Revnut

I recently met someone who described himself as an anarcho-capitalist. I had never heard the term before so I asked him if he was some kind of anarchist. He replied that he was basically against coercive monopolies. That seemed pretty reasonable. Who would be in favor of coercive monopolies? He later recommended this book by David Friedman.

This book addresses all kinds of interesting topics such as the economics of how to privatize roads, the police, the courts, and even laws. I greatly enjoyed reading this book.

This book by Timothy Ferriss is subtitled “Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich”.

It’s a pretty interesting book with a number of fascinating ideas about how people can adjust their lifestyles. I think many of his ideas work.

The problem I had with the book is that it’s chock full of lessons in how to deceive people. It seems to me that the methods the author proposes would work just fine without the lies.

It was pretty eye-opening to see how many issues there are that both conservatives and liberals get wrong. Freedom really does cross party lines.

Ron Paul is an excellent writer.

This autobiography by James Dyson is an excellent book about product design, entrepreneurship, perseverance, and how to create a successful business. James Dyson has invented and brought to market a number of products including the Ballbarrow, a number of very successful vacuum cleaners, the Sea Truck line of boats, and a washing machine.

It was fascinating to read about how he designs products and how he refines his ideas over time. His techniques can be applied to any creative work and I highly recommend this book.

We all have ideas for products all the time. Most of these ideas stay at the “wouldn’t it be great if” stage and are never pursued. Reading this book made me want to design a coffee maker. :)

I loved reading this book, primarily because I didn’t realize how much of an idiot I had become about many parts of Christianity. The author, Brad Stine, describes himself in a wonderful way:

“I am not a theologian or intellectual – as anyone who has seen my show or watched me try to balance a checkbook can attest – nor am I a prophet, pastor, teacher, professor, or scholar. I am a comedian … a layman, a moron. I’m like you. I am also a follower of Jesus Christ, which defines the very core of my life.”

The subtitle of the book is ‘10 Assumed Truths That Make Us Look Stupid”. The author is right. There are a bunch of things that Christians like me have assumed to be true but simply have no scriptural basis. And those things do make us look ridiculous.

There are parts of this book which are incredibly insightful. There are parts that made me laugh out loud. Brad Stine is an excellent author.

If you’re not a Christian and you have some Christian friends who can be really annoying, this book can help explain why they’re acting so foolishly. If you are a Christian, I beg you to read this book.

I found this book by John Eldredge to be fascinating. Why are men made the way they are? Why are many men interested in some things and couldn’t care less about others? How are these interests seen in God’s character? What does Scripture have to say about it?

This is a book about doing what is right even when it’s difficult. It’s a book about courage and honor, not physical strength.

If you’ve ever wondered why men act the way they do, this book may provide some insight.

In a world where masculinity is often frowned upon, this book was refreshing and motivational.

I enjoyed this book by Kyle Maynard. It’s a book about figuring out how to get things done even when they seem impossible. It’s a book about a congenital amputee. It’s a book that could inspire you.

Kyle Maynard’s arms end at his elbows and his legs end at his knees. He wrestled quite well in high school and went on to wrestle at the college level. He eats with regular silverware. He drives a car. He achieves goals.

I also enjoyed reading about his family and especially about his incredible parents. This is a good book.

Here is a video of the author:

You can also See the videos on the YouTube site if you’d like.

This is a great children’s book about the three little pigs. There’s a catch though. It’s told from the perspective of the wolf. It’s great for the kids to see that there are different perspectives and points of view. They seem to like it when it’s read using a New York mafia voice, especially when the wolf is talking about his dear old granny.

Jon Scieszka did an excellent job on this book.

This is my favorite story Bible for children. I have found many story Bibles to be either completely inaccurate or so watered down that the meaning gets contorted. This story Bible is different. I have found it to be quite accurate. The author is Catherine Vos and she did an incredible job on it.

I found this book by Jim Collins to be quite interesting. He and his team of researchers spent about 5 years working on it. They found only 11 companies that met their strict definition of a great company. The company had to be publicly traded, had to have at least 15 years of average to sub-average performance followed by at least 15 years of outstanding performance. So the company had to blow the doors off their industry and the market in general during the latter 15 years (demonstrating returns at least 3 times greater than the market). Only 11 companies met this criteria.

Then they compared those 11 companies to other companies in their industries that didn’t do as well. They also found a ton of common attributes among the great companies. It was fascinating.

I was surprised that the CEO’s of the 11 companies aren’t rock stars. They’re not household names that everyone knows. In fact, they’re relatively unknown. The book had a number of other surprises as well.

I enjoyed this book.

I love C.S. Lewis. I think he was an incredible author and a super genius. In this book, he presents an amazingly logical case for what Christianity is and why it matters.

If you’re a programmer or a lawyer or someone who enjoys logic, this book is for you. If you think that the Bible is bogus, this book is for you. If you have a nutty Christian friend you’d like to understand a bit better, this book is for you.

Here are some of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes:

• Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

• I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

This book is incredible. I highly recommend it.

This is the excellent marketing classic by Al Ries and Jack Trout. I think it’s a must read for entrepreneurs and business owners. The subtitle of the book is “How to be seen and heard in the overcrowded marketplace.”

I really enjoyed how they used real company examples to illustrate their points about which types of marketing work and which don’t. It was quite eye opening to read about the marketing mistakes that companies have been making for years and continue to make today, such as the “line – extension trap” detailed in chapter 12.

Reading this book will certainly improve your business.

This is a great book because gardening in your yard is different from gardening on a farm with a plow. The author, Mel Bartholomew, details his techniques which are designed to accomplish the following:

• Minimize the work.
• Maximize the amount of produce in the space you have.
• Minimize the need to weed and fertilize.
• Minimize the amount of space your garden takes up.
• Minimize the number of tools needed to garden.
• Plan your garden such that you have produce throughout the season rather than have 4 million tomatoes all ripening on the same day.

This is a perfect gardening guide for programmers because Mel is very specific about how many seeds should be planted for each vegetable in each square foot. He’s very specific about what your soil should be composed of.

In my experience, these techniques work.

This book by Howard and William Hendricks is outstanding. It details the difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible and presents an incredible method for how to study Scripture. Howard has been teaching this method to his students for decades (one of whom was Chuck Swindoll).

This book is extremely motivational. It is a life changing book.

Have you noticed a trend that we seem to know a bunch of people at work, we know some folks in our neighborhoods, we know some people from Church, but that we don’t REALLY KNOW them. Have you noticed that we seem to have more and more acquaintances and less and less true friends we can really rely on?

If you’d like to break out of this pattern, this book can help. If you would like your family to develop long lasting strong relationships over time with other families, this book can help.

The subtitle of this book is “Five Keys to Building a Small Group Culture”. Andy Stanley and Bill Willits are small group experts. Their book has had a significant long-term impact on our family.

Howard Schultz is the author of this book and he is the entrepreneur behind Starbucks. The subtitle is “How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time”.

I enjoyed this book. Howard was passionate about his ideas for the company and persevered amidst person after person telling him that he was crazy. Who would have thought that a commodity like coffee could be so profitable?

Humans seem to resist change yet many successful entrepreneurs bring about change. I find this conflict to be interesting. The entrepreneur is seen as a nut for awhile until the idea pans out. Then they’re no longer a nut.

This book tells a great story – how Starbucks was started, how they grew, the mistakes they made, and the surprises they discovered.

This book by Seth Godin is excellent. The subtitle is “Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers”.

The marketing world has changed over the last few years. Spending money on standard forms of “interrupt marketing” (like tv / radio ads, magazine ads, etc) no longer makes any sense. A much more effective alternative is to establish long term relationships with customers who have given you permission to communicate with them.

This book explains how to do it. It’s pretty great.

Some might say that it’s risky to write a review for this book because then the federal government would know that I’ve read it. :) Others might say that if you buy this book, you might want to use cash.

The creature the book is talking about is the Federal Reserve. This book will put your chin on the floor and keep it there for the entire book. It is wild.

Did you know that when banks loan you money, they actually create it on the spot? Did you know that banks only keep 6/10 of 1% of their funds in reserve? That means that for every $100 you deposit in your bank, the banking system can legally create $16,258.45 out of thin air to loan to people. It’s no wonder that the banks own so much real estate in this country – they’re allowed to create money. I found this book to be quite frightening.

I also found this article that does a pretty good job of summarizing some of the issues of the Federal Reserve.

This is an incredibly gripping book by Corrie Ten Boom. It is the true story of a Christian family living in Holland during the holocaust. I loved this book. I was amazed by the courage of this faithful family.

This book by Mark Douglas is one of my favorite books about trading the stock market. That’s saying a lot because I’ve read a ton of books about trading. There aren’t many books that I read more than once. Trading in the Zone is one of them.

I’m currently reading the book for the second time and it’s been interesting how my perception of it has changed now that I’ve been trading for a few years. I’m really enjoying it. It details so many of the mistakes I have made as a trader.

Why are some traders extremely consistent winners and others are emotional train wrecks? This book will get in your head.

An excellent book by David Allen. The subtitle is The Art of Stress Free Productivity.

I was pretty disorganized before reading this book. I’d forget to do things, I kept to-do lists everywhere, and I’d be juggling a million balls in my head trying not to forget anything.

After reading this book, I’d describe myself as pretty organized. The book taught me a logical yet flexible system. I now know what I need to do to ensure that items are captured by my system so that I can stop juggling them in my head. MUCH lower stress this way.

I never really understood why piles on my desk would continuously grow without bounds. I no longer have any piles. This book also motivated me to completely redo our filing cabinet. We actually burned 3 drawers full of stuff. Much simpler now.

This book affects how I process information and it affects the decisions I make every day.

What an excellent series of books. Kelly read the entire series to me and the kids. I originally thought it was a series for girls but I was wrong. They’re wonderful. After the kids would go to sleep, I’d read ahead. Kell eventually convinced me that this was a dirty habit.

There are stories of survival, farming, hunting, faith, and family. My daughter Madeline (7 years old) and son Gavin (5 years old) both got a TON out of these books. They loved them. It was wonderful to see the times that Laura (the author) chose to do the right thing and resisted the evident temptation to go the wrong route.

I highly recommend this series of books.

Another excellent book by Andy Andrews. This guy is an amazing author. I always learn things by reading his books. I think I will buy anything he makes.

If you think Christianity is bogus, I’d bet that this book by Lee Strobel would be quite interesting to you. It certainly was to me.

It’s pretty difficult to read this book and not have the thought, “hmmmm… perhaps the Bible is true.”

Dave Ramsey has taught me that so many of my preconceived notions about personal finance were so wrong. Debt really is dumb. If you have any debt, this book can help you eliminate it and bring more peace to your life.

This book made me realize that the world is in the dark about how money works. A friend described the book as the red pill (allusion to the Matrix).

This book completely changed how we spend our money and how we budget for things. It’s an outstanding book.

This is my favorite Bible. It’s thin yet the words are large. It’s well made.

Not many copies of this book by Mark Fisher are in print. Therefore it can be pretty steep. It’s worth the price. Lotsa lessons in this book.

Lesson filled entertaining book by Andy Andrews. This guy is amazing.

Wow. Excellent book by Andy Andrews. A ton of lessons in this engrossing book. I have enjoyed every single book Andy Andrews has written. He’s very encouraging and motivational. HIGHLY recommended.