Bailey's Book Awards (2025)

A Record of My Reading in 2025

It’s that time of year when I report on the books I read this year and pick my favorite ones (there are not really any awards.) I’ll discuss them into four categories before selecting my top books of the year.

Books I read for a podcast, blurb, or review (12)

First are the books I read for the In All Things podcast (4), for a back cover blurb (5), or for a review (3).

I wrote five blurbs this year, but one hasn’t been published yet. I’ll give my full blurbs, which usually get pared down by publishers.

The Devil Reads Nietzsche: A Public Theology for the Post-Christian Age by Michael McEwen

“Nietzsche is not our judge, but we should let him take the witness stand. Yet what do we do when the philosopher’s enigmatic testimony amounts to a powerful judgment against us? Michael McEwen offers a gift of interpretation, offering Nietzsche space to speak and excavating the philosopher’s pervasive influence on the modern cultural imagination. In response, McEwen commends a public theology that is clear-eyed, irenic, and hopeful, insisting that after all has been heard, Christianity’s story is more capacious than Nietzsche’s parodies, and that the weakness of God is still stronger than men.”

Seeing Right: Evangelicals and the Aesthetics of Virtue and Vice by Jason Fallin

“It is common to understand evangelicalism in terms of its historical lineage, theological emphases, or political configurations. But Jason Fallin argues that we must also reckon with its aesthetic experience: the cultivation of common sentiment through material culture and formative practice. For anyone who has listened to K-Love or filled shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, Fallin’s book is a fascinating exploration of how evangelicals are oriented to sense and survey the world. Fallin is incisive but not reductive, discerning but not dismissive. He invites all Christians to consider how we are shaped to love what we love and how we are shaped to show it.”

The Gospel After Christendom: An Introduction to Cultural Apologetics eds. Colin Hansen, Skyler Flowers, and Ivan Mesa

“Cultural apologetics is not new; it retrieves a historic, holistic, and hopeful approach to Christian witness. This volume helps us reckon with the cross-pressures of our secular age, its apathy & activism, hubris & despair. These authors show us how to listen more carefully and testify more convincingly to the beauty, goodness, and truth that is found in Christ alone.”

In Your Light We See Light: A Reformed Theology of Divine Illumination by Paul Uyen

“Like the Apostle, Paul Uyen is not content to explain the theology of illumination; he writes to help us feel the light that has set his own heart on fire. Here is an exercise in Reformed catholicity that stretches mind and heart, a work of theological retrieval that revives the soul.”

I wrote one long review, of Paul Kingsnorth’s trenchant critique of our modern age, which was published in Christianity Today. Here’s one paragraph that captures the flavor:

“Kingsnorth frames the curse of modern life with the language of uprooting. Traditionally, cultures have been anchored to what he calls the “four P’s”: our past (our history and ancestry), our people (the story of who we are), our place (our embeddedness in a particular setting), and prayer (our religious tradition). But the goal of the Machine, as Kingsnorth sees it, is detaching us from everything we know and love to rearrange people and cultures in a more uniform fashion.

This process replaces the four P’s with four S’s: science (which offers a “non-mythic” story of where we come from), the self (whose good we pursue above all else), sex (which provides the ultimate tool for expressing individual identity), and the screen (which distracts us from reality and directs us to “the coming post-human reality”). For Kingsnorth, this common ideology lies behind both progressive leftism and market liberalism.”

On a warmer note, CT also just published my shorter review of three books about the importance of the body - both our physical bodies as well as the Body of Christ. Here’s one paragraph:

“When I was in high school, I was taught that the key to spiritual vitality was having a “quiet time,” which meant getting alone with God to read Scripture and pray. I am thankful for this practice, which is still foundational for my life with God. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve also felt the limitations of this approach. Prioritizing contemplation, I’ve often failed to appreciate the significance of my body. Prioritizing personal devotion, I’ve often undervalued the importance of the body of Christ.”

Other books about theology, philosophy, and culture (14)

From this eclectic mix, you can see something of the sorts of ideas I’ve been working with this year. I finished my second full read-through of Calvin’s Institutes, along with a group faculty at Dordt. I read a few books on wisdom literature to prepare for the fall chapel series. There are also some authors that I try to read and re-read everything they write: Natalie Carnes, David Zahl, Andy Crouch.

I tried to make sense of a contemporary thinker that many of my (male) students appreciate, Jordan Peterson - I was sometimes perplexed and sometimes pleasantly surprised. Peterson thinks like a Jungian psychologist who has read a lot of classic literature, and he prides himself on being contrarian. It also seems to me that he’s found an unexpected audience in the “manosphere” and he’s leaned into that, while also flirting with Christianity.

One idea that I heard Peterson articulate that I’ve found thought-provoking is an argument for God’s existence that goes something like this (he’s not the first to articulate it, but he has a gift for turning a phrase):

Q: Is anything real?

A: Yes, pain is real.

Q: Is there anything more real than pain?

A: Yes, there seems to be something that enables people to transcend pain: love.

Q: If love is more real than pain, where does love come from?

A: That’s a very good question…

Books I read to be better at my job (14)

With my new position, I’ve felt the need to:

1. keep growing as a communicator - my most important skillset

2. learn to think institutionally, in terms of team rather than just individual projects

3. understand the landscape of Christian higher education

4. understand the literature on leadership so I can speak the common language

One thing I’ve noticed about books in the personal growth genre is that slapping the phrase “the science of” tends to sell books:

• The Science of Succeeding with People

• The Science of Failing Well

• The Science of Storytelling

In some ways, “the science of” offers the validation of empirical studies to counteract the impression that the content is fluffy, optimistic “cotton candy.” And in some ways, this is a move in the right direction. I file these books under the category of “cultural wisdom.” I’ve really benefitted from some of these books, especially the work of Vanessa Van Edwards. There are a lot of things we can learn about the world through careful observation, through creating theories that are forced to stand up to scrutiny (in a lab or in everyday life).

But “the science of” also testifies to our “cultural foolishness.” The danger with “the science of” is that it gives the illusion that the life we’re looking for can be found through the application of the right technique. It’s the sort of thing Kingsnorth is talking about in Against the Machine.

It’s also the reason why The Science of Storytelling was probably my least favorite book this year. To get better at storytelling - and at most distinctively human things - we need art more than science. This leads to the next category.

Books I read to fire my imagination: fiction & memoir (18)

I have colleagues who I respect that rarely read fiction. I think they see it as irrelevant, escapist, or a waste of time. And I definitely feel the pull away from fiction & memoir. I aim to have 1/3 of the books that I read every year be from this category, and I find it difficult every year. Immersing yourself in a story requires a different sort of attention, the kind that is difficult to cultivate in our distracted age. There’s a powerful line from Flannery O’Connor (which my friend Luke shared with me a couple of years ago):

“people without hope don’t write novels… what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.”

Maybe one reason why we prefer “the science of” books is because they allow us to feel a sense of control. Here are some techniques that will help you to master your next conversation, master the market, master the world.

But to read someone else’s story is to give up the desire for mastery, to suspend your skepticism, to enter someone else’s world. And as O’Connor says, that requires courage - and hope.

The five most important books I read this year

Finally, the five books that I read that made the biggest impact on me this year.

5. Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity by Paul Kingsnorth

I spent a lot of time with this book for the review (see above). Kingsnorth’s book is much more temperamentally pessimistic than I am, and yet I found myself strangely exhilarated by the time I got to the end.

4. The Pursuit of Safety: A Theology of Danger, Risk, and Security by Jeremy Lundgren.

This fascinating and thorough examination of the modern value of safety connects in many ways to my current project on “being safe and being brave.” The most important insight was Lundgren’s naming the modern pursuit of safety as managed by protective technology, predictive analysis, and proper procedure (once again machines create a world for machines!)

I had the chance to interview Dr. Lundgren on the In All Things podcast, so that’s the best place to find fuller engagement with the book.

3. Orbital: A Novel by Samantha Harvey

My favorite work of fiction I read this year (it won the Booker Prize in 2024). Imagine Marilynne Robinson on a spaceship, looking at the earth. The result is what someone has called “nature writing from space.” My favorite passage:

“Nell wants to ask Shaun how it is he can be an astronaut and believe in God, a Creationist God, but she knows what his answer would be. He’d ask how it is that she can an astronaut and not believe in God. They’d draw a blank.

She’d point out of the port and starboard windows, where the darkness is endless and ferocious. Where solar systems and galaxies are violently scattered. Where the field of view is so deep and multidimensional that the warp of space-time is something you can almost see. Look, she’d say, What made that but some heedless hurling beautiful force?

And Shaun would point out of the port and starboard windows where the darkness is endless and ferocious, at exactly the same violently scattered solar systems and galaxies and at the same deep and multidimensional field of view warped with space-time and he would say: what made that but some heedful hurling beautiful force?

Is that all the difference there is between their views, then - a bit of heed? Is Shaun’s universe just the same as hers but made with care, to a design? Hers an occurrence of nature and his an artwork?”

My two favorite books (tie)

The two books that made the biggest impact couldn’t be more different. Jason’s was one of the first books I read this year. Howard’s was one of the last books I read. Jason’s is (mostly) about success. Howard’s is (mostly) about failure. Jason’s made me want to run through a wall. Howard’s made me sit quietly and weep. I needed both.

Beyond High Performance: What Great Coaches Know about How the Best Get Better by Jason Jaggard

I’m using first names because I have a personal connection to both authors, which I’m sure is part of the reason I found both books so compelling. I went to high school with Jason (this picture, at the Grand Canyon, is from 1999).

Jason and I haven’t been in touch for 20 years. But I’ve followed his career, as he’s built one of the premier executive coaching firms in the world. Jason’s book helped me name an intuition I’ve been exploring for years - that part of my fascination with the imagination is a fascination with the question of what’s possible, for myself and for others. And are there ways that asking better questions, telling better stories, offering more generative metaphors, can point the way to new possibilities?

Reading this book early in the year inspired me to take a public speaking class, priming me to think about my work in a new way. One of the things that coaches do so well is ask powerful questions, and I’ve enjoyed discussing the content of this book with others because the questions are so good. Early in the year I recommended this book to a friend, and it generated so much conversation that we invited two other friends to read the book with us again - these relationships are another reason the book resonated so much!

Brooding Upon the Waters: A Memoir of Farming, Fishing, and Failure in America’s Lost Landscape by Howard Schaap

Howard is a well-loved professor of English at Dordt, writing about places and people that are somewhat familiar to me. Howard’s story evoked lots of memories, as all good memoirs do. It was both brutal (especially chapter 13) and beautiful (especially chapter 14) in its honesty and in its hope.

Howard helped me understand the ways that geography shapes theology; he helped me make sense of the cultural stoicism I’ve experienced in the upper mid-west. He shows the helpful and harmful directions that Reformed theology can go, the way that it amplifies the human longing for wonder and the human longing for control. It also made me wonder what sort of story I would write about my own formative years, and what sort of story my children would (and likely will) write.

It made me hope that at the end of the day, we will find the deepest reality will be beauty, not brutality, and love rather than pain. That despite the machine-like world we keep trying to make, stronger hands will give us something better than we can imagine, something marked by honesty, hope, and grace.

That’s my book report! Thanks for reading - what were the best books you read this year?