In 2008 my dreams of a “Fairy Tale” life died.

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I had graduated in Spring of 2008 and was engaged to get married that December.

My plan was to get a teaching job that Fall and have a great secure job and income for the duration of our marriage.

Instead, I found myself working part time and struggling to get work each day as a substitute teacher.

I was lost.

Everything they told me about doing good in school, going to college and then get a job, didn’t pan out.

I had to do something.

Quick.

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I used to never read introductions.

Reading was always something I enjoyed, but it wasn’t until I took a three week “May-mester” class in college that I really began reading as much as I try to do now.

The class was World War II History and we met from 8 am to Noon on Monday through Thursday.

My professor was Dr. Adrian R. Lewis. He was the Chair of the History Department at University of North Texas at the time the and was the only man I’ve ever hear lecture for four straight hours.

Not only did he talk the entire class, he was well prepared, organized, succinct, and stunning!

Our class would have been a total of 12 days, but Memorial Day was one of the Monday’s and so we ended up with only 11 days of class.

But, that didn’t keep Dr. Lewis from assigning us the entire reading load of a normal course.

We were assigned to read (all or in part):

Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy

Storm Landings by Joseph H. Alexander

Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 by Christopher R Browning

War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower

And of course, like any good college prof, his own book:

Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory by Adrian R. Lewis

Needless to say, I didn’t finish all of it, but I tried.

After that, I had a breakthrough in my reading life and nothing has been the same since.

The thing that changed most is now my willingness to read Introductions to give me a more complete picture of what the book is about, because hey, there’s usually good stuff in there!

It was this new found hunger for reading that would save my life and help me out in 2008-2009.

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There is no shortage of books to read.

But what to read when and why are always questions that came up.

As a kid I spent a ton of time by myself.

The finer moments included reading.

Several times I would climb the oak tree in our front yard and then wedge myself in the crook of branches. And then read for as long as I could stay up there.

Or else I would use a flashlight under the covers and read when I was supposed to be sleeping.

My elementary school once had a program to read for 600 minutes.

My young mind quickly calculated that to be 10 hours.

That made the task seem more achievable because the number 10 is way less than the number 600.

If I did it, I would be rewarded with a personal pizza.

A FREE pizza!

Behold the birth of the power of pizza on my life.

I loved reading because it took me away from my present and transported me into adventure.

Beyond adventure, I have come to respect reading fiction for the depth of humanity that is showcased within great works.

The intense emotions, the psychological insights, the fun and frivolity, charm, surprise, journey and crescendo until the ultimate outcome or resolution.

It wasn’t until I read some of these “great works” that I discovered the above to be true.

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But where to start?

A google search for books to read led me to a list of 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library on the website: The Art of Manliness.

This was great!

It had a goal.

100 books.

It had descriptions / reasons why to read them.

It included classics, which I was interested in reading.

And it was about “The Art of Manliness”, which as a young man who had recently gotten married and whose life appeared to be coming apart, I was looking for some guidance of great men.

As a bonus, I had already read seven of the books on the list!

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Saturday, ‎February ‎28, ‎2009, ‏‎3:34:25 PM, I created an Excel file to keep track of my reading progress.

As I write this I have 19 books remaining to be read.

My rate of reading and has varied over the years with life’s ebbs and flows.

Also I read a ton of books not on this list, for instance books about persuasion.

Or, if I like the author, I will read several more of their books.

Mostly, I am writing this post to motivate me to finish up the list.

From the 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library post:

“There are the books you read, and then there are the books that change your life. We can all look back on the books that have shaped our perspective on politics, religion, money, and love. Some will even become a source of inspiration for the rest of your life. From a seemingly infinite list of books of anecdotal or literal merit, we have narrowed down the top 100 books that have shaped the lives of individual men while also helping define broader cultural ideas of what it means to be a man.”

“Whether it be a book on adventure, war, or manners, there is so much to learn about life’s great questions from these gems. Let us know in the comments which of these you loved, hated, and the books that meant a lot to you and should have made the list (you can even get really indignant about your favorite book). And without further ado, this is our list.”

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
3. Slaughterhouse‐Five by Kurt Vonnegut
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. The Republic by Plato
6. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. The Catcher and the Rye by J.D. Salinger
8. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
9. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
10. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
13. How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie
14. Call of the Wild by Jack London
15. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
16. Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
17. Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
18. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer
19. Catch‐22 by Joseph Heller
20. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
21. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
22. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
23. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
24. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
25. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
26. American Boys’ Handy Book
27. Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
28. King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
29. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
30. A River Runs Through It by Norman F. Maclean
31. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
32. Malcolm X: The Autobiography
33. Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris
34. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
35. All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarq
36. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
37. Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch
38. The Strenuous Life by Theodore Roosevelt
39. The Bible
40. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
41. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
42. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
43. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
44. The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden
45. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
46. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
47. The Histories by Herodotus
48. From Here to Eternity by James Jones
49. The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
50. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
51. Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
52. Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
53. White Noise by Don Delillo
54. Ulysses by James Joyce
55. The Young Man’s Guide by William Alcott
56. Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
57. Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond by Denis Johnson
58. Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
59. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
60. The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry by Christine De Pizan
61. The Art of Warfare by Sun Tzu
62. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
63. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
64. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
65. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
66. The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
67. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
68. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
69. The Thin Red Line by James Jones
70. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
71. The Politics by Aristotle
72. First Edition of The Boy Scout Handbook
73. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
74. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
75. The Crisis by Winston Churchill
76. The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer
77. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
78. Animal Farm by George Orwell
79. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
80. Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
81. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
82. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
83. Essential Manners for Men by Peter Post
84. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
85. Hamlet by Shakespeare
86. The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
87. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
88. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
89. The Stranger by Albert Camus
90. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe
91. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
92. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
93. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
94. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
95. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
96. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
97. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
98. Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
99. Paradise Lost by John Milton
100. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

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Just looking over this list again brings back fond memories of the stories I loved, the books I didn’t like, the life events I was going through and the solace I found in reading.

Let me hear from you, which of these books do you love and consider “must reads” or what books should I read once I finish this list?

Thanks,
@strangerarray

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Written by Michael Paine

Please follow me, @strangerarray, because take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow.

Also feel free to send donations to: PayPal.Me/michaelpaine because I need more books.

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