2015 Book Awards and Reading List

Well, it seems like I get later every year with my awards for the books I read the previous year. Such is life, I suppose. But I’m not about to give up a tradition that I’ve had rolling for six years, so here we go. For those of you reading this who haven’t been around here for long, here’s how it works. At the beginning of each year, I make a list of all the books I’ve read during the past year. Then I select the best book in a variety of categories. These are not books that have been published in the past year, just books that I’ve read in the past year. I also only consider a book if it’s a book that I’m reading for the first time. So when you see a bunch of G. K. Chesterton books or C. S. Lewis books on my reading list and are wondering why I haven’t picked any of them as the best, You can just assume that it’s because I’ve read them before. Got all that? Great! Here we go!

The 2015 Flying Inn Book Awards!

Best Fiction Book I Read this Year:

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

Runners Up: These books couldn't be considered the greatest I've read this year, but they were both good in their own ways. Last Call by Tim Powers combined the feeling of a Charles Williams novel with Las Vegas gangsters, Tarot cards, and Arthurian Legend. The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter was a fun science fiction romp in and of itself, but the way it juggled and subverted so many common sci-fi tropes was great!

Best History Book I Read this Year:

Read Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Metz

Best Theology Book I Read this Year:

Inerrancy (Norman Geisler, ed.)

Best non-history, non-theology, non-fiction Book I Read this Year:

Beauty for Truth's Sake by Stratford Caldecott

Best Book I Read Out Loud to My Kids This Year:

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Special Mention
Cambridge Latin Course 1 by Ed Phinney
This book doesn't rate as a best book in any of the categories. However, I was trying to learn Latin this past year and I read it. Each chapter tells part of a story about a family living in Pompeii. The father Caecilius, his wife Metella, and the rest of their family perish at the end of the book when Mt. Vesuvius erupts. Pretty sad ending for a kids' Latin book. Shortly after reading this book, my wife and I got into Doctor Who (and by "got into" I mean "quickly became rabid fans of, and binge watched"). So imagine my happiness when it turns out that Caecilus and his family actually made it out of Pompeii after all! :)

And, as always, here are the books I read this year:

·  Doctor Who: The Last Voyage by Dan Abnett 12/15

·  Lords of the Sea by John Hale 12/15

·  The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett 12/15

·  Martin Luther's Christmas Book (Roland Bainton, trans.) 12/15

·  Father Hunger by Douglas Wilson 12/15

·  The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper 11/15

·  The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft 11/15

·  Two Hearts by Peter S. Beagle 11/15

·  Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers 11/15

·  Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Volume 2: The Weeping Angels of Mons by Robbie Morrison 10/15

·  Perelandra by C. S. Lewis 10/15

·  Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater 10/15

·  The Confessions by Augustine of Hippo (Maria Boulding, trans.) 10/15

·  Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis 10/15

·  Last Call by Tim Powers 10/15

·  The Trojan War by Barry Strauss 9/15

·  Meaning at the Movies by Grant Horner 9/15

·  Thud! by Terry Pratchett 9/15

·  The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting 9/15

·  Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Volume 1: Revolutions of Terror by Nick Abadzis 8/15

·  With Lee in Virginia by G. A. Henty 8/15

·  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle 8/15

·  Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 8/15

·  Let's Study 1 Timothy by W. John Cook  8/15

·  A Skeleton in God's Closet by Paul Maier 8/15

·  The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton 8/15

·  Inerrancy (Norman Geisler, ed.) 8/15

·  Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise: Pride of the Fleet by Scott Tipton 8/15

·  The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien 8/15

·  Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 8/15

·  The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter 8/15

·  The Complete Tales of Winnie-The-Pooh by A. A. Milne 8/15

·  A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain by Marc Morris 7/15

·  The New Testament (Richmond Lattimore, trans.) 7/15

·  A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett 7/15

·  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 7/15

·  Roman Realities by Finley Hooper 7/15

·  From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury 7/15

·  Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome 6/15

·  Murder in the Cathedral  by T. S. Eliot 6/15

·  Little Pear by Eleanor Lattimore 6/15

·  The Jewish Study Bible (Adele Berlin, ed.) 6/15

·  The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton 6/15

·  The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury 6/15

·  The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster 6/15

·  Three Philosophies of Life by Peter Kreeft 5/15

·  National Velvet by Enid Bagnold 5/15

·  The Second World War: Milestones to Disaster by Winston Churchill 5/15

·  Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Interlinear) 5/15

·  The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings 5/15

·  Persuasions by Douglas Wilson 4/15

·  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis 4/15

·  Alarms and Discursions by G. K. Chesterton 4/15

·  The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates by Matthew Trewhella 4/15

·  The Proper Role of Law Enforcement by Richard Mack 4/15

·  The Greek Alexander Romance (Richard Stoneman, trans.) 4/15

·  Cambridge Latin Course 1 by Ed Phinney 4/15

·  Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis 4/15

·  Josephus and the Jews by F. J. Jackson 3/15

·  The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton 2/15

·  Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie 3/15

·  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis 3/15

·  Lingua Latina per se Illustrata by Hans Ørberg 3/15

·  The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton 2/15

·  These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder 2/15

·  Tuck by Stephen Lawhead 2/15

·  Tutankhamen by E. A. Budge 2/15

·   Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Metz 2/15

·  The Voyage of Argo by Appollonius of Rhodes (E. V. Rieu, trans.) 1/15

·  A Survey of Israel's History by Leon J. Wood 1/15

·  Funeral Games by Mary Renault 1/15

·  Manalive by G. K. Chesterton 1/15

·  Old Testament Parallels (Victor H. Matthews, ed.) 1/15

·  Beauty for Truth's Sake by Stratford Caldecott 1/15