Books I Read in 2012 - What I'm Targeting in 2013

Let me just say...yes, I know it's been a while since I've written anything.  Do I have a good reason for being so absent?  It depends on your definition of 'good'.  To give a quick insight into life right now, I am still working full-time at UA, I started Grad School in August, there's a 4 month old in the house, and in July I was called to be our ward's Executive Secretary.  When you combine a small child, school projects/finals, the annual benefits Open Enrollment and University's charitable giving campaign (I provide functional-type tech support for both projects), and tithing settlement in a ward of over 600 people...it takes up 25 hours of a 24 hour day.

How do I manage to stay sane?  Either reading, or listening to, books.  That and looking at my daughter's smiles, but this post is about books.  This year's reading went in two very different directions.  One direction was 'grown-up' books.  The other direction...children's books.  I ended up reading 40 books last year...with a ratio of 23 grown-up books to 17 children's books.

As a recap, last January I had written that I planned on reading these books:

• In the Garden of Beasts - Erik Larson
• The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 - Mark Twain
• The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man - Brett and Kate McKay
• The Garden Tomb - Andrew C. Skinner
• Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN - James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
• Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? - Steven Tyler
• Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman - Jon Krakauer
• Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
• John Adams - David McCullough
• The Ancient State: The Rulers & the Ruled (The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Volume 10) - Hugh Nibley

Of those, I only got through three of these books, so the rest will just roll over to this year's 'to-read' list.  The three lucky books: In the Garden of Beasts, The Art of Manliness, and The Garden Tomb.

In keeping with last year's template, I'll run through a few of my favorites from the year and give a brief description of what they're about and what I thought.

In the Garden of Beasts - Erik Larson

This is the story of William E. Dodd, FDR's first ambassador to Germany.  He was in the US Embassy in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power in Germany.  You get to see from the inside what the US saw in Germany during the Nazi Party's rise to power, how family conflicts influenced diplomatic power, and why the US Government didn't respond as it probably should have to the Nazi rise in Europe.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen - Christopher McDougall

The Tarahumara are a tribe of Indians in Mexico that has survived by using the 'flight' side of the 'fight or flight' instinct.  They are tremendous long distance runners.  And I don't mean 5k or 10k, I am talking about 50+ miles.  This person built a relationship with these people, and then managed to bring a group of ultra-marathoners to their grounds to participate in an annual race amongst the tribe.  The author also participated in the race, as he looked into 'alternative' methods of dealing with injuries he would sustain while running.  What he found out...he was doing it all wrong from the beginning.

The Absolute At Large - Karel Capek

A story about how outside influences can bring down an entire civilization when different people interpret the same entity in different ways.  Draw whatever parallels you wish.

The Big Miss - Hank Haney

Hank Haney was Tiger Woods' swing coach from 2004 to 2010, a time period in which records were set and 6 major championships were added to Tiger's current tally of 14.  He tells about what he experienced, what he saw, and what it took for Tiger to become the #1 golfer in the world and what brought about his very public fall from grace.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris

The first and third parts of a 3-part biographical series on our manliest president, Theodore Roosevelt.  Read them for yourself, and learn from Roosevelt's manliness.

The Unforgiving Minute - Craig Mullaney

Mullaney is a West Point Graduate and Rhodes Scholar.  He wrote about his military education, his time at Oxford, his training as an Army Ranger, and his experiences leading a platoon in Afghanistan.  The point of the book is the question he asks the reader to answer: Did his education prepare him to be a leader of men in a war zone?

A full list of what I read in 2012 can be found on my Goodreads profile, if you're curious about the rest of the titles that went into the 40 books I read last year.  As for 2013, I have a few things on the radar:

• Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN - James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
• Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? - Steven Tyler
• Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman - Jon Krakauer
• Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
• John Adams - David McCullough 
• The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 - Mark Twain
• The Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Globetrotter - Christian Graugart
• The Voice of Reason: A VIP Pass to Enlightenment - Chael Sonnen

Now, let's see how many of these I actually end up reading.

Thus Sayeth Your Haus