Adventures in Learning: Books to Read in 2012

Introduction: Adventures in Learning: Books to Read in 2012

I have specific books to read in 2012. How many books do you read each month? And when you read, what do you read? I have always enjoyed reading, even when I was a child. Today, I work hard at expanding my menu choices when it comes to reading. Over 10 years ago, while listening to Earl Nightingale’s Lead the Field, he recommended that we should read a book a week. I took that to heart, and was very intentional about reading four books a month.

Two years later, I decided to push myself and read more, which I have kept on doing, until last year I read 200 books. I am not saying this to brag, but reading forces me to think, and I find that I get to know myself a lot better in the process. As an active reader, reading often transports me into another world, and if I’m reading fiction, I am taken into the lives of the characters, and often have to check the qualities in myself that I detest in the characters. Setting a reading goal a achieving it, has taught me that when I commit fully to achieving a goal, I do so.

The Invisible Mentor blog is an educational one, so with that in mind, I’m inviting my readers on an adventure in learning, which is taking place all of 2012. You do not have to read 200 books – I read a lot for my consulting business – but I would like you to read one book a week, so at the end of 2012, you would have read 52 books. It’s a couple of weeks into the new year, so you have to play a little bit of catch-up.

Here are a few books that are on my reading pile for this year. Some of the books I have seen the films, but have never read the books. I will be more intentional about reading classic literature. I have struggled with focusing on classic literature, and the reason could be that the plots often move at the speed of molasses, so I put them aside and read books that I find more exciting. The best approach for me is to carve out at least three hours, or until I get to the point where I know that I have to finish the book. That’s the only way I will get through more of the classics this year.

As you will notice from the books on the list, some of them were all the rage in 2011, but I don’t necessarily follow the crowds, I skip to the beat of my own drum. All the books on the list I have them already. Choose some of the books from my list. As soon as I read and review the books, I will return to this post and add the links to the review.

I have this idea, which has been percolating in my mind for a while now, and that is to have a faceoff between books, when I do the reviews for Booked for Mentoring. What I have in mind, is to have two reviews of very different books, then find a way to connect them with the key takeaways. Let’s see how that works out.

Booked for Mentoring 2012 Reading List

1. Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition (Dune Chronicles, Book 1), Frank Herbert
2. The Letters of Pliny the Younger
3. Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini
4. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Emmuska Orczy
5. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
6. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
7. The Sleepwalkers, Paul Grossman
8. Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
9. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Blake
10. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials), Robert Cialdini
11. From This Moment On, Shania Twain
12. Why I am So Wise (Great Ideas), Friedrich Nietzche
13. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World, Penny Colman
14. Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, Julie Powell
15. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert
16. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
17. How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker
18. The Fountainhead, (Ayn Rand Box Set: Atlas Shrugged/ The Fountainhead) Ayn Rand
19. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackery
20. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
21. Moby-Dick (Vintage Classics), Herman Melville
22. Nicholas Nickleby (Arcturus Paperback Classics), Charles Dickens
23. Dracula (Dover Thrift Editions), Bram Stoker
24. Silas Marner (Dover Thrift Editions), George Eliot
25. David Copperfield (Penguin Classics), Charles Dickens
26. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Daniel H. Pink
27. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
28. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
29. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, Janine Benyus
30. Anne Of Green Gables : Three In One Set : Complete And Unabridged: Anne Of Green Gables : Anne Of Avonlea : Anne Of The Island, L. M. Montgomery
31. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
32. Emma (Dover Thrift Editions), Jane Austen
33. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Dover Thrift Editions), Thomas Hardy
34. Profiles in Courage (P.S.), John F. Kennedy
35. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
36. The Portrait of a Lady – Volume 1, Henry James
37. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
38. The Old Curiosity Shop (Penguin Classics), Charles Dickens
39. The Last of the Mohicans (Signet Classics), James Fenmore Cooper
40. Little Women (Sterling Classics), Louisa May Scott
41. Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
42. The Magus, John Fowles
43. Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry, Stephen Denny
44. Ten Steps Ahead: What Separates Successful Business Visionaries from the Rest of Us, Erik Calonius
45. Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft, Paul Allen
46. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
47. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
48. Roughing It, Mark Twain
49. Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda
50. Of Human Bondage (Modern Library Classics), W. Somerset Maugham
51. Captain Cook’s Journal, First Voyage
52. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzche
53. The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells
54. Paradise Lost, (Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained (Signet Classics)) John Milton
55. Paradise Regained, John Milton
56. Ulysses, James Joyce
57. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
58. A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
59. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay
60. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Other Books for Mentoring

Founders and VCs Reveal 21 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

10 Great Beach Reads That Will Make You Sharper When You Return To The Office 

As you will notice from the list of books that I intend to read in 2012, only a few of them are business books. I do not read many business books because most of them do not make you think. The most successful people do not read business books either, instead, they read the kind of books that are on my list. Let’s read together in 2012!

Further Reading

Life Lessons from the Great Books

The Business Case for Reading Novels

Why Startup Founders Should Stop Reading Business Books

10 Benefits Of Reading!

Read a Book a Week

Watch This. No. Read It!

10 Ways Reading the Great Books Can Improve Your Life