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[MUSIC]
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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
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All right guys, it's that time of the year we are going to be doing our
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best books of 2023.
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I get excited for this podcast.
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He's into your podcast basically every year because I'm like thinking about
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them all the way throughout the year, but we'll get to that content before we do.
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Just want to give a quick thank you to our donors.
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Guys, if you don't know this by now, we are a donation based ministry.
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And so the overwhelming majority of our operations is paid for by you guys, by donors,
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by guys that like what we do, that believe in our mission of equipping men to push
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back darkness.
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So if you have not hopped on board to become a donor to Undaunted Life, please do that.
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Again, into your giving, a lot of guys are going to be sending you emails and
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things like that, please keep us in mind and also keep in mind that we created a
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cigar this year.
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How cool is that?
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I didn't even know coming into this year that I'd be like slinging cigars, but
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we do have cigars in the Undaunted Life shop.
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You can just go to undaunted.life/sigars as well.
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That'll take you to where you can buy these cigars.
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Again, the proceeds for that go to support the Tim Tebow Foundation, specifically
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the rescue team, which rescues children from sex trafficking.
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It takes care of them.
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All that information is there on the website.
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So for today, we're going to talk about the best books of 2023.
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So for those of you that have been listening to the show for a long time, you
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know, at the end of the year, I kind of talk about the best books that I've read.
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To those of you that are new to the show, I'm, I'm not what I would
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consider to be a prolific, prolific reader because I know people that read
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over a hundred books every single year, like you're in, you're out.
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But last year, I read 54 books in 11 months.
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And for someone like me that gets bored, easy, that kind of has to move
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from task to task to task.
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That's a lot like that is an extreme amount of books.
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And it got so extreme as I talked about last year, I was like, wait a
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minute, I read more books than I read like chapters of the Bible.
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And so I basically flipped that.
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That's why we launched the forging table.
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So for some of you, like, Hey, you know, this, you know, guys around
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the, you know, table kind of talking about the Bible.
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Where did that idea come from?
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It came from the fact that I was like, okay, I need an excuse to
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read the, you know, read the Bible and study the Bible more.
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And it's because last year I went overboard on reading books that had
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really not a whole lot to do with the Bible and not getting into God's word
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at all. But this year I read 37 books.
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So I was about to finish another book, but I had an interview cancel.
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So I didn't finish that.
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So I read 34 or 37 books this year.
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Basically how I read is when a publisher reaches out to have someone
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come on the show, which is basically the books that I read.
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They send me a PDF of the book and I upload it to my personal iPad and
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they allows me to put it into a program where I can really take notes,
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organized notes, and I can just go through it pretty quickly.
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And I think I read in terms of, okay, what is going to be interesting to my
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audience, what types of quotes, those types of things.
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So if you like the way I do the interviews, when I'm interviewing people
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about their books, that's kind of how that goes.
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And then there's usually a few books a year, like if I have a long road trip
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or if I'm going to be gone at the airport, I'll kind of listen to some books.
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But that's basically how I read.
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If I read right before bed, I can maybe get in one chapter, kind of a deal.
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A lot of it will be read during the day as well.
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I just kind of like literally lay here on the floor of my studio and I'll
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just kind of read books and that's how I get through it.
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But here's just kind of a quick thing from the very beginning.
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One thing that annoys me about modern manhood.
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Well, there's a lot of things that annoy me about modern manhood.
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Obviously I talk about it all the time.
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It's guys that have this aversion to reading.
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Like they just, they're allergic to it.
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They're like, I don't need to read.
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It's this common concept of, you know, I read books in high school and I
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read a few in college and I don't need to read anymore.
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And I got to be honest, I just don't really understand that.
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I don't really understand that point of view because you've heard, you know,
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leaders or readers, of course, but my buddy who I quote basically every year of
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Matt Hankinson, he basically says, look, there are two types of people in this
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world. There are people that read and then there are morons.
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And the thing is, is can you be smart?
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Can you have wisdom without reading?
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Yes.
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But how do you expect to grow in your intellectual capacity and to grow
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in wisdom without reading?
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Certainly that applies to the Bible, but that also applies to, you know,
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extra Bible things, things that are outside the Bible.
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And so guys, if you're not reading, this doesn't have to be like this big
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thing where you have to try to read 50 books next year.
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Like reading one book a month is entirely doable.
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And I don't care what your job status is.
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I don't care what kind of business you run.
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I don't care how many kids you have one book a month, two to 300 pages in a
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month. That's absolutely doable at a minimum.
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You guys should be reading one book a month.
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And as I talked about on the Mike Glover podcast, the only thing that you
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need to make sure that you have ready to go is you have your book, your reading
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now, and then you have the next two books that you plan to read.
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Because that'll keep you from taking a week off after you finish that book
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and then taking a month off and then it turns into six months and then it turns
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into 10 years and you haven't read a book, right?
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So after you finish your book, take a few days off or whatever and then pick up
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the next book, be ready to go.
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If you're a physical book guy, by all means, put a physical book in your hands.
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If you need a digitally so that, you know, while you're sitting around, you
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know, waiting at the doctor's office or, you know, waiting for your kids to come
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out of the school or something like that, you've got your, you know, book, maybe
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on your phone for a lot of guys listening to a book.
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I will say for me, the only books that I listen to are fiction books or history.
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And because it's just a how, how I like to take notes and how I like to coalesce
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things. I'm not going to listen to a book and, you know, stop, you know, pull
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over the side of the road and take a quick note on my phone.
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I'd rather not do that.
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I'd rather read it.
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So there you go.
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There's your commercial for those of you that need to read.
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So let's talk about how I break down my list.
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So in years past, what I would do is I would basically do categories of awards,
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right?
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For books that I read during this year that were from this year in books that I
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read during this year that were from previous years, right?
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And so I would have titles like most exciting book and most thought-provoking
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book and most difficult book and all that.
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But this year, I want to experiment with actually ranking because that's a lot
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harder to do.
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Yeah, you can kind of make up a category to, you know, kind of coalesce to a book
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that you like, but basically I have two lists here.
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So I have a top six list.
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I know kind of a random number, but stem usual is number six.
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So we'll go with number six, top six lists of books that were released before 2023,
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but I read this year and then a top 10 list of books from 2023 that I read this
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year.
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So two different lists, so I'll give the top two of my books from 2023.
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I'll give the top two a little bit more attention, but I'm basically going to buzz
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through this list because I want you to put these books on your book list,
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consider the mention of all these books to be an endorsement of these books.
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That doesn't mean I endorse every single sentence that was written, but it does
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mean I think it is worth your time to read or listen to these books.
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And yes, I will award the worst book that I read in 2023.
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Some of you just look up to look forward to that stuff because you're
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a pessimist like me, but I will tell you, it was hard doing a ranking,
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especially on the top 10 list books of 2023.
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The differences between like the number nine book and the number three book is
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like minuscule, like I was literally sitting there like moving books around
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and moving books in and out of my top 10.
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So it was difficult to do, but before we get to the top 10 books of 2023 that I
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read this year, we're going to do the top six books that I read this year that
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were not released in 2023.
7:07
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Quick sip of water.
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Let's get after it.
7:40
Number six, the crucifixion of the king of glory, a king of glory by Eugenia
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Constantino.
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So that was released last year in 2022.
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So I interviewed her on episode four, 70 of this book.
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And so she is Eastern Orthodox.
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And so she's the first person out on the show that was of that persuasion.
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So we got to speak on that a little bit, but this book specifically goes into
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very, very stark detail about the process of crucifixion, what Christ would have
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gone through physically, but also explained really the context of the first
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century and it really kind of brought the first century to light.
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Cause there were so many things that I had never really even thought of, like
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the only dignity that they did to Jesus and to other Jews that they crucified
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is that the Romans would not crucify them naked.
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I didn't know that.
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I thought Jesus was crucified naked because everyone that was crucified by
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the Romans was crucified naked, but so as to not [inaudible] off the Jews, the Romans
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were like, okay, well, at least as we're, you know, murdering you and torturing
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you, we'll at the very least, you know, let you cover your junk.
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Okay, so, but there were a lot of things where she kind of broke down the science
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of what was happening, you know, especially I remember what, like with
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the crown of thorns, like what type of pain Jesus would have been in with
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something like that, uh, where they would have, uh, put the nail in, in, in
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terms of the hand and the wrist and those, those different things.
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But it was just, it gave me a very different perspective on what exactly
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was happening, the context of the culture, how Jews felt about crucifixion,
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how Romans use crucifixion and all those types of things.
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And so it's an absolutely fantastic book and with all of these, I've basically
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talked to these authors, so I will refer you back to those interviews.
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So just go back to episode four, 70 if you want to hear about that.
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But that's number six.
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Number five is blood covenant by Michael Franzese.
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And so Michael Franzese, uh, this book was released in 2009.
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I talked to him on episode four, 35 of this podcast, so episode four, 35.
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But this was a guy that was a mafia boss, right?
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And so he is a guy that is responsible for, uh, basically creating millions and
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millions of dollars illegally, uh, for a lot of blood being spilled.
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And this book is the story of basically how we got into organized crime, how we
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got into the mob, how the families work, what it was like when he was initiated,
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how his father, uh, had, had an input and all of that, but then eventually
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to kind of speed up the story, he finds Christ and he finds Christ because
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he was doing prison time and it's just a really, really interesting book.
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Um, it's a unique book.
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I mean, I certainly haven't read a come to Jesus story that started with, and
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so there I was, you know, taking care of business in the mob.
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And so, uh, a lot of people know who Michael Franzese is.
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And he's been around for a very, very long time.
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He's doing some incredible stuff now with some different paywall content and
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stuff that he does on YouTube, but that was a fantastic book.
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So number five is blood covenant by Michael Franzese.
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All right.
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The number four book that I read, not from this year, but read this year is
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cold case Christianity by Jay Warner Wallace.
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And so this is actually the 10th anniversary edition.
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So technically the 10th anniversary edition of this book was released this
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year, but it had just, you know, a few updates and additions from the original
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one that was released a decade ago.
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And I had Jay Warner Wallace on to talk about that on episode 508.
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And the thing about Jim, if you don't know anything about him, he was a cold
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case detective, uh, murder detective for LAPD.
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And he was able to use as an atheist, he was able to use his skill set on
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investigations and, uh, you know, crime solving and things like that in cold cases.
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And he applied that to the Bible and he applied that to the declarations of
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first century Christians and eventually that helped lead him to Christ.
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And so his books are normally very, very detailed, but they still have a
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narrative arc as well.
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And so it's just crazy that in the last 10 years, I'd never picked up
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cold case Christianity.
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So I'm very excited that they released the 10th year anniversary edition because
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it gave me a chance to dig through that content.
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It's well worth your time, number four, cold case Christianity by Jay Warner
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Wallace.
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All right.
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Number three, future men by Douglas Wilson.
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So this was released back in 2016.
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So I had Doug Wilson on the show to talk about mainly his, his newer book,
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a mere Christendom.
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And so that was episode four 95 with this podcast to go back to four 95.
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But early next year, we're going to have another conversation with Doug,
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where we talk specifically about future men.
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So future men is a book that has been on our 100 books list, the 100 books
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that every modern Christian man should read list, which by the way, if you want
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access to that, just go to our website, undaunted dot life, backslash book list.
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So undaunted dot life, backslash book list, or just go to our website.
11:59
You'll be able to find it under the resources.
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But that has been in the manhood section, but I hadn't actually read that book,
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because whenever I first did this list, I engaged with a bunch of guys that I
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trust that I know are deep readers, and they gave me a bunch of books.
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So that initial book list, I know I've made a lot of edits to it since I initially
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released it, probably about 60 of those books were mine and about 40 were
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from people that I trusted and future men was on there.
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And I finally got around to reading it this year.
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It is a fantastic breakdown, even though, you know, 2016 seems like it was
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a million years ago, but it's a fantastic breakdown of what types of issues
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befall young men in our modern culture.
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But also what biblical masculinity is, biblical boyhood is, it's just a
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fantastic read.
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It's not a really long book, but it's well worth your time.
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Number three, future men by Douglas Wilson.
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All right.
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Number two, undaunted courage by Stephen Ambrose.
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So this was released in 1997.
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And maybe I put a little higher on the list because it has a word on Donton.
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And I may admit that, but this is a book about the Lewis and Clark, you know,
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journey across the United States.
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And so the thing is, is like, I was at least tangentially aware of some of the
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things about the Lewis and Clark expedition, because, you know, all of us
13:07
are from, from elementary school.
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I remember even, yeah, we did a Lewis and Clark play and I like played Napoleon.
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And, you know, we were talking about the Louisiana purchase and a bunch of
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different things, but this book is so unbelievably interesting, like it's
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painful because, you know, it talks about Thomas Jefferson and, you know,
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the Louisiana purchase and how much of a risk that was and how it, you know,
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really risked the, uh, the coalescing of the entire nation and how the,
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the things that we take for granted in terms of how we get across the country
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today to just imagine two men plus, you know, a couple of dozen more making their
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way across the country and the things that they had to deal with.
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And they didn't have modern equipment.
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They didn't have modern hiking boots.
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They didn't have, you know, high quality tents that, you know, would withstand
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whatever wins and temperatures and things like that.
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You know, these were guys that were just doing their best with what they had at
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the time.
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I mean, this was a long time ago.
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And to just to hear what they went through as they went all across the country,
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a lot of times on foot, sometimes on horses, but I'll even talk about this.
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I was listening to this book a lot of time while I was sitting in a, uh, you
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know, a deer blind, right?
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And so I'm sitting here listening to these stories because as they were
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making their way across the plains, this was at the time when animals were way
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more ubiquitous than they are now because of settling and because of this was
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before all the, the, the, you know, the different fur traders and all that,
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basically almost killed all the bison.
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Uh, you know, they really destroyed the elk population, the bear population.
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And so this was before all that.
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And so you would hear them talk about, um, you know, how they ate that day.
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And so the people that were with them, where they were eating like 10 to 15
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pounds of meat a day, literally 10 to 15 pounds.
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So this is way before Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan hopped on the, the carnivore
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bandwagon.
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That's all these guys ate.
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And so you would hear them talk about, well, you know, our hunters went out today
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and they killed a bear, three elk, five deer and, you know, a couple of beavers.
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And that's what they ate that day.
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And I just was reminded of like being in the mountains, trying to figure out like,
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okay, we're, we're the bear out, you know,
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where the elk at, and you, you get lucky if you see something.
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And for some of you whitetail hunters, you know, you're kind of getting through
15:15
that season to where it's like, you might be eating a tag sandwich at this point,
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because you haven't seen anything that was worth taking.
15:20
But at this time, it was just everywhere.
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And again, they weren't hunting with modern rifles and modern, you know,
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scopes and, you know, all that type of stuff.
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And they were just really, really good at what they did.
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And so the, the level of detail in this book is fantastic.
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I would suggest listening to this one because the, the book itself is a tone.
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But if you listen to it on a car ride or something like that, it's very, very entertaining.
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Number two, Undaunted Courage by Steven Ambrose.
15:42
And now in Sir Drumroll, if you'd like the number one book that I read this year,
15:47
that wasn't made this year is The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
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That was released in 2006.
15:53
And so Cormac McCarthy actually just passed away this year.
15:56
I think he was 90 or 91, but this is a novelist and he's written some amazing works
16:02
like Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men.
16:04
But the road, everyone kind of remembers the, the Vigo Mortensen movie.
16:08
It's a post apocalyptic world where a dad and a son are trying to survive together.
16:14
And, you know, the movie does a pretty good job of kind of explaining it.
16:18
But I just got to tell you, this is just another example of the book being way
16:21
better than the movie.
16:22
So I actually need to go back and rewatch the movie because I watched that
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movie before I was a father.
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And now that I'm a father of two sons, it's, it's just different.
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And I will tell you the reason why this is my number one book of the year
16:34
that I didn't read in this year is because this is now my number one
16:37
favorite nonfiction or favorite fiction piece of work ever.
16:41
So I love the stuff that's been written by Jack Carr, more on him in a second,
16:46
the stuff that's been written by Stephen Pressfield and obviously like Ernest
16:50
Hemingway and there's a lot of great people and there's a lot on our book list.
16:55
We have a literature section with some of the greatest novels ever, ever put out.
16:59
But this is my favorite novel ever.
17:01
And I think it has to do exactly with the fact that I have sons because so many
17:04
times throughout this book, I put myself in the father's shoes.
17:08
And I thought about because the kid, the son in this book is, he seems like he's
17:13
maybe like nine or 10.
17:14
I don't think they ever specified in the book, but it's just such a whirlwind
17:20
of emotions for a father.
17:21
And I don't really want to give anything away, but just imagine trying to operate
17:24
in a post apocalyptic world with dangers around every corner and, you know, the
17:28
bleakness of trying to find food and water and you're trying to keep your son alive,
17:31
but you're also trying to be a father.
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And there are so many illusions to the biblical narrative of a heavenly father
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and us as, you know, image bearers of him, but also a heavenly father and his
17:43
son, Jesus.
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And there's all this is just kind of works its way through the novel.
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This is going to be something that I, that I buy and share with a lot of people.
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I've already bought copies of this to share with people, people that have
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sons, people that have sons that maybe are going off to college soon or that are
17:59
kind of in that age.
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This is a great book for fathers and sons to read together.
18:03
Now, I will tell you, it is, it's rough.
18:05
Like it is very, very violent in places, and it's very explicitly violent, which
18:10
is, you know, indicative of Cormac McCarthy style.
18:13
That's really something that he did a lot of, and that's what he was known for.
18:16
So it's not like bloodlust for bloodlust sake, but, you know, it might be a
18:20
little bit rough for, you know, a 10 or 11 year old boy to read.
18:23
But especially if you have a teenage boy, dad, this would be a great one to read.
18:27
And if you've never been a reader by this one, if you got a teenage son, he's
18:31
ever seen you read a book by two copies of it and say, son, we're going to read
18:35
this together and we're going to come together and talk about it.
18:37
So just an absolutely fantastic book.
18:39
I'm so glad that I finally read it this year.
18:40
But the number one book from this year, or that I read this year, that's not from
18:44
this year, the road by Cormac McCarthy.
18:46
Again, that was released in 2006.
18:50
But now we're going to get to the top 10 books of 2023 that were actually released
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in 2023.
18:55
And before we get to number 10, I just need to do an honorable mention.
18:58
Now, some people do honorable mentions because they do a top 10 top five list.
19:02
And then they just can't help but mention a bunch of other things.
19:05
I'm doing an honorable mention because this book isn't fair to put in the top 10
19:10
because it's so different than the other 10.
19:11
So as I've talked about before, I don't read a lot of fiction.
19:14
Okay.
19:15
It's kind of hard for me to follow, kind of keeping people straight and keeping the
19:18
storyline straight and all that. And part of me is like, when I read a fiction
19:22
book, typically, and here I am just got through talking about the road and how
19:25
much of an impact it had on me, I want to fill my mind with with data, things that
19:29
help me to be more discerning.
19:31
And that doesn't necessarily happen when I'm just like reading, reading a
19:34
novel about a story that somebody made up with made up characters.
19:37
So the honorable mention for the top 10 is only the dead by Jack Carr.
19:42
So that is the latest novel that he's released in the Jack James Reese series.
19:47
And in the James Reese series, this is novel number six.
19:49
Every one of these is a banger, right?
19:52
I know people kind of, you know, rank order them of the six.
19:55
If I had to choose one savage son, the third novel would be my favorite
19:58
in this series so far.
20:00
But again, it just doesn't make sense to throw him in the top 10 because every
20:04
year that he releases a James Reese novel, it's going to be in our top 10.
20:08
So I'm keeping it out of the top 10 so that we can be fair to the 10 nonfiction
20:12
books that I wanted to bring to you.
20:13
Okay.
20:14
So with that in mind, let's go ahead and get into number 10.
20:17
So the number 10 book of 2023 is woke Jesus by Lucas Miles.
20:22
And so Lucas Miles is a pastor.
20:23
He came on episode 483 of this podcast.
20:26
This book, if you're a Christian and you don't really understand
20:31
wokeness, you don't really understand critical theory.
20:34
You don't really understand how leftism has and progressivism has kind of
20:38
invaded and infected Christianity.
20:40
And you want a quick read that's very palatable.
20:44
It's woke Jesus by Lucas Miles because this book has a ton of citations,
20:48
but it's a very palatable book.
20:50
There are deeper books on this subject.
20:52
And we'll talk about one here in a second that aren't as accessible.
20:55
But again, if you're not super well read and if you're not versing all these
20:59
topics, that's one that you absolutely have to pick up.
21:01
Okay.
21:02
So that's the number 10 book of 2023, woke Jesus by Lucas Miles.
21:05
Number nine is prepared by Mike Glover.
21:08
And so a lot of you that are new listeners to the show, you came to our
21:11
show because of Mike Glover's podcast, Mike Force and my interview that I did
21:14
over on his show, which is done incredibly well as of the recording of this.
21:17
I think we're over 200,000 views on that just here in a couple of weeks.
21:21
So it's been fantastic.
21:22
But this book, just like the last one is almost like a primer for preparedness.
21:27
So I don't like saying prepping because, you know, when people say talk about
21:31
preppers, we kind of have something in mind that's not always super positive.
21:34
But this is a good book that if you want to kind of dip your toe in the world of
21:38
preparedness, whether that's physical preparedness or the preparedness of your
21:41
family or the homestead or your materials or any of those types of things, your
21:45
vehicle, this is a great way to really dig into that.
21:48
So Mike was able to put his experience as a member of the green brace and also
21:54
a member of the CIA and the things that he's done since then with field craft
21:58
survival into a book that again is accessible.
22:00
I've read other books that are kind of in this vein that are more like reference
22:04
books.
22:04
And if you try to read them from cover to cover, it's going to kind of bog you
22:07
down, but this is not going to be like that.
22:09
So again, he talked about it a lot on episode 479 of this podcast, but the
22:13
number nine book of 2023 is prepared by my Glover.
22:16
All right, let's go to number eight.
22:18
The number eight book of 2023 is saving Aziz by Chad Robocho.
22:22
And so Chad Robocho is obviously a buddy.
22:24
He's been on the show several times, but he came on episode 415 of this podcast.
22:28
And as a Zula Aziz, the guy who is the center point of the saving Aziz book is
22:34
on episode 416. So those were released in January of this year, definitely
22:37
go back and listen to those.
22:38
But this is detailing what Chad Robocho and the other parts of the crew
22:43
for Save Our Allies.
22:45
So that would be Sarah Verardo, who's been on the show, Tim Kennedy, who has
22:48
been on the show, Nick Paul Machano and a bunch of guys that were not allowed to
22:51
name in terms of what they did when they initially were trying to save Aziz
22:56
Zula Aziz and his family when the Taliban retook over the Afghanistan, because
23:01
the United States pull out because Joe Biden's a turd.
23:04
And so it, a details kind of how that initial mission of, Hey, we need to get
23:08
Aziz and his family out expanded to where they saved like 15,000 people from
23:14
Afghanistan in like a few weeks.
23:16
And it goes into some of the details about what they saw when they were on
23:20
the ground, what happened to Aziz at different points, how he was trying to
23:24
get to these checkpoints, trying to be saved and he kept running into Taliban
23:27
who knew who he was, they knew he had helped the Americans.
23:30
And again, at that time, and, you know, on into today, if they find people that
23:34
they knew were helping the Americans during the war against the Taliban, these
23:37
are people that they're just executing, they're raping the women before they
23:40
execute them and those types of things.
23:42
And so that book goes into all that detail.
23:44
So if you're into that type of thing, you should definitely pick up that book.
23:46
So again, the number eight book of 2023, saving Aziz by Chad Robocho.
23:50
Then we have number seven.
23:52
So this is wimpy week and woke by John Cooper.
23:55
And so John Cooper leads singer, a skillet friend of the show.
23:58
I've been on his show several times.
23:59
He's been on my show several times, but we specifically talked about this book
24:03
on episode 526 of this podcast.
24:05
So with number 10, I talked about woke Jesus by Lucas Miles being an accessible
24:10
book, kind of a quick read on these subjects.
24:12
This book is not as accessible because it goes way deeper on the subjects of
24:16
critical theory on progressivism on wokeness, basically overall.
24:20
But the contention, the main contention of this book is that modern Christians
24:25
have become wimpy, weak and woke.
24:27
That's kind of a good way to encapsulate it.
24:29
I think I was actually the first person to read this book cover to cover before I
24:32
had him on the show.
24:33
And the thing about this book is there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
24:38
citations.
24:38
If you want to use this book as a primer to send you down the rabbit hole on
24:43
different specifics about specific, heretical philosophers or people that have
24:48
basically given rise to this woke movement, this is the book that will do that.
24:52
And so it's funny, as you're reading this, you're forgetting, oh, this is
24:55
John Cooper.
24:56
This is a guy that's been a rock star for over 20 years.
24:58
His band has sold something like, excuse me, like 15 or 16 million records.
25:03
One of the best selling modern rock bands of all time.
25:07
One of the most streamed modern rock bands.
25:09
They're still touring all the time and headlining and, you know, selling out
25:12
places and stuff like that.
25:13
And so you forget, oh, this was written by a rock star because a lot of those, excuse
25:18
me, a lot of those rock rock star guys, I mean, they're just kind of vapid.
25:21
Their lives is centered around chasing tail and doing drugs and drinking and, you
25:25
know, just the road and here, John Cooper is writing this, this tome on the, the
25:30
wimpiness, the weakness and the wokeness of kind of our, our modern moment.
25:34
So it's a fantastic read.
25:36
It's a, again, it's going to be harder to get through than Lucas Miles's book,
25:39
but it's still fairly accessible, even though it goes pretty deep.
25:42
So the number seven book of 2023, wimpy week and woke by John Cooper.
25:46
Number six, manhood by Josh Holly.
25:50
So Josh is a United States senator representing the state of Missouri.
25:53
He came on episode 481 of this podcast.
25:56
And the reason that that interview happened is because he went on the Jordan
26:00
Peterson podcast and he did a fantastic job.
26:04
Because if you listen to the Jordan Peterson podcast, he interrupts constantly.
26:07
He interrupts people while they're mid thought because he has to get his
26:10
thought out.
26:10
And I thought Josh Holly did a great job of kind of anticipating that.
26:13
And so he would cut his answers off to where Jordan Peterson had kind of a
26:16
softer place to land as opposed to like, you know, running into the middle of the
26:20
sentence with a hatchet, but this was a book where Josh Holly took on the subject
26:24
of manhood, but he did it through a biblical lens.
26:26
So on episode four, one of those podcasts, we talk a lot about that.
26:30
And I also gave him my critique and why this book wasn't any higher is because
26:34
he basically doesn't mention Jesus as the standard for manhood and modernity.
26:39
And I thought that that was a big swing and miss on this book.
26:43
But even with that big swing and miss, it's still one of the better books that
26:46
I've read on manhood in general.
26:48
And so that book is certainly well worth your time, manhood by Josh Holly.
26:52
All right, let's get into the number five book of 2023.
26:57
Anything is possible by Joby Martin.
26:59
So as all of you know, Joby Martin's a very good friend of mine.
27:02
He comes on the show about once a month to do a new thing called ask a pastor
27:05
with Joby Martin, but on episode 443 of this podcast, we talk specifically
27:10
about anything as possible.
27:11
And that was the follow up book to if the tomb is empty.
27:15
And so if you hear him talk about these two books, these two books
27:18
could have been one volume.
27:19
Okay.
27:20
So I don't know what they would have called it, but those books could
27:22
basically be read together as one large book.
27:25
So this is technically the sequel book, but as with any, you know, movie that
27:30
has a good sequel, they can be watched back to back and just kind of work
27:34
within each other.
27:34
But this is a book that, you know, with a title like anything is possible.
27:39
You think, oh, this is going to be like some sort of app itself, healthy thing.
27:41
But it's not.
27:42
It's a very biblically based gospel centered book that helps Christians
27:47
understand their plight as it refers to and as it points to the gospel
27:53
and the work of the gospel.
27:54
And again, the first book, if the tomb is empty is, is on our book list,
27:58
the 100 book list, every modern Christian man should read in the Christian section.
28:01
And again, it's kind of like, okay, read that one because it works very, very
28:05
well with this one.
28:06
But that's been one of the most memorable podcasts that we've had was
28:10
because when he came on episode 443, that was the third time he had come on the
28:14
show, but that was where we really lit it up and like fans were really like, okay,
28:18
like I really enjoyed the first two times.
28:20
Joby came on, but this time we really went went into it.
28:23
But I mean, at this time, I knew him way more.
28:25
I'd read two of his books at this point.
28:27
And I was able to kind of coalesce an idea of his philosophy of how he carries
28:31
himself and how he prefers to put the message of the gospel out there.
28:35
But again, very, very palatable book.
28:37
This is an easy read, but it's going to be challenging as well, because it's not
28:41
going to allow you any of your priors to stand unchallenged.
28:45
So if you think the gospel is a certain thing, that kind of, you know, molds
28:50
itself to your chosen lifestyle and your chosen pet sins, this book is going to
28:54
kind of expose that.
28:55
So the number five book of 2023, anything is possible by Joby Martin.
28:59
All right.
29:00
Next one here, the number four book of 2023, the story of abortion in America
29:04
by Marvin Olasky and Leah Savas.
29:07
And so Leah actually came on episode 464 of this podcast and this book is
29:11
literally what it sounds like.
29:13
It is a historical view of the history of abortion in America.
29:17
And the interesting thing about this book, as you guys know, I'm very, very pro
29:21
life. I'm very engaged on the pro life issue.
29:24
I do speak on the pro life issue and I help train people on how to engage the
29:29
top abortion arguments from pro aborts.
29:32
And so this is a book that actually helped me undergird a lot of the things
29:35
that I argue with the history to back it up.
29:37
Because do you guys know what abortion was like in 1790?
29:42
Because this book is going to help you understand that.
29:45
And so again, this book, the first part was written by Marvin and then Leah
29:48
comes in on the back end and kind of gives some of the modern arguments.
29:51
And they were writing this book while when Roe v. Wade was overturned and
29:55
Planned Parenthood v. Casey was overturned.
29:57
And so this is a book that I added to the history section of our 100 books
30:02
on our website, because there's not a book that I've seen like this.
30:06
Now, and this book is not going to be a mega bestseller, even by pro
30:09
lifers, because it's a history book.
30:10
But I've never seen something give me the ground level of view on what
30:14
abortion is like and what the opinions on abortion are like and how opinions
30:18
have changed over time, what caused them to change.
30:22
And so my challenge to any of you that are pro lifers, especially those of you
30:26
that engage with pro abortion people on this subject matter, you need to know
30:30
this information and that information is not just readily available on live
30:34
actions website or any of these other pro life groups or something like that.
30:37
This gives you that deep dive.
30:38
So you should absolutely read this book.
30:40
Number four, the story of abortion in America by Marvin
30:43
Olasky and Leah Savis.
30:44
All right, now we're getting to the top three.
30:46
So we're really getting into the nitty gritty here.
30:47
Number three book of 2023 is The War on Men by Owen Strand.
30:52
So Owen Strand came on episode 509 of this podcast to talk about the war on men.
30:56
This is probably to date one of the best books that I've read strictly on
31:01
biblical masculinity.
31:02
So Josh Holly's book earlier, like I said, talked about masculinity through the
31:06
lens of philosophy and the Bible and things like that, but he leaves Jesus out.
31:11
Owen Strand doesn't do that.
31:12
So he talked about this on episode 509.
31:15
This came on the heels of last year's episode where he came on.
31:18
And that was the most viewed and most listened to interview that we did on the
31:22
show last year.
31:24
And so one to get him on this year to talk about something that's obviously
31:26
near and dear to our hearts, which is biblical masculinity.
31:29
And this is just a very forceful book and the best way that I could, I could tell
31:34
you and I added this to our book list as well, because it breaks down what
31:39
biblical masculinity should be and it uses the Bible mainly.
31:42
Whereas Josh Holly's book kind of depends on philosophy and some, some
31:46
cultural things, which are good, which I'm all for.
31:48
This one basically sticks to more of a biblical side of masculinity.
31:53
I'm trying to think of specific things from the book, just to give it a better
31:56
commercial, but I mean, it's the number three book I read this year.
31:58
And I mean, I consider putting it at number one, you'll see how hard it was.
32:01
Like I told you, like when we get down to this top five, it's just like, how
32:05
in the heck do you spread these out?
32:06
Like basically every book that was in the top five, so you've, you've seen
32:10
three of them right now, I considered making it the number one book.
32:13
And so this is like, okay, you got five kids and they're all awesome
32:16
and all have straight A's and all good athletes.
32:18
It's like, if you had to rank them, like how hard is that going to be?
32:21
That's what this felt like.
32:22
So I'll just leave that there on that one.
32:24
The number three book I read in 2023, The War on Men by Owen Strand.
32:27
Now, number two.
32:29
So some of you that have seen our interviews this year, you probably
32:32
know what's coming up at number one.
32:33
But number two is Wildtime Remains by Yeon Meepark.
32:37
So I'll talk more about Yeon Meepark when we get to our best podcast of the
32:42
year, but she came on episode 431 of this podcast.
32:45
I had been working to get her on the show.
32:47
We were trying to work it out for literally like two or three years.
32:50
And we finally made it work.
32:51
If you don't know who Yeon Meepark is, she was a North Korean defector.
32:54
She escaped to eventually to South Korea, but she did it through China.
32:59
She was trafficked sexually her and her mother both.
33:02
And it kind of tells that story, but I just actually want to read the description
33:05
of this book and then I'll read some of my favorite quotes.
33:07
The North Korean defector, human rights advocate and best-selling author
33:11
of in order to live sounds the alarm on the culture wars, identity
33:15
politics and authoritarian tendencies tearing America apart.
33:18
After defecting from North Korea, Yeon Meepark found liberty and freedom in
33:22
America, but she also found a chilling crackdown on self-expression and thought
33:26
that reminded her of the brutal regime she risked her life to escape.
33:32
She spoke out about the mass politics, political indoctrination she saw around
33:37
her in the United States, park faced censorship and even death threats.
33:40
In Wildtime Remains, Park highlights the dangerous hypocrisy's mob tactics
33:45
and authoritarian tendencies that speak in the name of wokeness and social justice.
33:49
No one is spared in her eye opening account, including the elites who claim
33:53
to care for the poor and the working classes, but turn their backs on anyone
33:57
who dared to think independently.
33:58
Park arrived in America eight years ago with no preconceptions, no
34:02
political aims and no partisan agenda.
34:04
With urgency, the unique insight and unique insight, the best-selling author
34:08
and human rights activist reminds us of the fragility of freedom, a fragility
34:13
of freedom and what we can do to preserve it.
34:15
And so this book, again, it has some autobiographical elements of her
34:20
unbelievable story of survival.
34:22
Again, we talked about that on the episode she came on, episode 431.
34:26
Jordan Peterson writes the forward of this book, which is a fantastic
34:30
forward. And you just can't believe the stuff that happened to her and to have
34:35
the mindset that she has right now, unbelievably positive, unbelievably
34:40
hopeful, but not blind.
34:42
She doesn't look at America through rose colored glasses.
34:44
So we'll get there with I'll read a few quotes from the book.
34:47
These are shorter quotes, but these are kind of the reason why I really like
34:51
the book. So here's the first quote.
34:52
I remember preparing myself for suicide.
34:54
My mother and I had a plan for if we were caught.
34:57
She had hidden a dozen razors, but razor blades in my jacket and a
35:02
plastic bag full of sleeping pills in her bra.
35:05
We cried as we rehearsed the steps if we got caught by the authorities.
35:09
We tried to lighten the emotional burden by reassuring each other
35:12
that we were lucky to be in such a position at all, to finally escape
35:15
to freedom or else to finally be released from hell.
35:18
Our journey to the other side, wherever that may be, would be together.
35:22
It would be to freedom.
35:24
So she wrote that as her and her mother were being sexually trafficked
35:28
and just human traffic through China, eventually through Mongolian
35:31
then into South Korea. Next quote here.
35:33
In the midst of arguing that gender is a construct complaining about toxic
35:37
masculinity and mansplaining, declaring that the idea of a
35:42
protector or provider is sexist, that marriage is outdated and that
35:46
children rob you of your freedom.
35:47
No one seemed to stop and wonder if they might be personally
35:50
responsible for their own unhappiness.
35:53
And so this is a part where she was kind of attacking these people
35:57
that talk about misogyny all the time, but then we don't talk about
35:59
misandry, you know, basically ever misandry is the hatred of men
36:02
and misogyny is the hatred of women.
36:03
All right, last quote here, again, just an absolutely fantastic book.
36:06
The fact that leftists tend to benefit so greatly from American
36:10
democratic capitalism while rhetorically advocating for its
36:13
destruction also helps explain why there's so much less focus on
36:17
the future than on the past.
36:18
Stuck in their own self made contradictions about current American
36:22
life, from which they profit so handsomely, leftists tend to focus on
36:26
the unalterable past as a way of perpetuating their own perceived
36:30
victimhood and punishing their ideological opponents.
36:33
Hence, a distant descendant of the 19th century African slaves
36:37
who work at Goldman Sachs or studies at Harvard is a victim.
36:41
The first generation immigrant child of a 21st century Chinese slave
36:44
who goes to public school is not.
36:46
So again, she has no sacred cows that she's not willing to take on.
36:51
Again, this is a gal who walked across the Mongolian desert in
36:55
the middle of the night in the middle of winter, basically in a
36:58
light jacket and crappy shoes when she weighed like 85 pounds
37:01
because she was so now malnourished from living in North Korea.
37:04
So when she comes to America, she's not afraid to take on leftists.
37:08
She's not afraid to take on the things that we're not supposed to take
37:10
on. She's not afraid to say the things that need to be said in our culture.
37:14
Again, it's just an absolutely, absolutely fantastic book.
37:17
My number two book of the year for 2023.
37:19
Wildtime remains by Yeon Mee Park.
37:21
And so here we are before he gets to the number one book.
37:24
I do actually need to talk about the worst book that I read in 2023.
37:27
And I'm actually pretty sad to bring this to you.
37:29
I'm going to be 100% honest because typically
37:33
the worst book that I read of the year is so blatantly obvious.
37:36
And it sucks so bad.
37:39
And I basically want the author to suffer because of the filth
37:44
and nonsense that they put into a book that I actually had to read.
37:47
This year, I don't feel that way because I really, really liked the author
37:52
and the author and I get along well and we agree about a lot of things.
37:57
But I just couldn't put it out of my mind how poorly I think this book
38:02
was argued.
38:03
And so the book is The New Fight for Life by Benjamin Watson.
38:07
And so that he came on an episode 473 of this podcast.
38:10
And I'll give you a little bit of a primer on this.
38:12
So I've always been a fan of Benjamin Watson.
38:15
I'm very much so a fan of his pro-life stances and the things that he's
38:18
done in his career to to stand up for people and to stand up for Christ
38:22
in public and all those different things.
38:24
And so when I saw he was writing a book about the abortion subject matter,
38:28
I was like, yeah, like we need to hook this up immediately.
38:31
And so we got him scheduled before the book was released.
38:35
And when I started to read the book, I started digging into the book.
38:39
And I was like, huh, OK, a lot of the language is kind of strange.
38:43
It's language that you would expect to see from more progressive lefty type people.
38:47
And the thing about the book is some people are are long on description
38:52
and short on prescription, right?
38:54
So they'll describe a problem and detail on what they prescribe to fix it is really bad.
38:58
The thing I found most disappointing about this book is it was long on description,
39:03
but the descriptions were in a lot of ways, not very accurate.
39:07
And then the prescriptions were equally as nonsensical.
39:11
And so basically this book was a kind of a I don't consider him to be a leftist
39:19
Christian, but this book was very leftist in the things that it did.
39:23
You could even see subtle things like he would capitalize the word black
39:26
when describing black people, but not white when describing white people.
39:29
That is, you know, an APA standard now.
39:31
But that is something that typically only progressives use.
39:34
A lot of the things that he talked about in the book in terms of how we can
39:37
curb the abortion issue, which he is fervently dedicated his life to,
39:41
which is why I like him and what he does so much.
39:43
It's to this concept of basically the government needs to take care of people
39:48
from womb to tomb.
39:49
Now I'm all four people taking care of themselves from womb to tomb.
39:52
I'm all four churches and ministries taking care of people from womb to tomb.
39:56
But he's talking about basically the federal government doing these things.
39:59
And so in a lot of the prescriptions in this book, it was like utopian.
40:04
It was like, OK, yeah, in a perfect world, here are the things that we could
40:07
do to prevent people from killing their babies.
40:09
And a lot of times like he tended to dismiss the role, especially of black
40:14
women in their own choices.
40:16
Because again, black women are not being rounded up on the streets, thrown
40:20
into vans, driven to Planned Parenthood, being strapped down and chained down
40:25
or whatever, and then having their babies forcibly removed from them.
40:28
These are women that are either paying a few hundred bucks or getting
40:32
the procedure paid for and they are going into an office knowing that there
40:37
will be a paid assassin that's going to kill their child.
40:39
They're not confused about the outcome of an abortion.
40:42
They know exactly what they're doing.
40:43
And a lot of them are very, very proud about the multiple abortions that they've
40:46
gotten. And it's certainly not just black women.
40:48
It's women of all stripes and all backgrounds, right?
40:52
But this is something that it seemed like he was basically giving black
40:55
women a pass and also giving black men a pass or just men in general a
41:01
pass because obviously we know that three quarters of all black babies in
41:04
America are born out of wedlock.
41:06
I'll allow the problems in the quote unquote black community, which I hate
41:09
talking about an entire group of people that share the same level of
41:12
melanin as a group.
41:14
But if we're talking about just colloquially, they have such ridiculous
41:18
problems in that community because of a lack of fathers.
41:21
And not just biological fathers, just fathering of any kind.
41:24
Cause I mean, remember back in the day, like you hear your grandparents talk
41:27
about if they got in trouble on the other side of the neighborhood, a
41:30
neighbor would whoop them, you know what I mean?
41:31
And so it's not just your dad, but it's just like, you know, the, the
41:35
fatherhood atmosphere that you're in.
41:37
And that certainly is a problem in the black community.
41:39
But the same is true for Mexicans, for, you know, other Latino groups
41:44
here in the United States, for white people.
41:47
It's not a huge problem in the Asian community because the family unit is so
41:50
important. But again, he was basically not calling out men for, for being
41:54
deadbeats because one of the things that prevents abortion to an extreme
41:59
degree is when the male is like, no, we're not going to kill this baby.
42:02
I'm going to take care of you.
42:02
I'm going to take care of this baby.
42:03
Like let's work this out.
42:04
So at the Hope Pregnancy Center here in Edmond, Oklahoma, that's our
42:09
pro life center here.
42:09
The odds of someone choosing to save their baby when the male is involved
42:15
and part of that entire process goes to the roof.
42:19
And they save a lot of babies over there, even when the dad's not around,
42:21
but when the dad is around, even if he's young, even if he's kind of a punk,
42:25
even if he's kind of immature, even if he's not a big earner or a wisdom
42:29
filled individual, when he's part of the process, you know, as they describe
42:33
it, there, there are these men that the women are sitting there, you know,
42:37
considering an abortion and they're like looking to their man, almost like,
42:40
Hey, please save me from this.
42:41
But if he just sits there silently, like a bump on a log, like Adam, then,
42:46
you know, they'll just kind of go through with the process.
42:48
They'll just, you know, a lot of these women will end up, you know,
42:51
killing their baby because the man in their life is like, you know,
42:53
do whatever makes you happy.
42:54
It's your body because again, they bought into the cultural life.
42:57
So I would have loved to have been able to say that everyone should read
43:03
this book and use it as a way to argue.
43:06
But when I go back to the interview, what I chose to do is to focus on the
43:11
things that Benjamin Watson and I agree on.
43:13
And so that was what most of the interview was.
43:16
At one point, I considered canceling the interview because I was like,
43:18
I don't know how to make an interview out of this because the book I just felt
43:21
like was so poorly done.
43:23
I just did not like it at all.
43:24
I didn't think it did any favors to the pro life cause, to be honest.
43:28
But I tried to focus on what we agreed on.
43:31
There were a few times where I pushed back and did it on purpose,
43:33
but I tried to do it in a way to where it's like, this is my brother in Christ.
43:36
So let's see where we can come together.
43:38
But just overall, there just wasn't a worst book that I read this year.
43:42
So the worst book of 2023, the new fight for life by Benjamin Watson.
43:45
So let's shift gears a little bit.
43:47
Let's get back to the happy side of the podcast.
43:48
Let's go to my number one book of 2023.
43:52
And that is the surprising rebirth of belief in God by Justin Brierly.
43:56
And so he's been on the show several times.
43:58
He came on episode 498 of this podcast.
44:00
If you don't know who Justin Brierly is, he was the longtime host of the unbelievable
44:04
podcast.
44:05
And so unbelievable is a debate show that I've been on a couple of times where
44:09
they typically pit a Christian and a secular atheist together and they'll argue
44:16
some specific topic.
44:17
So it could be, you know, a theological topic.
44:20
It could be a cultural topic.
44:21
I was on there debating egalitarianism versus complimentarianism.
44:24
I'm obviously a complimentarian and I was on there again to debate,
44:28
Second Amendment, gun violence, those types of things.
44:30
And so this is a guy that has done quite a bit in that area and he's been a part
44:35
of a lot of these different debates, but I'll read the description of his book here
44:38
and then we'll get into a couple of favorite quotes.
44:40
Justin Brierly is convinced that in our time we are witnessing a growing wave of
44:45
faith, famously described as the long withdrawing roar of the Sea of Faith,
44:50
the Christian narrative that shaped the West has been replaced by sweeping secularism.
44:54
But is that the end of the story?
44:56
It was a conversation with agnostic journalist Douglas Murray that led
44:59
Brierly to investigate whether a change was on the horizon.
45:02
Speaking of the Sea of Faith, Murray remarked that tides come back in again and
45:07
that a number of his intelligent friends had converted to Christianity in recent years.
45:10
Brierly was seeing a similar trend among the secular thinkers he had interviewed.
45:14
Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, Dave Rubin, and many others have found themselves
45:18
surprised by the continuing resonance and relevance of Christianity.
45:22
And they are joining in on conversations about faith.
45:24
Readers will encounter Brierly's discussion of cultural trends and
45:28
concepts, including the meaning crisis, public intellectuals embracing faith,
45:32
why the Christian story is ready to return and much more.
45:35
In the surprising rebirth of belief in God, Brierly outlines the dramatic fall
45:39
of new atheism and the birth of new conversation of a new conversational
45:44
on whether God makes sense of science, history, culture, and the search for meaning.
45:48
People are returning to Christianity, but is the church prepared to welcome
45:52
a new wave of faith?
45:53
There's a new conversation building.
45:55
The tide is coming.
45:56
So again, we went into a lot of detail on episode 498 of this podcast.
46:00
But I do want to read a couple of quotes here that I thought were especially fantastic.
46:05
There were the high priests, the four horsemen and the sacred text they had written.
46:08
Science was their object of worship and naturalism, the belief that all that
46:12
exists can be explained by matter and motion in the blind forces of nature was their creed.
46:17
They gathered regularly to celebrate their beliefs, to praise the wonder of science
46:21
and to hear their leaders preach against those who believe another gospel.
46:25
Atheists who questioned the strict materialist orthodoxy or even lost their
46:29
faith altogether were heretics and rounded on an unswerving zeal.
46:34
And so that's one quote.
46:35
I'll read one more from this book here and then I got a special announcement for you.
46:38
By the time new atheism swung into view in the 2000s, there were precious few
46:43
churches prepared to equip their members for the onslaught of skepticism abroad.
46:47
They might have been able to offer uplifting worship songs and an inspiring
46:51
sermon series on living your best life now, but few were in a position to offer
46:55
a philosophical defense of God's existence or to defend the historicity of the Bible.
47:00
There were notable exceptions, of course, but by and large, the Western
47:03
Church was caught on the back foot.
47:05
And so as you go back to the interview I had with him earlier this year, we
47:08
spent a lot of time focusing on chapter one, because chapter one was basically
47:12
like worth the price of admission for this book.
47:14
But it did a very deep dive of why new, new atheism is kind of ran aground
47:20
because we were told that these new atheists, that basically Christianity,
47:26
Islam, all these, you know, worldviews that have an idea about a God or gods or
47:32
things like that, that that was part of our past, that we have certainly
47:36
evolved past that.
47:37
And yet it is the new atheists that ran aground because they found that none
47:43
of their prescriptions had any basis.
47:45
None of their overall philosophies were grounded in a higher source of truth.
47:51
And really where this ran aground is because in a strict materialist,
47:55
atheist, atheist, naturalist, cannot argue with me or any other Christian
48:00
about morality, because I appeal to a higher authority.
48:04
When I talk about morality, I appeal to God and his word, the Bible.
48:07
Who do they appeal to themselves?
48:11
Charles Darwin, some obscure atheist philosopher from 600 years ago
48:17
that they have no backing for the way that they think.
48:21
And so I would love to tell you more about why I like this book, but as a
48:25
surprise for you guys, I'm going to let Justin Briarley do it.
48:28
So if you're listening to this show on time tomorrow, we are going to be
48:32
releasing a special short interview with Justin Briarley, where we're going to
48:36
talk about basically what the year has been like since he has released this
48:39
book, what fruity seen from this, you know, what types of things he wished he
48:43
would have put in the book, like what he's going to be working on next.
48:45
So guys, that is a surprise for a surprise interview that we just reached
48:49
out to Justin, we told him we were going to give him this award.
48:51
And he's like, yeah, let's definitely get on there and talk about it.
48:53
So it's like a half hour podcast or something like that.
48:55
But I wanted to bring that to you.
48:56
But again, guys, thank you so much for listening to this show.
48:58
We're so glad to bring you this best books list of 2023 in the show notes.
49:02
Here we'll hear.
49:03
I'll do my, my real outro here.
49:04
So before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
49:07
Add a daunted life or mission is equipping men to push back
49:10
darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
49:13
So I've got a link to our donation page.
49:14
And then I've got a link to all the books that I mentioned on this podcast,
49:17
except for the book that I mentioned as the worst book of the year.
49:19
Actually, I think I put that in there as well.
49:21
So if you want to check it out, you can do that for yourself.
49:23
But you guys can check out all those books again.
49:26
I give my, my stamp of approval.
49:28
If I was the Oprah book club, I would give a big old lion head stamp
49:31
of approval for all these books.
49:32
I think these should be on your book list before we get into 2024.
49:36
But just want to bring all that to you.
49:37
But again, guys, thank you so much for listening to the show.
49:40
Thank you so much for sharing books with me throughout the year.
49:43
I just appreciate all you very, very much.
49:45
Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.
49:47
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, right?
49:49
And leave us a positive five star review.
49:51
If you want to come speak alive at your event or on your podcast,
49:54
shoot me an email to info@undonton.life.
49:56
That's I N F O at undonton.life.
49:59
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website
50:02
for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content
50:04
like this coming your way.
50:05
Just go to www.undonton.life and also we want to thank the band Holy Name
50:11
for allowing us to use their music for our content.
50:13
The musical in this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off
50:16
their self-titled debut album on Face Down Records.
50:19
The links are in the description.
50:20
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
50:22
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,
50:26
mental and physical resilience, keep seeking the lion of Judah.