In 2008 my dreams of a “Fairy Tale” life died.
I had graduated in Spring of 2008 and was engaged to get married that December.
My plan was to get a teaching job that Fall and have a great secure job and income for the duration of our marriage.
Instead, I found myself working part time and struggling to get work each day as a substitute teacher.
I was lost.
Everything they told me about doing good in school, going to college and then get a job, didn’t pan out.
I had to do something.
Quick.
I used to never read introductions.
Reading was always something I enjoyed, but it wasn’t until I took a three week “May-mester” class in college that I really began reading as much as I try to do now.
The class was World War II History and we met from 8 am to Noon on Monday through Thursday.
My professor was Dr. Adrian R. Lewis. He was the Chair of the History Department at University of North Texas at the time the and was the only man I’ve ever hear lecture for four straight hours.
Not only did he talk the entire class, he was well prepared, organized, succinct, and stunning!
Our class would have been a total of 12 days, but Memorial Day was one of the Monday’s and so we ended up with only 11 days of class.
But, that didn’t keep Dr. Lewis from assigning us the entire reading load of a normal course.
We were assigned to read (all or in part):
Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy
Storm Landings by Joseph H. Alexander
Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 by Christopher R Browning
War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower
And of course, like any good college prof, his own book:
Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory by Adrian R. Lewis
Needless to say, I didn’t finish all of it, but I tried.
After that, I had a breakthrough in my reading life and nothing has been the same since.
The thing that changed most is now my willingness to read Introductions to give me a more complete picture of what the book is about, because hey, there’s usually good stuff in there!
It was this new found hunger for reading that would save my life and help me out in 2008-2009.
There is no shortage of books to read.
But what to read when and why are always questions that came up.
As a kid I spent a ton of time by myself.
The finer moments included reading.
Several times I would climb the oak tree in our front yard and then wedge myself in the crook of branches. And then read for as long as I could stay up there.
Or else I would use a flashlight under the covers and read when I was supposed to be sleeping.
My elementary school once had a program to read for 600 minutes.
My young mind quickly calculated that to be 10 hours.
That made the task seem more achievable because the number 10 is way less than the number 600.
If I did it, I would be rewarded with a personal pizza.
A FREE pizza!
Behold the birth of the power of pizza on my life.
I loved reading because it took me away from my present and transported me into adventure.
Beyond adventure, I have come to respect reading fiction for the depth of humanity that is showcased within great works.
The intense emotions, the psychological insights, the fun and frivolity, charm, surprise, journey and crescendo until the ultimate outcome or resolution.
It wasn’t until I read some of these “great works” that I discovered the above to be true.
But where to start?
A google search for books to read led me to a list of 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library on the website: The Art of Manliness.
This was great!
It had a goal.
100 books.
It had descriptions / reasons why to read them.
It included classics, which I was interested in reading.
And it was about “The Art of Manliness”, which as a young man who had recently gotten married and whose life appeared to be coming apart, I was looking for some guidance of great men.
As a bonus, I had already read seven of the books on the list!
Saturday, February 28, 2009, 3:34:25 PM, I created an Excel file to keep track of my reading progress.
As I write this I have 19 books remaining to be read.
My rate of reading and has varied over the years with life’s ebbs and flows.
Also I read a ton of books not on this list, for instance books about persuasion.
Or, if I like the author, I will read several more of their books.
Mostly, I am writing this post to motivate me to finish up the list.
From the 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library post:
“There are the books you read, and then there are the books that change your life. We can all look back on the books that have shaped our perspective on politics, religion, money, and love. Some will even become a source of inspiration for the rest of your life. From a seemingly infinite list of books of anecdotal or literal merit, we have narrowed down the top 100 books that have shaped the lives of individual men while also helping define broader cultural ideas of what it means to be a man.”
“Whether it be a book on adventure, war, or manners, there is so much to learn about life’s great questions from these gems. Let us know in the comments which of these you loved, hated, and the books that meant a lot to you and should have made the list (you can even get really indignant about your favorite book). And without further ado, this is our list.”
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
- Slaughterhouse‐Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- 1984 by George Orwell
- The Republic by Plato
- Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Catcher and the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
- For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Call of the Wild by Jack London
- The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
- Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
- Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
- The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer
- Catch‐22 by Joseph Heller
- Walden by Henry David Thoreau
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
- American Boys’ Handy Book
- Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
- King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- A River Runs Through It by Norman F. Maclean
- The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
- Malcolm X: The Autobiography
- Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarq
- The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
- Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch
- The Strenuous Life by Theodore Roosevelt
- The Bible
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
- The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
- The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden
- The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- The Histories by Herodotus
- From Here to Eternity by James Jones
- The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
- Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
- White Noise by Don Delillo
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- The Young Man’s Guide by William Alcott
- Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
- Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond by Denis Johnson
- Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
- The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry by Christine De Pizan
- The Art of Warfare by Sun Tzu
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
- The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
- The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
- The Thin Red Line by James Jones
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- The Politics by Aristotle
- First Edition of The Boy Scout Handbook
- Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
- Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
- The Crisis by Winston Churchill
- The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer
- Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
- The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- Essential Manners for Men by Peter Post
- Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
- Hamlet by Shakespeare
- The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
- A Separate Peace by John Knowles
- A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe
- The Pearl by John Steinbeck
- On the Road by Jack Kerouac
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
- The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
- Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
- Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Just looking over this list again brings back fond memories of the stories I loved, the books I didn’t like, the life events I was going through and the solace I found in reading.
Let me hear from you, which of these books do you love and consider “must reads” or what books should I read once I finish this list?
Thanks,
@strangerarray
Please follow me, @strangerarray, because take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow.
Also feel free to send donations to: PayPal.Me/michaelpaine because I need more books.
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