The TBR of Doom

I recently realized that I've bought ten nonfiction books in the last few months and haven't yet read them, and so began drafting another TBR challenge.  Both in 2014 and 2016 I imposed a challenge on myself: no more book buys until I'd  finished reading what I had.   Things are much, much worse now.   "How bad could it be?"

Well...

PHYSICAL BOOKS
The Oil Kings: How the US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East, Andrew Scott Cooper
The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals that Reshaped the Middle East, Jay Solomon
Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler, Mark Riebling
An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler, Peter Fritzsche
The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, Ayn Rand
The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton
Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton
The Moral Animal, Robert Wright
To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, Arthur Herman
Taking to the Ground: One Family's Journey on Horseback Across the Sacred Land of the Navajo, Douglas Preston (Purchased in Flagstaff, AZ)
The Essential Russell Kirk, Russell Kirk
Honor: A History, James Bowman
The German War: A Nation Under Arms, Nicholas Stargardt
The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe, Andrew Wheatcroft
The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, Abolqasem Ferdowsi
The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and the United States, Kenneth Pollack (Purchased in St. Augustine, FL)
The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution, Brion McClanahan
Who Killed the Constitution?, ed. Thomas E. Woods
The Church and  the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy, Thomas E. Woods
Constitutional Chaos | The Constitution in Exile | A Nation of Sheep, Andrew Napolitano
The Ends of the Earth: The Polar Regions of the World, Isaac Asimov (Purchased in Las Cruces, NM)
Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?, Galal Amin
The Winter Pascha: Readings for the Christmas-Epiphany Season, Thomas Hopko
Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature, Anthony Esolen
On the Good Life, Marcus Tullius Cicero
Go Directly to Jail: The Criminializaton of Almost Everything, ed. Gene Healy
Trucking Country: The Road to America's Walmart Economy, Shane Hamilton
Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to  Orthodox Judaism, Lynn Davidman

E-BOOKS
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire, Roger Crowley
Virolution, Frank Ryan
The Scarlet Thief, Paul Fraser Collard
ST Vanguard: What Judgments Come, Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore
ST Vanguard: Storming Heaven, David Mack
ST Vanguard: In Tempest's Wake, Dayton Ward
How Dante Can Save Your Life,  Rod Dreher
Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy
How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America, Brion McClanahan
ST ENT: Live by the Code, Christopher L. Bennett
ST ENT:  Tower of Babel, Christopher L. Bennett
The Afghan Campaign, Steven Pressfield
American Contempt for Liberty, Walter Williams
Defeat in the West, Milton Shulman and Ian Jacob
The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves, Scott Woolley
The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings, Lars Brownsworth
The Letters of John and Abigail Adams, ed. Frank Shuffelton
Our Only World, Wendell Berry
The Memory of Old Jack, Wendell Berry
A Place in Time, Wendell Berry
Sword and Serpent, Taylor Marshall
Democracy: An American Novel, Henry Adams
The Return of George Washington, Edward J. Larson
The Well and the Shallows, GK Chesterton
Survival of the Sickest: The Suprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity, Sharon Moalem, Jonathan Prince
Atomic Awakening: The History and Future of Nuclear Power, James Mahaffrey
The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, Frank Dikotter
The Damnation of Theron Ware, Harold Frederic

Obviously barring myself from buying books until I'd taken care of all these would be futile, but I am pondering allowing myself to buy new books only as I read these -- for every book taken from the list, another could be purchased.

TBR: And Then There was One

Dear readers,  we approach the end for the To be Read Takedown Challenge!

Richard Francis' Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World proved disappointing, not because of the quality of content but the focus thereof.  Although Domesticated sells itself as a work on animal domestication, and does provide natural histories of various animals like pets, horses, camels, pigs, and rodents, a section on human evolution consumes a fourth of the book, and there's not a non-mammal species to  be found.  Why devote sections to guinea pigs and creatures that aren't actually domesticated (raccoons) and ignore the 2nd most common foodsource on the planet, the chicken?  The answer lies in Francis seeing humanity as domesticated, too, albeit self-domesticated, and he uses the examples of species like the raccoon to argue that we selected 'tame' traits in ourselves, like prosociality.  He mixes the science with entertaining personal accounts, like his misfortunes attempting to ride a camel, and similarly clumsy but appreciated attempts to mix in some cultural history.

If you've been playing at home, you'll know the official TBR list is now down to one item: Trucking Country: the Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy. There's a bonus round of sorts consisting of the books I didn't add to the list at the start, in part to preserve some mystery and in part so it wouldn't look so daunting.  The bonus round has a mix of law, history, religion, and tech.  The only heavyweight is Trucking Country.  There are some reviews pending.


Taken down!

Liberty, Defined, Ron Paul
Big Box Swindle, Stacy Mitchell
Saving Congress from Itself, James Buckley
Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security, Richard Clarke
When Asia Was the World, Stewart  Gordon
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet,  Andrew Blum
The Orthodox Church, Kallistos (Timothy) Ware
Green, Blue, and Grey: The Irish in the American Civil War, Cal McCarthy
Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff, Matt Kibbe
The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth of Right and Left, Yural Levin.
Freedom and Virtue, ed. George Carey
 The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday.
Literary Converts, Joseph Pearce
Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World,  Richard Francis
10% Human, Alanna Collen.



Coming Attractions
Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy, Shane Hamilton.

TBR Bodycheck

Another week, more solid progress on the TBR. There are a couple of reviews pending. I plan one more big push this week, then a switch to American lit, then another drive to finish this one off!


Taken down!

• Liberty, Defined, Ron Paul
• Big Box Swindle, Stacy Mitchell
• Saving Congress from Itself, James Buckley
• Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security, Richard Clarke
• When Asia Was the World, Stewart  Gordon
• Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet,  Andrew Blum
• The Orthodox Church, Kallistos (Timothy) Ware
• Green, Blue, and Grey: The Irish in the American Civil War, Cal McCarthy
• Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff, Matt Kibbe

Coming Attractions

•  The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday.
•  Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy, Shane Hamilton.
• 10% Human, Alanna Collen.
• The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth of Right and Left, Yural Levin.
• .Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World,  Richard Francis.

And (a little) more!

TBR Progress Report

A few weeks into the new TBR Takedown Challenge (Bigger! Better!), I'm making excellent progress:

Taken down!

Liberty, Defined, Ron Paul
Big Box Swindle, Stacy Mitchell
Saving Congress from Itself, James Buckley
Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security, Richard Clarke
When Asia Was the World, Stewart  Gordon
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet,  Andrew Blum

"Six! Wowzers! You're  halfway home!"   Well, not quite. The 'full' count will be seventeen, but we're a third of the way in and going strong. There are a couple of reviews pending.

Still to come:

 The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday.
 Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy, Shane Hamilton.
10% Human, Alanna Collen.
The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth of Right and Left, Yural Levin.
Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff, Matt Kibbe.
Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World,  Richard Francis.
The Orthodox Church, Kalistos (Timothy) Ware. A history of the Eastern Orthodox.


And more!

Also, I'm all but finished with the planned series into early Islamic history that's been ongoing since the beginning of the year. So far, we've had Destiny, Disrupted;  After the Prophet; and In God's Path, with unplanned works sprinkled in. It's become more of a series on the middle east in general, and has been especially heavy on Iran, and only one remains in the 'planned' reading -- a work on Islam and Central Asia.  There will be more ME stuff than that, however, as I intend on doing one book each for Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

Annnnnnnnnnnd I'm almost done with my Cybersecurity sweep! This year we've had Data and Goliath, Future Crimes, and more recently, Cyber War plus a couple of extras. No Place to Hide will follow later in the year, after the TBR challenge.  So,  halfway into the year, things are looking good.

The Return of the TBR

Dear readers:

A couple of days ago I received a book in the mail and a little alarm bell went off in my head, the subconscious recognition that yep, I've not another stack of unread nonfiction books: at least twelve. I toyed with the idea of re-instituting the To-Be-Read Takedown Challenge , but realized this lot was mostly politics, philosophy, and history. Not especially varied, that, so I bought three tech books. Problem solved!   I'm definitely fixed for June: from the library, I have books on the Great War, volcanoes, earthquakes, and animals; and from my own stack, I've got cybersecurity, internet infrastructure, politics, political philosophy, science, and Asian history.

Below are ten items on the new TBR list, though the full number is more like fifteen.

To Be Read Takedown Challenge II: Bigger and Better! 

1. The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday. Yet another neo-Stoic offering, I believe, and a recent acquisition.

2. Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy, Shane Hamilton. Bought this in December, but my interest petered out when I realized it was more about politics and economics than driving.

3. 10% Human, Alanna Collen. Also starring on the science TBR list! Purchased in January. 

4. The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth of Right and Left, Yural Levin. Purchased last June. 

5. The Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega Retailers, Stacey Mitchell. 

6. Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff, Matt Kibbe.  An intro to the non-aggression principle, I'm guessing.

7. Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World,  Richard Francis. Another feature from the science TBR. 

8. The Orthodox Church, Kalistos (Timothy) Ware. A history of the Eastern Orthodox. 

9. Saving Congress from Itself, James Buckley

10. Cyberwar: The Next Threat to National Security, Richard Clarke

For the record: the last TBR ran from May 2nd, 2014, to December 26th, 2014.   I'll make better time this go-round, I'm sure.