Last year I copied my friend Tanner Greer and listed every book I read. I am stealing his idea again. As with last year’s list, the best book I read in every category is bolded. And like last year I will give special attention to one work: Jordan Peterson‘s Maps of Meaning is the rare book that changes how you read other books.

And Thomas Merton‘s work is that rare book that changes your daily life.

The Holy Bible

The Book of Exodus
The Book of Leviticus
The Book of Numbers

The Apocrypha

The Protoevangelium of James
The Shepherd of Hermas, translated by Daniel Robinson

Christian Apologetics

How God became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, by N.T. Wright
To Light a Fire on the Earth: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age, by Robert Barron with John L. Allen, Jr.
Manual for Spiritual Warfare, by Paul Thigpin

Christian Writings

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, by Jordan B. Peterson
Four Quartets, by T.S. Elliot
My God is the LORD: Elijah and Ahab in the Age of Apostasy, by M.B. Van’t Veer
The Seven-Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton

Comparative Religion

Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, by Jordan B. Peterson
The Orthodox Christian Church: History, Beliefs, and Practices by Peter Bouteneff
Wrestling the Angel — the Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity, by Terryl L Givens

Business Strategy

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Beneath a Surface: The Inside Story of How Microsoft Overcame a $900 Write-down to Become the Hero of the PC Industry, by Brad Sams
Dogfight: How Apple and google Went to War and Started a Revolution, by Fred Vogelstein
Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols
We Were Yahoo!: From Internet Pioneer to the Trillion Dollar Loss of Google and Facebook, by Jeremy Ring

Politics and Political History

Dangerous, by Milo Yiannopoulos

Science Fiction

Ball Lightning, by Cixin Liu