Books
These are my top ten books for the year, in no particular order. As you can see, I spent a considerable amount of time diving into military history and how information filters through the population.
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
The Brass Check by Upton Sinclair
All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Why Don’t We Learn from History? By BH Liddell Hart
Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
Call Sign Chaos by James Mattis and Bing West
Supreme Command by Ethan A. Cohen
How to Read A Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren
The Wilderness Warrior by Douglas Brinkley
Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann
Honorable mention: An Unsung Hero by Michael Smith
I also must mention A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. These three fiction titles were especially fun and transporting in a year without travel. The Twain titles were revisits, but no less entertaining for the familiarity.
I read 48 books this year, hitting my goal from last year. My goal for 2021 is to read another 48 books.
Essays and Articles
Zora Neale Hurston’s 1928 essay, How it Feels to be Colored Me.
William James’ The Moral Equivalent of War
The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allen Poe
Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell
Walking by Henry David Thoreau
Facebook Disinformation as a Doomsday Machine
Bertrand Russell’s Nobel Acceptance Speech
Children Need to be Bored over the Summer.
Every month I send out a list of the best books I’ve read and why they were great, along with recommendations to fascinating essays. If you’d like to receive that email, click here.
