Because we know our members love to read, WORLD has dedicated at least one issue of the magazine every year since 1999 to books, authors, and trends in the publishing industry. Since 2008, we’ve also announced the winners of our Books of the Year.
Christianity and Liberalism (1923) by J. Gresham Machen, Elisabeth Elliot: A Life by Lucy S.R. Austen, Being Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn, The Worry-Free Parent by Sissy Goff, Critical Dilemma by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer, The Wager by David Grann
2022:Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh by Thomas S. Kidd, Why I Stand by Jonathan Isaac, A Sea Between Us by Yosely Pereira and Billy Ivey, More Than a White Man’s Religion by Abdu Murray
2021:What About Evil? by Scott Christensen, Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen C. Meyer, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, edited by Amity Shlaes and Matthew Denhart, The Good American by Robert D. Kaplan
2020:Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund, The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, Roger Olsen, James Tour, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, Guillermo Gonzalez, Brian Miller, and David Klinghoffer, Divided We Fall by David French, After the Last Border by Jessica Goudeau, The Year of Peril by Tracy Campbell
2019:Free to Believe by Luke Goodrich, After ISIS by Seth J. Frantzman, The Thirty-Year Genocide by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, American History by Thomas S. Kidd, Working by Robert A. Caro, Darwin Devolves by Michael J. Behe, and J-Curve by Paul E. Miller
2018:The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann, The Once and Future Worker by Oren Cass, No Turning Back by Rania Abouzeid, A Nation Forged by Crisis by Jay Sexton, and Therefore I Have Hope by Cameron Cole
2017:Poor No More by Peter Cove, Red Famine by Anne Applebaum, The Beginning of Politics by Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, Darwin’s House of Cards by Tom Bethell, Living Life Backward by David Gibson, and Reformed Expository Commentary
2016 (April–December):Illiberal Reformers by Thomas C. Leonard, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz, Undeniable by Douglas Axe, and The Life We Never Expected by Andrew and Rachel Wilson
2016:In Those Nightmarish Days by Peretz Opoczynski and Josef Zelkowicz, The Prodigal Church by Jared C. Wilson, Wind Sprints by Joseph Epstein, and Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
2015:America in Retreat by Bret Stephens, The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson, and enGendered: God’s Gift of Gender Difference in Relationship by Sam A. Andreades
2014:Mission at Nuremberg by Tim Townsend, The Tyranny of Experts by William Easterly, and What’s Your Worldview by James N. Anderson
2013:Escape from North Korea by Melanie Kirkpatrick
2012:The Triumph of Christianity by Rodney Stark
2011:God and Evolution edited by Jay Richards and Should Christians Embrace Evolution? edited by Norman C. Nevin
2010:The Battle by Arthur C. Brooks
2009:English Standard Version Study Bible
2008:The Reason for God by Timothy Keller
A book first published in 1923 is this year’s top read. Plus, 17 more standout books on history, religion, science, parenting, and more
Issue Date: Dec 2, 2023
This year’s selections highlight a complex Founding Father, personal and political freedom, a defense of Christianity, a backlash to the sexual revolution, and more
Issue Date: Dec 3, 2022
Books that remind us God rules at the street level and beyond
Issue Date: Dec 4, 2021
Great books tell stories. Here’s our pick of vivid and insightful new releases for better understanding America, world events, history, science, and theology
Issue Date: Dec 7, 2019
As we transition to more timely reporting, here are 12 pages on top books published from April through December, 2016
Issue Date: Mar 18, 2017
Persecution. Cultural pressure. Death, marriage, fun
Issue Date: Jun 25, 2016
A committee of WORLD writers chose these books, spread among four categories, that should be ‘chewed and digested’
Issue Date: Jun 27, 2015
Three reasons for pessimism, and three more for optimism, about the future of printed books
Issue Date: Jun 28, 2014
Superb reporting and storytelling about a modern-day underground railroad make Melanie Kirkpatrick’s Escape from North Korea WORLD’s Book of the Year
Issue Date: Jun 29, 2013
The written word is a uniquely powerful, and powerfully Christian, tool of communication
Issue Date: Jul 14, 2012
Two new books are important responses to the rapidly growing promotion of theistic- or, more properly, deistic-evolution
Issue Date: Jul 2, 2011
WORLD’s 2010 Book of the Year makes a compelling case that the clash between free enterprise and socialism is a moral battle
Issue Date: Jul 3, 2010
It’s based on the best-selling book of all time, but WORLD’s 2009 winner takes Bible study to new levels
Issue Date: Jul 4, 2009
Graphic novels are the latest blockbuster answer to an image-driven culture in search of stories and meaning
Issue Date: Jun 28, 2008
A wealth of treadmill books, 400 to be almost exact, boiled down to an all-time favorite 100
Issue Date: Jun 30, 2007
Novels and movies were once generally suspect in evangelical eyes, but now the emphasis is on discernment. Thirty evangelicals reveal their favorites
Issue Date: Jul 1, 2006
Christian publishers reach for a share of the secular market, mainstream publishers jostle for Christian market share–and readers win from the competition
Issue Date: Jul 2, 2005
A Christian publishing company aims to restore a great literary heritage: high-quality, general-market fiction written by Christians and from a biblical worldview
Issue Date: Jul 3, 2004
Give yourself an education by checking out these books
Issue Date: Jul 5, 2003
Books–how they’re written and who writes them, the ideas they fight over, and the unpleasant implications they ignore–tell a lot about a culture
Issue Date: Jul 7, 2002
Trends in the publishing industry are opening up new avenues for Christian writers, and some Christian books are selling millions of copies in mainstream bookstores. Does this mean that Christianity has become culturally influential again? Or does it merely signal that Christians have been swallowed up by the larger culture?
Issue Date: Jul 7, 2001
The best titles proclaiming or applying a biblical worldview in a hostile 20th century
Issue Date: Jul 13, 1999