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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24 summaries
A Monster Calls
A thirteen-year-old whose mother is gravely ill is visited at 12:07 by a monster made from a yew tree, who trades three stories for the one truth the boy cannot say.
Allegedly
Convicted as a small child of killing a baby, sixteen-year-old Mary finally has a reason to tell what really happened that night.
Broken Throne
Victoria Aveyard's farewell to the Red Queen world: five novellas and a scholar's records that trace a kingdom from its apocalyptic birth to the hard, hopeful work of peace.
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.
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.
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.
Man, Myth, Messiah
Rice Broocks argues from history that Jesus was no myth and no mere man, which leaves only one answer: the Messiah.
One of Us Is Lying
Five students walk into detention and only four come out alive, each with a secret the dead boy was about to publish, in Karen M. McManus's fast, addictive teen mystery.
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.
Red Queen
In a kingdom split by blood, a poor Red thief discovers she has a power only the ruling Silvers should have, and is hidden at the heart of their court.
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.
Sunrise on the Reaping
Sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy is forced into the fiftieth Hunger Games and decides to fight the arena itself, in Suzanne Collins's prequel about propaganda and the cost of defiance.
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 Book of Enoch
The ancient Jewish apocalypse that tells of the fallen Watchers, the giants, Enoch's journeys through heaven and the coming judgment by the Son of Man.
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross
A Dead Sea Scrolls scholar argues Christianity began as a mushroom-eating fertility cult, and pays for it with his career.
The Shack
A grieving father is invited back to the cabin where his daughter was murdered and spends a weekend there talking with God in three unexpected forms.
The Summer of Broken Rules
A grieving teenager returns to Martha's Vineyard for a family wedding, a week-long water-gun game of Assassin, and a groomsman she did not plan on.
The Telomere Effect
Victoria Aveyard's farewell to the Red Queen world: five novellas and a scholar's records that trace a kingdom from its apocalyptic birth to the hard, hopeful work of peace.
Thirteen Reasons Why
A high school boy spends one night listening to cassette tapes left by a classmate who took her own life, each side naming a person who played a part.
We Were Liars
A wealthy family, a private island, four inseparable teenagers, and one summer the narrator cannot remember, however hard she tries.
When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chödrön's Buddhist advice for hard times: stop running from pain and uncertainty, move toward them with curiosity and kindness, and find peace right there.