These lists are notoriously difficult, so I’ll simply narrow to my top three books per category.
Favorite in Fiction:
1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Favorite in Creative Non-Fiction:
1. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
2. Eight Twenty Eight: When Love Didn’t Give Up by Ian & Larissa Murphy
3. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcom Gladwell
Favorite in Theology:
1. Antinomianism: Reformed Theology’s Unwelcome Guest? by Mark Jones
2. The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Simplicity, and Immutability by Jay Wesley Richards
3. Beyond the Control of God? Six Views on the Problem of God and Abstract Objects by Paul Gould, et al
Favorite in Philosophy/Apologetics:
1. Consciousness and the Existence of God: A Theistic Argument by J.P. Moreland
2. Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information by William Dembski
3. The Bible Among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? by John Oswalt
Favorite in Pastoral Ministry:
1. Counseling the Hard Cases: True Stories Illustrating the Sufficiency of God’s Resources in Scripture by Stuart Scott & Heath Lambert
2. Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God, A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope by Christopher Yuan & Angela Yuan
3. Slogging Along in the Paths of Righteousness: Psalms 13-24 by Dale Ralph Davis