avatar
Cole Feix
avatarCole Feix3 min read  

The Best Books of 2023

I always look forward to this podcast. The opportunity to think back through a year of books is humbling and encouraging. On one hand, we live among an embarrassment of riches. There is more wisdom at our fingertips than at any point in history. On the other, even what we can read in a year is a gift to steward, full of stories to ponder, wisdom to embody, and information to put into practice. The Bible remains the most important book I read each year, and we didn't mention a lot of the devotional and nourishing materials we use, although one of the most significant books of my year was Reformation Heritage Books' The Family Worship Bible Guide. It has been a tremendous boon to my spiritual life and I would recommend that everyone get a copy and use it in family worship.

This year on the podcast, we went for breadth over depth. On the whole, there's surely something here for everyone. These books span genres, years, and interests. It's my hope that one of these picks will mean as much to you as they have to me. Enjoy the podcast and this list of every book we mentioned in the episode. Happy reading in 2024!

Terry’s Top 5:

Dynasty - Tom Holland 

Finding Calcutta - Mary Poplin

Scalia - James Rosen 

The Matter with Things - Iain McGilchrist 

Business Not by the Book - David Green and Bill High

Cole's Top 5

Timothy Keller - Collin Hansen

Remaking the World - Andrew Wilson 

Dominion - Tom Holland 

The Pastor of Kilsyth - Islay Burns 

The Fellowship - Philip and Carol Zeleski

Best of History:

All the President’s Men - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

The Final Days - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

The Haldeman Diaries - H.R. Haldeman and Stephen Ambrose 

Richard Nixon: The Life - John Farrell

Nixon: An Oral History of His Presidency -  Gerald S. Strober and Deborah H. Strober

An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford - Richard Norton Smith

King's Counsellor: Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles - Sir Alan Lascelles, edited by Duff Hart-Davis

The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939-1955 - John Colville 

John Quincy Adams: Diaries Vol. 1 1779-1821 - John Quincy Adams, edited by David Waldstreicher

An Infinite Fountain of Light - George Marsden

Yale Works of Jonathan Edwards (see our podcast episodes on the Great Awakening, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3): 

  • Freedom of the Will, Vol 1

  • Religious Affections, Vol 2

  • The Great Awakening, Vol 4

Best of Biography 

Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson 

Going Infinite - Michael Lewis 

Scalia: Rise to Greatness: 1936-1986 - James Rosen

R. C. Sproul: A Life - Stephen Nichols 

Introduction to John Owen - Crawford Gribben 

Christian Resources and Theology: 

Lead - Paul Tripp 

You Are a Theologian - Jen Wilken and J. T. English 

Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know - Wayne Grudem 

Family Worship - Donald Whitney 

The Family Worship Bible Guide - edited by Joel Beeke 

Looking Forward to in 2024:

Conflict - Andrew Roberts and David Petraeus 

The World’s Greatest Book - Jerry Pattengale and Lawrence Schiffman

Roosevelt and Hopkins - Robert Sherwood

You’re Not Crazy - Sam Allberry and Ray Ortlund 

Creator - Peter Leithart

Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age - Rosaria Butterfield

Dr. Cole Feix is the founder and president of So We Speak and the Senior Pastor of Carlton Landing Community Church in Oklahoma.

Give

Subscribe to the Daybreak Devotions for Women

Be inspired by God's Word every day! Delivered to your inbox.

More from Cole Feix

  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Ḥesed of God, Part 1: Hope and Joy in the Midst of Despair

    Hesed.Hesed is a rich Hebrew word and unfortunately it is extremely challenging to find a word that even comes close in English. The closest our Bibles come to is steadfast love, lovingkindness, or mercy. Yet even these fall short. Hesed is viewed as God’s covenantal, loyal and enduring love for his people, a love that pursues his people when they have done nothing but reject him (think the Israelites in the wilderness). It’s a covenantal loyalty that is unwavering and not based upon the conditi

    3 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Power of Praising God in Prison

    Life can be challenging at times. Jesus made it clear that following him doesn’t exempt us from suffering. In fact, following Jesus guarantees suffering and persecution. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15:18). As followers of Jesus, we will face trials, rejection, and hardship. So, what do we do when life gets tough? Throughout the Bible, we find stories of faithful people enduring trials not because they disobeyed God, but because they followed him. One of th

    3 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    Podcast - Villains of the Bible: Sennacherib

    Sennacherib’s story takes place in the eight century BC. He makes the villain list because of his invasion of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. His father, Sargon, came to the Assyrian throne in 722 BC which was the same year they conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Sargon’s body was never recovered after he died in a battle in Turkey. It was believed that because his body was not recovered after battle, this was a curse from the gods, and he was doomed to wander the afterlife begging for foo

    2 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Pinnacle of Temptation

    Jesus was tempted throughout his life. But there were two seasons where the pressure was uniquely intense—two moments when the full weight of temptation bore down on him: the cross and the wilderness. Today, we’re looking at that second one—the wilderness—and more specifically, the third temptation as presented in Luke’s Gospel. To understand it, we need to set the scene.

    17 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Weightiness of Worship

    “Because our God is holy, He is actively hostile to sin.God can only burn on and on against sin forever.”A. W. TozerHave you ever heard of the expression “the weightiness of worship?” Where in the Bible have you seen this? Allen Ross states, “For worship to be as glorious as it should be, for it to lift people out of their mundane cares and fill them with adoration and praise, for it to be the life-changing experience it was designed to be, it must be inspired by a vision so great and so gloriou

    7 min read
See all from Cole Feix

Editor's Picks

avatar

Cole Feix

More from Cole Feix

  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Ḥesed of God, Part 1: Hope and Joy in the Midst of Despair

    Hesed.Hesed is a rich Hebrew word and unfortunately it is extremely challenging to find a word that even comes close in English. The closest our Bibles come to is steadfast love, lovingkindness, or mercy. Yet even these fall short. Hesed is viewed as God’s covenantal, loyal and enduring love for his people, a love that pursues his people when they have done nothing but reject him (think the Israelites in the wilderness). It’s a covenantal loyalty that is unwavering and not based upon the conditi

    3 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Power of Praising God in Prison

    Life can be challenging at times. Jesus made it clear that following him doesn’t exempt us from suffering. In fact, following Jesus guarantees suffering and persecution. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15:18). As followers of Jesus, we will face trials, rejection, and hardship. So, what do we do when life gets tough? Throughout the Bible, we find stories of faithful people enduring trials not because they disobeyed God, but because they followed him. One of th

    3 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    Podcast - Villains of the Bible: Sennacherib

    Sennacherib’s story takes place in the eight century BC. He makes the villain list because of his invasion of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. His father, Sargon, came to the Assyrian throne in 722 BC which was the same year they conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Sargon’s body was never recovered after he died in a battle in Turkey. It was believed that because his body was not recovered after battle, this was a curse from the gods, and he was doomed to wander the afterlife begging for foo

    2 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Pinnacle of Temptation

    Jesus was tempted throughout his life. But there were two seasons where the pressure was uniquely intense—two moments when the full weight of temptation bore down on him: the cross and the wilderness. Today, we’re looking at that second one—the wilderness—and more specifically, the third temptation as presented in Luke’s Gospel. To understand it, we need to set the scene.

    17 min read
  • avatarCole Feix
    featureImage

    The Weightiness of Worship

    “Because our God is holy, He is actively hostile to sin.God can only burn on and on against sin forever.”A. W. TozerHave you ever heard of the expression “the weightiness of worship?” Where in the Bible have you seen this? Allen Ross states, “For worship to be as glorious as it should be, for it to lift people out of their mundane cares and fill them with adoration and praise, for it to be the life-changing experience it was designed to be, it must be inspired by a vision so great and so gloriou

    7 min read
See all from Cole Feix