Best Book I've Read this Year (and maybe any year)

I notice that Justin at Buzzard Blog has listed his ten best reads of the past year. Justin's favorite was C. John Miller's The Heart of A Servant Leader, but the title that intrigues me the most on Justin's list is A Distant Presence: The Story Behind Paul's Letter to the Philippians. From the publisher's description:

In A Distant Presence, Woodroof envisions what life was like for the believers in first-century Philippi. You'll feel transported to another time as he takes you on a journey through ancient Italy and Macedonia, providing front-row seats to the colorful interactions between the great Apostle Paul and his trusted coworkers: Luke, Silas, Clement, Epaphroditus, Lydia, Timothy, and the feuding Euodia and Syntche.

Yes, that one is definitely going on my "to read" list.

And of course Justin's post has got me wondering what was the best book I read this year. Actually, not wondering, because I do know the answer to that question. Maybe it's just a classic case of "the-best-book-is-always-the-book-you're reading-right-now" syndrome, but I think I can say without doubt that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship is the best thing I've read in a long, long time.

Bonhoeffer is relentlessly Cross-centered. Here's an example from a passage I read just this morning. Bonhoeffer is talking about loving one's enemies.

The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy's hatred. For then it is not the disciple's own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there. In the face of the cross the disciples realized that they too were his enemies, and that he had overcome them by his love. It is this that opens the disciple's eyes, and allows him to see the enemy as his brother. He knows that he owes his very life to the One, who though he was his enemy, treated him as a brother and accepted him, who made him his neighbor, and drew him into fellowship with himself. This disciple can now perceive that even his enemy is the object of God's love, and that he stands like himself beneath the cross of Christ.

The Cost of Discipleship is not merely the best book I've read this year, but one of the best books ever written (how's that for hyperbole). Bonhoeffer understood perhaps better than most that the cross of Christ changes everything. After 70 years this book is still quite radical, quite revolutionary.