The Christian publishing world is enormous and uneven, and a new believer walking into it has no way to tell a book that has helped people for four centuries from one written last year to a marketing plan.

Five categories worth having

A study Bible. One volume with notes on historical background, difficult passages and how books relate. This does more for your reading than any other single purchase.

An overview of the whole Bible. Something that explains the shape of the library and how the parts connect.

One book on the basics of the faith. Well-written, aimed at someone new, ideally one your congregation also uses so you can discuss it.

Something on prayer. Short and practical rather than exalted.

One older book. Anything that has been read for more than a century has survived a selection process no marketing can replicate.

How to judge a book before buying

Read the contents page and one full chapter, not the endorsements. Endorsements are traded within the industry and mean little.

Check whether the author cites Scripture and engages with it, or merely decorates their own argument with verses.

Ask who the author is accountable to. A writer within a church tradition has been checked by someone; an independent teacher with a large following may never have been contradicted.

Ask a mature believer in your congregation what they would read. It costs a message and saves both money and time.

Three warning signs

A promised outcome. Titles guaranteeing breakthrough, prosperity or an unlocked destiny are selling something Scripture does not.

One idea stretched to three hundred pages. Common in the genre. If the whole argument is in the first chapter, read the first chapter.

No disagreement anywhere. Any serious book on a contested subject acknowledges other positions. One that presents its view as the only possible reading is not teaching you to think.

For non-English readers

Look for what is written in your own language as well as what is translated. Translated books carry the illustrations, humour and assumptions of another culture, and locally written material often addresses questions the imported book does not know exist.

Our resources list material in several languages. Beware of building a large shelf you have not read. Five books read twice will do more than fifty skimmed.