I soon grabbed Haddon Robinson's Biblical Preaching. Need I say more?

While I was on my internship, I picked up an old copy of John Stott's Between Two Worlds at a used bookstore. It's cobalt sleeve was torn at the edges, and someone had spilled coffee on it, staining the first few pages clean through. I read it in two days, marveling at Stott's crystal-clear convictions about this sacred act of carefully walking the tension of yesterday and today, "what it meant" and "what it means." I kid you not—I spilled salsa on the last few pages, adding to the prior reader's contributions. In all its stained glory, Stott's book has a special place on my shelf of preaching books.

More recently, Doug Pagitt's Preaching Re-Imagined left my head spinning. Some things I raised an eyebrow over, while other things stirred both eyebrows from their resting place. Pagitt's dialogue-driven approach to preaching certainly wasn't what I was taught in any of my college and seminary courses—and I loved that that was the case. By turning most of my preconceived homiletical notions upside-down, Pagitt helped me see and weigh things I never had before. Because of his work, I'm still working my way through the complexity of the communal layers of preaching.

I can't end this post without mentioning Frederick Buechner's Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. This little book is truly special. When I first read it, I lost count of how many times I read a few paragraphs and then just sat back in silence, mulling over the beauty of the words and the ideas they formed. It's a collection of notes from when Buechner spoke at Yale for the Beecher lectures on preaching. It's a brilliant, moving look at how, alongside the usual manner of things, preachers ought to present the gospel with laughter, pain, triumph, and even a bit of whimsy.

I could go on and on, but I'd much rather hear from you at this point. What books on preaching have a special place on your shelf?