History

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding by Sam Anderson

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This book is personal.

Ok, maybe not that personal, but this book gives the best history/background of my hometown: Oklahoma City.

This book is both a history book and a sports book.

For the history: all the major events such as our founding, sleezy business owners developing, tornados, the NBA team, and the horrific events of the Murrah Bombing are all covered.

For the sports fans: This book covered why OKC even has a basketball team, how we stole the Sonics, why KD was an icon and how the team has progressed.

I will be blunt; I was not here for the basketball. I am not a sports-ball guy. But I try to be open minded and got a lot out of the Thunder’s sections. I have a lot more context of why the thunder is a big deal. I was also a bit flabbergasted that the biggest reason we have a team is because rich businesspeople wanted a team. (Please read the book for the full story, I am recommending the book after all).

I was here more for the history of my city. Some of the basics were covered in my high school history class but most of the content was fresh and gave me a new perspective on OKC. The author also shed a lot of light on the recent renascence that OKC is going through. But he does mention, and I see his point, that OKC is a boom town, and there is usually a bust.

He captures a lot of the thinking and just “way of life” us okies are in words I never could have imagined. For example, “OKC is the biggest small town in America” or that “You don’t need a GPS, you look the tallest building and use that to navigate”. But he does a great job of showing off our resilience, hard work, and friendly nature.

I don’t want to spoil the whole book, but there are chapters on our weather, and of the Flaming Lips. They are apart of who we are.

I did grow to enjoy my city a bit more with this book. And made me enjoy the fact that I still live here at least a little. (I WILL HAPPILY MOVE TOO IF A BIOTECH OR PRODUCT DESIGN OR FORENSIC JOB OPENS UP IN A “CIVLIZED” COUNTRY THOUGH, LET ME KNOW, HINT HINT)

Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics

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This book is one of those books I went into completely blind. Like blind blind.

I knew of Dolly, I knew a few of the things she has made, but this book was an impulse buy, not because I was a “fan” of Dolly.

This was a great book to go into blind. This is very much a biography, but it reads more like a radio interview than a book, Dolly is very natural sounding and very authentic because of it.

I still would not say I love all her music but I apricate Dolly on a new level and understand her role in the zeitgeist a lot more

Very informative, entertaining, and straight from the source herself; the best you can ask for in a biography.

I do recommend if you are like me and more blind to her work, get the audio book. Whenever a song is discussed, the audiobook had snips of the songs which helped in context.

If you are an established fan, I have been recommended the “picture” book to get more visual context about her stories.

A World Undone by G. J. Meyer

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For lots of reasons, this book as been on my mind recently. I will cite both modern events and the new SABATON Album “The War to end all Wars”.

One of the problems with history is that there are so many facets and details that each can comprise a multitude of books and study. Many history books I read are more and more niche, examining aspects of science, individual people, etc.

This book tells everything. Granted not every single detail is elaborated on in very intricate detail such as in the YouTube series “The Great War”. But, if you read only one thing about the history of WWI, this is it.

The reasons why the war started are explained better than any textbook. The stories of the people, what they did, and why they matter over 100years later were made clear. This book even examines the smallest of details such as the relations of the Russian families, the poetry of the soldiers, and the news at the home fronts.

If you want WWI explained, this is THE book. It is a long read but very complete. This is a very good litmus of being interested in WWI as well. If you like this book, this is a great jumping off point to dive into more; or if nothing covered in this book interests you, this is a great overview.

I do still recommend “All Quiet on the Western Front” for the experience of the men who fought and experienced the war. But that history, in my experience is both the big and small pictures.

Also, regarding this book, I am unfortunately internalizing the tragedy of the world, and of WWI.

“The war that would end all wars is over
But not everyone agrees
In the underground, something is growing in the dark
Because for some, the war never ended
War will never entirely die, it will evolve
It will change
And war will return, sooner than we think”

-SABATON – Versailles

Reading List of 2021

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This is the big list of books I completed in 2021.

I would like to say there is a pattern, however I think that would be a lie.

The list is in (mostly) sequential order

note: just because it is on this list does not mean I recommend it or will not recommend it later, this is more the list of stuff I thought would be worth reading.

  1. The Reluctant Adventures of Fletcher Connolly on the Interstellar Railroad
  2. Eating the Dinosaur
  3. Song Machine
  4. Humble Pi
  5. Liquid Rules
  6. Better Than Before
  7. Libertarian Walks into a Bear
  8. All Creatures Great and Small
  9. Watership down
  10. Thrawn ascendancy: Greater Good
  11. White fang
  12. A Clockwork Orange
  13. Creativity INC
  14. Heavens river (Bobiverse)
  15. Mathematics of love
  16. The Ice Diary’s
  17. Shadows of the Empire (abridged)
  18. The Android’s Dream
  19. Sword of Destiny (Witcher)
  20. Invisible hook
  21. The Godfather
  22. Four Fish
  23. Orconomics
  24. Eaters of the Dead
  25. Cosmos
  26. Super Freakonomics
  27. Lies my Teacher Told Me
  28. Prisoners of Geography
  29. Nordic Theory of Everything
  30. Everybody has a Podcast Except You
  31. Thinking, Fast and Slow
  32. Curious
  33. Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil
  34. Existentially Challenged
  35. Consider the Fork

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage

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Some books blur genres for me.

This book is the first in a long time that I thought was a piece of fiction, only to be slapped in the face and find out it was a true story.

 Because of this, the subtitle is the most apt subtitle I have come across. This book captures adventure, survival horror, and the imagination all in one book. This is a story about traveling to the Antarctic in the last days in the age of exploration.

I don’t want to spoil too much more, I recommend going into this blind, I already feel like I have spoiled the book saying it is a true story.

Tl;dr: one of the few books to make me go “wow” and “that was real?”

Lies My Teacher Told Me

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A must read if you have ever taken a US History class EVER.

This book is a history book about history books while correcting many of the factual errors stated in them or at least giving them new perspective.

Such as: Christopher Columbus did NOT think the world was flat AND he DID transport many slaves from the new world to Spain.

He also mentions things completely missing from a lot of textbooks. Namely Unions, a history of class warfare, and so much from Vietnam.

This book is close to 30 years old as of writing so some books have gotten with the times, however this should be mandatory reading in college if not high school.

This book, as I mentioned earlier, discusses on the history of history books and why modern history books suck and don’t encourage critical thinking.