2012 Books

These are the books I read in 2012 in order of completion

1.   Jim Brown: The Fierce Life of an American Hero - Mike Freeman

2.   The Life and Legacy of Lincoln-Grant School in Covington Kentucky 1866 - 1976 - Joseph M. Walton

3.   The Motorcycle Diaries - Ernesto "Che" Guevara

4.   Naked Heat - Richard Castle

5.   The Road - Cormac McCarthy

6.   Spiritual Hoops - Phil Jackson

7.   RE: Family - Jeremy Pryor

8.   East of Ashes - Gideon Nieuwoudt

9.   Of Mice of Men - John Steinbeck

10. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

11. Preachin' the Blues: The Life and Times of Son House - Daniel Beaumont

12. Present Perfect - Greg Boyd

13. The Accidental Creative - Todd Henry

14. Zeitoun - Dave Eggers

15. Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

16. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - William Kamkwamba

17. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

18. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

19. Alone - TR Sullivan

20. Crazy Love - Frances Chan

21. No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

22. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Auther Conan Doyle

Bottom Line - Having fun isn't hard, when you've got a library card.

Jim Brown

I completed Book #1 of the year. "Jim Brown: The Fierce Life of an American Hero" By Mike Freeman.



I enjoyed this book. Before reading it, I never knew much about Jim Brown other than hearing that he was a great running back. The book is a pretty good profile of his life mainly through stories that are not necessarily in chronological order. At first that bothered me, but as I progressed it worked out to be a good flow. Jim Brown is a complex man that had a lot going on in his life. Some highlights were the stories of his football days, quitting football in his prime to be a movie actor, he was probed and watched by the FBI for several years, he went to the gangs to promote peace and change. There was also a lot of information about Paul Brown, when he coached Jim Brown on the Browns. A lot of Browns. Jim Brown is a smart guy who chases change with action. For those who don't know here are some football highlights.



Bottom Line - Jim Brown is the greatest NFL running back of all time.

2012 Reading List

In 2011 I read 19 books and the entire New Testament. I got tons of books for Christmas, and I've had books piled up in the reading list, so here is what is on the reading list as of right now in no particular order.

-The Old Testament - The Bible (This year I would like to get through the entire OT, never have before)

-The Life and Legacy of Lincoln-Grant School Covington KY 1866-1976 - Joseph M. Walton (Written by my next door neighbor, this would have been #20 for 2011, but I'm only 97 pages in)

-Jim Brown, The fierce life of an American hero - Mike Freeman (not to be confused with James Brown, Jim Brown is great, don't believe me, you tube him, I'm interested to learn about him through this book)

-No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy (I read McCarthy's Border Trilogy last year, love his writing)

-The Road - Cormac McCarthy

-Escaping the Delta - Elijah Wald (Book about blues man Robert Johnson and his 1936 recordings)

-Heaven's Wager, When Heaven Weeps, & Thunder of Heaven - Ted Dekker (also known as the Heaven Trilogy, huge Ted Dekker fan)

-The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. - Edited by Clayborne Carson (Looks pretty sweet)

-Sacred Hoops - Phil Jackson (hopefully I'll finally figure out what the triangle offense really is)

-Preachin' the Blues The Life and Times of Son House - Daniel Beaumont (Dug into Son House last year, great blues man who wanted to be a preacher)

-Face To Face Volumes 1 & 2 - Kenneth Boa (These are scripture based daily readings for morning and night)

-A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr. (My Father in law says I will like this)

-Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life - Jon Lee Anderson (Recently learned a little bit about Che, now I want to know more)

-The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin America Journey - Ernesto Che Guevara (His diaries from his trip on motorcycle through South America at age 23)

-Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation - John Ehle (Read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown last year and heard that this was another good book about the end of Native American freedom)

I figure that is a good start. I'm usually a Fiction guy, but I read a lot of Non-Fiction the second half of 2011 so I'm being over aggressive on it this year. We'll see how it goes. Let me know if you have any recommendations.


Bottom Line - Reading is fun

Books I'm Reading

I am currently reading 3 new books all at the same time. I never really read a book for fun until after I graduated college. In school I rarely read the books I was supposed to in class and I always managed to avoid reading textbooks. I never even knew that reading could be fun until I started reading after college. The Left Behind series and the Narnia series got me going and turned me into a reading machine. I feel smarter when I read. My vocabulary is better, my writing is better, my thinking is clearer. I'm not sure what it is, but I just feel better when I am reading. I often go through periods of time where I'm not reading and I quickly realize that my eyes and mind have to be re-trained in reading. Starting is the hardest part, but once I start, there is no stopping me.

I am currently reading the following.

Bury My Heart in Wounded Knee - Dee Brown



Its no secret that I am obsessed with Indians as noted in this previous post. Unlike when I was in school, I am now fascinated with history, at least the parts of history that I am interested in. Marcus Mumford recommended this book to me. This is the book that I read on my lunch break.



Green - Ted Dekker




I'm a huge Dekker fan. He is getting a little crazy with tying all characters from all books together all the time, but I still love it. This is supposed to be the Pr equal/Sequel to the Circle Series. This is the book I read at night at home.


A Paddling of Ducks - Marjorie Blain Parker / Illustrated by Joseph Kelly




I first found out about this book when Lydia brought it home from the Library. The illustrations are top notch. I love the idea of the book. Sure enough I got it as a gift at Christmas. Now I read it every couple days to Lydia or even by myself.


Bottom Line - Having fun isn't hard, when you have a library card

Knowing is half the battle

My medium sized group is reading the book "The Prodigal God" and it is pretty much messing everything up. Pretty much everything I thought I knew was wrong, and pretty much everything I thought I wasn't I was and am. It revealed that one way is wrong and the other way is wrong and all pretty much all ways are wrong. Sounds like a good book right? There is one right way, and before that way can be understood, the wrong ways have to be broken down and dealt with or something like that.

It all comes down to the motive of the heart. Makes me think of the GI Joe cartoons where at the end they would do a public service announcement type thing on safety subjects. They would end it with the line. "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle." Action is the other half of the battle which is a lot harder than knowing. The next problem is that you really don't know, or that you keep knowing more and more and will never know everything.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to go back into time and replay life, now that you know more than you knew back then? I have regrets as everyone does, but I don't think that I would want to erase and replay anything in my life, but it would be fun to go back.

Bottom Line - Just when you think you know, you find out that you really know nothing at all.

Hit the Dekk

I am a huge fan of the author Ted Dekker. I have read a lot of his books such as:

Thr3e
Black
Red
White
Blink
Skin
House
Obsessed
Adam

I recently finished Adam last week and I am planning on moving to the Paradise series which consists of:

Showdown
Saint
Sinner



If you haven't read any Ted Dekker books, they are like the suspense and action of the TV show 24 only in the format of a book and over various topics and subjects often spiritual themes of struggle.

Bottom Line - Who's on Dekk?