Monday, July 25, 2005

Recommended Books

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
- Henry David Thoreau

During school I remember doing just about anything I could but read through every book assinged to me in class. Only those that were the most important to me at the time really captured my attention. However, now that I am not paying to learn, I find my appetite for reading has become insatiable. Maybe it was the influence of my father, who would shove an encyclopedia book in my lap when I had those typical adolescent questions. He would always respond, "well, lets look it up..." That is what we did. As a teenager I stopped asking as I found this too painful, but it seems the habit stuck with me through the years and now, I am the one to go to the books everytime I have a question. With that said, I would like to put into this post an on-going and growing list of books that have caught my attention. Now what does it take for me to post a book? Well, I must first read the book, and if a book does not grab my attention within the first 100 pages, I just can't finish it. That would go for some books that people will say are the greats of our time and of the past. Some I will force myself through but in general, the first 100 pages will reveal a lot to me. As I cannot always remember all the books I will start with the books in the past few years that have stuck with me and that I always recommend to friends and family.

"Guns, Germs and Steel" - Jared Diamond
"1421" - Gavine Menzies
"A Tramp Abroad" - Mark Twain
"Importance of Being Ernest" - Oscar Wilde
"Peter the Great" - Robert Massie
"Undaunted Courage" - Stephen Ambrose
"What Went Wrong" - Benard Shaw
"The Alchemist" - Paulo Coelho
"Heart of the Sea" - Nathaniel Philbrick
"Endurance" - Alfred Lansing
"A Brief History of Time" - Stephen Hawking
"The Prince" - Niccolo Machiavelli
"Art of War" - Sun Tzu
"Te Tao Ching" - Lao Tzu
"Republic" - Plato
"An American Sphinx" - Joseph Ellis
"Da Vinci Code" - Dan Brown
"Catch 22" - Joseph Heller
"Cat's Cradle" - Kurt Vonnegut
"Catcher in the Rye" - J.D. Salinger
"Sun Also Rises" - Ernest Hemingway
"Snows of Kilimanjaro" - Ernest Hemingway
"Gideon's Spies" - Gordon Thomas
"Long Walk to Freedom" - Nelson Mandela


There are so many more books and I will continue to expand as my memory continues to work...I would encourage anyone to pass along recommendations of books they think one MUST read in their lives.

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