A Reading Life Thanks Mom – Books on my 2019 Starting List
A big thanks to my Mom for instilling the power of books into my life from an early age. I remember vividly all the trips to the library and then to the bookstores when shopping malls were the rage. Spending hours in Dalton, Walden, Borders and a host of small independent bookstores were memories that will not be forgotten. An ongoing joke between my Greek wife (Jan) and me is this: I went to bookstores/libraries as a child and Jan went to grocery stores and farmers markets!
Every year we get the “Best Books” lists including fiction and non-fiction titles that are on the must read list. How many times have you read one from the lists and asked the question of why was that included?
Tip: check out “1,000 Books To Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List” by James Mustich (It took him 14 years to write the book and it’s very comprehensive).
Reading is similar to wine. Everyone has their own interests and tastes in wine and literature. For many a lowly rated wine tastes as good as an expensive wine. Your reading tastes might be similar.
Instilling a reading life early on for children, sadly, has declined by 10% since 2010 (Scholastic, You.Gov) with the rise in technology (apps and games). Teens have experienced the same decline with TV, Internet, games, texting and Instagramming. Surfing the Internet and reading articles and gaining knowledge is fine, but there is nothing as lasting from reading a real book cover to cover. The reader becomes part of the story when reading a real book and having a pen close by to jot down some notes.
I typically start my reading year with re-reading a few classic non-fiction books – Norman Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie and Teddy Roosevelt to kick start the year. Have you re-read certain books? It’s amazing what you can pick up by re-reading classic books. My favorite book, “The Old Man and The Sea” is my must-read every year. It’s the book I give to friends and clients most often.
Here is my list that you might peruse and add (or not) to your reading list. This first round is heavily weighted toward non-fiction and then I add in fiction during the summer months. Summer is fiction reading for me.
The Starting Reading List
- The Complete Works of Primo Levi (3 books)
- Robert Morris – Charles Rappleye
- Benjamin Franklin – Walter Isaacson
- The Science of Self Learning – Peter Hollings
- Leonardo Da Vinci – Walter Isaacson
- The Serving Mindset – Brock
- Four Seasons In Rome – Anthony Doerr
- North – Scott Jurek
- Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, Timothy Egan
- The Philosophy of Walking, Frederic Gros
- Tip of The Iceberg, Mark Adams
- Perennial Seller, Ryan Holiday
- Educated, Tara Westover
- Sell It Like Serhant, Ryan Serhant
- The Monks of New Skete – How to Be Your Dogs Best Friend
- Game Changers, Dave Asprey
- Living With A Seal, Jesse Itzler
- Stay The Course, Bogle
- Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins
- Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach
- Wired To Eat, Robb Wolf
- Belichick, Ian O’Connor
- Presidents of War, Michael Beschloss
- The Essays of Warren Buffett
- Reading People, Anne Bogel
- Ernest Hemingway on Writing
- The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, Will Durant
4 Thoughts for 2019
- Visit your library often
- Give a book to a friend
- Visit an independent bookstore during your travels
- Fill up your Amazon book Shopping Cart