Books
The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.
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37 summaries, page 1 of 2
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
A clinical psychologist's twelve blunt, oddly named rules for carrying responsibility, telling the truth and finding meaning in a life that will include suffering.
Atomic Habits
James Clear's case that tiny daily habits, backed by good systems and a new sense of identity, compound into remarkable change.
Before We Were Yours
Five river children are stolen for a corrupt Memphis adoption home in 1939, and decades later a senator's daughter uncovers the trail.
Confronting Christianity
Rebecca McLaughlin takes twelve of the hardest objections to Christianity, from science and slavery to suffering and hell, and argues each one points toward faith.
Deep Work
Cal Newport argues that undistracted concentration on hard problems is becoming rare and valuable, and gives four rules for building a working life around it.
Desiring God
John Piper's case for Christian Hedonism: that chasing your deepest joy in God is not selfish but the very thing that honors Him most.
Do the Work
The Holistic Psychologist's guide to why willpower fails, how childhood wires our automatic patterns, and the daily mind-and-body practices that let you choose who you become.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Greg McKeown's method for finding the few things that truly matter, cutting the rest, and making the vital work almost effortless.
Frozen River
In the winter of 1789 a Maine midwife examines a body pulled from the ice and sets out to win justice for a woman the town's judge would rather silence.
Gentle and Lowly
Dane Ortlund draws on Jesus's own self-description and the Puritans to argue that Christ's deepest heart toward weary sinners and sufferers is tender, eager, unwavering love.
God and the Gay Christian
Matthew Vines argues, passage by passage, that Christians who hold the Bible as fully authoritative can also bless committed same-sex relationships.
God Has a Name
John Mark Comer walks line by line through Exodus 34:6-7, where God names himself, to show how the God you picture shapes the person you become.
God's Not Dead
A campus pastor's brisk, confident tour of the scientific, philosophical and historical case for God, written for seekers, believers and skeptics alike.
Ikigai
What the centenarians of an Okinawan village can teach the rest of us about purpose, calm, food, friends and a reason to get up in the morning.
Man, Myth, Messiah
Rice Broocks argues from history that Jesus was no myth and no mere man, which leaves only one answer: the Messiah.
Mastery
Robert Greene argues that greatness is a path anyone can walk: find your calling, serve a long apprenticeship, learn from mentors, read people well, and let deep immersion ripen into intuition.
Only Time Will Tell
A docker's son with a golden voice climbs out of Bristol's shipyards, while the secret of who his father really was waits to catch up with him.
People to Be Loved
A New Testament scholar keeps the traditional Christian view of sex and marriage while telling the church its treatment of gay people has to change.
Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot
A former LSU goalkeeper tells her own sexual story to argue that the church's silence about sex has failed a generation, and that sex is God's idea.
Tactics
Greg Koukl's friendly playbook for talking about Christian convictions by asking good questions, spotting weak arguments, and leaving a 'stone in someone's shoe' instead of starting a fight.
The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months
Stop planning by the calendar year: treat every twelve weeks as a year of its own and let a near deadline, a weekly plan and an honest score do the work.
The 33 Strategies of War
Robert Greene turns three thousand years of military thinking into 33 strategies for everyday conflict, starting with the war inside your own head.
The 4-Hour Chef
Tim Ferriss uses cooking as a training ground for meta-learning, a system for picking up any skill far faster than the conventional route allows.
The 5AM Club
Robin Sharma's fable of a burned-out entrepreneur, a stuck artist and an eccentric billionaire makes the case that owning your first hour can transform your whole life.