5 Stars-I would recommend these to anyone.
Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon
Wright Thompson masterfully tells the story of bourbon and deep family connection. Thompson weaves the legacy of Julian Van Winkle and Pappy Van Winkle bourbon with the story of his own family and father. The Van Winkles lost their generational family business in the 1980s, and it is heartbreaking. The comeback story and the growth of craft bourbon is awesome. The Pappy Van Winkle bourbon is so rare now because of the family’s failure and the lessons learned from the failure.
Same As Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes
Morgan Housel consistently makes me reflect on my life, and he looks at both sides of the coin. He clearly articulates the thin edge between success and ruin, and I think he brings a nice perspective in looking at qualities that can drive success…but also failure.
I appreciated Housel’s commentary on envy. Social media only shows a highlight reel, and it is probably unrealistic, if not a complete lie. He also argues that you should not be envious of anyone unless you fully want to trade lives with them.
“Everything has a price, and the price is usually proportionate to the potential rewards. But there’s rarely a price tag.”
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
Lewis gives clear context and insight into the crypto currency industry while detailing Bankman-Fried’s unlikely ascension. Lewis’ access to Bankman-Fried during the collapse of the company is timely and fascinating. He spent most of 2022 following Bankman-Fried, and he wrote the book in 2023 as the collapse unfolded and court proceedings began. I appreciated the final section of the book which shows the bankruptcy and court-appointed takeover of the company.
Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career
In Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader, Mark Bowden tells the story of Baltimore’s gang violence through the lens of failed public policy. He shows the impact of urban planning at the individual level by looking at the massive disparity between gentrified areas designed, developed, and patronized by white individuals and historically impoverished and crime ridden areas predominantly inhabited by African Americans.
4 Stars-Good books overall, really good if you find the topic interesting.
Buying Disney’s World: The Story of How Swampland Became Walt Disney World
I have never been to Disney World, and I have not thought about the infrastructure required to build an amusement park of its scale. Aaron Goldberg’s Buying Disney’s World: The Story of How Florida Swampland Became Walt Disney World tells the behind-the-scenes story of Disney’s massive operation to buy and build Disney World.
I appreciated the forethought and planning the company utilized to build a $400 million park in 1971 with almost no debt. The company learned from its mistakes in building in Disney Land. The company purchased close to 10,000 acres secretly, acted as their own general contractor when others failed them, and heavily utilized corporate partnerships to finance the park. The company also created two municipalities to build its visionary theme park features while also creating its own utilities infrastructure. Disney World has stood the test of time, and the State of Florida has benefited greatly for giving the company unprecedented control.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
David Grann tells the horrible story of the Osage Indians and the destruction of their tribe due to the tribe’s oil holdings. The book reads like fiction, and the story is gripping as the FBI pursues justice and the Osage killers.
The tribe was forced onto a barren reservation in Kansas, and the land ultimately became extremely valuable due to the oil underneath the reservation. The treatment of the tribe and the scale of corruption in the story is sad, and it is hard to fathom the number of murders and criminals without punishment.
“In 1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $ 30 million, the equivalent today of morethan $ 400 million. The Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world.”
“Many Osage, unlike other wealthy Americans, could not spend their money as they pleased because of the federally imposed system of financial guardians.”
Dreams of El Dorado: A History
“Dreams of El Dorado” by H.L. Brands is a captivating and comprehensive account of the American West. The book digs into numerous primary sources to tell the stories of the first settlers and founding narratives for a few cities west of the Mississippi. Brands tackles a broad swath of the American West and does it well. I was not sure if I would enjoy so many stories rolled into one, but the first hand accounts are generally well-curated and easy to follow.
I often imagine what Zebulon Pike and his group felt when they first saw Pikes Peak and the challenges that lay ahead. This book describes the misery of most expeditions. The families facing brutal work, bitter cold, and starvation while trying to survive their journeys will stick with me.
Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw
Mark Bowden’s tells an incredible story about the life, business, and pursuit of Pablo Escobar. I could not believe the resources required to ultimately take him down, and the book made me appreciate the justice process in the United States. Escobar escaped capture for decades because of the mass corruption within Colombia, and the deeply corrupt government officials and law enforcement made collaboration almost impossible.
The Deepest South of All by Richard Grant is a thoughtful, hilarious, and well-told story of Natchez, Mississippi. Grant is a British author who immerses himself in Natchez for half a year. He lives with an influential author with generations of history in the town, and he documents the people, parties, and the history of the area. His chapters alternate between his current day experience and the life of Prince Abd al Rahman Ibrahima.
Grant’s storytelling focuses on the eccentric characters living in Natchez while also highlighting a number of dichotomies unique to Natchez. I found the book compelling and informative. I have not spent much time in the South, and Grant blends a number of primary sources and interviews to tell the story of the area.
The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids
I appreciate Ryan Holiday’s writing, and I have enjoyed working through the Daily Dad in 2023. The book is designed, so you read one page per day. Each entry has made me reflect on my parenting and relationship with my boys, I’ve read it consistently throughout the year and will likely read the book again throughout 2024.
Below is an excerpt from the December 25 page:
“When you were younger, for Christmas, all you wanted was presents.
Now that you’re older, now that you have kids, all you want is presence. All you want is for your kids to be present over the holidays.
Paul Orfalea, the founder of Kinkos, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. When asked about his wealth, Orfalea didn’t talk about buying expensive stuff or building a great company or taking exotic vacations. He said,
“Do you know what success is? Success is when your children want to be with you when they’re adults. How many people have all that bullshit, and their kids don’t come home for the holidays? Come on.”
Dan McCrum follows the company Wirecard and documents the company’s billion dollar fraud. The book is well-written and a page turner. The global fraud is wild and frankly unbelievable, and the number of large, established companies that got tied up in the scheme is also incredible. McCrum also wrote Bad Blood which documented the rise and fall of Theranos.
3 Stars-Solid books that I finished/read majority but didn’t love
Made from Scratch: The Legendary
In Made From Scratch: The Legendary Success Story of Texas Roadhouse, Kent Taylor tells his life story including the founding of Texas Roadhouse. He ran cross country at the University of North Carolina, operated night clubs, managed Bennigan’s and a handful of other restaurants before finding funding to start Texas Roadhouse.
I appreciated Kent’s story, but I found myself not liking him. He was an absent father and flippantly mentions his divorce and lack of time at home. His management style is unique, and I assume chaotic for his direct reports. He spends a lot of time discussing the ways he is different and the “party” culture he created at Texas Roadhouse. This mainly consists of him wearing jeans at inappropriate times (the White House) and drinking with celebrities (Willie Nelson and others) who endorse Texas Roadhouse.
Built to Fail: The Inside Story of Blockbuster’s Inevitable Bust
Blockbuster grew fast without systems. The company did not lose to Netflix. The company deteriorated because it never built the operating plans to manage profitable stores. The first third of the book is good, but it got repetitive.
You Can’t Screw This Up by Adam Bornstein
Adam Bornstein writes a nice email newsletter, and I enjoy his perspective on health and wellness. His book was solid, and it aggregated a lot of thoughts on habits and overall planning on dieting. The general premise of the book is simple but not easy.
“Oddly enough, most health people–the ones who have figured out how to maintain a healthy weight, exercise, and eat well–don’t feel like their habits and behaviors are a burden. That’s because they’ve progressed to the point where their actions aren’t a strain. Every step you take toward health shouldn’t feel impossible.”
Jonathan Raban tells the story of railroad companies driving the westward expansion into Montana, and the dreams that were sold to immigrants and other poor Americans in the east. Farming in Montaha was crushing and almost impossible, but railroad companies and developers sold the poor farmland as the American dream. I enjoyed the book’s overall premise and first chapters, but the book dragged.
“The capricious way in which the company attached names to the land, then withdrew and replaced them, is a nice illustration of how the West was still thought of as a great blank page on which almost anything might yet be inscribed. Its history could be erased, its future redrafted, on the strength of a bad breakfast or a passing fancy.”
“The railroad writers and illustrators were assigned to replace that vacancy with a picture of free, rich farmland; a picture so vivid, so fully furnished with attractive details, that readers would commit their families and their life savings, sight unseen, to a landscape in a book.”
The book focuses on John Mackay’s mining work in California and Nevada. The book is interesting, but I couldn’t make it through it. It dragged on and got too granular in the description of mining claims. I thought it had interesting insight into San Franciso and the mindset around mining.
“A bankrupt man rolled up his sleeves and went back to work, that was all. Pacific Coast society expected a man to have the sand to go “all in” in the pursuit of the main chance–that was the whole point of being there. The entire California project was a speculative endeavor. In the rest of the nation, a bankruptcy dogged a man for his entire career. In California, many of the richest men had been busted several times, and all of them knew they might well be broke again tomorrow.”
Relentless Strike: The Secret History
Relentless Strike is pretty dense, but the stories of active firefights and rescues are awesome. The book details the danger that the special units encounter and the challenges of almost exclusively flying missions at night.
Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was founded after the failed evacuations from Iran in the 1980s. The unit was designed for dangerous and covert missions, and the U.S. military saw the need for a unit with designated mobility units to pair with special operations units. The need for JSOC increased substantially following September 11, and counter terrorism became a main focus of the units.
Books I bought and abandoned after a chapter or two…
- The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power
- Football Done Right: Setting the Record Straight on the Coaches, Players and History of the NFL
- Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
BK Reads 
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