Browsing Tag

book review

The Road to Character

The recently released book The Road to Character by David Brooks is my first “must read” recommendation of the year.

The book looks at a variety of men and women, all leaders and inspirational thinkers, who built a strong inner character. Each faced different circumstances, had different weaknesses and strengths, lived in different eras, and overcame different challenges. Brooks teases out lessons about developing our character from the stories of these men and women, concluding with his thoughts on why we need to imitate them and how to apply the lessons we’ve learned.

I like the simple image he uses …

Book Reviews,

Scary Close, by Donald Miller

For over a decade Donald Miller has been exploring his inner thoughts about the complexities of faith in a culture seeking to package our spiritual journey into something neat and tidy. His latest book Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy continues the story. It explores the messiness of relationships and the beauty to be found in the chaos.

If the only way I knew Miller was through his books, well, honestly … he’d come across as wildly self-absorbed. But the separation between us is only 2 degrees and I highly respect the people who call him a …

Book Reviews,

Keeping Hope Alive, by Lewis Smedes

I have a lot of hope in the future. It’s what keeps me going through all the negativity pervading our lives. People are down on everything these days — perhaps because they watch too much cable news — and I want to push the tide in the other direction.

We must learn to live by hope in the midst of all the negativity. Hope in the future, hope in each other, hope in ourselves. Even hope in the government and institutions. But most of all, hope in Christ.

But how, I wondered, do we sustain hope in the midst of …

Book Reviews,

Bold, by Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis

Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis wrote Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World as the follow up book to their previous work, Abundance. Where Abundance tell us what the future might look like, Bold explains how entrepreneurs can get us there.

What I enjoyed about Bold was the sheer audacity of what the authors aim for. These two think big — as in “let’s start a company to mine asteroids” big. And they have enough success on their resume to show they can really do these things.

In Bold the authors become pragmatic — well, …

Book Reviews,

Boys Adrift

When I wrote about the most influential 25 books of my life, Reviving Ophelia was a no brainer to add. It shaped my understanding of what girls deal with in our society, which helped me be a better father to my daughter.

But until I read Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax there was nothing comparable about boys. Now I only wish this book was published when my son was younger — it would have helped me raise an even better son!

For decades I’ve advocated for boys. So much emphasis has been put on helping girls — rightfully so, I’m …

Book Reviews,

The Accidental Superpower, by Peter Zeihan

Gloom and doom are an always present part of the American psyche. For two hundred years we’ve convinced ourselves the best days are behind us. It’s easy to find books that feed this anxiety.

That’s why I enjoyed The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder by Peter Zeihan.

Authors who point out the inherent advantages America has compared to the rest of the world always fascinate me. Not just our civil rights, not just our wealth, not just our (relatively) uncorrupt culture. But the geographic position we find ourselves in. We are one …

Book Reviews,

What if?

If you’re looking for a FUN book about the kinds of crazy questions often asked after a couple of beers, this is the book for you. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe is willing to take on the ridiculous questions with serious science. And the result is informative, hilarious, and often just a bit scary!

For instance, what if everybody on earth aimed a laser pointer at the moon; would it be brighter? A ridiculous question, obviously. But Munroe takes the time to think through the answer. How much light would that be? Could …

Book Reviews,

The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson

One of the hottest books of the year is The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. After the amazing success (and timing) of his book about Steve Jobs, in this new book Isaacson explains how the process of innovation has commonalities no matter the people, places, institutions or even centuries involved.

It’s a touch of brilliant marketing. Take the hottest field of our era (technology), combine with many of the richest people in the world (Gates etc.), look at a topic of great interest (innovation), and then draft a historical …