I started taking handwritten notes on books I read in 2012. I started copying my favorite lines from books into google docs in 2014. I came across an article about how sharing your reading with friends can help you solidify you reading habit in 2018, and a few patient friends have been receiving my book notes ever since.
Links have PDFs with my commentary and notes taken from the books.
Rosie’s Corner: The Littlest Pumpkin; Hap-Pea Halloween; Magic Flashlight Ghost Hunter; Ten Little Pumpkins; and I Spy With My Little Eye Halloween Haunt & Find.
Government
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership.
Jon Meacham, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.
Sidney Blumenthal, All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln (1856-1860).
Harold Holzer, Lincoln at Cooper Union.
Michael Gerhardt, Lincoln's Mentors: The Education of a Leader.
Sports
Bill Parcells, Parcells: A Football Life.
J.B. Mauney, [Interviews].
Business
Jim Collins, Bill Lazier, Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0.
Joe Hudson, Art of Accomplishment [Podcasts].
Brad Jacobs, How to Make a Few Billion Dollars.
Michael Ovitz, Who is Michael Ovitz?
Eric Ries, The Lean Startup.
Steve Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany.
David Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big.
Pete Wilkins, Purpose First Entrepreneur.
Blake Scholl [Interviews].
Hemant Taneja, Kevin Maney, and Stephen K. Klasko, UnHealthcare.
Sally Smith Hughes, Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech.
Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation.
Jerry Colonna, Reboot.
Fiction:
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast.
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
Barbara Kingfisher, Demon Copperhead.
Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule.
Rosie's Corner: Little Blue Truck
Government:
Robert Caro - The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Ray Long - The House That Madigan Built: The Record Run of Illinois' Velvet Hammer
Political Theory/Philosophy:
Leon Kass - Leading a Worthy Life
Father James Schall - At The Limits of Political Philosophy
Father James Schall - The Mind That Is Catholic
Military:
Adam Nicolson - Seize the Fire
Pete Blaber - The Mission, The Men, and Me
Pete Blaber - The Common Sense Way
Sean Naylor - Relentless Strike
Ric Prado - Black Ops
Max Hastings - Vietnam
Sports:
Mike Krzyzweski - Beyond Basketball
Alex Ferguson, Michael Moritz - Leading
Roger Federer - Dartmouth Commencement Address 2024
Warren & Charlie:
Peter Bevelin - All I Want to Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger - A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense
Warren Buffett - ‘Warren Buffett on Business’ Edited by Richard J. Connors
Business:
Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer - No Rules Rules: Netflix and the culture of reinvention
Brent Schlender - Becoming Steve Jobs
Marilyn Gist - The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility
Frank Blake - Invest Like the Best Podcast Interview
Scott Davis - Lessons From Titans
Andrew McAfee - The Geek Way
Brian Grazer - A Curious Mind
Liz Wiseman - Multipliers
Joe Coulombe - Becoming Trader Joe
Sebastian Mallaby - The Power Law
Kosher and Harrison - Braided Creek
Robert Parker - Appaloosa; Resolution; Brimstone
Sports
Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson
Fearless by Greg Poss
Joe Montana: Cool Under Pressure (Docuseries) & Montana: The Biography of Football's Joe Cool by Keith Dunnavant
Will it make the boat go faster? by Ben Hunt-Davis
It Takes What It Takes by Trevor Moawad
Business
Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis V. Gerstner
Amp It Up by Frank Slootman
Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion Worth of Advice from the World's Most Successful Entrepreneurs by Frederic Kerrest (Okta)
Levers by Amos Schwartzfarb, Troy Henikoff
The Launch Pad by Randall Stross
The Private Equity Playbook by Adam Coffey
Mission-Driven Leadership by Mark Bertolini
Catastrophic Care by David Goldhill
On Our Terms: Empowering the New Health Consumer by Glen Tullman
Play Nice But Win by Michael Dell
Imagination House by E. Lee Walker
Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull
History / Military
My Share of the Task by Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Washington by Ron Chernow
Wellington: The Path to Victory by Rory Muir
Rocket Men by Robert Kurson
Men of Fire and Born to Battle by Jack Hurst
Grant's Victory by Bruce L. Brager
Life/Strategy
Upstream by Dan Heath
Rethinking Success by Doug Holladay
The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova
The Voltage Effect by John A. List
Getty's Work by Brent Peterson
Fiction:
Sutton by J.R. Moehringer
Mistakes Can Kill You & Hondo by Louis L'Amour
The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton
8 - Book Notes (December 2021)
Walter Isaacson - Benjamin Franklin
Phil Knight - Shoe Dog
Roger Bennett - Reborn in the USA
Jeff Immelt - Hot Seat
Thomas Greta, Ted Mann - Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electrics
Jack Welch - Jack: Straight from the Gut
Frank Blake - various interviews
David Cote - Winning Now, Winning Later
Ed Cray - George C. Marshall: Soldier & Statesman
Erik Larson - The Splending and the Vile
Agostino von Hassell - Patton The Pursuit of Destiny
Charles River Editors - Hannibal and Scipio Africanus: The Lives and Careers of the
Second Punic War's Legendary General
BH Liddell Hart - Scipio Africanus: Greater than Napoleon
BH Liddell Hart - Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American
BH Liddell Hart - Great Captains Unveiled (Sabutai)
David A Bell - Napoleon: A Concise Biography
John McMahon - Qualified Sales Leader
John Sperzel - Courage
David Novak - Taking People With You
Patrick Lencioni - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Jocko Willink - Extreme Ownership
Erin Meyer - The Culture Map
James Clear - Atomic Habits
Tracy Kidder - The Soul of a New Machine
J. R. Moehringer - Tender Bar
Robertson Davies - Fifth Business
Tibor Fischer - Under the Frog
Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
Seth Rogan - Yearbook
7 - Book Notes (February 2021)
Andre Agassi - Open
Bob Chapman - Everybody Matters
Clayton Christensen - How Will You Measure Your Life?
Ken Langone - I Love Capitalism!
John Doerr - Measure What Matters
Pete Carroll - Win Forever
Satya Nadella - Hit Refresh
Ken Blanchard -The New One Minute Manager
Todd Caponi - The Transparency Sale
Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson - The Challenger Sale
Mark Roberge - The Sales Acceleration Formula
Randy Pausch - The Last Lecture
Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant - Option B
Martin Short - I Must Say
Leo Damrosch - The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
Alex Hutchinson - Endurance
6 - Book Notes (September 2020)
(Business) Leaders:
Ed Whitacre - American Turnaround
Bryce Hoffman - American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company
Jim Mattis - Call Sign Chaos
Bob Iger - The Ride of a Lifetime
Coaching:
Joshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg - The Club (Premier League)
Elmar Neveling - Jurgen Klopp
Bill Walsh - The Score Takes Care of Itself
Ian O'Connor - Belichick
Tony Dungy - Quiet Strength
Fiction:
Chuck Klosterman - Raised in Captivity
Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending
Glendon Swarthout - The Shootist
Elmer Kelton - Hot Iron
Alan Le May -The Searchers
John Steinbeck - Cannery Row
Stephen Mack Jones - Lives Laid Away
5 - Book Notes (February 2020)
Bush by Jean Edward Smith
41: A Portrait of My Father George W Bush
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Circe by Madeline Miller
The US Constitution - Explained by Ray Raphael
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
What You Do Is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz
The Black Jacobins by CLR James
Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playoff of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall
Turning the Flywheel (Monograph) by Jim Collins
Supreme Command by Eliot Cohen
Zero to One by Peter Thiel, Blake Masters
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
This is Marketing by Seth Godin
Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck
Good Will Come From The Sea by Christos Ikonomou
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje
Notes on a Shipwreck: A Story of Refugees Borders and Hope by Davide Enia
13 Days in Ferguson by Ronald Johnson
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
The Second Mountain by David Brooks
3 - Book Notes (December 2018)
The Generals by Thomas Ricks
Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
The Vanishing American Adult by Ben Sasse
David Foster Wallace on John McCain: ‘The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys and the Shrub’
Superbugs: An Arms Race Against Bacteria by Jim O’Neill et al
Knockemstiff - Donald Ray Pollock
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
The Red-Haired Woman - Orhan Pamuk
August Snow - Stephen Mack Jones
Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel by George Saunders
Grey Eminence: Fox Conner and the Art of Mentorship by Edward Cox
Suicide of the West by Jonah Goldberg
4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
President McKinley: Architect of the American Century by Robert Merry
London and the Southeast by David Szalay
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
Quake Books Pre-2017 (December 2024) (revisiting my favorite book notes from before I started sending my reading list)
Mitch Daniels, Keynote Speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee, February 2011.
Andrew Ferguson, Ride Along with Mitch, Weekly Standard, June 14, 2010.
Eric Holcomb, Leading the Revolution: Lessons from the Mitch Daniels Era.
Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace.
Fred Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader.
Jean Edward Smith, Grant.
Ken Miller, We Don’t Make Widgets: Overcoming the Myths That Keep Government from Radically Improving.
Ken Miller, Extreme Government Makeover: Increasing Our Capacity to Do More Good.
Ken Miller, The Change Agent’s Guide to Radical Improvement.