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Brad Todd and Salena Zito
The Great Revolt
- Ms. Zito is best known for her insightful comment that "the press takes Trump literally but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously but not literally."
James Clavell
Shogun: A Novel Of Japan
- The Greatest Adventure Novel Ever? James Clavell is a 20th century English writer who wrote a number of excellent adventure stories based in Asia, including Tai-Pan and Noble House. But Shogun is the best, and the first one you should read because this story is chronologically the first in the series. Shogun is a great and gripping story on many levels. As an adventure novel about the Portuguese crew that gets shipwrecked off the coast of Japan and has to survive. About the culture of Japan in the time of the Shogunate. It's a series of great love stories, especially the one between Blackthorne and Mariko. But more than anything else this is a book about philosophy, about learning to see the world in a different way, based on a code of behavior and morals completely different than what you have been exposed to. This is the book to give your son.
Daniel Gross
Anthony Trollope
The Way We Live Now
- Be glad that this book is 767 pages long; it's a great book, and you should savor the experience of reading it. This is our favorite book by Anthony Trollope, one of the great Victorian novelists writing in the time of Dickens, Austen, Gaskell, and Thackeray. At it's core, this book is about means versus ends; the way you get money matters more than the amount of money you get. The plot puts two very different characters in opposition in a way that is just as relevant today as it was when the book was written. One is a rich and very sleazy financier; the Victorian version of Madoff. The other is a young man who wants to work and create value; in this case, building a railroad in the American West, which was all the rage at the time. The book is much more than this, of course, including romance, but The Way We Live Now refers to living in a time when wealth and appearances are all that matter, and substance and the means used to acquire wealth are ignored; as true today as in Trollope's time.
Charles Slack
Noble Obsession
- A well done story of Goodyear's incredible and classic story to make rubbber impervious to hot and cold by the vulcanization process. Goodyear endured incredible suffering, including the death of 7 of his 12 children. However, he did have 2 excellent wives, the second one 20 years old when he was 54. A great deal of material about the various patent fights. He spent a lot of time in debtors prison, even after he was famous, due to his very sloppy money management skills. This was a man who was obsessed by the uses of rubber, but never focused on utilizing any one use enough to make money from it. Also, some classic evil guys in the form of Charles Day, who infringed the patent and generally tortured Goodyear. Good parts about this patent case being the last case for the famous lawyer, Webster.
Chris Gardner
The Pursuit of Happyness
- A very inspiring true story about a black kid who was raised with a demon step father in a poor family, was raped by a stranger, had a boy as a result of an affair, and seemed headed for the trash heap of humanity. But through his own unrelenting effort, and some breaks, he became a successful financial advisor and a very good single dad. This book was made into a movie featuring Will Smith.
Bo Burlingham
Small Giants
- This well-written book really captures the essence of entrepreneurialism. The ideas are not terribly unusual, but they help us, as entrepreneurs, articulate what we know to be true in our hearts. And that's useful.
Coltaire Rapaille
The Culture Code
- This is the sort of book we would normally dismiss; written by a French man, based on broad cultural stereotypes, and ignoring most of Asia and all of South America. But the book is actually quite good! Is “Juvenile” a fair description of American culture, or just a disparagement? Actually, pretty fair, and not wholly negative. While we started out quite skeptical, this does have some profound cultural observations.
