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Book List
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The following is a list of books I’ve read since 2005. For the books I’m currently reading, see the sidebar.
The grades posted next to each book title reflect my personal enjoyment and satisfaction derived from the book. A book that I consider enlightening and exciting to read receives a higher grade than one I find boring, uninformative, or poorly written. Thus, the grades are (naturally) entirely subjective, based not upon how well the author accomplished his/her task, but how much I personally gained from it.
Completed (most recently read books at top):
2008:
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew (B-)
- The Communist Manifesto (C-)
- The Kite Runner (B)
- Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (A+)
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everythin (B-)
- The Infinite Atonement (A+)
- Not a Zero-Sum Game (A+)
- The Price: The True Story of a Mormon Who Defied Hitler (A)
- God Wants a Powerful People (B)
- Northanger Abbey (D)
- Presidents and Prophets (B)
- The Great and Terrible, Vol. 5: From the End of Heaven (A)
- A Nation of Sheep (A+)
- The Revolution: A Manifesto (A+)
- The Great Prologue (B-)
- The Federalist Papers (A+)
- Among the Barons (Shadow Children #4) (B)
- Among the Impostors (Shadow Children #2) (B-)
- Among the Hidden (Shadow Children #1) (B)
- Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse (A+)
- A Thomas Jefferson Education (A)
- The Chosen (C)
- King Lear (F)
- Economic Sophisms (A+)
- Wuthering Heights (D)
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (A)
- Selected Essays on Political Economy (A)
- What is Seen and What is Not Seen (A)
- Standing for Something (A)
- The Screwtape Letters (C+)
- Prophetic Statements on Food Storage for Latter-day Saints (A)
- The 5000 Year Leap (B+)
2007:
- To Your Tents, O Israel… (C+)
- The Naked Capitalist (A)
- The Great and Terrible, Vol. 4: Fury & Light (A)
- The Great and Terrible, Vol. 3: The Second Sun (A)
- The Great and Terrible, Vol. 2: The Great and Terrible, Vol. 2: Where Angels Fall (A-)
- The Great and Terrible, Vol. 1: Prologue, The Brothers (B)
- The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (A-)
- Financial Armageddon (Michael Panzner) (A-)
- The Free Capitalist Primer (A)
- Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution & Religion (A+)
- The Fountainhead (B)
- The Moral Basis of a Free Society (A+)
- The Law (A)
- An Enemy Hath Done This (A-)
- A Foreign Policy of Freedom (A+)
- Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa (A)
- Propaganda (B)
- Rights of Man (B-)
- The Peacegiver (A+)
- Leadership and Self-Deception (A)
- Financial Armageddon (David Draughon) (A)
- Brave New World (C-)
- How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok (A+)
- Prophecy: Key to the Future (A)
- Six Events (A+)
- Awakening to Our Awful Situation (A+)
- Hiding in Plain Sight: Unmasking How Secret Combinations Operate in the Last Days (C)
- Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (A+)
- Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks its Own Laws (A)
2006 and before:
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (A)
- Atlas Shrugged (A)
- None Dare Call It Conspiracy (B+)
- Animal Farm (A-)
- Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (A-)
- Fahrenheit 451 (B+)
- 1984 (A+)
- Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (A)
- American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (B+)
- Understanding Your Divine Nature (B+)
- Godless (B)
- Let Freedom Ring (C+)
- Believing Christ (A)
- Following Christ (A)
- Faith Precedes the Miracle (B)
- Work and the Glory (series) (B)
- Fire of the Covenant (B)
- The Kingdom and the Crown (series) (A)
- Prelude to Glory (series) (A+)
- Children of the Promise (series) (C+)
- Jesus the Christ (A+)
12 comments so far. Care to chime in?
#1 Aaron on April 25th, 2007I noticed you recently read leadership and self-deception and are now reading the Peacegiver. If the concepts in those books resonate with you, I strongly recommend that you read Bonds That Make Us Free, by Terry Warner. All of these books come from the Arbinger Institute. While Leadership and Self-Deception targets a wider audience of business, non-Mormons, etc., Bonds That Make Us Free more specifically addressed the same concepts but in greater depth, and with the inclusion of Gospel Principles.
Great Book.
Thanks for the recommendation Aaron, I’ll have to add it to my amazon.com wish list.
#3 Russell Page on August 22nd, 2007I would strongly recommend “As a Man Thinketh’” by James Allen. You could read it in an 60-90 minutes.
Here’s a taste.
“A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts.”
Now that you, Russ, and Richard have recommended it, I’ll have to grab a copy! I know it’s online, but I much prefer reading books on paper so that I can underline, highlight, and annotate…
#5 Russell on August 28th, 2007I think it cost me $3 or so at a bookstore. It wasn’t much bigger than the white handbook.
#6 Curt on November 13th, 2007You have a list of good books here, but don’t take much of what you read in Original Intent by Barton seriously. The book is flawed and mainly a series of attacks directed at non-originalists rather than at the arguments they advance (and this is coming from one who considers himself an originalist).
If you want to read a good defense of originalism, start with Originalism, the lesser evil by Justice Scalia. For a general response to the originalist arguments, check out Justice Brennan’s article “The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification in The Great Debate: Interpreting Our Written Constitution. You should also try Justice Scalia’s A Matter of Interpretation and Justice Breyer’s Active Liberty.
#7 John on February 22nd, 2008Hi, curious why you rated “Hiding in Plain Sight…” from Ken Bowers with a “C” rating …..
John, I gave it that rating because the typography in the book is horrible, making it very difficult to read and understand who is saying what. The content is okay (though I’d recommend Awakening to Our Awful Situation first to somebody), but the presentation of it is the main reason why I gave it a lower score.
#9 Tig on March 24th, 2008Connor, I was wondering if you have read “The Road Less Traveled” by Scott Peck.
If not I’d humbly recommend it.Best,
T.
#10 Jeff Thayne on March 24th, 2008Connor, Great list! I was wondering, why did you give the Screwtape letters a “C”?
Tig,
Thank you for the recommendation, I’ll check it out.
Jeff,
I love C.S. Lewis, but I didn’t fall in love with the format of his Screwtape Letters. I first started reading them almost two years ago and stopped after a few; I just didn’t like reading in the negative (i.e. using the opposition’s voice to convey their method of attack, motives, etc.). I read it as part of my class syllabus this time around, and did enjoy it more than the first go-around, but it still didn’t captivate me. There are several good quotes I’ve pulled from it for future reference, and I consider the format to be unique and intriguing, but I don’t see myself reading it again…
#12 Brian Venance on May 21st, 2008Connor, on Russell’s recommendation, I read James Allen’s “As a Man Thinketh”. It led me to another book by him that I like as much, or more: “The Heavenly Life”. He was a contemporary of Apostle James E. Talmage, and, to me, this compares favorably in spirit and intellectual tone to “Jesus the Christ” and “The Articles of Faith”. Here’s a link to these and most of his other works in “real book” form. I’m kinda an MP3 sort of guy, but inspiration’s good however you get it! I intend on pursuing more of these gems!
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