Meditations book series in reading order

by Warren W. Wiersbe

Max Lucado

278 books• 6 series

Max Lucado has 278 books in the catalogue, published between 1985 and 2026, and subject headings centre on Christian life, the Bible, Jesus Christ, meditations and biblical teaching. Lucado, born January 11, 1955, is an American author and minister at Oak Hills Church, formerly Oak Hills Church of Christ, in San Antonio, Texas. The earliest titles are No Wonder They Call Him the Savior and On the Anvil (both 1985), then God Came Near (1986), The Applause of Heaven (1990) and He Still Moves Stones (1992). Series include Life Lessons, Hermie & Friends, Max Lucado's Wemmicks and Just in Case, and children's fiction is also among the subjects. The newest listed title is Unbreakable Courage Bible Study Guide (2026).

The books published under Mother Teresa's name collect meditations, prayers and spiritual counsel. Thirty-eight titles are catalogued between 1975 and 2019, from Gift for God to Do Something Beautiful for God, at a median of 144 pages. Subjects centre on Christian life, the Catholic Church, the Missionaries of Charity and church work with the poor. The Love of Christ: Spiritual Counsels (1982), My Life for the Poor (1985) and Meditations On The Way Of The Cross (1986) come from the earlier part of the run. Mother Teresa lived from 1910 to 1997.

Warren W. Wiersbe (1929-2019) was an American clergyman and Bible teacher whose writing covers commentary, sermons and Christian living. The Be Commentary titles, including Be Real, Be Joyful, Be Free and Be Rich, form the core of a catalogue of 282 books. Publication spans Thoughts for Men on the Move (1970) to Becoming New: 100 Days of Transformation through God's Word (2024). Wiersbe pastored Moody Church in Chicago from 1971 to 1978 and later directed the Back to the Bible radio ministry.

Melody Carlson, born March 2, 1956 in San Francisco, is an American author of more than 250 books for women, teens and children, including the Diary of a Teenage Girl series. The catalogue lists 298 books from 1995, when Contemplative Bible Reading and How to Start a Quality Childcare Business in Your Home appeared, to All Booked Up (2026). Series include Carter House Girls, On The Runway, TrueColors, 86 Bloomberg Place, Secret Life of Samantha McGregor, Beary Patch Bears and Fruit Troops. Subjects include Christian life, high schools, friendship, Bible stories and stories in rhyme. Carlson grew up in Springfield, Oregon, attended Lane Community College and lives in Sisters, Oregon.

W. Phillip Keller wrote Christian devotional books drawn from the natural world and from shepherding. A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 (1970) sits at the centre of the Shepherd Trilogy, and the David series follows the king of Israel. The catalogue holds 55 titles dated 1959 to 2021, opening with Africa's Wild Glory (1959) and closing with Splendour From the Land (2021). Natural history, meditations and Christian biography run through the subjects, at a median of 164 pages.

Eugene H. Peterson

105 books• 14 series

Eugene H. Peterson (November 6, 1932 to October 22, 2018) was an American Mainline Protestant minister, Presbyterian theologian, scholar, poet and author. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (NavPress, 2002), a paraphrase and translation of the Bible into modern American English, won a Gold Medallion Book Award. The catalogue holds 105 books from Foundations for Faith (1973) to Lights a Lovely Mile: Collected Sermons of the Church Year (2023), including A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (1980) and Run with the Horses (1983). Subjects include the Bible, prayer, meditations, devotional calendars, spiritual life and pastoral theology.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German Lutheran pastor and neo-orthodox theologian who helped found the Confessing Church and opposed the Nazi state openly, from its euthanasia programme to its persecution of Jews. The Gestapo arrested Bonhoeffer in April 1943 and held him at Tegel Prison for eighteen months. The 41 catalogued titles run from Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being (1930) through Discipleship and The Cost of Discipleship (1937) to the collected Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, whose volume of indexes appeared in 2014. Letters and Papers from Prison and Fiction from Tegel Prison came out of the imprisonment.

Philip Yancey

71 books• 1 series

Philip Yancey writes about Christian faith and spiritual questions. Born November 4, 1949, and now retired, the American author has sold more than 15 million books in English, with translations into 40 languages. The Jesus I Never Knew won the ECPA Christian Book of the Year Award in 1996, and What's So Amazing About Grace? won it in 1998. Publishers include Hachette, HarperCollins Christian Publishing, InterVarsity Press, Rabbit Room Press and Penguin Random House. The catalogue lists 71 titles, from After the Wedding (1976) to Undone: A Modern Rendering of John Donne's Devotions (2023). Grace, pain, the Bible and theology lead the subject tags.

Madeleine L'Engle (November 29, 1918 to September 6, 2007) was an American writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. A Wrinkle in Time (1962) earned L'Engle the Newbery Medal, and the American Library Association gave L'Engle its Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1998. The catalogue lists 70 books, beginning with The Small Rain (1945). Series include the Austin Family Chronicles, the Crosswicks Journals, the O'Keefe Family and the Time Quintet. Subjects run from science fiction and space and time to Christian life and meditations.

Marie Chapian is an American writer and radio ministry host who also publishes as Marie Giordano and Marie Jordan. Christian devotional writing fills most of her catalogue, alongside Christian diet books such as Free To Be Slim (1985) and co-authored biographies including The Emancipation Of Robert Sadler (1975). Telling Yourself the Truth (1980), Staying Happy In An Unhappy World (1984) and Why Do I Do What I Don't Want To Do? (1984) sit on the self-help side. Her 29 catalogued books run from City Psalms (1972) to Quiet Prayer (2019), and the Alula-Belle Adventures are written for children.

Randy Alcorn

59 books• 2 series

Randy Alcorn is an American Christian author of more than sixty fiction and non-fiction books, which have sold over 12 million copies in 70 languages. C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer and Francis Schaeffer are named as influences. Alcorn founded and directs Eternal Perspective Ministries, a nonprofit Bible teaching organization. The catalogue lists 59 Alcorn books, from Money, Possessions and Eternity (1989) to All God's Creatures (2026), including Deadline (1994), Dominion (1996), Safely Home (2001) and The Treasure Principle (2001). Ollie Chandler is the series on record, and subjects include heaven and wealth.

Anne Graham Lotz is an American evangelist and the second daughter of Billy Graham and his wife Ruth. Lotz founded AnGeL Ministries and writes devotional and Bible-study books; Just Give Me Jesus (2000) is the best known of them. Thirty-eight titles are catalogued, from Daily Light Devotional (1985) to God Won't Leave You There (2026), including The Vision of His Glory (1996), God's Story (1997) and several daily-reading journals. Scripture, Christian life and meditation are the standing subjects.

C.S. Lewis

59 books• 9 series

C.S. Lewis wrote fantasy fiction and Christian apologetics, and the two meet in Narnia. Spirits in Bondage (1919) opens a catalogue of 59 books that holds the Chronicles of Narnia, the Cosmic Trilogy beginning with Out of the Silent Planet (1938), The Screwtape Letters (1942) and Mere Christianity (1943). The 1950s carry the largest share of the list, and catalogued editions run to 2022.

Janette Oke, born Janette Steeves on 18 February 1935, is a Canadian author of inspirational fiction, often set in pioneer times with women as the lead characters. Bethany House published Love Comes Softly, the first Oke novel, in 1979. When Calls the Heart (1983) opened the Canadian West series and became the basis for a television series with the same title. The catalogue holds 79 Oke books, with The Pharisee's Wife (2025) the newest. Series include Love Comes Softly, Prairie Legacy, Women of the West, Song of Acadia and Janette Oke's Animal Friends. Subjects include women pioneers, Canada and Christian fiction.

Maya Angelou

51 books• 3 series

Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014), born Marguerite Annie Johnson, was an American memoirist, poet, essayist and civil rights activist. Angelou published seven autobiographies, three books of essays and several books of poetry. The first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), covers Angelou's life up to age 17. Other catalogued titles include Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981) and All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986). The catalogue counts 51 books, including And Still I Rise (1978), and ends with Strategies of Abundance (2014). Angelou received more than 50 honorary degrees.

Richard Rohr

37 books

Richard Rohr writes on Christian spirituality from within the Catholic tradition, on contemplation, scripture and the inner life of men. 37 catalogued titles run from The Wild Mans Journey (1986) through The Enneagram (1989), Simplicity: The Art of Living (1991), Near Occasions of Grace (1993), Radical Grace (1993) and Quest for the Grail (1994). The newest is The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage.

Matthew Kelly, born 12 July 1973 in Sydney, is an Australian motivational speaker, business consultant and founding partner of the management consulting firm Floyd Consulting. The catalogue lists 48 Kelly books from Our Father (1995) to Nothing Is Random (2025). Subjects include the Catholic Church, spirituality, self-help, happiness, parenting and business. Titles include The Rhythm of Life (1999), Rediscover Catholicism (2002) and The Dream Manager (2007).

Wayne W. Dyer

47 books• 1 series

Wayne W. Dyer (May 10, 1940 - August 29, 2015) was an American self-help author and motivational speaker. Dyer completed a bachelor's degree in history and philosophy, a master's in psychology and, in 1970, an Ed.D. in guidance and counseling at Wayne State University. After working as a high school guidance counselor and running a private therapy practice, Dyer taught counselor education at St. John's University, where a literary agent's approach produced Your Erroneous Zones (1976). Success, spiritual life, meditation and self-realization appear among the subjects, and Pulling Your Own Strings (1978) and You'll See It When You Believe It (1989) are among the 47 catalogued books.

Monica Furlong was a British author, journalist and activist whose work sat close to the Church of England; an obituary named her the church's most influential and creative layperson of the post-war period. The catalogue holds 41 books between With Love to the Church (1965) and Love Unknown (2021), covering biography, meditations, church history and the campaign for the ordination of women, with Merton (1980) among the lives. Furlong also wrote children's fiction, including the Doran books.

Christian devotional writing defines the catalogue of Marjorie Holmes (1910-2002), an American columnist whose output reached 134 books, 32 of them best sellers. The 25 catalogued titles run from I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God (1969) to Lord, Let Me Love (2006). Holmes is known above all for a biblical trilogy that opened with Two from Galilee, a novel about the love of Mary and Joseph, from the publisher Fleming H. Revell. Subjects list prayers, meditations and the lives of women, wives and mothers.

Terri Blackstock's catalogue holds 78 books published between 1984 and 2021, beginning with Blue Fire (1984), issued under the name Terri Herrington. Recorded subjects place the work in Christian fiction, mystery and detective writing, romantic suspense, and stories of sisters and of mothers and daughters. Series in the listing include Newpointe 911, Sun Coast Chronicles, Cape Refuge and If I Run. Three titles also carry a credit for Tracy Hughes. No new book has been catalogued since Aftermath (2021).

Eugenia Price wrote Christian non-fiction before turning to historical novels of the American South. Discoveries (1953) opens a catalogue of 40 books, with the fiction starting in 1965. The Savannah Quartet, the St. Simons Trilogy, the Florida Trilogy and the Georgia Trilogy make up the series work, set in Georgia and on St. Simons Island, with religious life and women's biography among the subjects.

Corrie ten Boom

32 books• 1 series

Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) was a Dutch watchmaker who became a Christian writer and public speaker. Arrested for sheltering Jewish people from the Nazis in her family home, ten Boom was imprisoned at the Ravensbruck concentration camp, and The Hiding Place (1971) is her autobiography of those years. Her 32 catalogued books run from Amazing Love (1953) to a 2022 illustrated edition of The Hiding Place, and return to Christian life, consolation and wartime testimony.

Jimmy Carter

51 books• 1 series

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and wrote 51 books. Carter's subjects cover his own childhood and career, American politics and government, peace negotiation, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Christian faith. The catalogue opens with Why Not the Best?: The First Fifty Years (1975), two years before he took office, and takes in Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1982) and The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East (1986). Later titles turn to the Bible and devotional writing, the most recent dated 2020. Books median 224 pages, and the 2000s were Carter's most productive decade.