Its coming up on the end of the year and I thought it would be fun to throw together a few Top 10 lists. I’ll start this off with my Top 10 books of the year and go through other stuff…
10. Dream Team by Jack McCallum:
I am of the age that the original Dream Team was a huge deal. I remember pretty clearly how awesome it was seeing Larry, Magic and Michael all playing together. And, I imagine that I am not unique in having a vision of this that has shaded the team a little less completely and a little more lovingly than they might have deserved.
So this book set me back to the time when Team USA basketball was special, but even more than special…like otherworldly.
9. Drift by Rachel Maddow:
Despite being a book written by a personality from a liberal outlet, this book isn’t really one that glorifies the left wing and condemns the right wing. It is actually pretty well balanced in condemning both parties for the way that our military spending and our concept of an America at war have been used to justify endless war.
Since we are in the midst of watching another manufactured crisis being brought about by Congress, it is probably a fairly good place to start when you hear the media trot out all of these tragic numbers about our defense spending and our collective safety.
8. Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone by Hunter S. Thompson:
Many of the books I read this year that I really loved weren’t written or published in 2012. This book is obviously no exception to that.
The main reason I have for including this book, and, probably, one of the main reasons that I really enjoyed this book so much is because we were in the middle of an election year while I was reading this. Because of this, I found myself reflecting on the thought of what would Hunter say about this election cycle? What would he have to say about the state of journalism and political reporting?
I don’t have the answer to those questions, but I can tell you that I think if any journalist stopped for a second and thought to themselves how would Hunter Thompson see this story, they might end up in a little bit better place. Because despite being way out there, you can’t take away the fact that he was a hell of a writer and had a pretty sharp eye for BS in all its forms.
7. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides:
This book I have been trying to get Kathryn to read since I finished it. She refuses.
She’s missing out.
This book isn’t as thickly plotted and twisting and turning as Middlesex and for me that was a plus. Being a little more linear and tight, this book was a bit more readable.
6. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace:
Since I am not a book reviewer or so OCD that I can’t do it this way, I have a thing where I will sometimes read 3-5 books at a time and I will put aside a book for days or weeks at a time and then return to them, picking up right where I left off. This book was one of those books.
I think part of the difficulty that I had with the book is that DFW’s writing is extremely thick and dense. The density of the writing isn’t the problem, but its that there are so many characters that float in and out that you almost have to keep a notebook on hand to take notes of what you are reading.
I’ve moved past that stage.
If you had asked me about 300 pages into this book if I would like it, I would have definitely said no. But over the last 100 or so pages, I began to figure out that this was only going to end up being a third or half of what the entire book would have been and once I came to the conclusion that this was a set up for a larger, larger book…everything began to make a bit more sense.
One warning: If you need a payoff at the end, you may not like this.
5. Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff:
This is a book about messaging. It is a book that is written directly to left leaning political activist types, but the lessons are useful to anyone that sells an idea or a product.
I used the stuff I learned in this book a tremendous amount working with the labor organizations I worked with this election cycle. And, if I had read it years ago, I would have used it a lot in the entertainment industry.
Just good solid business and messaging advice.
4. Einstein by Walter Isaacson:
What kid hasn’t been fascinated with Albert Einstein? That’s kind of how you feel again after reading this biography. The really interesting thing is that we always just think of Einstein’s scientific work, but dude had a really complicated personal life…which is laid out in detail.
3. Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes:
I am really interested in finding out what is the best diet for health and endurance. Historically, our diets have been much different than they are now. That much is obvious. The really interesting and important question is what or how do we take what we are doing wrong and change it so that we are doing the right things because our nation’s waist line is expanding.
2. The New New Deal by Michael Grunwald:
The stimulus was a failure, right? I think I fell into the category of people that wish that something else had been done or something had been done differently, but after reading this book, I came away much more impressed with the job that the Obama team did with the stimulus bill in 2009.
What most impressed me is that a lot of the stuff is built to kick in over several years, or to spell it out more plainly, there was a lot of long term thinking going on here. Education. Energy. Healthcare. Almost every part of our country will be touched. And, I think we are going to be better off because of some of the stuff that was never really covered that was included in the bill.
1. Who I Am by Pete Townshend:
I’m a big fan of The Who. I think they have always been my favorite band. I think I never really appreciated them as much as I should until this year. And, I got to see The Who play Quadrophenia live this year.
The cool thing was, Pete Townshend might be 67 years old, but when he got on stage, he was taken back 40 years. He was still the biggest rock star you could imagine and he still sounded like a rock star, not someone taking a bow before hanging it up.
In his autobiography, you find out that Pete Townshend is extremely into navel gazing. You realize that he obsesses over stuff and that if Pete had a Twitter feed, my lord would it be awesome in the scope of its self indulgence.
You also learn that Pete Townshend is an artist that really does show you that just because he is the guy that created The Who, he has some of the same fears and thoughts that we do. And, that makes you just like him that much more.