Books Read

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I have a horrible memory. And I love to read. In the year 2000, while lamenting the fact that I couldn't remember anything about books I had read just the year before, I started keeping a journal where I wrote down the things I wanted to remember about the books I was reading.

I'm still doing it. These days, it seems, I can't read a book without dog-earing a page or two and scribbling down thoughts in the margin that I want to be sure to capture in the write-up I will eventually compose. Some people approach these write-ups as if they were book reviews, but I don't think of them that way. Although they often contain criticism or praise, they are more a way for me to document my personal experience with each book I read -- the pieces that resonate with my philosophical and reflective self. I know that the things I read help shape that self, and by keeping my journal I have the ability to see that process unfold.

Here's an index to the write-ups appearing on this blog:

Art
11/06/23 - Art and Artist by Otto Rank

09/18/23 - The Essential Edward Hopper by Justin Spring

01/24/22 - Rodin by David J. Getsy

12/09/17 - American Epics edited by Austen Barron Bailley
11/11/17 - Man at Work by Klaus Turk

Business
04/22/24 - The Ministry of Common Sense by Martin Lindstrom

06/05/23 - The Absent Superpower by Peter Zeihan

07/11/22 - Relationship Economics by David Nour

12/20/21 - Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave by Bill Franks

08/02/21 - Stacking the Deck by David S. Pottruck

05/24/21 - The Zero Dollar Car by John Ellis

01/04/21 - The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge

10/05/20 - The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner

08/24/20 - What Really Matters by John Pepper

07/27/20 - Stop Selling Vanilla Ice Cream by Steve Van Remortel
04/20/20 - Robert's Rules of Order by Henry M. Robert
09/14/19 - Narcissistic Leaders by Michael Maccoby
06/22/19 - X Matrix by Darrell Casey
06/08/19 - Exception to the Rule by Peter Rea, James K. Stoller, and Alan Kolp
04/27/19 - The Carver Guide Series on Effective Board Governance by John Carver and Miriam Mayhew Carver
03/16/19 - Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
12/22/18 - The Association CEO Handbook by Paul A. Belford
11/24/18 - Association 4.0 by Sherry Budziak and Kevin Ordonez
07/21/18 - Resonate by Nancy Duarte
04/18/15 - When Millennials Take Over by Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant
10/04/14 - Stop Stealing Dreams by Seth Godin
05/31/14 - Robert E. Lee on Leadership by H. W. Crocker III

05/17/14 - The End of Membership As We Know It by Sarah L. Sladek
05/03/14 - The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling

03/08/14 - Outside In by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine

01/11/14 - Road to Relevance by Harrison Coerver and Mary Byers

12/15/12 - The Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton

Fiction and Literature
11/04/24 - A Word Child by Iris Murdoch

10/21/24 - A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

10/07/24 - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

09/23/24 - The Alienist by Caleb Carr

09/09/24 - Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

08/26/24 - Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

08/12/24 - Ann Vickers by Sinclair Lewis

07/15/24 - The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

07/01/24 - The Titan by Theodore Dreiser

06/03/24 - Even Cowgirls Get The Blues by Tom Robbins

05/06/24 - The Wall by John Hersey

03/18/24 - King Arthur, His Knights, and Their Ladies by Johanna Johnston

03/11/24 - Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

03/04/24 - Allergy Shots by Robert Litman

02/26/24 - The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

01/15/24 - The Women by T. C. Boyle

01/08/24 - Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

12/04/23 - The Wreath by Sigrid Undset

11/27/23 - Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

10/23/23 - Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

09/25/23 - The Runaway Soul by Harold Brodkey

07/31/23 - Platte River by Rick Bass

07/24/23 - Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

07/17/23 - 1876 by Gore Vidal

07/03/23 - Ravelstein by Saul Bellow

05/22/23 - The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

05/08/23 - Anno Domina by Patrick S. Lafferty

03/13/23 - Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser

02/13/23 - Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

11/14/22 - Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

10/31/22 - Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

10/17/22 - Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

08/08/22 - The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

06/13/22 - A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

05/30/22 - A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

04/18/22 - The Genius and the Goddess by Aldous Huxley

04/04/22 - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

03/21/22 - The Hours by Michael Cunningham

03/07/22 - Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

02/21/22 - House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

02/07/22 - The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

01/10/22 - Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

11/22/21 - Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet

11/08/21 - Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

10/25/21 - Then and Now by W. Somerset Maugham

09/27/21 - Candide by Voltaire

09/13/21 - Beloved by Toni Morrison

05/10/21 - A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

04/26/21 - Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather

03/29/21 - The Troll Garden by Willa Cather

02/15/21 - 2010 by Arthur C. Clarke

02/01/21 - The Tortilla Curtain by T. C. Boyle

12/14/20 - Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

10/19/20 - The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

07/13/20 - Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
06/29/20 - One of Ours by Willa Cather
06/15/20 - Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather
05/04/20 - The Redskins by James Fenimore Cooper
03/09/20 - Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub
01/27/20 - The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
01/13/20 - Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
11/09/19 - The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham
10/26/19 - Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
10/12/19 - The Martian by Andy Weir
09/28/19 - Nashville Chrome by Rick Bass
07/06/19 - Talk Talk by T. C. Boyle
05/25/19 - Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane
04/13/19 - Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw
02/16/19 - Everything's Eventual by Stephen King
02/02/19 - Burr by Gore Vidal
01/19/19 - Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
01/05/19 - Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
10/27/18 - The Ring of Ikribu by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney
09/01/18 - The Bell by Iris Murdoch
08/04/18 - Best Stories of O. Henry
06/09/18 - The Chainbearer by James Fenimore Cooper
05/12/18 - Youth and the Bright Medusa by Willa Cather
04/14/18 - Without a Hero by T. C. Boyle
03/17/18 - The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff
02/17/18 - Duma Key by Stephen King
01/20/18 - A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
09/30/17 - The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
09/02/17 - The Hermit's Story by Rick Bass
08/19/17 - Hooking Up by Tom Wolfe
07/22/17 - American Pastoral by Philip Roth
05/13/17 - Riven Rock by T. C. Boyle
04/15/17 - Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather
03/18/17 - Good Faith by Jane Smiley
02/18/17 - The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
12/24/16 - Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley
12/10/16 - Cass Timberlane by Sinclair Lewis
11/12/16 - Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
10/29/16 - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
10/15/16 - By Sorrow's River by Larry McMurtry
09/17/16 - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
08/20/16 - Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
07/23/16 - The Known World by Edward P. Jones
07/09/16 - Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley
06/11/16 - The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
05/28/16 - Independence Day by Richard Ford
04/30/16 - The Stranger by Albert Camus
03/05/16 - Moo by Jane Smiley
02/20/16 - The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
01/23/16 - The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
01/09/16 - Lost Horizon by James Hilton
12/12/15 - The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
11/28/15 - The March by E. L. Doctorow
11/11/15 - Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
10/17/15 - Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
09/05/15 - Closing Time by Joseph Heller
07/25/15 - Continental Drift by Russell Banks
07/11/15 - All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
06/13/15 - The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
05/30/15 - A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
05/16/15 - O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
04/04/15 - Twin Sombreros by Zane Grey
03/07/15 - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
02/21/15 - Black Hole by Charles Burns
02/07/15 - Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
01/10/15 - The Crucible by Arthur Miller
12/27/14 - The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
12/13/14 - The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
11/29/14 - Budding Prospects by T. C. Boyle
11/15/14 - Creatures of Circumstance by W. Somerset Maugham
08/23/14 - My Antonia by Willa Cather
07/26/14 - A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

07/12/14 - Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

06/14/14 - Five Stories by Willa Cather

04/05/14 - Gettysburg by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen

02/08/14 - If the River Was Whiskey by T. Coraghessan Boyle

11/16/13 - Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
10/19/13 - The Professor's House by Willa Cather

08/24/13 - The Old Beauty and Others by Willa Cather
07/27/13 - Descent of Man by T. Coraghessan Boyle
06/29/13 - Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
06/15/13 - Long Remember by MacKinlay Kantor
06/01/13 - Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

05/04/13 - Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
04/20/13 - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
04/06/13 - The Wandering Hill by Larry McMurtry

02/23/13 - Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry

01/12/13 - The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter van Tilburg Clark

12/01/12 - A Friend of the Earth by T. C. Boyle
11/17/12 - The Inner Circle by T. C. Boyle

10/20/12 - Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 by Garrison Keillor
10/06/12 - Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw

07/28/12 - Left Behind by Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
07/14/12 - Sink the Bismarck! by C. S. Forester
06/30/12 - 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
06/16/12 - Spartacus by Howard Fast

01/28/12 - Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather

12/03/11 - The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
11/18/11 - Hemingway's Chair by Michael Palin
11/05/11 - The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

09/24/11 - Women with Men by Richard Ford

History and Biography

12/16/24 - Sex and Rockets by John Carter

11/18/24 - Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins

07/30/24 - And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts

06/17/24 - Society and Thought in Modern America by Harvey Wish

04/29/24 - The Spark of Independence

04/15/24 - Longitude by Dava Sobel

04/08/24 - The Color of Money by Mehrsa Baradaran

02/19/24 - Survival at Auschwitz by Primo Levi

02/12/24 - How the South Won the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson

01/29/24 - Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill

01/22/24 - The World of the Druids by Miranda J. Green

11/20/23 - The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

11/13/23 - Fart Proudly by Benjamin Franklin

10/30/23 - I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1 by Victor Klemperer

10/09/23 - The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

10/02/23 - Dutch by Edmund Morris

09/04/23 - The Gettysburg Nobody Knows, edited by Gabor S. Boritt

08/28/23 - American Rule by Jared Yates Sexton

08/21/23 - The Whirlwind of War: Voices of the Storm, 1861-1865 by Stephen B. Oates

08/14/23 - The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

08/07/23 - Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency by John C. Waugh

06/19/23 - The Passing of the Armies by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

03/27/23 - Summer for the Gods by Edward J. Larson

12/12/22 - Reaganland by Rick Perlstein

10/03/22 - A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan

09/05/22 - The Imperial Presidency by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

08/22/22 - Night by Elie Wiesel

07/25/22 - The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell by Bertrand Russell

05/02/22 - Modern Medea by Steven Weisenburger

06/07/21 - A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman

03/01/21 - She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey 

11/16/20 - The Enemy of the People by Jim Acosta

09/07/20 - Ritual America by Adam Parfrey and Craig Heimbichner

08/10/20 - The Invisible Bridge by Rick Perlstein

05/18/20 - A Campaign of Giants by A. Wilson Greene
04/06/20 - The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
03/23/20 - Sachiko by Caren Stelson
12/21/19 - Willa Cather by Philip L. Gerber
08/03/19 - The Unwinding by George Packer
07/20/19 - Nixonland by Rick Perlstein
03/30/19 - The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson by Herbert Hoover
11/10/18 - Yankee From Olympus by Catherine Drinker Bowen
09/15/18 - On to Petersburg by Gordon C. Rhea
05/26/18 - Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy by Robert V. Remini
04/27/18 - Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom by Robert V. Remini
03/31/18 - Glimpses of World History by Jawaharlal Nehru
03/03/18 - Wild by Cheryl Strayed
11/25/17 - The March of Folly by Barbara W. Tuchman
07/08/17 - Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg
06/24/17 - Doubt by Jennifer Michael Hecht
05/27/17 - The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party by Michael F. Holt
03/04/17 - I Will Bear Witness by Victor Klemperer
02/04/17 - On Many a Bloody Field by Alan D. Gaff
01/21/17 - Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks
01/07/17 - What Went Wrong? by Bernard Lewis
11/26/16 - Maugham: A Biography by Ted Morgan
09/03/16 - Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein
06/25/16 - A Night to Remember by Walter Lord
05/14/16 - Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
04/16/16 - Papal Sin by Garry Wills
02/06/16 - Freedom Betrayed by Herbert Hoover and George H. Nash
12/26/15 - To Appomattox by Burke Davis
10/03/15 - Broken Music by Sting
09/19/15 - Kepler's Witch by James A. Connor
08/08/15 - The American Future by Simon Schama
11/01/14 - An Hour Before Daylight by Jimmy Carter
09/20/14 - Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast
03/09/13 - Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

02/09/13 - After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 by Ben Shephard
01/26/13 - The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea

08/11/12 - Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire by Robert V. Remini

06/02/12 - When This Cruel War is Over by Thomas Fleming

05/05/12 - The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

04/07/12 - Goya by Patricia Wright
03/24/12 - Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper, Jr.

02/25/12 - Rise of the American Nation by Lewis Paul Todd and Merle Curti

10/22/11 - Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

Holiday Break Posts - Best Book of Each Year
2023 - The Wreath by Sigrid Undset

2022 - The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

2021 - Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

2020 - Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

2019 - Nashville Chrome by Rick Bass
2018 - The Bell by Iris Murdoch
2017 - American Pastoral by Philip Roth
2016 - Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein
2015 - Continental Drift by Russell Banks
2014 - A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
2013 - The Battle of the Wilderness by Gordon C. Rhea
2012 - Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather

Politics and Philosophy
12/02/24 - The Once and Future Liberal by Mark Lilla

05/20/24 - The Cruelty Is The Point by Adam Serwer

04/01/24 - The No Spin Zone by Bill O’Reilly

02/05/24 - The Book of Insults by Nancy McPhee

01/01/24 - The Journalism of Willa Cather, Volume 1

12/18/23 - Marcus Aurelius and His Times

12/11/23 - God, Please Save Me by Sister Mary Rose McGeady

04/10/23 - Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot

02/27/23 - Utopia by Thomas More

01/30/23 - This Is the Fire by Don Lemon

09/19/22 - How Would a Patriot Act? by Glenn Greenwald

06/27/22 - Life in the Stupidverse by Tom Tomorrow

05/16/22 - Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand

12/06/21 - Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault

10/11/21 - The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

08/16/21 - The End of Victory Culture by Tom Engelhardt

07/19/21 - The Trouble With Reality by Brooke Gladstone

07/05/21 - White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

01/18/21 - The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen

11/30/20 - The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

11/02/20 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

02/24/20 - The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art by Arthur C. Danto
02/10/20 - In the Dust of This Planet by Eugene Thacker
08/17/19 - Free Will by Sam Harris
05/11/19 - Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre by Walter Kaufmann
03/02/19 - The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 by Michel Foucault
10/13/18 - Unbelievable by Katy Tur
09/29/18 - The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Zizek
07/07/18 - Going to Tehran by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
06/23/18 - Among the Dead Cities by A. C. Grayling
12/23/17 - The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man by Robert M. Price
10/28/17 - The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha
10/14/17 - 25 Years of Tomorrow by Dan Perkins
04/01/17 - The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian
08/06/16 - Moral Politics by George Lakoff
03/19/16 - The Reason Driven Life by Robert M. Price
06/27/15 - With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald
05/02/15 - The Selected Writings of the Marquis De Sade, selected and translated by Leonard De Saint-Yves
03/21/15 - The Accidental Superpower by Peter Ziehan
01/24/15 - We Who Dared Say No to War, edited by Murray Polner and Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
08/09/14 - Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs

12/14/13 - Blowback by Chalmers Johnson

03/23/13 - The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

11/03/12 - Attention Deficit Democracy by Jim Bovard

09/08/12 - Who Killed the Constitution? by Thomas E. Woods and Kevin R. C. Gutzman

08/25/12 - Nothing by Nica Lalli

04/21/12 - Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

12/17/11 - A Tragic Legacy by Glenn Greenwald

Science and Sociology
03/25/24 - The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John M. Allegro

10/16/23 - Why is Sex Fun? by Jared Diamond

09/11/23 - The New Spirit by Havelock Ellis

04/24/23 - The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

01/16/23 - Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari

01/02/23 - The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

11/28/22 - Generations by William Strauss and Neil Howe

08/30/21 - Brain Cuttings by Carl Zimmer

06/21/21 - The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

04/12/21 - Evil Genes by Barbara Oakley

03/15/21 - Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter 

09/21/20 - Thou Shalt Not Be Aware by Alice Miller

06/01/20 - Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast by Lewis Wolpert
01/04/20 - The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
12/07/19 - The Physics of Consciousness by Evan Harris Walker
11/23/19 - Moral Minds by Marc D. Hauser
08/31/19 - The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins
12/08/18 - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
08/18/18 - Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan
02/03/18 - A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins
01/06/18 - I'm OK -- You're OK by Thomas A. Harris, M.D.
09/16/17 - Games People Play by Eric Berne, M.D.
08/05/17 - The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
06/10/17 - The Mind and the Brain by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., and Sharon Begley
04/29/17 - A Primate's Memoir by Robert M. Sapolsky
10/01/16 - The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
04/02/16 - Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud
10/31/15 - Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku
08/22/15 - X Saves the World by Jeff Gordinier
10/18/14 - The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley
09/06/14 - The Human Brain by Isaac Asimov
06/28/14 - The Happiness Myth by Jennifer Michael Hecht
09/21/13 - The End of Biblical Studies by Hector Avalos

05/18/13 - The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

12/29/12 - The Myth of Human Races by Alain F. Corcos

09/22/12 - On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

05/19/12 - Female Desires by Rosalind Coward

03/10/12 - On Writing by Stephen King

02/11/12 - Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

01/14/12 - The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
12/31/11 - The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

10/08/11 - Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley