- The Count of Monte Cristo- Alexandre Dumas
This is an easy pick. It happens to be both mine and my mother’s favorite stories and one of my prized possessions is her copy of it. If you don’t know the story I’ll surmise, wrongfully imprisoned Edmund Dantes plots his revenge. In the process he meets an old guy that teaches him everything he needs to know and access to treasure. I found myself in a similar situation living in a tiny town, I felt imprisoned by it but I did have a strong mentor. So I pretended I was just living the story out. She’s a thick girl now, gonna have to carve out a month or two reading this one but it is worth every page.
2.Endurance- Alfred Lansing
Some of the new age leadership books can be boring it seems they just scream “DISCIPLINE, WAKE UP” at you. That’s fine and good, I want real life examples and holy shit does this account of their Antarctic expedition give you that. Taken from diary entries from the men on the ship giving their actual accounts of what is going on and what they think of their captain. Talk about getting your hands dirty with the crew, Shackleton did it all.
3.Love is a dog from Hell- Charles Bukowski
To be honest this is the book that got me writing. I was watching the show Californication and learned that the main character is based off of Bukowski so I went to the Wilmington Barnes and Noble and snagged this volume of poems. They were lewd, crude, rude, vulgar, romantic, sad, oddly inspiring and short. I then learned he is one of the most celebrated American poets of all time. Inspiration for Sean Penn, Dax Shepard, David Duchovny and many others. I tried to mimic his style with my own writing to get me started and found my own voice along the way. I owe a lot of my writing to this fat drunk balding genius.
4.Black Box Thinking- Matthew Syed
Can you imagine how some things in life would have played out differently if you just thought about it another way? This book is that thought. We can change the way we think and it is powerful when you do. In the world of too many self-help books this is actually a helpful psychology book.
5.Shoe Dog- Phil Knight
I feel like y’all will unsubscribe if I mention this book another time so this will be the last. Say what you want about Nike but the story to it coming to be what it is now is remarkable. All the places Knight went, all the times he was in debt up to his eyeballs, the deadlines that were met at the eleventh hour. Business is a journey and an ever evolving organism and this book highlights that tenfold. This is the best business book I've ever read. Most are just random anecdotes but this is real life examples. Failures, egos, mistakes and successes it has it all.
6. Odd Man Out- Matt McCarthy
This one is subjective. It showcases the life of a minor league baseball player with the smallest outside shot of becoming a major leaguer. The reality is that of all the minor leaguers about ten percent of them will make the big leagues. They will work construction, substitute teach, bartend, wait tables, give blood, landscape and give lessons till the wee hours of the morning to make ends meet in the offseason. That’s the side people don’t know about but I do and so does the author. An incredible look into the real world of low level professional baseball and what a look it is.
7.Under the Volcano- Malcolm Lowry
This is a book I had to come back to several months after trying to start it. I wasn’t ready for it in the beginning. Like lifting weights, reading is something that you can progressively overload. When I first cracked this book open it was like trying to do a seven hundred pound squat on a skateboard. I sharpened my literary skills and when I returned it was like looking into a kaleidoscope. I didn’t know how or what was going on but I was mesmerized. That’s really the best way I can put it. The writing in this book makes me want to write a novel of this caliber one day.
8.The Sun also Rises- Ernest Hemingway
In my opinion this is a top two Hemingway novel. From this book I learned that some people can drink more than you think it humanly possible. The way he writes, he over describes everything so intensely with simple words it becomes beautiful. Reading about sandwiches and a cold stream in Spain somehow lifts you from where you are in the world and you are there with Jake.
