Ratings

Those of you who know me well were, I'm sure, waiting for this part. (i.e. Here is where Jason explains how he will run a multi-level numerical analysis of each book's quality.) Well, guess what, I'm not going to give numerical ratings. I have, however, decided to list books that I read/review in one of four different categories:

Must Read
Highly Recommended
Recommended
Don't Bother

Don't think of them as being 1-4 stars. Reading takes time, and I try to choose what I know to be good books. These ratings are a way of separating the good from the really good, and the really good from the exceptionally good. If you really want to think in terms of numbers, even books listed as "Recommended" would probably be about a 7 on a 1-10 scale. When I say that I would recommend reading a book, I mean it. But there are a handful of books that I honestly believe everyone should read. (As an example, I loved reading John Piper's Life as a Vapor and recommend reading it, but don't find myself recommending it as a life-changing book to practically everyone I know, as I do with his book Don't Waste Your Life.)