So, What Are You Reading?

Forums! LOL but actually I like leadership, so I basically consume everything by Simon Sinek. I read so much in non-fiction, all of my fictional stuff has to be consumed in the format of Hollywood.

Bollywood though, has some incredible work, and interestingly a minimum of 1 dance number in every video. For a recommendation, the two Baahubali movies. In Hindi with English subtitles is the way I feel. Geese talk about getting into the feelings, those two movies have convinced me that Hollywood either has lost it's heart or never had it to begin with and Bollywood has found that for it's viewers since day #1.

 

Circuits in the Sea by Hearne. About the Trans Atlantic Cable

 

It's May, and I've finished reading nothing this year. AHHHH!

 

Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain, by Ed Husain.
https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/42524

Well-informed, intellectual Islam is a far cry from the increasingly hostile attitudes expressed by young Muslims coming from war zones, "seeking revenge and justice for the wrongs done to their countries,".

Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain, by Ed Husain.
This book was written before the Oct 7th attacks on Israel and war in Gaza, so the situation only got more polarized and radicalized since the book was released in 2021.
Estimated by 2050, there will be 13 million British Muslims.
Ed Husain visited towns with growing Muslim populations to gauge how well people are integrating and what the future will look like.
He wants the government to stop according respectability to intolerant self-appointed Muslim representatives, and to insist schools have modern curricula. But ultimately, the struggle for the soul of Islam - between the literalist Islamists and those who see Islam as an evolving faith - is a battle that Muslims, not non-believers, must fight. Yet, it is an unfair fight because so much money is backing those who yearn for the return of the caliph and who despise innovation. Modern Muslims are silent, he remarks, while an organised minority control the mosques, bookshops, schools and charities, and they are vocal online, intimidating and judging their more liberal co-religionists.

 

Syria: A history of the last hundred years (2015) by John McHugo. A detailed look into the history of this nation few of us think about. Another reminder of the dangers of colonialism and some insight into Asssad and his father, who ruled before him.

Finally finished a book this year!

 

Rightful Heritage: Franklin D Roosevelt and the Land of America by Dr. Douglas Brinkley

 

The psychology of Brexit: From psychodrama to behavioural science, by Brian M. Hughes.

 

"The Playbook" about the Federal Theater Project in the 1930s. Interesting stuff. Infuriating but Interesting.

 

Nice. My research is in the Federal Writers Project, a sister program to the FTP. I thought, and still think, Halle Flanagan was amazing as the Project director

 

My Year Inside Radical Islam (2018) by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Describes the author's descent into radical Islam (from Judaism) after they join a Wahhabi mosque in Oregon, and their eventual conversion to Christianity.

Pretty interesting, raised lots of questions of how to reconcile moderate or progressive Islam with clear statements in the Qur'an and hadiths about killing apostates, among other things.

 

Our Flag Was Still There- Tom McMillan

 

U.S. - Taiwan Relations, by Ryan Haas.

 

God Gave Rock and Roll To You-Leah Payne

 

The Principle of the Path (2009) by Andy Stanley. Essentially says that your destination in life is predestined based on the set of actions you take.

Stanley is a pastor, and so he includes a healthy dose of asking God to tell you the right actions and deepen your faith relationship to deal with negative situations.

Not a lot of "meat" in this book, and the moralizing was not great (unmarried couples were demonized, a sexual assault survivor was referred to as having "lost her honor", etc.) I won't be reading this one again.

 

Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State by Randolph Campbell

 

On Juneteenth, by Annette Gordon-Reed. (I'm a couple of months late...)

 

Mary Chesnut's Civil War diary.

 

Sleuthing the Alamo-James Crisp and will finish Lone Star: A History of Texas and The Texans- T.R Fehrenbach