Book Goals for 2019

UPDATED 6.4.2019

I don’t typically make plans or goals for reading, other than a generalized goal to read as much as I can. I usually pick a topic for the year and will, among the other books I bump into along the way, focus on it. Two years ago, Britt and I were planning a trip to the UK, so I chose literature from the British Isles. This year, I chose books on the Civil War, as well as on its lead characters, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Abraham Lincoln.

So, where to in 2019?

I picked my books from four areas:

• What I read with the book club;
• What I read to the kids;
• What I read for fun;

And, here’s the heavy lift:

• What I read on the topic of the year.

This year’s topic is politics. With a presidential election around the corner and all the country in turmoil over what is likely the most controversial presidencies in memory, or longer, it’s a good time to review principles, strategy, and tactics.

Here are the lists (and very flexible lists they are):

• Book Club reads:
  • The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  •  A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • 2.19.2019 Melting Pot or Civil War?: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders by Reihan Salam
  • 5.22.2019 Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Ben Rich
• To read to the kids:
  • Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
  • Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  • The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
• Reads for fun:
  • Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
  • In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  • Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey
  • The Civil War: A Narrative Volume 2 by Shelby Foote
  • Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson
  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  • 1.28.2019  A Star-Wheeled Sky by Brad Torgersen
  • 4.26.2019 Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
  • J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey
  • The Terminal List by Jack Carr
  • Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer
  • Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
  • The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
  • Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield
  • One Way by S.J. Morden
• Topical Reads:
  • Them: Why We Hate Each Other–and How to Heal by Ben Sasse
  • The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership by Sam Walker
  • Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought From David Hume to the Present by Jerry Z. Muller
  • The Founding Conservatives: How a Group of Unsung Heroes Saved the American Revolution by David Lefer
  • Originalism and the Good Constitution by John O. McGinnis and Michael B. Rappaport
  • Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor
  • Law and Literature by Richard Posner
  • The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders by Jacob Needleman
  • Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservativism Brought Down the Republican Revolution by Michael D. Tanner
  • The Conservative Heart by Arthur C. Brooks
  • Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt
  • Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts
  • The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews
  • Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
  • Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond by Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman
  • Words that Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Dr. Frank Luntz
  • Being Nixon: A Man Divided by Evan Thomas
  • It doesn’t have to be crazy at work by Jason Fried
  • So you’ve been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson
  • 1.3.2019 Trust me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulatorby Ryan Holiday 
  • Presidents of War by Michael Beschloss
  • How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky
  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
  • The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure  by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff
  • Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier