With proper credit to my brother Alan, following is a list of books he recommended at my request when I started spending 4+ hours per week on an airplane. I've read a fair number of them and continue to work through it. Books I have read are in bold. Feel free to comment or give some other recommendations. And yes, I feel superior because I no longer read fiction (although I do feel slightly dumber for having read Glenn Beck's An Inconvenient Book).
Revolutionary Era
Mayflower (Philbrick)
The Founding Brothers (Ellis)
Benjamin Franklin: The First American (Brands)
Benjamin Franklin (Isaacson)
His Excellency (Ellis)
Washington’s Crossing (Fischer)
1776 (McCullough)
The Glorious Cause (Middlekauff)
John Adams (McCullough)
Alexander Hamilton (Chernow)
1800s
Andrew Jackson (Remini)
Andrew Jackson (Brands)
Team of Rivals (Goodwin)
Abraham Lincoln (Donald)
The Battle Cry of Freedom (McPherson)
Manhunt (Swanson)
The Devil in the White City (Larson)
Titan (Chernow)
1900s
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Morris)
Theodore Rex (Morris)
No Ordinary Time (Goodwin)
Freedom From Fear (Kennedy)
Truman (McCullough)
Master of the Senate (Caro)
President Kennedy (Reeves)
Robert Kennedy: His Life (Thomas)
The Best and the Brightest (Halberstam)
Simple Justice (Kluger)
First In His Class (Maraniss)
My Life (Clinton)
Middle East
The Six Day War (Oren)
From Beirut to Jerusalem (Friedman)
Guests of the Ayatollah (Bowden)
Sports
When Pride Still Mattered (Maraniss)
Luckiest Man (Eig)
9/11 - Afghanistan
Ghost Wars (Coll)
9/11 Commission Report
The Looming Tower (Wright)
Iraq
Plan of Attack (Woodward)
Cobra II (Gordon)
The Assassins’ Gate (Packer)
Other Good Choices
Black Hawk Down (Bowden)
Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner)
The Prize (Yergin)
The World is Flat (Friedman)
Longitudes and Attitudes (Friedman)
Revolutionary Era
Mayflower (Philbrick)
The Founding Brothers (Ellis)
Benjamin Franklin: The First American (Brands)
Benjamin Franklin (Isaacson)
His Excellency (Ellis)
Washington’s Crossing (Fischer)
1776 (McCullough)
The Glorious Cause (Middlekauff)
John Adams (McCullough)
Alexander Hamilton (Chernow)
1800s
Andrew Jackson (Remini)
Andrew Jackson (Brands)
Team of Rivals (Goodwin)
Abraham Lincoln (Donald)
The Battle Cry of Freedom (McPherson)
Manhunt (Swanson)
The Devil in the White City (Larson)
Titan (Chernow)
1900s
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Morris)
Theodore Rex (Morris)
No Ordinary Time (Goodwin)
Freedom From Fear (Kennedy)
Truman (McCullough)
Master of the Senate (Caro)
President Kennedy (Reeves)
Robert Kennedy: His Life (Thomas)
The Best and the Brightest (Halberstam)
Simple Justice (Kluger)
First In His Class (Maraniss)
My Life (Clinton)
Middle East
The Six Day War (Oren)
From Beirut to Jerusalem (Friedman)
Guests of the Ayatollah (Bowden)
Sports
When Pride Still Mattered (Maraniss)
Luckiest Man (Eig)
9/11 - Afghanistan
Ghost Wars (Coll)
9/11 Commission Report
The Looming Tower (Wright)
Iraq
Plan of Attack (Woodward)
Cobra II (Gordon)
The Assassins’ Gate (Packer)
Other Good Choices
Black Hawk Down (Bowden)
Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner)
The Prize (Yergin)
The World is Flat (Friedman)
Longitudes and Attitudes (Friedman)
6 comments:
Hey now, I hope you're not putting down my good friend, Glenn! :) I agree it's not the best book ever written, but I agree with him on most issues...plus he doesn't take things too seriously which we all need a little of, right?
I've also enjoyed several of those other books, Manhunt being my favorite of all of them.
I liked the book fine and ripped right through it. But when I was finished, I wasn't sure what kind of book he was trying to write. I liked the parts that made you think about different issues, but there was a little too much "fluff" for me. I think I was fine until the last chapter, when he talked about the Council on Foreign Relations and combining Canada, the US, and Mexico into a single country. That seemed a little bit "out there" to me. In general, I have a hard time with all the partisan radio/tv personalities and while he's not in Sean Hannity/Bill O'Reilly territory, he's not exactly not like them either. I still like Doug Wright as well as anyone for just talking about the issues without being blatantly conservative or liberal. Are there any national personalities in the same mold?
Fair enough, fair enough...
By the way, you must read Guests of the Ayotollah; it's been one of the most interesting of those I've read in your list.
...And I was never "mad"...totally giving you a hard time.
Black Hawk Down is excellent though a bit crude. The Right Stuff is a real compelling read about the early astronauts as compared to other test pilots in the air force. Also if you're looking for conservative values in talk radio or print my favorite by far is Michael Medved - his shows always feature lots of debate. Also lots of laughs on the Batman spoiler following the Stephanie Meyer review.
Read Lone Survivor, First In and Paul Revere's Ride. How was the Ghost Wars? I have that one but haven't been able to start it yet.
Black Hawk Down is great. I like Mark Bowden and have read all of his books.
Other good books on Iraq are Thunder Run and Generation Kill.
I'll have to check those ones out. I enjoyed Ghost Wars, but for me, The Looming Tower was quite a bit more readable and covered a lot of the same material.
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