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Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #8

The first time I read a novel or any work of fiction it’s all about the story. Who did what, where, when and why. If the story is compelling I will fly through it, eager to see how it all ends.

If the book is exceptional I will read it again a few years later. This time I will look for the beauty of the book, the stories within the stories, the metaphors and allegories, the character development, and perhaps even the word choice of the author. Since the outcome of the story is already known, this second reading is …

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Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #9

History was an easy subject for me to grasp in school, maybe because history is simply a collection of stories that actually happened. I have always loved the subject. History helps us understand how we got to where we are today, and then to make sense of it all.

The first David McCullough book I read was Truman. I was spellbound. This was a way to explain history I had never encountered before. It was respectful without pulling any punches, it offered insight without promoting an agenda, and it was detailed without being boring. On top of all that, …

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Through the Eye of a Needle

One of the constant themes in my life — and the one I’d focus on if I ever wrote a book — is how we balance wealth, giving, and our faith. We live in the wealthiest age in the history of the human race, yet we have billions living in poverty. It’s a tension that I’ve pondered most of my life.

That’s why I jumped at the chance to read Peter Brown’s new book Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD.

Brown, a Professor of …

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Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #10

So we begin the top ten countdown in this series, and I start it off with a great one. Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts is simply brilliant. It might be my favorite novel on the list, and it might be the wisest book of fiction that I have read.

Of course, it’s not entirely a book of fiction. The parallels between the author’s life and Lin’s life (the main character) are very similar. So where does the truth begin and fiction begin? Like everything else about this book, it’s living on the edges and learning to cope with …

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Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #11

Books can create different worlds that take us to new places. But books can also recreate old worlds that remind us of what once was. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett took me to an old world that I had only heard about, and it made a new place of mystery and intrigue. It also opened my eyes to the pure joy of mysteries.

The Maltese Falcon is far from the best mystery novel. But that’s not the standard I use to put a book on this list. The book needs to move me and shape me, and Maltese certainly …

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Antifragile

Rarely do I read a book that puts words to ideas that I wasn’t aware I had. Rarely do I like a book by an author with an immense ego and insults all kinds of groups. Rarely do I read a 544 page book that holds my attention.

But Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb manages to do all of the above.

Taleb is well known for his book Black Swan, which came out just as the economic collapse was raging. He is often called “one of the foremost thinkers of our time.” That may …

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Twenty Five Books That Influenced My Life – #12

When I want to learn about another country I will turn to all the usual sources: history books, travel guides, online articles, etc. Turning to a novel would not be my first instinct.

But The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón changed that perspective.

A few years ago we had plans for a trip to Spain. The Shadow of the Wind was on the suggested reading list, so I thought I’d give it a try. Wow. Not really knowing what to expect, the book grabbed my imagination and kept me up late each night turning pages.

The story …