Mark Twain. One can't deny that Cooper's style is wordy, his dialogue stilted, the action slow, and the characters somewhat flat. But this man created the American novel; he was the first to write of American Indians; and his narrative of Natty Bumpo and his Indian companion Chingachgook during the French and Indian War is a first rate adventure. This book deals with the tenuous nature of man's time on earth. The time of the Red Men was ending. The British and the French were fighting for land neither would ultimately possess. The American heirs to the land had to learn how to survive in it and keep it. Lots of great themes emerge in the book: race and ethnic distinctions, the necessity of violence for survival, and balancing the advance of civilization with the preservation of the land.

The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
Reading Chesterton makes me realize that if I were eighteen and had read and discovered what I have now read and discovered, I would be smart. Being way past eighteen, I am one sad but wise fellow. If I could trade my college degree (throwing in a master's in education for good measure) for a thorough knowledge of Chesterton's works, I would be far better off. No study of Antiquity or early man can be complete without reading this book. It so pulverizes many of the false assumptions of Darwinian science and evolutionary sociology that one wonders how the enemy yet stands. This book was a landmark in the long path to C.S. Lewis's conversion and is worthy of many readings.

Quo Vadis by Henrik Sienkiewicz
This is a long novel set in the time period after the Book of Acts. It humanizes the story of the spread of the Christian faith in Rome, the persecutions under Nero, and the conflict between Christianity and Paganism. Although it is fiction, it nevertheless warms the soul and fleshes out the history of a critical period of the Christian faith. George Grant recommends the recent translation of this Christian epic done by W.S. Kuniczak, published by Hippocrene Books.

Ripples of Battle by Victor Davis Hanson (Doubleday, 2003)
The greatest fault of this book is its brevity. It covers aspects of three battles: the Battle of Okinawa in World War II, the Battle of Shiloh in the American War Between the States, and a battle from the Peloponnesian War. The "ripples" Hanson deals with are all of the unintended consequences of battle. The consequences go beyond winners and losers and battlefield statistics: every life connected with the battle is changed forever. Hanson's military writings are all outstanding. His book Who Killed Homer? (coauthored with John Heath) is an excellent survey of Greek literary achievements and modern academic embarrassments.

Ten great books. There were many other good books and authors read, taught, enjoyed, dipped into, and gleaned from, all of whom did not make the rank. Authors like C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Virgil, Aristotle, Paul Johnson, Augustine, and George Grant will have to rest on their own laurels without my coveted honors. For me, it's now back to the couch. I have a new stack of books that I got for Christmas and my recent birthday. My wife is laboring away in the kitchen, and I too must get to work.

Return to Volume 10, Number 1.