Grief

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Sometimes the news comes quick. Sometimes the news comes slow. No matter how or when it comes, grief travels in the wake of the news. Grief is heavy, weighty, a burden, especially when it involves someone deeply loved. Grief is not meant to be carried alone. It’s too heavy and may last a while—and that’s ok. That’s what family and friends are for, to share the load. Jesus stood outside the tomb of his friend and wept but He did not weep alone. It was a deep, human moment. “ Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted ” (Matt 5:4). If anyone knows how we feel in grief, it’s Him. But His grief did not linger long, as at the mention of his name, Lazarus came forth. We are not meant to dwell in grief, but should leave room enough for it. Let it run its course. Like the song says, “ Every Storm Runs Out Of Rain .” Another song says, “ The storm We will dance as it breaks The storm It will give as it takes And all of our pain is washed away Don't cry or be afraid Some things...

Fuel For Life-long Learning

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The following is a non-comprehensive list of recommended books ranging from biography to philosophy; fiction and non-fiction; entertainment to "know-how" (arrange those in any order you wish). There is no one source for this list as most of the books are found in lists provided by various entities such as Penguin Books, The Great Books Of The Western World, or on a few sites I follow such as Good Reads, The Modern Library. Few that appear here are found on The Art of Manliness site.

I do not endorse the content or message of every book named; however, this (let me repeat) "non-comprehensive list" acknowledges significant contributions of these works to our present our thought and culture.

The list is divided into two parts: "Books Read" (what I've finished in this suggested list--not sure I could list every book I've read) and "Books On My List" (books that remain unread from a suggested list).

BOOKS READ:
  1. The Bible (all 66 books)
  2. The Qu'ran
  3. Alighieri, "The Divine Comedy"
  4. Ambrose, "Undaunted Courage" 
  5. Aristotle, "Metaphysics"
  6. "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin"
  7. Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451"
  8. Carnegie, "How To Win Friends and Influence People"
  9. Conrad, "Heart of Darkness"
  10. DaFoe, "Robinson Crusoe"
  11. Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"
  12. de Cervantes Saavedra, "Don Quixote"
  13. Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"
  14. Frankl, "Man's Search For Meaning"
  15. Golding, "Lord of the Flies"
  16. Heller, "Catch 22"
  17. Hemingway, "The Old Man and the Sea"
  18. Herodotus, "The Histories"
  19. Homer, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey"
  20. Hugo, "Les Miserables"
  21. Huxley, "Brave New World"
  22. Kafka, "The Metamorphosis"
  23. Knowles, "A Separate Peace"
  24. Krakauer, "Into The Wild"
  25. Krakauer, "Into Thin Air"
  26. London, "Call of the Wild"
  27. McCarthy, "Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West"
  28. McCarthy, "The Road"
  29. Melville, "Moby Dick"
  30. Milton, "Paradise Lost"
  31. Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil"
  32. Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
  33. Orwell, "1984"
  34. Orwell, "Animal Farm"
  35. Plato, "The Republic"
  36. Remarque, "All Quiet on the Western Front"
  37. Rostand, "Cyrano de Bergerac"
  38. Salinger, "The Catcher In The Rye"
  39. Shakespeare, "Hamlet"
  40. Shelley, "Frankenstein"
  41. Stevenson, "Treasure Island"
  42. Steinbeck, "Cannery Row"
  43. Steinbeck, "East of Eden"
  44. Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath"
  45. Steinbeck, "The Pearl"
  46. Thoreau, "Walden"
  47. Tolkien, "The Hobbit" 
  48. Twain, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
  49. Tzu, "The Art of Warfare"
  50. Vonnegut, "Slaughterhouse-Five"
  51. Wells, "The Island of Dr. Moreau"
  52. Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
  53. Wright, "Black Boy"
  54. Wright, "Native Son"
  55. Wright, "Uncle Tom's Children"
  56. Wyss, "Swiss Family Robinson"
BOOKS ON MY LIST (I own most of these, just haven't read them yet):
  1. Aristotle, "The Politics"
  2. Bulgakov, "The Master and Margarita "
  3. Camus, "The Stranger"
  4. De Pizan, "The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry"
  5. Delillo, "White Noise"
  6. Dostoevsky, "Brothers Karamazov"
  7. Dostoevsky, "Crime And Punishment"
  8. Dostoevsky, "The Idiot"
  9. Dumas, "The Count of Monte Cristo"
  10. Eco, "Foucault's Pendulum"
  11. Ellison, "Invisible Man " 
  12. Emerson, "Self-Reliance & Other Essays" 
  13. Greitens, "Resilience"
  14. Haggard, "King Solomon's Mines"
  15. Hamilton, Jay, Madison, "The Federalist Papers"
  16. Hemingway, "A Farewell to Arms"
  17. Hemingway, "For Whom The Bell Tolls"
  18. Hesse, "Steppenwolf"
  19. Hobbes, "Leviathan"
  20. Johnson, "Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond"
  21. Jones, "The Thin Red Line"
  22. Joyce, "Ulysses"
  23. Kerouac, "The Dharma Bums"
  24. Kerouac, "On The Road"
  25. Kierkegaard, "Fear and Trembling"
  26. L’Amour, "Education of a Wandering Man" 
  27. Machiavelli, "The Prince"
  28. MacIntyre, "After Virtue"
  29. Maclean, "A River Runs Through It"
  30. Mailer, "The Naked And The Dead"
  31. Manchester, "The Last Lion Trilogy"
  32. Marquez, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" 
  33. McMurtry, "Lonesome Dove"
  34. "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"
  35. Morris, "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" 
  36. Morris, "Theodore Rex"
  37. Paulson, "Hatchet"
  38. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
  39. Plutarch, "Lives"
  40. Pressfield, "Gates of Fire"
  41. Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
  42. Robbins, "Another Roadside Attraction"
  43. Roosevelt, "The Rough Riders"
  44. Sinclair, "Oil!"
  45. Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"
  46. Theroux, "The Great Railway Bazaar"
  47. Toole, "A Confederacy of Dunces"
  48. Vonnegut, "Bluebeard"

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