D-day – Stephen Ambrose
This lengthy book all about D-Day was AMAZING. It was very interesting because it was long, but it was only about one single day, so allowed for a great deal of detail related to D-Day. It was amazing how much planning went into the greatest land invasion ever. I had never thought about it, but there were large groups of people just in charge of directing traffic on the beaches, identifying and recording who died, and thousands of people dedicated to just feeding the landing troops. Amazing.
Citizen Soldiers – Stephen Ambrose
Another amazing book by Ambrose. He wrote these three books based on thousands of interviews with military people from all sides of WWII, and writes well. Citizen Soldiers is about WWII in general, and is very, very good and interesting.
Band of Brothers – Stephen Ambrose
This book, which was made into an HBO series, is also very good. It highlights one particular group of paratroopers throughout WWII, from their training the in the US, to their D-Day exploits, to their taking over of Hitler’s mansion after the war ended. It was amazing, and made me think of a lot of things I never thought of before. Listening to these three Ambrose books really makes me wonder what my generation would do if faced with a problem like WWII. I simply do not think we could do it. We are too lazy, too spoiled and we have no concept of sacrifice. I really enjoy books about WWII, and am currently watching a 16 hour documentary on it with Stacey. More about that later.
The Measure of a Man – Sidney Poitier
An interesting book about the life of Sidney Poitier. He is pretty liberal, and has some ideas that I think are ridiculous, but it is interesting to hear how a very popular older actor who was very famous in his time thinks about the world. He talks a lot about being black in America, and that is also very interesting.
A Song Flung up to Heaven – Maya Angelou
By the same person who wrote “I know why the caged bird sings”, this was an interesting book, written by a lady who has had a very interesting life. She basically talks about a part of her life. She moved from Africa to the US to help Malcom X on a project, he got killed before it started, so she did some other stuff until Martin Luther King asked for her help. Then, before that started, King was killed. She has some interesting insights, and talks mostly about being black in America. Like “The Measure of a Man”, it interests me to understand these types of authors—people whose view of the world is very different than mine. In fact, Angelou spoke at the Ross School of Business (where I now go to school) last year, and the article I read about it emphasized how different she is than the normal business type person.
The No Spin Zone – Bill O’Reilly
In this book, O’Rielly basically talks about an issue, talks about a few lines from an interview with someone he did on the issue on his show, and then talks more about the issue. It was interesting to hear what many famous people have said to him on his show, and interesting to hear what he thinks. On many issues, I agree. On some, I think he is a logic deprived idiot. You win some, you lose some.
Perelandra – CS Lewis
An amazing book, and perhaps my favorite of the more than a dozen I have read by Lewis. It is the second in the Space Trilogy, and is very good. A guy travels to Venus, where the Fall has yet to happen. He does logical, spiritual, and ultimately physical battle with Satan in order to try to preserve the innocence of the Eve figure. It is very, very interesting in making you think about the Fall. It discusses a interspatial kingdom ruled by God. Since the Fall already happened on earth, one did not need to happen on Venus, and so it needed to be avoided. Anyways, it was a very interesting book from a philosophical and religious point of view, and makes you think about the fall, humanity, and existence. Since I was listening to it as I unpacked, I didn’t get all I could have out of it, but what I did get was amazing. Like all of Lewis’ stuff, his doctrine is not always necessarily true, but it is well reasoned and interesting.
Wisdom of our Fathers – Tim Russert
This was a great book. Apparently, Russert wrote a book about his dad, and had such a great reaction, had to come up with something else about fathers. He solicited peoples stories about their dads, and this book was the result. It is just a whole bunch of stories about people’s dads. They are all very well written (he picked a couple dozen from tens of thousands of submissions), and some were very touching, and some very funny.
Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams- Lynne Withey
A book about Abigale Adams. I listened to John Adams by McCulluagh a while ago, and it was much better. Nevertheless, Abigail was an amazing woman, and the book was interesting.
The Logic of Life – Tim Harford
The book starts out being like a watered down version of Freakonomics (which is an amazing book), and ends up being like The World is Flat (not that great of a book). It essentially talks about rational choice theory, which suggests that everything everyone does is for a rational reason. It was very interesting, and it was good. The beginning is a little racy, talking about the rationality of teen sex and other such issues, but, it was good.
4 comments:
This gives me a few ideas of what next to add to the library/reading list. Thanks!
You must be the "smartest man alive" Happy Gilmore. I an going to have to get you watching more TV so we can talk. It would take me years to read that and by page 6 I would have forgotten all. So how is the Big Blue?
that's a string of good books. i'm going to copy a few of your selections
Oooh! I started Perelandra, but never finished. That synopsis is all the motivation I need. You're the first person I've ever known that's heard of the space triology.
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