Top 10 Books I’m Looking Forward to Reading this Summer (2022)

Over this past school year, I have accumulated a lot of books that I haven’t had time to read. In anticipation of summer, here are the top ten I’m looking forward to reading.

1. Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention- and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari

   This first book is actually kind of a cheat because I have to finish it before summertime. This book was actually sent to my co-host, Mattie, and me by the publisher in order to interview Mr. Hari (an interview that I am very much looking forward to). Although I am not very far into the book, I can already tell that I am going to enjoy it. Mr. Hari dives into focus and why we feel like we are losing it, a topic that really intrigues me. 

   Also, he has a style that I have never encountered before while reading a non-fiction book. You can tell he crafts his sentences very deliberately. The best way I can describe it is non-fiction for fiction readers. Whether this holds up throughout the book or if it was mostly a hook for new readers, the succeeding pages of the book will tell. 

   I can’t wait to plunge deeper into this book. 

2. Pascal (Vol. #33 of the Great Books of the Western World)

   This book is a collection of French mathematician Blaise Pascal’s writings. I discovered it and the Great Books of the Western World series in a small, used bookstore at my grandparents’ local farmer’s market where the shopkeepers sold me this and two other entries in the series for pennies on a dollar.

   I wanted to buy it because I had heard that he has fascinating defenses of Christianity as well as interesting scientific points. From a few skimmings, I found he had other wisdom hidden within.

   Here is an interesting quote from his Pensees:

   “Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences.”

3. The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. #1), by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

   I most likely won’t finish this book; but I will definitely read sections of it.

   There are multiple reasons I am looking forward to dissecting it. For one, Dr. Jordan Peterson, an academic I respect but don’t always agree with, recommends it as a must-read for those who wish to well-roundly educate themselves. I’ve also heard it is one of the most influential books of the 20th century. And, any book that has had that much impact is probably a worthwhile read.

   The drawback to this book is its density. However, I’m less worried about this because I’ve spent this school year studying the works of Aristotle and Plato. And, let’s just say that those writers forced me to become a much better reader. In my opinion, if you can comprehend whatever the heck Aristotle is trying to say, then you can probably read anything. Hopefully, my hypothesis holds up.

4. Keep Going, by Austin Kleon

   I started Mr. Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, self-help trilogy after Mattie and I interviewed him. Looking back on that episode, I wish I would have had the time to read it before we talked with him. There are so many of his ideas I’d love to discuss in greater detail with him. I’m a little over half-way through this brilliant finally. I can’t wait to jump back into it. I would recommend it to any creative person.

   Here is one of the many quotes I love:

   “The creative life is not linear. It’s not a straight line from point A to point B. It’s more like a loop or spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project. No matter how successful you get, no matter what level of achievement you reach, you will never really ‘arrive.’ Other than death, there is no finish line or retirement for a creative person.”

5. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris

   I began this Pulitzer Prize winner after Dr. Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of Deep Work, recommended it as one of the most impactful books of his life on our podcast. I’m only ninety-five pages into this 782-page masterpiece, but I’m really enjoying it. Even though it is a large book, it’s pretty easy to read as it is written as a narrative.

   One of the most inspirational sections of this book was Theodore Roosevelt Senior, Teddy Roosevelt’s father, empowering his son to fight his bed-ridding asthma.

   “Theodore, you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body[,] the mind can not go as far as it should. You must make your body. It is a hard drudgery to make one’s body, but I know you will do it.”

6. On Writing, by Stephen King

   This is a book I’ve been trying to buy for a few months now and now finally have. My parents gifted it to me for my birthday a few days ago. Although I am not a Stephen King reader, I became interested in this book after Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals, another book on this list, quoted it. I’m hoping this book provides more intriguing advice for following my writing dreams.

   Here is part of the quote that hooked me:

   “In both writing and sleep, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives. And as your mind and body grow accustomed to a certain amount of sleep each night…so can you train your waking mind to sleep creatively and work out the vividly imagined waking dreams which are successful works of fiction.”

7. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Curry

   I added this to my “Further Reading” list after Austin Kleon referenced it in Keep Going. Dr. Cal Newport also draws from it in the opening pages of Deep Work. I have found this exploration into 161 creative people’s lives fascinating. From Jane Austen to George Orwell to Stephen King, there are so many different characters described. I’m curious to return to this book in order to learn more about these influential people as well as things I might be able to apply to my own life.

8. The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis

   In the past two years, some difficult things have arrived at my door and made their unwelcome entrance into my and my family’s life. In my search for a “Christian” explanation, I came across this book. Even though I am a Christian, I don’t often read Christian books as I find them preachy and shallow. However, C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia children’s series, is an exception.

9. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, by Christopher R. Browning

   This is another book recommended by Dr. Jordan Peterson. According to the back of the book, “Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.” I’m interested in it as it depicts the horror of the monster living within all of us and how it can slowly emerge, a subject I am morbidly fascinated with.

10. The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, by Michael E. Gerber

    I’m hoping this book has hidden tips on running a project like Aiming for the Moon. Although AFTM isn’t a small business, the person who recommended this book to me said it had useful information on how to switch between “employee” mode and “manager” mode, which I’m defining here as the state of doing what the business/endeavor does (i.e. the passion of the business) vs filling out the administration work that keeps the business/endeavor online (i.e. the stuffy, office work). While I don’t necessarily see AFTM as a business, I do hope it will become profitable in some monetary way so that it can at least pay for itself. When it comes to Mattie and my podcast, I find it really had to do the administration work like responding to emails and posting new episodes on social media. Even though I love what I do, those small, necessary tasks are painful to begin.

With that, my list is finished. Fingers crossed that I will finish at least two or three of these over this year. I have a habit of constantly switching between books and forgetting about the ones I’ve started.

Thanks for reading!