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Army Chief of Staff Reading List

Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam by H.R. McMaster

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War by Paul Scharre

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 by Paul Kennedy

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I read all three of these books as they are on the Army Chief of Staff Reading List.  That list is a bi-annual list the highest ranking member of the Army publishes for professional development.  Sometimes the lists are highly curated and you can see the purpose and direction intended.  Sometimes, they are just a huge collection of non-fiction books that people have been told to read for years.  The current list has 120+ books and seems to have no defining theme.  The books in […]

Mysterious as the dark side of the Moon

The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan by Sherry Thomas

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Official book description: CHINA, 484 A.D. A Warrior in Disguise: All her life, Mulan has trained for one purpose: to win the duel that every generation in her family must fight. If she prevails, she can reunite a pair of priceless heirloom swords separated decades earlier, and avenge her father, who was paralyzed in his own duel. Then a messenger from the Emperor arrives, demanding that all families send one soldier to fight the Rouran invaders in the north. Mulan’s father cannot go. Her brother […]

The Revolutionary War in Three Volumes

Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown by Nathaniel Philbrick

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***This is a truly terrible review of three books.  If you like the Revolutionary War, read them.*** I first learned about Nathaniel Philbrick while doing research for a presentation on one of the commanders of the Battle of Bunker Hill, COL William Prescott.  While I planned to read the book then, I just did what most people do while preparing a presentation, I read only the things that were super relevant to the project.  I told myself for years that I would come back to […]

Werewolves live among us

Red Moon by Benjamin Percy

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Ugh.  OK.  This one was a little rough.  It was such a good concept, but it was sooooo slow.  I think the audiobook was about 20-21 hours.  It probably could’ve been 10 and it would’ve been better. The premise is that some people in the world are werewolves.  They were “infected” with a prion originated in wolves.  I nerdily enjoyed the backstory of the disease.  I could’ve listened to more about that! It starts out strong too.  Patrick Gamble is on a plane flying to […]

Beautiful and Tragic

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

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I chose to read this book because I saw it on the to-read list of a baseball player I really like, Sean Doolittle.  Doolittle is a very good player and someone who is known for being an even better person.  He is also considered one of the most, let’s say intellectual, players in baseball and maybe sports as a whole.  He attended the University of Virginia, in my home state, so I’ve always felt an affinity for Doolittle.  He posted a picture of his current […]



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