Published in May of 2018, Robin is the biography of Robin Williams. Larger than life and tragic in death, Robin Williams was and will be an enduring legacy for generations to come.
What can I say? I love Robin Williams in pretty much everything he did. I didn’t know him from Happy Days but I was a fan of Mork and Mindy, his stand up comedy, and his amazing career all the way to the end. It was so sad when he left us.
I really enjoyed this book.
Published in October of 2015, this was Jocko’s first book in the realm of translating his experience as a Navy Seal into business and life in general.
I read this back before I started this blog and enjoyed it just as much this time around. If you are looking for some motivation, order, disapline, or just need a good old fashion kick-in-the-butt. This is the book for you.
A little too military for some but I imagine it landed just right for others based on the book sales.
Published in May of 2019, “The Pioneers” is a history of a handful of white men who settled “the Ohio” (future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin) during the American expansion.
For a more modern book, I was surprised that it mentioned relatively little about the native Americans who were already in the area. This history is very much written from the perspective of the American citizens who were moving West in what may be called “the Midwest”. (That term always cracked me up. If you look at a map of the United States, no one would have called that area the MidWest…)
Not having grown up in that area, pretty much all of it was new to me so I really enjoyed it. It gave me a view of American culture that I hadn’t been aware of and and understanding of what happened in the area.
Worth the read.
Published in 2014, The Body Keeps the Score is a book on the impacts and potential healing methods for people dealing with psychological trauma.
Given the subject matter, I was very interested due to who I work with on a daily basis. My thoughts were that if I could better understand what these warfighters were dealing with the better I could communicate with them. I’d say the book gave me some things to think about but nothing is ever really definitive.
The biggest take away for me was the over reliance on pharmaceuticals in this country. (And this was from when before the pandemic…) I am generally blown away with how much we trust in our little pills to take care of everything. I’m also so tired of doctors pushing services and then charging as much and more than insurance allows. I remember when I was going to college and didn’t have dental insurance. It’s amazing what changes when they realize they won’t get paid for the extras. “Mr. Bair, you need to have a panoramic xray!” My reply, “Well, I’m not paying for it.” They go conference for a bit with dentist and then come back. “Oh ok, we don’t need to do it…”
I neglected to look at the publication date till after I was finished with the book. That’s fun in the sense of the things that still haven’t come to general acceptance over 8 years later. We are still doing the same stupid things…
A little dry but a good read in general.
Published in March of 2015, Rohit Bhargava published the book Non Obvious as a help to spot trends and make sense of the world around us.
This book was on the CMC Professional Reading Program of 2020 and I’ve been working my way through the list. However, I think it is time for this book to leave it. While it had some utility in how to build and curate your thoughts, I didn’t see what it had to do with anything relating to the Marines.
The book is also 7 years out of date so it was interesting to hear what he thought would be a big deal 7 years ago. We still haven’t paid different prices for newly released material, Venmo has stayed with us, and so on.
Sadly, seven years is too long a break for this book to be relevant.
Published in March of 2020, Overdue was represented as a book on libraries. However, it really just boiled down to one young woman’s 9 months in a DC public library.
I was really disappointed in this book. It was really just non-stop whining and complaining about the author’s life and her issues. It also included every buzz term we hear these days regarding any and every group that isn’t white and male.
She spends all of 9 months in a library in Washington DC and feels like she is qualified to throw rocks at the system. Of course, she has no alternatives. She has no solutions. She just has her entitlement and “confirmed PTSD” because she had to interact with the public. So like all of her contemporary social warrior peers, she gets as far away as she can from the problem (literally moving to California) and starts writing about the problem with her perception of the world.
Of course, she is offended on behalf of the people she is championing while simultaneously ignoring their opinions and getting as much distance from them as possible.
I kept hoping there would be some resolution, some moment when she understands how ridiculous she is but it never came.
Yes, there are problems in the world. (That isn’t a surprise.) If you want to impress me, have an idea of how it would be better and do something about it. Tell me what would be better and really think through how that would be possible.
Published in 2017, Everybody Lies is an attempt to understand people through “big data,” specifically through internet searches. The author makes the point that people lie on surveys and even to themselves. However, they don’t lie when they are searching for what they want on the net.
This was a fun concept and the author did a great job with his arguments. He makes several references and jabs that show he left leaning political stance but I believe he did a fair job with the conclusions from data he presented.
Of course, you can lie with data pretty easily and I have some quibbles with some of the generalizations made through some of the datasets but there is bias in everyone.
I really enjoyed the book and I keep bringing it up in conversation so it must of had an impact.
Published in 2019, Becoming Dr. Seuss is the biography of Theodor Geisel who is much more widely known as Dr. Seuss. This biography takes him from birth to death and explains how he became possibly the best known children’s author.
I think we all know a little about Dr. Seuss and I grew up loving “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” However, I knew next to nothing about his time at Dartmouth, in the Army, or what he was trying to accomplish as an author. I definitely didn’t know his first wife committed suicide and it was likely due to the affair he was having at the time. Other surprising notes was he made the rank of LtCol in the Army and really got his start in children’s books at the University of Utah where he was teaching a class.
It took me a while to get through it but enjoyed the book.
Published in February of 2020, Franklin and Washington: The Founding Partnership, is the biography and comparison and contrast of our founding fathers George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
A very enjoyable read and a novel approach to subject matter that has been well documented. I really enjoyed the comparisons and the narrative of the relationship between these two men.
Worth the time to read. Great book.
Published in September of 2020, Killing Crazy Horse is the history of several notable native Americans (e.g. Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Cochise, Black Hawk, Red Cloud) and the Indian Wars through the 1800’s.
The author has a very distinctive style of getting right to the point that I enjoy. I feel this book did a great job of staying out of the commentary and just went for the facts, as well as can be known.
This was an embarrassing time for our country. I believe most people really tried to do the right thing and there were stories of people on both sides we really tried to make a lasting peace. However, there was so much confusion and prejudice it all just kept falling apart. Hopefully, we can all learn from this tragic time.
Great read.