Jonathan Brooker (Author of It All Starts Here)

Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions about God by Dan Allender	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This one's a particularly challenging book to rate and review. In all reality, I think it would get a 3.5 star rating. My reason for bumping this book up to the top of my reading list was a hope to use it in study for a new sermon series we're doing a ...more
Feb 03, 2026 05:17PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker liked Shay Olson's review of The Heart of Jesus: How He Really Feels about You:
Jan 19, 2026 08:26AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Heart of Jesus by Dane C. Ortlund. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Heart of Jesus by Dane C. Ortlund <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker rated a book it was ok The Stranger by Albert Camus	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Technically a reread from many years ago, I was surprised to have remembered it more fondly than I found it this time around. I had remembered the story as one characterized by existentialistic thought and delivery, but found it instead to be a lot m ...more
Jan 19, 2026 07:56AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Stranger by Albert Camus. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Stranger by Albert Camus <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker rated a book really liked it So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
While the story that Enger told through the pages was compelling in its own right, what struck me about this book was how often I found myself reacting out loud to what I was reading or simply taking a moment to savor some of his sentences. I'm grate ...more
Jan 12, 2026 05:09PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker is now following Matt House's reviews
Jan 01, 2026 05:08PM · like
Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book, while good, just didn't compel me like other works of Gladwell's have in the past. I can't quite put my finger on what it was that was missing or missteps that were taken in the writing; it just didn't make as much of a lasting impact on m ...more
Sep 26, 2025 06:25PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker and 2 other people liked Veronica Eberlein's review of The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness: "Woah! After being on my library waitlist for over seven months to listen to the audio version— I completely understand why!!! There is so much to process and do in response to data and information presented in this book to intentionally raise my kids" Read more of this review »
Sep 26, 2025 06:24PM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise by Joel Salatin	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
When I first sat down with this book, after having checked it out of our local library, I read through the Table of Contents to get an idea of what all I could expect to find the book covering. With the book being over 400 pages and each chapter on a ...more
Aug 05, 2025 09:57AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of You Can Farm by Joel Salatin. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — You Can Farm by Joel Salatin <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes (Gospel According to the Old Testament) by Zack Eswine (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
When I began reading this book I was immediately drawn in to both the author's style and the profound insights he was pulling from the text of Ecclesiastes. I'm perplexed by other readers negative complaints about it being a less systematic approach, ...more
Jun 17, 2025 05:33AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Recovering Eden by Zack Eswine. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Recovering Eden by Zack Eswine <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Jonathan Brooker rated a book really liked it The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I found this to be an enjoyable journey into some of the ways of thinking that go into how we individually and communally see and handle money. Because that was its primary focus, it ended up not delivering quite as many nuts and bolts action steps a ...more
Jun 17, 2025 05:23AM · like · see review

Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it

The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions about God
by Dan Allender

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This one's a particularly challenging book to rate and review. In all reality, I think it would get a 3.5 star rating.

My reason for bumping this book up to the top of my reading list was a hope to use it in study for a new sermon series we're doing a This one's a particularly challenging book to rate and review. In all reality, I think it would get a 3.5 star rating.

My reason for bumping this book up to the top of my reading list was a hope to use it in study for a new sermon series we're doing at my church on how emotional realities impact spiritual realities. This book seemed like it would be absolutely perfect. But I was about 3 chapters in when I nearly shelved it. Not because it was awful per se, but because there seemed to be a rather unexpected turn right away in finding out that the book was going to be a focus on the Psalms. But also because the first 3 chapters just did not seem to say a whole lot of anything and took a while to say it. Frankly, it all felt like an overly lengthy introduction, because it was in chapter 4 that the book took its turn into the actual list of emotions the authors set out to study.

And then I felt like the last 2 chapters similarly felt like peculiar tag-ons to the main meat of the book. If anything, there were parts of those chapters that I felt would've been more compelling and better suited to have been written into the first chapter before delving into the study of the specific emotions. All in all, I felt like the book needed a better editor to have at the very least crafted the table of contents to clarify the 3-movement nature of this book more clearly, or perhaps have really cut it up to piece it back together in a tighter, more compelling, and more logical order.

That said, the majority of the middle 12 chapters, which delved into the various emotions, was really really quality stuff! It seemed like once I got to chapter 4 I had struck the oasis that had been on the map but gone unseen until that moment. There was a lot that I gained from those chapters, and in exclusion of the 3 first chapters and 2 last chapters they may have warranted a 4.5 to 5 star rating.

That is, except for a pretty major issue I took with the chapters on shame towards the very end. And they make me wonder whether the 3.5 is far too generous.

When you get to the chapter on shame, in order to speak of someone who experienced shame, the authors tell the story of a young man who as a minor suffered SA within his family. I read in shock as the authors went into far more grotesque detail than would ever be necessary for making their point. It felt salacious. But to make matters worse, after the reader has been made to read a heinous account of SA, the authors go on to teach that shame is the result of an absorption with the self. I really think I was doing a fair reading of what they were saying to come away with the understanding that they believe that the shame we experience--including this abused young man--is actually because we're too focused on what we would like life to be like and are creating an idol out of it.

I could hardly believe what I read. For one, it seemed incredibly cruel and damning both to this particular person but also to any other person who has found themselves experiencing shame as a result of being the victim of terrible evils unwillingly done to them. Secondly, I decided to suspend immediate judgment to see if it would be at all possible for them to make a case for this view from Scripture. Since this is most certainly a book aimed to use Scriptures to argue their points, I felt I owed the authors that. But the arguments were easily the least logical in this chapter.

The logic seemed to basically be that the authors posited their claim that shame was (always) the result of idolatrous self-absorption. Then from there they cherry picked multiple verses that talked about shame and built them around this premise that was fabricated before going to the Scriptures rather than extrapolated from them. In fact, so many of their chosen verses argue against the points that they used them to make. It was just unbelievably sloppy and irresponsible exegesis. The most significant sign of which being that they failed to distinguish between shame that is the result of our own evil and shame that naturally comes from being the unfair victim of someone else's. The Scriptures touch on both, and they're not the same in origin, experience, or resolution.

Furthermore, it's in those chapters that they say the Scriptures have the Psalmist mocking God and calling Him a fool. Again, I felt like a dog who cocks their head to the side and raises their one ear up high in the air upon hearing some particularly strange sound. This was a particularly strange case to make, but I read on to see if I'd somehow missed something in reading the familiar Psalms. I don't think I did. They would say that the Psalmist was mocking, but then you'd read the passage and it sure seemed like it's more like sharp questioning. They'd say the author called God a fool. But it certainly wasn't said, and it felt hard to really even argue it was implied.

It just felt like for some reason the 2 shame chapters had the authors more interested in keeping consistent with their approach to the other chapters and sloppily making it work, as though it were a threaded bolt that's not seeming to fit exactly where they're trying to put it, but if you just push hard enough "it'll probably work." It doesn't. For me, it makes this a book that I can both appreciate but I am not sure that I can recommend. ...more

Jonathan Brooker liked Shay Olson's review of The Heart of Jesus: How He Really Feels about You:

Jonathan Brooker rated a book it was ok

The Stranger
by Albert Camus

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Technically a reread from many years ago, I was surprised to have remembered it more fondly than I found it this time around. I had remembered the story as one characterized by existentialistic thought and delivery, but found it instead to be a lot m ...more

Jonathan Brooker rated a book really liked it

So Brave, Young, and Handsome
by Leif Enger

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

While the story that Enger told through the pages was compelling in its own right, what struck me about this book was how often I found myself reacting out loud to what I was reading or simply taking a moment to savor some of his sentences. I'm grate ...more

Jonathan Brooker is now following Matt House's reviews

Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
by Malcolm Gladwell

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This book, while good, just didn't compel me like other works of Gladwell's have in the past. I can't quite put my finger on what it was that was missing or missteps that were taken in the writing; it just didn't make as much of a lasting impact on m ...more

Jonathan Brooker and 2 other people liked Veronica Eberlein's review of The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness:

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

"Woah! After being on my library waitlist for over seven months to listen to the audio version— I completely understand why!!! There is so much to process and do in response to data and information presented in this book to intentionally raise my kids" Read more of this review »

Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it

You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise
by Joel Salatin

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When I first sat down with this book, after having checked it out of our local library, I read through the Table of Contents to get an idea of what all I could expect to find the book covering. With the book being over 400 pages and each chapter on a When I first sat down with this book, after having checked it out of our local library, I read through the Table of Contents to get an idea of what all I could expect to find the book covering. With the book being over 400 pages and each chapter on average probably about only 8-10 pages long, this table was full and my first observation was that it was filled with such a wide spread of incredibly helpful topics. I couldn't wait to dive in!

A few months back a friend turned me on to Joel Salatin and his unique farming approach, which had me looking all over to get my hands on the variety of materials available to learn and explore more of his insights and teachings. Being toted by others as "the Bible for homestead farming," of course this book had to be on my shortlist of things to dig into, and it did not disappoint.

That said, it is a book that was released in 1998, so right off the bat it's worth noting that some of the material has aged out of applicability. The thing is, it's hard to know what all might be included in that now obsolete material, particularly if you're truly new to the whole gig of the farming enterprise. (My guess would be that it's a very very small percentage of the material covered.)

Now every piece of communication always presumes the audience has both a general understanding of language as well as a certain level of comprehension regarding the topics as they come up. The expectation is that the communication then builds on this understanding to expand it. My one critique of this book is that I feel like it presumed a little too much comprehension of a variety of farming topics right off the bat, rather than assuming that the novice might truly be new to the world that the author was literally raised and surrounded in all of his life. It wasn't egregious, but there just were a number of times when he went on to develop a thought and I was left thinking, "I'm not sure I even understand your starting point or some of the terms you're using without explanation." I think it would've been helpful to have perhaps offered additional beginners resources whenever this happened and/or a glossary of sorts.

But besides that I was able to take down a lot of notes from the insights offered in this book. The author's writing style is succinct and informative, humble and helpful. It's a dense book, and I imagine that any reader - unique as each one would be - would find certain bits of it to be a lull and other bits riveting, based off their unique passions and interests that are pulling them towards farming. So I'm grateful for this book and will probably have to check it out of the library again a couple times in the future as a resource book for the wild journey of homesteading. ...more

Jonathan Brooker rated a book liked it

Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes (Gospel According to the Old Testament)
by Zack Eswine (Goodreads Author)

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When I began reading this book I was immediately drawn in to both the author's style and the profound insights he was pulling from the text of Ecclesiastes. I'm perplexed by other readers negative complaints about it being a less systematic approach, When I began reading this book I was immediately drawn in to both the author's style and the profound insights he was pulling from the text of Ecclesiastes. I'm perplexed by other readers negative complaints about it being a less systematic approach, when it's literally about understanding a book of wisdom poetry. I think I would enjoy a systematic verse-by-verse commentary on Ecclesiastes about as much as anyone would enjoy having a joke explained to them - that's not how it works.

Anyways, the book began with chapter after chapter that illuminated the profound way that Ecclesiastes really does offer wisdom - albeit offbeat to the kind that we're used to. The author does a fantastic job explaining why the writing styles of the Bible that we are more accustomed to (narrative, law, and epistles) can skew how we approach a writing style as unique as what you'll find in Ecclesiastes. By doing so, he skillfully invites us to see the actual true wisdom of a book that many would otherwise seem as heterodoxical or at the very least downright depressing.

Multiple times I found myself commenting out loud "Oh, that's so good!" That is, until I arrived at the chapter where Eswine digs into Ecclesiastes 5 and the Preacher's journey to "the house of God." I still can't understand how it happened, but suddenly the exegesis became eisegesis. Out of nowhere the author took a modern and Westernized view of what we think of when it comes to "the house of God" and laid that over the text and then interpreted the words of the Preacher from that foreign vantage point. Suddenly a section of the Scripture that is clearly focused on cautioning against being rash in vows made to God in the Old Testament temple and sacrificial system turns into telling us that the Preacher has seen the shortcomings of church folk but hasn't given up on persisting to go to church. It shocked me.

So I eagerly awaited the end of that chapter and being able to leave that teaching (that I saw as really missing the point) behind me. But for some unknown reason, while up to this point the chapters mostly existed in isolation from each other, it seemed like the author wanted to continue interpreting the rest of what remained from that vantage point of a guy who went to "church" and who stepped out of "church" and so on, and again was maintaining this westernized understanding of what "the house of God" would mean.

I still think this is an absolutely fantastic book on Ecclesiastes that would be a delight and helpful for anyone to read who is looking to gain a greater understanding for and appreciation of this unique book of the Bible. If it weren't for that approach to interpreting that portion of Ecclesiastes 5, I would've certainly been giving this book at least a 4-star rating. Not sure how likely it would be, but I would love to see a future revised edition take another stab at interpreting that portion. ...more

Jonathan Brooker rated a book really liked it

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
by Morgan Housel

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I found this to be an enjoyable journey into some of the ways of thinking that go into how we individually and communally see and handle money.

Because that was its primary focus, it ended up not delivering quite as many nuts and bolts action steps a ...more

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