Maybe it’s a sign you’ve reached a certain age when you start talking about music and books from the past with a misty-eyed nostalgia about the ‘good old days’, before bemoaning the state of things at the moment. I’m going to risk sounding like Eeyore and say that there are too many Christian books these days. We receive well over 100 new books every month in the Christianity office and I have to admit I find it rather wearing. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve looked at a book and questioned whether it actually needed to be written. I’m not knocking all Christian publishing, by any means. There’s loads of good stuff and new authors being discovered and nurtured, which is why we have an extensive reviews section in the magazine. But rather than just focusing on what the latest book is, we want to celebrate those books from the past which have genuinely drawn you into a deeper relationship with God, or been completely life-changing in some way. I am eternally grateful to the person who gave me a battered copy of Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew when I first became a Christian and had no idea what I’d got myself into. They told me not to worry about anything, but just to read this book. It opened my eyes to who the real Jesus was, and made me excited about following him. It’s 15 years old, so it’s relatively new, but it’s one of those books that millions of people would say has changed their faith. With this in mind, we’ve decided to launch classic book and album columns in this month’s magazine. Do send me your suggestions for gems we should include, and I hope you enjoy celebrating the spiritual treasures of our tradition. The more eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that last month’s Congo feature contained a number of errors, not least the subheading which was about Vietnam. Geography might not be our strong point, but we’re not that bad. This was a draft version of the feature and the wrong file was sent to the printers. It’s gutting that it happened – we’re sorry, we hope it never happens again. You can read the correct version of this feature online at christianitymagazine.co.uk.