Pandemic Reading List

[CaptUSA]

So, I was just looking at my book shelf and realized how many books I've read since this whole thing started and began thinking that maybe others have done the same. I've always been a reader, but I've never piled them up by a timeline before. It's always kinda been finish one than start another so I don't know if my pace has changed (maybe it has), but I've been putting my "Covid Collection" aside. Here's my list and I really hope to see yours! (even if it's only one or two):

• The Grid - Gretchen Bakke (a leftist sociological take on the electric grid)
• The Man Versus the State - Herbert Spencer (Must read if you haven't yet. I picked it up the day they closed the schools )
• Free to Choose - Milton Friedman
• Outliers - Malcom Gladwell
• The Art of Strategy - Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff
• Undaunted Courage - Stephen Ambrose (I took a trip and traced the L&C trail from Pittsburgh to Oregon and back after reading this book)
• Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power - Jon Meachem
• Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Intellectuals and Race - Thomas Sowell (got this when society turned a cop issue into a race issue)
• Don Quixote - Cervantes (This one was recorded - listened to it on that long road/camping trip - he he, during a pandemic )
• A Personal Odyssey - Thomas Sowell
• The Indifferent Stars Above - Daniel James Brown
• Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence - Harlow Giles Unger
• Don't Hurt People and Take Their Stuff - Matt Kibbe
• Electricity Restructuring: The Texas Story - Lynne Kiesling (I work in energy policy - you haven't seen regulation until you've seen the electric sector and Texas is sadly one of the best)
• Contagious: Why Things Catch On - Jonah Berger
• Endurance - Alfred Lansing (One of the most incredible true stories ever!)
• Stay Fit and Healthy Until Your Dead - Dave Barry
• Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
• Nudge - Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
• Range - David Epstein (very cool exploration of generalists)
• Conscious Leadership - John Mackey
• Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World - Jack Weatherford
• Son of a Milkman - Brian Wheat
• Enlightenment Now - The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress - Steven Pinker (intelligent optimism. he has a leftish viewpoint, but recognizes the undeniable success of the Enlightenment and argues for its continuation. Feels like a powerful tool for countering Marxists.)
• Originals - Adam Grant
• Speculator - Doug Casey & John Hunt
• Benjamin Franklin - An American Life - Walter Isaacson
• Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
• The Power Brokers - Jeremiah Lambert
• The Parasitic Mind - Gad Saad
• Leonardo DaVinci - Walter Isaacson
• 12 Rules for Life - Jordan Peterson (finally got around to this one)
• Lolita - Vladamir Nabakov
• The Quest for Cosmic Justice - Thomas Sowell
• Late Bloomers - Rich Karlgaard
• The Enlightenment - Ritchie Robertson
• The Meateater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival - Steven Rinella
• The Road to Serfdom - F.A. Hayek (re-read)
• A Conflict of Visions - Thomas Sowell (re-read)
• Candide - Voltaire (re-read)
• The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx (re-read) (I got into a re-reading kick for awhile after reading The Enlightenment by Ritchie Robinson, and didn't have any new books on hand)
• Will - Will Smith
• The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
• David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell
• On the Wealth of Nations - P.J. O'Rourke
• Denali's Howl - Andy Hall
• The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt
• The River of Doubt - Candice Millard
• Powering the Future - Robert B. Laughlin
• Winterdance - Gary Paulsen
• Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand
• Lost City of Z - David Grann
• Fossil Future - Alex Epstein
• A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
• Trapped - Robert K Murray
• Rich Dad Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki
• Black Rednecks and White Liberals - Thomas Sowell

Yours?

[Anti Federalist]

"The Canadian Mounted"

[r3volution 3.0]

The Plague, Albert Camus

[Marenco]

So far...

The Collected Ghost Stories - E. F. Benson

Orthodoxy And The Kingdom Of Satan - Father Spyridon Bailey

[phill4paul]

Currently reading "The Fighting Bunch: The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution."
At the half-way point. So far it has detailed some of the key individuals and the battles they fought in as well as the many abuses of the Democrat machine. This was in the 1940's and it's the same $#@! going on today. Not allowing election observers, ballot stuffing, absentee ballot fraud, etc. Even election machine tampering.

[CaptUSA]

Adding to the list for future refence...

• Range - David Epstein (complete)
• Conscious Leadership - John Mackey (complete)
• Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World - Jack Weatherford
• Son of a Milkman - Brian Wheat
• Enlightenment Now - Steven Pinker (reading now)
• Originals - Adam Grant (on deck)
• Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi (in the queue)

Running low on literary fiction, if anyone has some suggestions...

[Krugminator2]

I have completed maybe three fiction books in ten years but I highly recommend all three.

I couldn't put Speculator and Drug Lord by Doug Casey down. I kind of think of Casey as screwy gold anarchist but he writes really well. They are like Ayn Rand novels but readable and about more interesting topics. I give both of them A+ grades.

Also watching Queens Gambit on Netflix. Great show. Based on a novel by a guy who wrote The Hustler and Color of Money so the novel is probably good.

[CaptUSA]

I have completed maybe three fiction books in ten years but I highly recommend all three.

I couldn't put Speculator and Drug Lord by Doug Casey down. I kind of think of Casey as screwy gold anarchist but he writes really well. They are like Ayn Rand novels but readable and about more interesting topics. I give both of them A+ grades.

Also watching Queens Gambit on Netflix. Great show. Based on a novel by a guy who wrote The Hustler and Color of Money so the novel is probably good.

Thanks for this. I see that those Doug Casey books are part of a "High Ground" series... There's a third one that was released in October, if you're interested. I'm going to add the first one to my January list and I'll let you know what I think. +Rep.

[CaptUSA]

I have completed maybe three fiction books in ten years but I highly recommend all three.

I couldn't put Speculator and Drug Lord by Doug Casey down. I kind of think of Casey as screwy gold anarchist but he writes really well. They are like Ayn Rand novels but readable and about more interesting topics. I give both of them A+ grades.

I went back and updated my list. Based on your recommendation, I read Speculator. I'm glad I did. It languished awhile in the middle (probably could have trimmed about 100 pages or so there) but it was an interesting story. The ending felt a little rushed, but I think they knew they were going to write another book.

Unmistakable Rand influence. The preachiness gets a little old since I'm already a member of the choir and already understand the arguments. I usually prefer the story to teach the lesson instead of the narration, but for the uninitiated or someone new to the philosophy, it probably helps to spell it out. If you liked, Springer's Hypothesis, about bad ideas being like an infection, you may enjoy reading, Gad Saad's The Parasitic Mind which explores that concept in more depth. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...parasitic-mind

Thanks for the recommendation. Not sure if I'll read the second or third in the series, but I didn't even know they were out there.

[CaptUSA]

After posting this: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...fter-107-Years

I came back to update the list in the OP... Man, I wish I would have put dates on all those.

[CaptUSA]

To celebrate Biden telling me the pandemic is over, I thought it was time to put a pin in this thread. (Is it ever really over, though?? Still feels like insano world to me.)

In any case, I updated the OP and from March of 2020 to September of 2022, I count 58 books. Looking back, it's kinda cool. There were some really good ones in there. Certainly better than some streaming TV show. If you're not a reader, I can't recommend enough to pick up the habit. And cast a wide net in subject matter.