We Were There at The Battle of the Bulge by David Shepherd

This is an (older) children's book that I remember from my youth. I happened to stumble across it while surfing Amazon and figured - why not pick it up for a couple of bucks? It's just as good as I remember and a great way to introduce kids to military history. I also have We Were There at the Battle of Gettysburg somewhere that I got many years ago... I can't remember if I ever got around to reading it to the kids.

Fatherless America by David Blankenhorn

Found this for a couple of bucks while browsing in the used bookstore. A classic from the 1990's, Blankenhorn uses the characters of the Old Father, New Father, Deadbeat Dad, Visiting Father and others to explain the crisis in fatherhood (which has only become much worse since then). He does an excellent job showing how all the various "new" fathers fail to provide the family what only real fathers can.

The Republic by Plato

Have you done your annual re-reading of The Republic?

The Prince by Machiavelli

Finally got around to reading this classic. A short read and well worth the time.

Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann

I generally try to read great philosophers first before reading secondary literature, so I don't read the greats through the lens of lesser minds. There is a reason the great philosophers are great, right? I've read some of Nietzsche - Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals - but have to admit I never quite got what he was getting at, certainly not the way Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript made immediate sense to me.  That's been cleared up for me by Kaufmann's book - which I found in a used book store for $1.99 a few months ago. It still gives me a thrill to browse used book stores for such cheap treasures.

Verdun by John Mosier

Interesting take on the Battle of Verdun in WW1 that takes on the conventional wisdom. Mosier makes a strong case that it was not, nor was intended to be, a battle of attrition. He points out things like the fact that the German casualty rate was no lower before and after the battle than during it. He also makes a good case that the first German Chief of Staff, von Falkenhayn, was way ahead of everyone else (both in Germany and among the Allied nations) in understanding the nature of the war.

10% Happier by Dan Harris

Dan Harris is a host of Good Morning America and Nightline on ABC TV. The book is about his discovery of Buddhist meditation and how it made him, in his words "10% happier." It actually does more than that for him, giving him some center and peace in a typical "type A" lifestyle.

The book is worth reading for Harris's style and self-deprecating humor. For a TV personality, he's refreshingly free of vanity.