Just read this. Beast of a book. Shows how Tolkien became such a rich fantasy writer because there was Christian metaphysical ideas underlying his fictional world building. By creating imaginary and fictional worlds, and writing fiction, we're sharing in God's creative capacities.

Yes. I have already started book 2. It is pretty good. It just took a bit to envision the way the world works.

Completed Listening Point by Sigurd Olson. I really enjoy his writing style and the feelings he evokes when discussing wilderness and our place within it. It will be months before I can get out paddling again so reading about it is the next best thing.

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3. The One Thing by Gary Keller

“Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.” This was written by Gary Keller of the Real Estate sales empire Keller and Williams. Some of the stuff is repeated in other books like this but there was some really good suggestions and approaches that I will try to implement. Namely doing management tasks like meetings in the afternoon and focusing on your productive one thing tasks in the morning.

He also quotes George Halas “No one who ever gave it his best regretted it.” As a Bears fan that really enamored me with the book.

1. Gone (6th in Michael Bennett series) by James Patterson
2. Burn (7th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
3. Alert (8th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
4. Chase: A Bookshot (Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
5. Bullseye (9th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
6. Manhunt: A Bookshhot (Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
7. Haunted (10th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
8. Ambush (11th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
9. Blindside (12th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
10. The Russian (13th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson-starting today

Completed:

1. A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman
2. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance - Ron Chernow
3. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 - Eric Foner
4. The Confederacy's Greatest Cavalryman: Nathan Bedford Forest - Brian Steel Wills

Currently Reading:

The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine - Ronald Sanders

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4. Emma by Jane Austen

I read this because someone on Twitter was discussing how effectively she demonstrated male virtue ethics. I think the guy kind of oversold it. It was pretty well written and I guess it’s nice that it was a happy ending but it wasn’t a particularly interesting story. And I will almost certainly never read this again.

5. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

I added this to my list of books to read a while back because some billionaire guy said everyone should read it in an interview I watched. I was surprised by how short it was. I’m not a theologian but if you’re a Christian I think his comments about man and divinity might be heretical. But other than that the premise is that what you think manifests in what you do and eventually even what you look like which I largely agree with.

Anyone read the Cody Hoyt series from C.J. Box? I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole and see it's got really good reviews. Basically, I listen to audiobooks all the time and remembered the same narrator (Holter Graham) did Stephen King's Christine and Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. I really like his style so decided to see what other books he did. That's how I stumbled onto the C.J. Box series.

3 - The Broken Room, Peter Clines, 4/5

Peter Clines writes some good weird fiction that is somewhat surreal. The Broken Room was very good. It started as what I thought would be a sci-fi story but ended up having some fantasy elements (maybe that's considered Magical Realism in this book?), but the main reason I gave the book only 4 stars, despite being unable to put it down, is the child characters went through hell.

Currently reading Constance by Matthew FitzSimmons.

The first book I ever read by Matthew FitzSimmons, The Short Drop, was amazing so I have high expectations for Constance. I think long gone miscer Penorcut was the one who recommended this author to me years ago.

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1. Sebastien De Castell – The Malevolent Seven 4/5
2. Christian Cameron – A Killer of Men 4.5/5
3. RW Krpoun – Memory Road 3.5/5
4. Robert Jackson Bennett – Foundryside 4/5
5. Robert Jackson Bennett- Shorefall 4/5
6. Martha Wells – System Collapse 4/5

Been a long while since I've actually completed a full book.

Currently RIPPING through the audio book "Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity"

If you think North American urban design is absolutely retarded, you're right. This book lays out all the financial impossibilities of the suburbs, and how automotive infrastructure is NOT an asset, but a liability.

The scary part are his case studies like Detroit, and how virtually EVERY major city will end up exactly like detroit if you just give it enough time. Detroit was where the automobile originated and was one of the first cities to experiment with suburban living/commuting - no surprise it is the first major city to default - and it won't be the last.

pre-determining a city with strict zoning laws leaves no room for community growth/evolution.

A good comparison is a corn field VS a natural forest…. A corn field is a strictly groomed field that will NOT sustain itself without extreme effort, irrigation, tilling, harvesting, re-planting, etc etc etc. On the other hand, a natural forest just thrives and evolves over time with zero effort from outside forces…. Zoning is essentially funded through public taxation and doesn't have a natural market to support it. If you asked a community to pitch in and build their own roads, they would all agree that they don't need that new road, or new bridge, because the cost is so absurdly high they can't actually afford it without going into debt.

Also, the math used to justify "infrastructure improvements" is skewed to however they want it in order to do the building.

Just a really good book.

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6. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I saw the film version of this a long time ago whenever that came out but had never read the book. I thought the movie was a good sci-fi action flick. But the book is much better than the movie. It goes much more into the culture of the Martians and the weird Illuminati alien things are not in this. Plus, the learning how to speak Martian and communicate telepathically was interesting. Good world building and some well written action scenes. Thoroughly enjoyed this.

Maybe halfway through Clash of Eagles by Martin Bowman about the US 8th Air Force in WW2. It's full of information but it's just not delivered well. I love history but this is just one big blur of "on this day these bombers went out with these guys as crew, they bombed this area, lost these planes and people" over and over. There is no real story line to try and follow and no connection to what is happening. While each raid is dramatic in its own way, the bombers, crews, locations all feel interchangeable. I suppose that's probably what the crews felt like in a way. Still, I can't recommend the book.



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4. Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself - Luke Russert
Travel book by an whiny liberal

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
Going to read this whole series, been meaning to do it for years.

I just finished The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. This was a reread from probably 10 years ago. Great book IMO. 9.5/10 for me.

I'm now reading the second in the series, The Brass Verdict.

Finished:
Thomas Lin - Alice and Bob Meet the wall of fire - 3.5/5 - Somewhat interesting, mostly a collation of a bunch of articles in quanta on the latest science. Exactly what you'd expect really. There was a pretty good chapter on an idea by a physicist called Jeremy England, which suggests systems organize themselves in the presence of an energy source (i.e the sun) and a heat bath (i.e the atmosphere) to dissapate energy into the heat bath effectively, thus leading to the second law of thermodynamics (this is currently somewhat explained by Boltzmans work on statistical mechanics). While this may sound stale, the real interesting facet of this idea is that it would be a superordinate principle of evolution, and mean that life in the right conditions becomes almost inevitable if it's proven to be true, instead of Darwins 'primordial soup' theory. We'll see how it unfolds, but the relationship between entropy and life is clearly not a new idea, but formulation in this way is.

Gareth C Sampson - Gareth C. Sampson - Rome's Great Eastern War: Lucullus, Pompey and the Conquest of the East - 4.5/5 - Great account of the third mithridatic war primarily, with deep attention to detail on both Luculluses portion of the campaign, as well as Pompeys (which seems to be a bit more esoteric when looking for books). Very much enjoyed it.

Mihail Bulgakov - The heart of a dog - 4/5 - After reading the master & the margarita, i decided to try some more Bulgakov. This book has an extremely strange plot, but it didn't disapoint. The cliffs are that the first half of the book is the world through a stray dogs eyes, and he is taken by a world famous scientist, and has his testicles and pituitary gland replaced by that of a somewhat young man who died. Then second half of the book then deals with what happens to this dog as he becomes 'humanized', and the challenging relationship between him and his 'creator' so to speak.

Stephen Dando-Collins - Rise of an Empire: How One Man United Greece to Defeat Xerxes's Persians - 4/5 - Not much to say, this is an account of the Greco-Persian war, and is one of the better and more readable accounts i've read.

Lee Fratantuono - Lucullus: The Life and Campaigns of a Roman Conqueror - 4/5 - I really enjoyed this; i've been fascinated by Lucullus for a long time, and it's always seemed to me that despite being one of the greatest generals of his age (and maybe one of Romes greatest generals, period), he's often been overlooked becaus he existed in a transitional age of Rome, and did not have the political energy or Will of his contemparies such as Ceasar, Crassus or Pompey.

Currently Reading:
Duane W.Roller - Empire of the Black Sea: The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World
Lucretius - On the nature of the universe

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7. The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The second in the series. I was less enthralled with this one than “Princess” This explores how their religious beliefs were actually a sham and the beautiful lie actually led them to a horrific death, not the heaven they were promised. Was a little too didactic in its anti-religious messaging. Still some good action sequences and the protagonist fighting to save his princess is a classic for a reason—and is carrying over to the next book in the series.

2001 a space odyssey was pretty interesting. 3/5 for some great parts.

4 - Constance, Matthew FitzSimmons, 3/5

Currently reading: Dead Moon (Threshold #3), Peter Clines

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6. Martha Wells – System Collapse 4/5
7. Robert Jackson Bennett – Locklands 3.5/5


Locklands is the third book of the Founders series. I thought the series started to fall off in the second book and that the third book was the weakest of the series.

The fountains of paradise 1/5.

This book sucked ass mane. I read it because 2001 a space odyssey was pretty interesting but this book sucked!

Finished reading book 7 for the year and started reading High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard

1. Gone (6th in Michael Bennett series) by James Patterson
2. Burn (7th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
3. Alert (8th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
4. Chase: A Bookshot (Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
5. Bullseye (9th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
6. Manhunt: A Bookshhot (Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
7. Haunted (10th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
8. Ambush (11th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
9. Blindside (12th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
10. The Russian (13th Michael Bennett) by James Patterson
11. Shattered (Michael Bennett series) by James Patterson
12. Obsessed (Michael Bennett series) by James Patterson-last one out in this series
13. Random in Death (In Death series) by J.D. Robb- about halfway through

I found out I never finished my copy of Atomic Habits. I forced myself to sit and read it, so I finished it in three days. It's a fairly easy read but a good book nonetheless.

I still have a hyooj backlog of books I have yet to read so we'll see what happens there

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8. Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

This was just a fun guy chases after his kidnapped princess wife and kills a ton of people/alien monsters along the way story. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And having read the trilogy I couldn’t help but think what a shame Disney screwed up the first movie in a potential franchise. This could have been a sci fi Conan the Barbarian series of movies. Too bad.

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6. Travels by Michael Crichton
Travel book by the Jurassic Park guy.

7. 2010: Odyssey Two
Continuing the series

Rereading Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it.


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This looks like a great book! I read With The Old Breed years ago. Amazing what those guys went through.

I had rewatched The Pacific not too long ago and it got me thinking on the books again. Leckie is quite a writer. I see he wrote many books but I can't say as I know what most are about.

Just finished Mickey Haller (aka The Lincoln Lawyer) #2, The Brass Verdict. I read this before and I saw the (Netflix?) series based on the book. It's a real good legal thriller. 9.5/10