BOOKS I RECOMMEND

In 201o I set a goal to read at least one book a week (GOAL #602). I thought this goal would be very difficult to reach but it has been more joy than pain and not that hard at all.  I have enjoyed this as much as any goal I have ever worked on! By the way, I count books that I listen to just like books I read in print. So a membership in Audible helps. Plus I have downloaded several books for free from Libre Vox.  So far this year I have stayed right on track, having read or listened to at least one book a week.  I will share that list with you here on my site and link some of those books to reviews that I have written and how those books relate to goals.

Since I set this goal I have continued to read a lot.  I haven’t listed all the books I’ve read here but I will add a book review from time to time when I think the book has very specific application to goal achievement which is the main objective of this site.

Additionally, I have always been interested in the “GREAT CONVERSATION“, a corpus of written knowledge found in classic literature.  I’ll post more about this later, but for now suffice it to say that these works include the writtings of Aristotle, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and many of the greatest thinkers of Western classical literature.  My life long goal is to read all 54 volumes (GOAL #429).  By the way, I found a great website that I want to share with you.  Stephen Carter, a high school English teacher, is a fellow who is reading these great books right now and he blogs as he goes.  He calls his site CONFESSIONS OF AN EVES DROPPER and the site is worthy of your time. Check it out!

Here is my list of books for the year.  Check off another goal as I strive to Get Where I’m Goaling!

52 BOOKS – ONE EACH WEEK!  

Starting with a goal I set in 2010

January 2010

1.  Fifty things to throw away by Gail Blanke – A great book about getting rid of things you don’ need both physically and spiritually.

2.  Integrity by Henry Cloud – Definately a virtue that is mostly absent in todays world

3.  Never eat alone by Keith Ferrazzi – Love this book!  Why should we EVER eat alone when we can spend time with someone interesting.  This is a great book about networking too.

4.  Mysterious island by Jules Vern – I read this while I was in the Caribean.  That was fun!  This brings the kid in me out again.  I love Jules Vern and his great imagination.

February

5.  Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  Another Caribean book so the setting brought the book to life for me.

6.  Don’t SweatThe Small Stuff by Richard Carlson.

7.  Second Touch by Brock Thoene

8. The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell

March

9. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

10. Fractal Time by Gregg Braden

11. Arguing with Idiots by Glenn Beck

12. Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell

April

13. The Age of the Unthinkable, by Joshua Cooper Ramo

14. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne

15. The Darwin Awards, by Wendy Northcutt

16. The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes

17. Tribes, by Seth Godin.

18. No Country for Old Men, by Cormic Mcarthy.

19. Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus

20. My FBI: bringing down the Mafia, Investigating Clinton, and fighting the war on Terror by Louis G. Freeh

21. It’s your time, by Joel Osteen.

22. Lords of Finance the Bankers Who Broke The World, By Liaquat Ahmed

23. Right Turns by Michael Medved.

24. The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.

25. Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens.

26. The Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.  Fascinating book.  The exceptional among us fascinate us yet no one makes it without the help of others, even the outliers

27.  Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, by Jennifer Armstrong.  The story of survival courage, and perserverance of the Slackwell expedition to cross Antartica.

28. U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton

29. War Z by Max Brooks

May

30. Blink by Malcom Gladwell

31. Creating a world without Poverty by Muhammad Yunis

June

32. Odyssey by Homer

33.  Choosing Your Own Greatness by Wayne Dyer

34. The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide

35.  Influencers, by

July

36. Overton Window by Glenn Beck. A story designed to illustrate the principles of good and evil in our time. When streched as far as you could go this is one possible outcome.

37.  Books 1 & 2 of Samuel & The Judges

38. Free to Choose by Milton Freedman

39. FREE: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson

40. Going Rogue by Sarah Palin

41. Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play by Mahan Khaisa and Randy Illag

August

42. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

43. Crito by Plato – This book is not very long but details Socrates incarceration where he awaits a death sentence.  His friend Crito comes to seek his release by bribing the guards but Socrates won’t allow it arguing that injustice can’t be answered with injustice.  Its the ultimate story of two wrongs don’t make a right.  I was very conflicted by the story since I believe that an injust law, like an unconstitutional law, is not a law at all, therefore civil disobedience in such a case is not wrong.  This was the position of Moroni when he raised the Title of Liberty, and the position of founding fathers when King George would not yield to their just petitions.    This is one of the classic books of western thought.

44.  The Republic by Plato.  This is a continuation of the arguments of Just and Injust.

45.  King Lear by William Shakespeare.  This tragedy is the story of a dysfunctional family.  The proverbial chicken comes back to roost in Lear’s case by the tragic outcome of his life.

46.  The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer.  This book is a synopsis of many of the main cultures of the world.  It is written to a gradeschool audience but I enjoyed listening to the book anyway.

47.  Seven Keys of Great Teaching by Oliver DeMille

48.  Pirate latitudes Michael Creiton

September

49. Don Quijote de la Mancha

October

50. The roots of Obamas Rage, by Dinesh D’Souza

51. America’s Prophet by Bruce Feiler

52. Human action by Ludwig Von Mises

November

54.  Broke, by Glenn Beck

MY BOOK LIST FOR 2011

1. 2/5/11 The Corrections   by Jonathan Franzen

2. 2/24/11 Under the Banner of Heaven  by Jon Krakauer

3. 3/8/11 Second Nature   by Michael Pollan

4. 4/18/11 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn   by Betty Smith

5. 4/18/11 In Cold Blood   by Truman Capote

6. 5/26/11 Success Built to Last  by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson

7. 6/22/11 The Alchemist  by Paulo Coelho

8. 6/29/11 The Story of Philosophy   by Will Durant

9. 7/15/11 The Compass of Pleasure  by David J. Linden

10. 9/7/11 A Long Way from Chicago  by Richard Peck

11. 9/14/11 O Jerusalem!  by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

12. 9/27/11 The Hiding Place   by Corrie ten Boom

13. 10/27/11 Steve Jobs   by Walter Isaacson

14. 12/5/11 The Giver  by Lois Lowry

15. 12/13/11 El Poder del Ahora (Texto Completo) [The Power of Now ] by Eckhart Tolle

16. 12/13/11 The Hunger Games   by Suzanne Collins

17. 12/13/11 The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell

18. 12/13/11 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us  by Daniel H. Pink

19. 12/19/11 Bonhoeffer   by Eric Metaxas

20. 12/30/11 Stories I Only Tell My Friends   by Rob Lowe

21. 12/31/11 The Steve Jobs Way  by Jay Elliot, William L. Simon

MY BOOK LIST FOR 2012

I add a few more books to my book list every year.  I get great joy from reading or listening to great books.  A number of the books were in Spanish this year as I prepared myself to go to Argentina for a month.   That was a great help and I enjoyed getting my ear tuned to the Spanish Language again.  Here is my 2012 list.

1. 1/11/12 La Ventana Abierta [The Open Window]  by Herbert Hugh Monroe

2. 1/16/12 Money and Power   by William D. Cohan

3. 1/23/12 Chile and Argentina  by Mark Szuchman

4. 2/25/12 Gilead  by Marilynne Robinson

5. 3/26/12 The Elegant Universe   by Brian Greene

6. 4/16/12 Eva Peron  by Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro

7. 4/16/12 El monje que vendió su ferrari [The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari]  by Robin S. Sharma

8. 4/16/12 Un mundo mejor [A Better World]  by Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa

9. 4/16/12 Los papeles de Facundo Cabral, Volumen 1 (Texto Completo) by Facundo Cabral

10. 4/16/12 The Hunters by W. E. B. Griffin

11. 4/16/12 Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley (translator)

12. 4/16/12 Biografía: Simón Bolívar [Biography: Simón Bolívar]  by Jon Aizpúrua

13. 4/16/12 The Ministry of Special Cases   by Nathan Englander

14. 5/4/12 When Darkness Falls  by James Grippando

15. 6/25/12 The Power of Habit   by Charles Duhigg

16. 6/25/12 Not Taco Bell Material by Adam Carolla

17. 7/23/12 The Fallen Angel   by Daniel Silva

18. 8/11/12 And Thereby Hangs a Tale  by Jeffrey Archer

19. 8/11/12 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense  by Michael Brooks

20. 8/22/12 The Screwtape Letters  by C.S. Lewis

21. 8/27/12 American Caesar by William Manchester

22. 8/27/12 The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer

23. 9/7/12 Killing Floor by Lee Child

24. 9/7/12 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People   by Stephen R. Covey

25. 9/7/12 The Story of Classical Music  by Darren Henley

26. 9/10/12 How to Read a Book   by Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren

27. 9/15/12 Proust and the Squid  by Maryanne Wolf

28. 9/28/12 Everything That Rises Must Converge   by Flannery O’Connor

29. 9/28/12 Anne of Green Gables   by Lucy Maud Montgomery

30. 10/4/12 Legion  by Brandon Sanderson

31. 10/6/12 The Soloist  by Steve Lopez

32. 11/6/12 The Next 100 Years   by George Friedman

33. 12/27/12 Les Misérables: Translated by Julie Rose   by Victor Hugo, Julie Rose (translator)