I recommend Jared Yates Sexton's compelling new book, American Rule: How A Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People, and I talk about reckoning with the narrative shape of the Gospels, how they theologize about Jesus as a character, and how certain theological conceptions can get in the way of our understanding, especially an assumption about God's "omniscience."
I also mention Jeannine Brown's excellent book, The Gospels as Stories: A Narrative Approach to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
