In late October, I was with my friend Grant Starrett at National Review Institute’s Buckley Prize Dinner in New York City. We were catching up on life when he told me that at that the start of 2017 he had made a resolution to read 50 books this year. “50 books?,” I said. He then quickly replied, “I’ve already read 60.” (Picture my shocked face).
I asked him how he was able to read that much. After all, he’s a pretty busy guy, working in real estate, involving himself in public policy (he even ran for Congress in 2016). It was simple he said: he always has books with him. Sometimes they are physical books, but mostly, thanks to technology, they are always on his phone or tablet, one of which is always with him. When he’s on the go, such as on a subway or on a plane, or waiting at a doctor’s office – wherever those few minutes of “downtime” find him throughout each day – he opens up his book. He avoids social media and email as much as possible. While many of us waste time looking at Facebook or Instagram, he’s got his head in a book, absorbing and learning.
I gave this some consideration near the end of 2017 and thought: I’d like to read more. I can’t possibly imagine reading 50…or 60 books…in one year. So, I set a goal to read half of what Grant did: 30 books. Of course, in the last few days of 2017 when he found out my goal — to simply “half” his — he told me he finished 2017 with over 70 books read — so I should do 35. Whoa, buddy. I’ll start with 30. Ok, I added an extra one to get us to 31.
Thanks to many friends who made suggestions (via a post I put on Facebook last week) I’ve compiled the list of 30 (or was it 31?) books I intend to read. I’ll add a caveat: this is the planned reading list. I am free to throw some off the list — and add others — as the year progresses. And about those five bonus books that Grant wants me to read (should I actually meet the first goal and get to 30). Well, I will add any other really good books I come across throughout the year. For now, the list is below, with proper references to who suggested the books – or how they ended up on my list! Feel free to join in the fun. And if you haven’t seen my recommended reading list of some of my favorite books of all-time on my website, there are lots of options there in many different categories. Check them out! For 2018, I simply divided my reading list for this year into fiction and non-fiction categories and listed them all below. And now the fun begins! Happy new year!
**May 1, 2018 Update: A few new books were added to the reading list thanks to recommendations by friends. They include: What I Saw in America by G.K. Chesterton, as part of the Orlando chapter of the Chesterton Society that I have recently joined. We meet once a month and this is the book for April / May. The second book is Conversion: Spiritual Insights Into An Essential Encounter With God by Father Donald Haggerty – given to me by Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Institute. The third book, Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr, I picked up in Memphis during my visit there in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of MLK Jr.’s assassination. No other books have been taken off the list as of yet. So, there’w now 33 books on this list for 2018. I’m committed to reading at least 30!
Fiction
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (Dan Dawson)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Jennings DePriest)
1984 by George Orwell (Steve Triana)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Rory Diamond)
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather (Judy Duke)
The Nightingale: A Novel by Kristin Hannah (Dana Edwards)
Nonfiction
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance (National Review staffers and fans keep recommending this)
Up From Liberalism by William F. Buckley, Jr. (National Review Editors podcast)
The Vanishing American Adult by Senator Ben Sasse (my homeboy!)
The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton (Matthew McMillan)
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Surive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath (Jill & Bill Mattox gifted this to me in 2016!)
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
What I Saw in America by G.K. Chesterton
Conversion: Spiritual Insights Into An Essential Encounter With God by Father Donald Haggerty
American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News by James O’Keefe (my friend James O’Keefe’s new book)
The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (James O’Keefe)
Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions by James Ryan (Keith Fernandez)
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’Kempis (has been sitting on my bookshelf since 1427)
Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators by NRI Senior Fellow Jay Nordlinger (National Review)
My Two Elaine’s: Learning, Coping, and Surviving as an Alzheimer’s Caregiver by Martin Schrieber (Scott Plakon)
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 by John Toland (Grant Starrett)
For One More Day by Mitch Albom (Irene Hernandez)
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill by William Manchester (Hunter Thompson and Caleb Byrd)
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo (Maggie Gunther)
The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus (Antonio Lopez)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Saif Ishoof)
Virtuous Leadership: An Agenda for Personal Excellence by Alexandre Harvard (Antonio Lopez)
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (Ryan Hovatter)
No One’s World: The West, The Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn by Charles Kupchan (Marshall Polston)
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamindis and Steve Kotler (Ryan Kaldahl)
The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton (Matt McMillan)
The Second World Wars by NRI Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson (National Review)
Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensees Edited, Outlined, and Explained by Peter Kreeft (Nathan Bond)