No Hero

No Hero Book Cover No Hero
Mark Owen, Kevin Maurer,
History
New American Library (NAL)
November 3, 2015
304

This is Mark Owen’s follow up to his first book – the semi-controversial No Easy Day: The First-hand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden. No Hero, is about some of his other missions. The non-headline-grabbing missions. There are some good leadership and management lessons provided. He talks about the critical role of communications.

See my Kindle notes

2014 Reading List

Supersad True Love Story – Gary Shteyngart – 1/30/2014
Egypt, Greece and Rome – Charles Freeman – 2/15/2014
Men of Bronze – Donald Kagan, Greg Viggiano – 2-24-2014
One Second After – William Fortschen – 2/24/2014
The War of Art – Steven Pressfield – 2/28/2014
Turning Pro – Steven Pressfield – 3/17/2014
The Western Way of War – Victor Davis Hansen – 3/26/2014
An Army At Dawn: The War in North Africa – Rick Atkinson – 4/10/2014
Antigone – Sophocles – 4/11/2014
Its Complicated: The Social Life of Teens – Danah Boyd – 4/18/2014
A Brief History of Ancient Greece – Sarah Pomeroy – 5/1/2014
Fingerprints of the Gods – Graham Hancock – 6/5/2014
One Bullet Away – Nathaniel Fick – 6/13/2014
Great Battles of the Ancient World – Garret Fagan – 7/31/2014
The Obstacle is the Way – Ryan Holiday – 7/1/2014
The Knowledge – Lewis Dartnell – 7/1/2014
Ancient Warfare – Phil Barker – 7/14/2014
Letters From a Stoic – Seneca – 7/31/2014
Full Dark, No Stars – Stephen King – 8/8/2014
Fun As Hell – L.J. Kumber – 8/12/2014
A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle – 9/13/2014
Jayber Crow – Wendell Berry – 10/3/2014
The Peloponnesian War – Donald Kagan – 10/3/2014
Twelve Tomorrows – Bruce Sterling – 10/30/2014
Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations – Kenneth Harl – 11/28/2814
A Very Short Introduction to the Ancient Near East – Amanda Podany – 11/27/2014
Call of the Wild – Jack London – 11/30/2014
A History of the Ancient Near East – Van de Mieroop – 11/28/2014
The Ancient Near East – Cavalas – 11/29/2014
The End of the Bronze Age – Robert Drews – 11/20/2014
Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain – 12/25/2014

The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild Book Cover The Call of the Wild
Jack London
Fiction
Macmillan
1990
128

I didn't want a dog. Little did I know it at the time, but my wife and daughter overrode me. I was a week out before needing to remove a blood clot in my brain. I didn't have any fight in me. And the day we picked up Jackson, I was out of it.

Over time, Jackson, became MY dog.

The Kindle notes are few on this one but they do a perfect job of relating how I feel about J.

Jayber Crow

Jayber Crow Book Cover Jayber Crow
Wendell Berry
Fiction
Counterpoint Press
August 30, 2001
384

I am forever grateful to the Art of Manliness website and Nick Offerman for introducing me to the work of Wendell Berry. Jayber Crow was my first introduction. I have since gone on to read Berry's essays, short stories, other novels and poetry. I haven't even put a dent in his catalog. It is hard to put my finger on what I appreciate so much about his work. Every time I read something by Wendell, it always makes me feel like I need to STOP. To slow down. To really re-evaluate what is important and what is just non-sense.

A New Earth

A New Earth Book Cover A New Earth
Eckhart Tolle
Body, Mind & Spirit
Penguin Books
2005
315

This is one of those books that you can open to a random page, read for a minute, and then just ponder what you read for the rest of the day. Its a book about mindfulness, of letting go, of trying to become more aware, of trying to diminish the power your ego has over you, of quieting that monkey chatter in your brain. It is about realizing that most people do not inhabit a living reality but a conceptualized one. Talk about a gut punch.

Fingerprints of the Gods

Fingerprints Of The Gods Book Cover Fingerprints Of The Gods
Graham Hancock
History
Random House
January 25, 2011
768

This is in my Top 10 books. Hancock tags a lot of his posts on Facebook with "things keep getting older." He has made a career of challenging the orthodox thinking on the age of civilzation(s). (And the orthodox don't like being challenged).

This book gets into details about recent discoveries such as: ancient maps that indicate the ancients were capable of complex math well beyond out current thinking. He details the similarities and common characteristics of the myths of Osiris in Egypt and Viracocha in South America. He shows the pyramids at Giza form an exact terrestrial diagram of the three belt stars in the constellation of Orion.

Hancock feels that we are missing a big chunk of our history. He shows that Flood stories are shared by more than 500 different cultures and that all of them share the same symbolic motifs: the one good man, a warning from a god, and the seeds of all living things.

He think the Flood happened 15,000 or so years ago. It is a truly fascinating read.

Its Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

It's Complicated Book Cover It's Complicated
Danah Boyd
COMPUTERS
January 13, 2015
296

If you have pre-teens or teens, this is a MUST READ for you. The author reviews the online social habits of American teens and analyzes the role technology and social media plays in their lives, examining common misconceptions about such topics as identity, privacy, danger, and bullying. Illuminating. Terrifying. But super helpful. Here is a quote:

Social media is not only a tool; it is a social lifeline that enables her to stay connected to people she cares about but cannot otherwise interact with in person.

An Army at Dawn: The War In North Africa, 1942-1943

An Army at Dawn Book Cover An Army at Dawn
Rick Atkinson
History
Macmillan
May 15, 2007
681

This is the first volume of the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson. It is set in 1942 and 1943 in North Africa.  It follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algiers, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Again, I love the format. Atkinson pulls from personal and government records/documents from privates to the Commanders. He really weaves it all together amazingly well. He really gets into the extraordinary but flawed commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.