Bushcraft by Richard Graves
My dad gave me this book when I was around twelve years old, and it turned me into a wilderness survival/camping/primitive living fanatic. I was especially enamored with the section on trapping. I think I liked the mechanics and cleverness of the traps more than I liked the idea of actually trapping things. I used to build traps all the time, but I only caught a squirrel one time and a bird.
Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry
I read this book as a teenager and got all caught up in the love triangle because I was an emotional kid and kind of lonely.
The Motley Fool Investment Guide by Dave and Tom Gardner
I read this book in the mid-90’s or so and started investing in stocks. It became another obsession. I used to make spread sheets with various criteria and sort the various stocks so I could narrow down which stocks I’d look more closely at. I did pretty well at it, but he market as a whole was doing well at the time, so I don’t know if it was me or just the fact that it was hard to go wrong.
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The only reason I picked up that first book was because I was listening to Hank Hanegraff around when the fourth book had come out. Hank kept talking about how terribly unChristian it was and how we ought to be reading The Chronicles of Narnia instead. I got the impression it was really controversial because it was popular but had anti-Christian themes. So I read it mostly out of curiosity. But I fell in love with it almost immediately. The first thing that put a hook in my heart happened on the first page when she said, “Mrs. Dursley had nearly twice the usual amount of neck.” I just loved how she wrote, and I loved the story. I became a Harry Potter nut for a while there and even got a friend into it.
Cow People by J. Frank Dobie
This is a collection of stories by Dobie that are just great to read.
The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien
I completely missed out on this as a kid and didn’t even know it existed until after the first movie came out. I saw the first movie and said, “What? That’s it???” I didn’t realize it was part of a trilogy, but when I found out, I read all the books before the second movie came out, and I became a Lord of the Rings nut.
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose.
This book was mainly about the Lewis and Clark expedition, and I really got into it. What an adventure! It made me want to get a boat and take a long river trip, camping along the way. I never did, though.
Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen E. Ambrose
Oh look! Stephen Ambrose made the list twice! This is a dual biography of Crazy Horse and George Custer, alternating chapters until they finally meet on the battle field at the battle of Little Bighorn. I ended up doing my senior project in history on the battle of Little Bighorn in college.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Being somewhat socially awkward and probably having low emotional intelligence, this book was kind of an eye-opener for me. I suspect it’s mundane stuff for a lot of people, though.
TR: The Last Romantic by H.W. Brands
This is a biography of Teddy Roosevelt. Now there’s a guy who really lived. I was captivated and inspired.
The Traditional Bowyer’s Bible series by Jim Hamm, et al
I was obsessed with making traditional bows for a while there, too. These books were invaluable.
John Adams by David McCullough
Everybody liked this book, didn’t they?
Agincourt by Juliet Barker
The story of how Henry V tried to conquer parts of northern France and won a surprising victory at Agincourt.
Steel Metallurgy for the Non-metallurgist by John D. Verhoeven
I read this because I wanted to understand the riddle of steel since I made knives. I ended up finding the metallurgical aspect of heat treating to be fascinating.
The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
Brian Green has a gift for communicating and making things interesting. I’ve read a lot of popular level books on physics and cosmology, and this is one of the most articulate, which is why I liked it so much. But I didn’t agree with his discussion on teleportation and identity.
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
In spite of a mostly negative sounding review I wrote a while back, I really liked this book. Dawkins may fumble his way through religious topics, but when he’s writing within his field, it’s very good.
Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne
I had this book for a long time before I read it. I didn’t realize how good it was going to be. It’s a little heart wrenching, though.
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel
I had no interest in this book when I picked it up. I only read it because my daughter gave it to me. But it ended up being really good, and it started me on a hunt for a Gros Michel banana. I was so wrapped up in it, I even planned out how I would try to grow a Gros Michel plant myself. I gave up on the idea when I realized how difficult it would be to keep it alive through the winter.
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte
This was an excellent book I read just two or three years ago. It was very interesting and well-written. Brusatte argued in the book that T-Rex almost definitely had feathers, but that has since been disproved just in recent times.
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