The Read List

To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries. ~A C Grayling


This year for Christmas, I received an iPad on which, I immediately installed the Kindle reader application. I have long been a reader and have stacks of books, boxes of books as evidence to support my claim. Some of these were given to me but most I have purchased. It is hard for to enter a book store and leave empty handed. Unfortunately, a number of the books I own are still virgin having never been read nor had their covers spread once they left the store.

Now, with an eReader, my books are always handy, always with me wherever I travel, always available to be read as the opportunity arises. I frequently have multiple nonfiction books in the actively being read category and hop between them as the mood strikes me. I find nonfiction to be a good for book hopping as the books I read frequently complement each other. Fiction, on the other hand, typically casts a spell over me and I read them voraciously leaving no time for other books to break the story line.

I was wondering about the number of books I read this calendar year so reviewed my ereader for the count. To my astonishment, I have completed 63 books to date for 2012. At this pace, I should easily achieve 100 books read by the end of the year. I don't recall ever reading so voraciously at any phase in my life.

In addition to reading books, I have become a devotee of Zite and Flipboard as a way of keeping abreast of news in the blogosphere. These applications funnel news and blogs to me in the categories that capture my interest. In the case of Zite, as I mark articles with 'like' the more of that type of article are aggregated in my main feed. With these apps, I read about 20 blogs/news articles every day. The tailoring capabilities of Zite and Flipboard have rendered newspapers useless in my world.

My reading world has expanded markedly in the past year as has my knowledge base. This is important to me because I am teaching a Leadership course at my company for which I am also the content creator. The readings have added greatly to the depth of my teaching and benefitted the people I am privileged to lead.

Recently, I acquired a new Product Development team. My reading has reminded me of the person I need to be to effectively lead a team, has reminded me of the character I need to have, the skills I need to employ if I am to lead this team with the leadership they need to succeed.

I believe my happiness with my life is positively affected by my reading, by my learning, by my application of the things I read to my work a day world. For the first time in my life, I find myself excited about going to work every morning, looking forward to the start of my work day, wishing my work day was still going full tilt ahead as I walk out the door 13 hours after crossing the threshold every morning. I chalk this work happiness up, in large part, to the person I have become from applying those things I have read over the past half year.




Books Read:

1. 
   
2. 1968 by Mark Kulansky 
3. 21 irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell 
4. 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene 
5. 5 Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell 
6. After Dark by Haruki Murakami 
7. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami 
8. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen 
9. Axiom by Bill Hybels 
10. Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell 
11. Candice by Voltaire 
12. City of Bones by Michael Connelly 
13. Doctor Who and The Brain of Morbius by Terrance Dicks 
14. Doctor Who and the Giant Robot by Terrance Dicks 
15. Dracula by Bram Stoker 
16. Drive by Daniel Pink 
17. Echo Park by Michael Connelly 
18. Football's Funniest Quotes by Scott Porker 
19. Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry 
20. History of World Literature by The Teaching Company 
21. How to Think Like Leonardo Davinci by Michael J Gelb 
22. Leadership Methods of the Navy Seals by Jeff Cannon 
23. Lessons of the Chinese Masters by Thomas Clearly 
24. Love Poems by Pablo Neruda 
25. Love Poems of Rumi by Deepak Chopra 
26. Men of the Bible by Dwight Lyman Moody 
27. Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano 
28. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
29. Ordained Irreverence by MacMillan Moody 
30. Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin 
31. Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman 
32. Running with the Giants by John Maxwell 
33. Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern 
34. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse 
35. Taking People with You by David Novak 
36. The 17 Indisputable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell 
37. The Ambition by Lee Strobel 
38. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 
39. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly 
40. The Black Ice by Michael Connelly 
41. The Bourne Betrayal by Eric Ledbetter 
42. The Bourne Deception by Eric Ledbetter 
43. The Bourne Sanction by Eric Ledbetter 
44. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka 
45. The Closers by Michael Connelly 
46. The Concrete Blond by Michael Connelly 
47. The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara Pease (started) 
48. The Draining Lake by Amuldar Indriadson 
49. The Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lincioni 
50. The Illiad by Homer 
51. The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly 
52. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 
53. The Lovers Dictionary by David Levithan 
54. The Matterhorn A Novel of the Viet Nam War by Karl Marlantes 
55. The Metamorphosis by Kafka 
56. The Moose Jaw by Mike Delaney 
57. The Odyssey by Homer 
58. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence 
59. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo 
60. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield 
61. Trunk Music a Harry Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly 
62. Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield 
63. When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka 
64. Who's There by Seth Godin

Books Being Read:

1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Active) 
2. Good to Great by Jim Collins (Active) 
3. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (Active) 
4. The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane (Active) 
5. The Sayings of Confucius by Confuscius (Active)