Every year, I comb through my bookshelves (physical and digital) and create a reading stack for the year. My reading in 2018 is diverse, but I think it deepens my understanding of citizenship and civic responsibility.
Why do I do this? It’s not exactly politically motivated, but in a democratic society, I believe that an activity that deepens me as a person, deepens me as a citizen. Many of the Founding Fathers would agree:
John Adams:
There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
Also, John Adams:
I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough. The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.
Why is this Mr. Adams?
John Jay:
I consider knowledge to be the soul of a republic, and as the weak and the wicked are generally in alliance, as much care should be taken to diminish the number of the former as of the latter. Education is the way to do this, and nothing should be left undone to afford all ranks of people the means of obtaining a proper degree of it at a cheap and easy rate.
The benefit? Alexander Hamilton
… when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.
With that frame in mind, here’s my initial stack of recreational reading for 2018:
I share this for two reasons. First, I want to encourage a similar practice among those who desire to read more and second, to provide some instruction on how to kick start a deep reading habit if you have that desire, but aren’t sure where to begin.
How I choose my reading
There are two type of books I want to read:
- Books I’ve never read before and would like to (for any number of reasons)
- Books I have read before, but would like to reread
With these two scientific criteria firmly in mind, I go first to my bookshelves and peruse them, taking out titles that fit either of those criteria.
Once I’ve done that, I scroll through my father-in-law’s Audible library, which he is good enough to share with me and select a handful of titles to download to my Kindle Fire.
NOTE: I purposefully limit audio books to five or less a year because I don’t want to become reliant on passively listening to books. I intend for the majority of my reading to be done with hard copies. I find it’s easier for me to read deeply and retain information that way.
With my stacks of books chosen, I organize them into an aesthetically pleasing stack, pick a volume (or two) and I start reading.
The goal is to finish the stack by year’s end, but that is not a hard and fast goal. In fact, I chose to eliminate one book from my 2017 stack when I discovered that it was an abridged version of a book I wanted to read in its entirety.
As I finish each book, I enter it into a spreadsheet that I’ve kept since 2007 of my completed reading for the year. I keep this catalog as a reference for future reading and because its fun to see the progress being made. And, no, I don’t have plans to share that master list. Merely acknowledging its existence, though for instructional purposes here, is too much of an ego inflator.
What I Read
Over the years, my reading has largely fallen into the following categories:
- History and Biography
- Politics and Philosophy – I combine them because I’m a student of political philosophy
- Fiction
- Theology
- Health and Fitness
- Business and Professional
- Other – the grab bag where everything goes that doesn’t fit in the above
I try to read at least a couple titles in each category each years, but inevitably, what I’m studying eventually takes precedent. So it should come as no surprise that History/Biography and Politics/Philosophy usually dominate the list.
My reading in 2018… So far
With all the preliminaries laid out, here’s the list, by category for 2018
- History and Biography
- Graham, Jack’s Life
- Williams, Coach
- Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
- Daugherty, Daniel Boone
- Loconte, A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War
- Politics and Philosophy
- Foreign Affairs
- Kaplan, Monsoon
- Fiction
- Tolkien, The Lost Road
- Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
- Du Marier, Our Cousin Rachel
- Dubus, Selected Stories
- Theology
- Augustine, City of God
- Lewis, The Weight of Glory
- Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind
- Chan, You and Me Forever
- Health and Fitness
- Business and Professional
- Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You
- Newport, Deep Work
- Foer, World Without Mind
This list is fluid. It will be added to, some books get pushed off to another year (rarely), and the stack doesn’t account for books in my doctoral program or work. My personal stack is, like I said earlier, for my “fun” reading.
Becoming a reading citizen
So why go to all that trouble? Why choose such challenging texts (I’ve been eyeing City of God for a while)?
I guess I read so much because the more I read, the more I realize how little I know and the more I desire to learn. And, this is where I believe a reading habit connects with our role as citizens in a democratic society.
As citizens in a society with representative government, there are certain assumptions our constitutional order makes about us. It assumes our participation based in an understanding and knowledge of our society, its needs and its context.
This is not information that is gained and understood by osmosis. Rather, it requires a trained and critical mind. One has to be capable of thinking deeply and critically about the nature of humanity, government and right living to be able to grasp the fundamental goods and duties of living in a free society.
Without that knowledge, it is easy to lose sight of what one enjoys and treat it with indifference or hatred.
P.S. If you’d like some ideas on reading to deepen your political thinking, you can check out my Recommended Resources page and sign up for the weekly newsletter.