2012 Resolutions, 7 of 10

Two years ago, I blogged about ten resolutions for 2011, and posted the entry on the bulletin board behind my desk so I could stare at it all year long.  One year ago, I blogged about how I did on these ten resolutions.  In sum: some B’s, some C’s, and (gulp) some D’s. As for this year (and as for next year, let’s roll over these resolutions and see how I do in 2013):

7. Mind – read 50 books.

All of my books this year were new reads, which was fun.  Some were forgettable, many were great.  As an introvert and a lifelong learner, I’m fresher for all of them.  Here’s what I got through, with my scores from 1 to 5 (1 being awful and 5 being transcendent). Grade: B.

1 Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders (Kinsey) 4

A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management (Kotter) 3

Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hirshberg) 4

The Case for Easter: A Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection (Strobel) 2

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In (Fisher) 3

Success Built to Last: Creating a Life That Matters (Porras) 3

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Csikszentmihalyi) 4

The Mustard Seed Conspiracy: You Can Make a Difference in Tomorrow’s Troubled World (Sine) 3

The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress (Postrel) 4

10 Paris to the Moon (Gopnik) 4

Tragedy of American Compassion (Olasky) 3

Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children (Bronson/Merryman) 4

The Promise: President Obama, Year One (Alter) 4

Thin (Greenfield) 4

Everything They Had: Sports Writing from David Halberstam (Halberstam) 3

The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics (Landsburg) 3

All Customers are Irrational: Understanding What They Think, What They Feel, and What Keeps Them Coming Back (Cusick) 2

Panicology: Two Statisticians Explain What’s Worth Worrying About (and What’s Not) in the 21^st Century (Briscoe) 2

The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills that Shaped the American Economy (Green) 3

20 The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood (Leavy) 3

The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads (Shea) 3

Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer (Sanders) 2

Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy (Thomas) 3

Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter (Johnson) 4

American Future: A History (Schama) 4

The Scavengers’ Manifesto (Rufus, Lawson) 4

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Sport: How Calvinism and Capitalism Shaped America’s Games (Overman) 3

The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris (Beinart) 4

The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball and What They See When They Do (Mandelbaum) 2

30 The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football (Miller) 3

Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Ruck) 3

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Levitt/Dubner) 4

Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood (Lewis) 4

The Lost Art of Walking: the History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism (Nicholson) 2

Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That, and Go There (Di Vincenzo) 3

Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten) (Huntsman) 3

Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory (Blount) 3

Alphabetter Juice: Or, the Joy of Text (Blount) 3

The Secret Life of Words (West) 3

40 The General Book of Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know is Wrong (Lloyd) 4

The Parent You Want to Be: Who You Are Matters More Than What You Do (Parrott) 3

Libertarianism from A to Z (Miron) 3

The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game (Felzenberg) 3

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Roach) 4

The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America  (Johnson) 4

Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain (de Rossi) 3

Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference (Sanders) 2

The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability (Hawken) 3

The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream (Shapiro) 3

50 The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (Lomborg) 4