I have a confession to make. I’ve been a horrible reader since discovering the internet. The boy Wes who would read 2-3 books a week (like my all time favorite, Shogun) as a kid somehow grew up to be the adult Wes who read 2-3 books between 2012 and 2015. I mostly blame Twitter and Facebook. The deluge of short form, ADD content is overwhelming and, for the last several years, has literally overwhelmed me to the point where I had not finished a physical book (audiobooks don’t count) since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (note, upon further contemplation, I may have actually listened to that on audiobook as well).
In any case, inspired by Tim Ferriss and his constant book recommendations, I’m taking the rest of this year to rectify that. Books have a special depth to them that can’t be achieved on a screen, and offer a level of knowledge absorption that I haven’t been able to get anywhere else (though I love, love, love the long form podcast). In an extended effort to also write more, I’ll commit to reviewing each book that I make it through on this here website. My hope is that you, who’s somehow stumbled upon this internet post, will find an interest in some of the carefully (and not so carefully) curated books that I review, and take it upon yourself to increase your own reading.
As Jojen Reed says in A Dance with Dragons, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”