This isn’t a direct response to your request as it’s not a book suggestion, but …
I’ve had plenty of conversations with very thoughtful, intelligent creationists. Virtually all of my friends and family are creationists in some sense or another. So far I’ve never discussed it with anyone (at least anyone who’s thoughtful and intelligent) who has disagreed with the following argument:
1) The world clearly looks old. For example:
Light from the stars needs to travel much more than several thousand years before it reaches us.
There are many more than several thousand layers of annual ice in Antarctica.
The Colorado River is wearing away at the bottom of the Grand Canyon as we speak. The rest of the Grand Canyon is exactly the sort of thing we’d expect if we extrapolate backwards a few million years.
In general, there are innumerable geological features all over the world that are exactly what we’d expect if we extrapolate backwards millions or billions of years based on processes that are happening right now. (Any good geology textbook should demonstrate this pretty clearly. As I tell people: “Read a basic geology textbook, go to a national park and read the signs explaining the local geology, and then come back and tell me it doesn’t look old.”)
[You can also mention some of the principles of geological layering—e.g., that we consistently find the same types of fossils in the same types of layers. But I’ve found that this sort of thing is a little too complicated to explain quickly.]
2) One could perhaps respond with something like, “maybe God used some alternative unknown form of physics in the six days of creation” or, “maybe Noah’s Flood caused geology to go haywire in unknown ways”. However, the key point is that to say that it doesn’t even look old is simply false. Saying that the Flood or some alternative physics caused it means that e.g. the bottom 30-40 feet of the Grand Canyon (the part that’s been eroded in the past 5000-6000 years) was caused by normal everyday processes, but anything above that point—which is indistinquishable from the bottom 30-40 feet—was caused by the Flood / alternative physics which just so happened to work out in such a way that it looks exactly as if it was caused by normal erosion.
3) If so, then we have only three choices: (a) The world really is that old; (b) God created the world 6000 years ago but (for whatever reason) he intentionally made it look old; or (c) God created the world 6000 years ago and for various reasons it accidentally ended up looking old. Option (c) is unacceptable according to every religious conception of God that I’ve ever heard, which leaves (a) or (b). If someone is willing to accept (b) theologically then I can’t really prove to them otherwise, but if for theological or philosophical reasons they’re unwilling to accept (b) then that leaves only (a), that the world really is that old.
4) Moreover, if you say that it was just created looking old then you’ll need to say that God created it with a real whopper of a backstory. For example, the geologic record preserves detailed records of fights between dinosaurs, as well as dinosaurs with the food from their last meal still in their stomachs. Astronomers regularly observe supernovas which are records of explosions from stars that according to young earthers never existed. [Some of these examples might be moot depending on which version of young earth creationism the other person subscribes to.]
Again, the key point here is that I don’t try to prove to people that the world really is that old, just that they must agree that it certainly looks old, in which case either it is that old or God deliberately created it in such a way that it looks that old.
[It could be that some versions of flood geology might have responses to some of the above, but I personally don’t know anybody who goes for flood geology so I’ve never had to respond to those types of arguments.]
This isn’t a direct response to your request as it’s not a book suggestion, but …
I’ve had plenty of conversations with very thoughtful, intelligent creationists. Virtually all of my friends and family are creationists in some sense or another. So far I’ve never discussed it with anyone (at least anyone who’s thoughtful and intelligent) who has disagreed with the following argument:
1) The world clearly looks old. For example:
Light from the stars needs to travel much more than several thousand years before it reaches us.
There are many more than several thousand layers of annual ice in Antarctica.
The Colorado River is wearing away at the bottom of the Grand Canyon as we speak. The rest of the Grand Canyon is exactly the sort of thing we’d expect if we extrapolate backwards a few million years.
In general, there are innumerable geological features all over the world that are exactly what we’d expect if we extrapolate backwards millions or billions of years based on processes that are happening right now. (Any good geology textbook should demonstrate this pretty clearly. As I tell people: “Read a basic geology textbook, go to a national park and read the signs explaining the local geology, and then come back and tell me it doesn’t look old.”)
[You can also mention some of the principles of geological layering—e.g., that we consistently find the same types of fossils in the same types of layers. But I’ve found that this sort of thing is a little too complicated to explain quickly.]
2) One could perhaps respond with something like, “maybe God used some alternative unknown form of physics in the six days of creation” or, “maybe Noah’s Flood caused geology to go haywire in unknown ways”. However, the key point is that to say that it doesn’t even look old is simply false. Saying that the Flood or some alternative physics caused it means that e.g. the bottom 30-40 feet of the Grand Canyon (the part that’s been eroded in the past 5000-6000 years) was caused by normal everyday processes, but anything above that point—which is indistinquishable from the bottom 30-40 feet—was caused by the Flood / alternative physics which just so happened to work out in such a way that it looks exactly as if it was caused by normal erosion.
3) If so, then we have only three choices: (a) The world really is that old; (b) God created the world 6000 years ago but (for whatever reason) he intentionally made it look old; or (c) God created the world 6000 years ago and for various reasons it accidentally ended up looking old. Option (c) is unacceptable according to every religious conception of God that I’ve ever heard, which leaves (a) or (b). If someone is willing to accept (b) theologically then I can’t really prove to them otherwise, but if for theological or philosophical reasons they’re unwilling to accept (b) then that leaves only (a), that the world really is that old.
4) Moreover, if you say that it was just created looking old then you’ll need to say that God created it with a real whopper of a backstory. For example, the geologic record preserves detailed records of fights between dinosaurs, as well as dinosaurs with the food from their last meal still in their stomachs. Astronomers regularly observe supernovas which are records of explosions from stars that according to young earthers never existed. [Some of these examples might be moot depending on which version of young earth creationism the other person subscribes to.]
Again, the key point here is that I don’t try to prove to people that the world really is that old, just that they must agree that it certainly looks old, in which case either it is that old or God deliberately created it in such a way that it looks that old.
[It could be that some versions of flood geology might have responses to some of the above, but I personally don’t know anybody who goes for flood geology so I’ve never had to respond to those types of arguments.]