2013 Resolutions, 7 of 10 and 8 of 10

7. Mind – read 50 books.

Reading is for me both leisure activity, personal recharge, and mind exerciser.  So no matter how busy I get, I hope I always make time to stick my nose in between the pages.  Here’s what I got through, with my scores from 1 to 5 (1 being awful and 5 being transcendent). Grade: B.

 
Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven (Smith) 3
Sex and the Supremacy of Christ (Piper) 4
Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate (Gore) 3
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer (Kaplan) 4
Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World (Frauenfelder) 3
The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (Brands) 4
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America (Egan) 4
SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance (Levitt) 3
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Diamond) 4
A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bryson) 3
Leverage: Strengthening Neighborhoods through Design (Miller) 3
Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World (Cowen) 3
What Women Want: The Global Market Turns Female Friendly (Underhill) 2
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash (Royte) 3
The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father (Jacobs) 4
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t (Collins) 5
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (Diamond) 4
The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath the Stitches (Hample) 3
Why a Curveball Curves: The Incredible Science of Sports (Vizard) 3
The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball: The Federal League Challenge and Its Legacy (Levitt) 3
The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel (Ostler) 3
Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of the Death and Life of Great American Cities (Lang) 2
The Perfection Point: Sport Science Predicts the Fastest Man, the Highest Jump, and the Limits of Athletic Performance (Brenkus) 4
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (Kurlansky) 3
Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia (Heller) 3
All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can't Save Black America (McWhorter) 2
Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (McLaren) 2
Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend (Hirsch) 3
Common Wealth (Sachs) 2
Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (Steinberg) 3
The Book on the Book: A Landmark Inquiry into Which Strategies in the Modern Game Actually Work (Felber) 3
Strangers at the Gate: Asian American Immigration after 1965 (Takaki) 2
My Utmost for His Highest (Chambers) 3
The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball (Gray) 3
Pete Rose: My Prison without Bars (Rose) 3
There's a Word for It: The Explosion of the American Language Since 1900 (Steinmetz) 3
New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought (Buchholz) 3
The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures (Wade) 4
The Master Plan of Evangelism (Coleman) 4
Fly Fishing with Darth Vader and Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers,  Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys (Labash) 3
Betsy Ross and the Making of America (Miller) 4
How the Other Half Lives (Riis) 3
Confessions of St. Augustine (Warner) 3
At the Children’s Gate (Gopnik) 3
LeBron’s Dream Team: How Five Friends Made History (James/Bissinger) 3
Eat That Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time (Tracy) 3
OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word (Metcalf) 4
Hail Hail Euphoria: Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, The Greatest War Movie Ever Made (Blount) 2
One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents, First Ladies and Their Lovers Changed the Course of American History 4
Father’s Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son (Bissinger) 4

8. Self – three hours per week of uninterrupted me time, three personal day getaways.  Had more opportunity for me, and while I usually wasted it, I did make sure to rest when I really needed it.  This one will be a lifelong resolution, since I'll always need the reminder.  Grade: C.