“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
Francisco is currently reading:
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin by Gordon Wood
Seeing Jesus From the East by Ravi Zacharias
A Year With the Mystics by Kathryn Jean Lopez
The reading list below is a reference of some of the top works in each category Francisco consistently recommends to others.
Self-Help
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and It’s All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life by Richard Carlson
Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell
The Five Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me About Life and Wealth by Richard Paul Evans
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Philosophy
On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs by Father James Schall
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dali Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
History
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Give Me Liberty: A History of America’s Exceptional Idea by Richard Brookhiser
Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Securing Democracy: Why We Have an Electoral College edited by Gary Gregg II
The American Cause by Russell Kirk
The Craft Beer Revolution: How a Band of Microbrewers is Transforming the World’s Favorite Drink by Steve Hindy
The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936-1945 by John Toland
The Roots of American Order by Russell Kirk
The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Small Band of Outcasts Conquered an Empire by Bart Ehrman
Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the WOrld of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales (Audio book)
Political Philosophy
American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver
Letters to a Young Conservative by Dinesh D’Souza
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg
Look Homeward, America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists Bill Kauffman
Redeeming the Time by Russell Kirk
Somebody’s Gotta Say It by Neal Boortz
Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy by Jonah Goldberg
The Conservative Heart by Arthur Brooks
The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk
The Law by Frederic Bastiat
The Road to Freedom by Arthur Brooks
The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
The Politics of Prudence by Russell Kirk
The Vanishing American Adult by Ben Sasse
Up From Liberalism by William F. Buckley, Jr.
We Still Hold These Truths by Matt Spalding
Politics and Political Movements
A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes by John M. O’Hara
Melting Pot or Civil War: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders by Reihan Salam
The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics by Matt Bai
The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 by George Nash
The Making of the American Conservative Movement: National Review and its Times by Jeffrey Hart
The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted American and What We Can Do About It by Angelo Codevilla
Biography / Memoirs
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News by James O’Keefe
Breakthrough: Our Guerilla War to Expose Fraud and Save Democracy by James O’Keefe
Brother Andre: Friend of the Suffering, Apostle of Saint Joseph by Jean-Guy Dubuc
Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators by Jay Nordlinger
Coolidge by Amity Shlaes
Crazy Coach on a Bike by Kevin Record
Decision Points by George W. Bush
God and Ronald Reagan by Paul Kengor
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life by Peter Robinson
James Madison by Gary Wills
John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court by Richard Brookhiser
John Paul The Great by Peggy Noonan
Memoirs of a Superfluous Man by Albert J. Nock
Miracle on Luckie Street: From Homeless Drug Addict to Multimillionare: His Personal Turnaround, by Bob Williamson
My Grandfather’s Son by Clarence Thomas
Nearer, My God by William F. Buckley, Jr.
Open by Andre Agassi
The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
The Last Days of Socrates by Plato
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill by William Manchester
The Sword of Imagination: Memoirs of a Half-Century of Literary Conflict by Russell Kirk
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
This is Herman Cain: My Journey to the White House by Herman Cain
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Without You, There is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea’s Elite by Suki Kim.
Religion
Confessions by Saint Augustine
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas Woods.
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love by Carl Anderson and Eduardo Chavez
Strength To Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’ Kempis
Education
An Education for Our Time by Josiah Bunting
John Dewey & The Decline of American Education by Henry T. Edmondson III
The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman
The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Non-Belief by George Marsden
The Tumultuous Sixties: Campus Unrest and Student Life at a Southern University by J. Stanley Marshall
Business and Innovation
Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Fearless Innovation by Alex Goryachev
The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier
Christian-inspired Fiction
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
General Fiction
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe
Beowulf by Seamus Heaney
Elvis in the Morning by William F. Buckley, Jr.
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
Florida
A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith
Best State Ever: A Floridad Man Defends His Homeland by Dave Barry
Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida by Gary Mormino
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald
Travel and Places (outside Florida)
Catch the Jew by Tuvia Tenenbom
Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams
The Holy Bible
Books Completed:
Genesis
Exodus
Numbers
Joshua
Judges
I Samuel
II Samuel
I Kings
II Kings
Ezra
Nehemiah
I Maccabees
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts