After slogging through
The World is Flat I toned it back a bit this month:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. This is from the school reading list. This was a pretty fun and humorous novel about a 19th century inventor/engineer "time traveling" back to ancient England and hanging out with King Arthur.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes: Three Tales of Avarice by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin. I really liked this one, though it is somewhat of a chastisement for me. Lots of good things to think about, how we are in a connection society and moving out of an industrial society, and how our art is the meaningful contribution we can make to strengthen our position in that society. A different way of thinking for me.
The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A whole different tack... I love service manuals because as we all know, the earn as you learn plan can get expensive and the parts you just broke may be made of unobtainium.
Here are some EXCELLENT, OUTSTANDING user/service manuals I've come across lately in my education!!!
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For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women .
http://www.amazon.com/Men-Only-Stra...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311862287&sr=1-1 Written by a man, to men, in collaboration with his wife. Fiancee concurs he gets it. He has a way of unraveling the spaghetti GPS tracks in a woman's inner life that makes a whole lot of sense to men. And how we get ourselves in a world of hurt trying to do what we think is the common sense right thing. Demystifying and very helpful...
For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women by Shaunti Feldhan and Jeff Feldhan. Great book if you men want to get to know the woman in your life a little bit better. There is a companion book written for women to get to know the men in their life better, so the two books make a great couples read.
The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell. This is #2 of the Saxon Chronicles Series. Novels about ancient England.
July 2016:
I think somewhere in here I read
Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft by Thor Heyerdahl. I can't believe I forgot to add it to this list. This is a true story about a group of folks led by a Norwegian who crossed the Pacific on a balsa raft. It's an incredible story and I had a hard time putting it down. Definitely one of my favorites.
The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity by Lee Strobel. Still have to finish this one.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Couldn't keep this one up in book form, had to finish it in audiobook form. Really enjoyable though, once the whaling part of the story was underway. Too bad the TV miniseries with Patrick Stewart kind of botched up the ending (in my opinion).
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. This book was incredibly eye-opening about the current state of living species on earth, and was very sad to see the rate of extinction that is currently taking place that I had no idea about. It also touched on anthropogenic climate change and presented some new information on that topic that I had not heard before.
The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell. I have been enjoying the Saxon Chronicles series, so decided to start this Warlord series of historical novels as well. This one is about Arthur and narrates the struggles of the Britons against the Saxons. It's easy to listen to when I'm working on projects around the house and can't pay attention to book with heavier topics.
...Currently, i'm reading "Undaunted Courage" by Stephene E. Ambrose. A tale of Lewis and Clark and the opening of the west.
I loved this one, it was epic!
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose. A good recounting of the Lewis and Clark expedition, though surprisingly light on some details like Sacajawea's impact on the party.
August 2016:
The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Towards God by Lee Strobel. Very well authored and narrated; I'm looking forward to it.
Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell. #2 in the Warlord Series about Arthur.
Excalibur by Bernard Cornwell. #3 in the Warlord Series about Arthur.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. A classic, obviously, but I've never read it yet. Enjoyable.
Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston. I think I need to stop reading, or at least listening, to Michael Crichton novels. A little too much suspense for me, especially when listening on audio book and there is no natural break in the action as chapter books have.
For Married Men Only: Three Principles for Loving Your Wife by Tony Evans. This one was a little hard to take, and I'm not sure I agree with all of his views on things, but definitely some good stuff to think about.
September 2016:
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Never knew much about this icon of modern physics, so this was very enjoyable. Interesting colored personal life and really interesting to me that we worked out some of his best theories while working in the patent office, and not in some academic research setting.
A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The first of the Sherlock Holmes novels, I really wish I had landed upon this one first as it would have explained so much that I had to infer from later books. However, S.A.C.D. does a good job of repeating necessary details in his books so the reader never misses out on anything important. Definitely recommend it - all Sherlock Holmes by S.A.C.D. are good.
White Fang by Jack London. Again a classic, though again not sure I ever before read it. I think we read
Call of the Wild in school. I'm not sure if the wolf attack depicted at the beginning of the book is historically factual - I looked into wolf attacks and they appear to be quite rare in actual history, at least in North America.
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. I don't think I've ever read this classic before either. This went pretty quick and was a good classic.
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa. An evolutionary psychologists' perspective on the nature of people. This book challenges my worldview a bit but it's good for awareness and reflection. Something that helps is that at the beginning they state that they will not make the mistakes of making naturalistic or moralistic fallacies, which is definitely good in a lot of ways. It seems this field of study is somewhat young, so there is quite a bit of development going on. Very interesting reading though.
October 2016:
An Autobiography - The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas Gandhi. This is more or less his autobiography, though it's not written as a classic autobiography. It really is a story of his experiments with truth, as he states. So while I don't have a great idea of how he came to be so prominent in his society, I know a little bit more about his internal thoughts and experiences.
13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff. I didn't pay much attention to this incident while it was in the news, for better or worse. I'm glad to have read this account of what occurred however.
Our Oriental Heritage (Book 1 of 11 in the Story of Civilization Series) by Will Durant. This is a long slog of a book, going to take some time to get through. But similar to what I learned in my high school freshman history classes.
November 2016:
Continued
Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant
How To Write a Great Business Plan by William A. Sahlman. This is a book I will need to reference multiple times; a lot of it is intuitive but for me it's good to have a plan that's laid out clearly.
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. This is an amazing book; highly recommended. It's a parable about investing and saving for the future, but a small parable that can have lasting impacts.
December 2016:
Continued
Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant - it's almost 50 hours of (dry) audiobook. Going to do it in chunks.
It's Your Turn to Thrive: Your Money, Your Life, Your Choice-Essential Steps to Financial Success by Sharon Lechter. Sharon is a business partner with Robert Kiyosaki. She has some great insights and advice for business operations, saving, investing, insurance, and some legal pitfalls.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. The autobiography of Lawrence of Arabia. It seems to be written supposing that the reader knows who he is, what he was doing in Arabia, and followed some of the accounts of his adventures. So some of it was lost on me, unfortunately. But the stories of feasts, invasions of cities, blowing up supply trains, and hiding in the desert are all fascinating.
2016 SUMMARY - 47 BOOKS
January 2017:
Finished
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence - almost 40 hours of audiobook.
February 2017:
The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus by Lee Strobel. For me, a very fascinating look at the evidence supporting the existence and Biblical account of Jesus. Recommended read.
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck-Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen. Just like
Good to Great, a well researched book with a ton of takeaways for business life as well as everyday life. Recommended read.
March 2017:
High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service: Inspire Timeless Loyalty in the Demanding New World of Social Commerce by Micah Solomon. I was asked to research customer service as it relates to my work, and came across this author. Just reading through this book once came me a lot of insights about what proper customer service means. I'm hoping to put together a presentation to share with my team soon. Really good stuff here, for all industries really.
The Call of the Wild by Jack London. A classic I read when I was younger but wanted to re-read.
Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud. I guess I will need to read this again; a year after I read it I can't really remember anything about what it said.
April 2017:
Marco Polo: The Journey that Changed the World by John Man
A Class with Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World's Greatest Management Teacher by William A. Cohen
U.S. Marshals: Inside America's Most Storied Law Enforcement Agency by Mike Earp and David Fisher
They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators by Harold Evans
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. Such a fun novel. Very cleverly written, and highly recommended.
May 2017
The Last Oracle by James Rollins. A Sigma Force series novel. Thought I would enjoy this, and it wasn't bad but I would say so-so.
The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism by Michael Behe. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but I think he clearly shows that Darwinism has probability limitations that are real and have to be reconciled.
1984 by George Orwell. Had never read this before but knew of it. Pretty depressing outlook of our future society. Are we getting there? I'm not sure, maybe some places have already experienced this sort of thing.
June 2017
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer. What an amazing history, written very soon after WWII, about Nazi Germany, from a reporter who lived in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party so has first-hand experience of events that occurred in Germany. Highly recommended read.
July 2017
Finished
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
State of the Union by Brad Thor. This is a novel, a thriller, kinda so-so.
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell. Some neat insights into how things are perceived. Malcolm Gladwell seems always to be enjoyable.
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. First of three in the epic historical novel series about 20th century Europe and America.
August 2017
Finished
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
Winter of the World by Ken Follett. Continuation, book two, of the
Century Trilogy. The book just prior to
Edge of Eternity. Some really good stuff.
Started
The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management by Peter F. Drucker. Top-shelf information. Will have to read this again in the future. I took some notes, but will have to circle around and make some better ones.
In Fifty Years We'll All be Chicks:...And Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy by Adam Carolla. Pretty goofy guy and funny telling of his perspective. Not really any valuable takeaways except that homeless guys have lots of hair because they don't use shampoo. Lol.
Read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Had never read this classic novel, short and sweet little story. Don't screw with nature.
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss. Wow. What a revelation. Learned a lot about how these components are balanced in processed food. Goodness. Read this book.
September 2017
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer. I didn't know much about this story, but it seems to be another well-researched book by Krakauer which chronicles an unfortunate tragedy in our military history.
Finished
Salt Sugar Fat
Finished
The Essential Drucker
Started
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Long book, but turns out I really enjoyed it. Highly recommend it.
Started
Chesapeake by James Michener. Historical novel, my first Michener. Wow what an education about the Chesapeake area. Michener does his homework; from what I've seen so far I think any of his books are worthwhile. Find one with a subject region that interests you and have at it.
October 2017
Continued
Chesapeake
November 2017
Finished
Cheseapeake
Continued
Atlas Shrugged
December 2017
Finished
Atlas Shrugged
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Had never read this, but really really enjoyed it. Along with the movie that came out about December of 2017, both great seasonal themed pieces.
The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. The precursor story to
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the classic childrens' myth-adventure stories. Good stuff.
2017 total - 27 books. Caveat - some long books were included this year, including Atlas Shrugged, Fall of Giants, Winter of the World, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and Chesapeake. Each of these books is about 4 times as long as an average book. So it's like 42 books total for the year.
. A good read indeed. Now you need to read Kearny's March by Winston Groom. Should tie everything together. 
