This is not my personal library — I just wish it was.

Someone recently emailed me to ask for a list of my five favorite books, aside from the Bible.

I wrote back:

I’m so sorry, I can’t possible narrow my list to just five books. 

Here are twelve books that absolutely changed my life:

1. Fear No Evil by Natan Sharansky – the spell-binding true story a Jewish dissident who spent 9 years in a KGB gulag, a man who became one of my heroes
2. From Beirut To Jerusalem by Tom Friedman – the riveting account of a New York Times correspondent covering the Middle East that made me want to spend my whole life understanding the epicenter
3. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas – the brilliant biography of one of the most courageous pastors in the history of Germany, a man who stood for Christ during the reign of Adolf Hitler
4. Night by Elie Wiesel – the terrifying true account of a Jewish man sent to the Auschwitz death camp and lost his faith in God
5. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom – the amazing true story of a simple Christian woman who not only survived a Nazi concentration camp but learned to forgive her captors because of Jesus’ love for her
6. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis – the most penetrating explanation of what it means to be a true follower of Jesus Christ ever written, by a former atheist professor at Oxford and Cambridge at that
7. Just As I Am by Billy Graham – the inspiring true story of a North Carolina farm boy who grew up to preach the Gospel to more people face to face than anyone in all of human history
8. Born Again by Chuck Colson – the game-changing true story of President Nixon’s “hatchet man,” arrested during Watergate, sent to prison, but found utter forgiveness and redemption through Christ and took that message to prisoners all over the world
9. God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew – the true story of a man willing to risk his life to bring the Word of God to the enslaved people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
10. The Coming Peace In The Middle East by Tim LaHaye – long out of print but the most fascinating book about Bible prophecy (specifically Ezekiel 38 & 39) I have ever read, bar none
11. The Testament by John Grisham – the first novel I ever read that was both absolutely thrilling and spiritually inspiring, something I had never previously imagined was possible
12. Training The Twelve by A.B. Bruce – the greatest book on how to make disciples by a pastor and theologian no one has ever heard of

Hope you read them all, too (but only after you’ve finished my forthcoming novel, The Auschwitz Escape, of course!)

What’s on your list? (please post yours on my Epicenter Team page on Facebook)

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