Essays from West of 98: A Year of Reading
In March 2020, as our community, state, and nation halted many “normal” activities to limit the spread of the coronavirus, many of us found ourselves with more free time than usual. I vowed to prioritize that time for more reading. As I wrote, I have always loved to read, but the nature of adult life can make it hard to prioritize reading. It is more difficult when your daily duties require heavy reading—when you spend too much time reading screens and documents as a necessity, the unfortunate human inclination is to avoid reading when you don’t *have* to do it.
I’ll also confess that I’m late to the audiobook game. For years, friends extolled the virtues of audiobooks, but I was not convinced. I spent much of my youth reading a lot of fiction, so the audiobook concept bothered me. I am the kind of reader who imagines the voices of each character inside my brain, so I did not want to hear someone else’s voice applied to those characters. I began to reconsider in the last couple of years. I started to read more non-fiction, primarily history and biographies, which were often very large books. It’s easier to find time to plow through a short novel than a complex 500-page work of history or biography. I realized that I had a lot of time—driving, getting ready in the mornings, etc.—that I could apply to audiobooks. I took a spin with some biographies on Audible and I was sold. Whereas I was bothered by the voice of a fictional work on audio, I found a non-fiction audiobook to be like listening to a very interesting lecture. This newfound appreciation was much to my wife’s chagrin, I might add. Turns out it’s not her preferred hobby to be subjected to secondhand listening of books that are dozens of hours long.
I’ve picked out twelve books that I read in 2020 to share today. I found each of these to be particularly interesting or worth sharing. I’ll warn you: a few of these books are the length of multiple books, so they are not for the faint of heart. In general, I read to be educated, but I like to be entertained as well. A good book should be interesting and compelling about the topic. I focus most of my reading on understanding the world around me and how to impact it, so that leads me to mostly history, leadership, and deep-dives into topics of specific importance. I’d rank several of these books as among the best books I have ever read:
“Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”: by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Widely renowned and adapted into a Spielberg film, you don’t need me to tell you this is a good read, but I set out to learn more about Lincoln and I got even more than I bargained for. Lincoln’s failures, successes, and tragic death are well known, but my overarching lesson was one of empathy. Lincoln had an incredible ability to empathize with disparate parties, even parties literally at war with each other. Because of his deep empathy, Lincoln preserved the Union in a manner that might not have been possible otherwise. I walked away from this book thinking that, had Lincoln presided over Reconstruction, our country’s post-war history might have been very, very different.
“Grant” by Ron Chernow
The portrayal of General Ulysses S. Grant in “Team of Rivals” left me wanting to learn more about a man who is often poorly depicted in history, as a drunken soldier and a terrible, corrupt politician. This definitive biography tells the proverbial “rest of the story.” Grant was an alcoholic who battled the disease with full self-awareness. His lapses were lampooned by his enemies and rivals for their own personal benefit, because none of them had his skill as a leader of military men. Grant was often too trusting of others, which led to his abuse by grifters and schemers whose actions ultimately marred his own reputation. Despite the complicated history, U.S. Grant deserves to be seen as a titan of American history.
“The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism” by Doris Kearns Goodwin
I’m a sucker for any good Roosevelt book and I found this one enthralling. It’s less a Roosevelt biography and more of a simultaneous view of how Roosevelt, Taft, and the “muckracker” journalists intersected for social and economic reforms at the dawn of the 20th century. Roosevelt mastered the bully pulpit, but the continuation of his reforms required an equally decisive and convicted salesman. Taft was a wonderful judge and government administrator who was a sterling choice for many jobs. Following Theodore Roosevelt as President was not one.
“Destiny of the Republic: a Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President” by Candice Millard
James A. Garfield is the only sitting member of the U.S. House ever elected President, but he never got the chance to put his mark on the office. He was shot by an assassin four months into his term and then lingered on for two months until his death. Garfield was a deeply honorable man who was forward-thinking on matters such as equality between the races. I finished this book thinking he would have been an excellent President had he not been murdered by a deranged man whose reasons for the attack are beyond logical belief. Sadly, Garfield should have survived the attack, but the primitive “experts” of American medicine managed to prevent that.
“Desert Solitaire” by Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey is not for everyone. A renowned author on environmental issues, his views were extreme and dabbled into the anarchic. Even so, “Desert Solitaire” is a fine read whether you endorse his worldview or not. It tracks Abbey’s years as a park ranger in the 1950s at what is now Arches National Park. Living alone in the desert, a man has time to deeply consider the world and Abbey uses his time in often-fascinating ways. If you ever consider writing about your own experiences in life, Abbey is a must-read.
“Billionaire Wilderness: the Ultra Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West” by Justin Farrell
Justin Farrell grew up poor in Wyoming before becoming a sociology professor at Yale. He takes a balanced and deeply-researched look at the trend of wealthy and ultra-wealthy Americans flocking to places like Jackson Hole, which creates complex interpersonal relationships between residents across ethnic, social, and income spectrums.
“Let My People Go Surfing: the Education of a Reluctant Businessman” by Yvon Chouinard
I have written about this book before. The founder of Patagonia tells of his unintended rise from rock climber to billionaire CEO. Regardless of whether you agree with Chouinard’s political views, more entrepreneurs and business executives could stand to learn from his deeply sincere vision of a person’s obligation to use their success to impact the world around them.
“A Big Gospel in Small Places: Why Ministry in Forgotten Communities Matters” by Stephen Witmer
Witmer is a pastor in rural Massachusetts who advocates for the importance of Christian ministry in rural places. I devoted several essays to thoughts on this book, but I would reiterate its value—if you are a Christian leader in a “small place” or if you aspire to be, this book is a powerful encourager to pursue that mission.
“Cadillac Desert: the American Desert and its Disappearing Water” by Marc Reisner
One of the classic books on the development of the modern American West, Cadillac Desert will infuriate you at the short-sighted development of the West’s scarce water resources. It will anger you at many of the West’s most important stakeholders, who have often engaged in the most short-sighted and self-destructive decisions in their “choose your own adventure” path of water management.
“Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing
Another book that I wrote about earlier in 2020, “Endurance” tells the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s doomed expedition to the Antarctic. Launched in 1912, the expedition became trapped in pack ice and the men spent three years trying to escape the ice and return to civilization. It is an incredible tale of resilience and leadership. It will leave you in awe that Shackleton did not lose a single man.
“The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York” by Robert A. Caro
Caro is famous to many for his multi-volume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, but before he wrote thousands of pages on LBJ, he wrote over a thousand on Robert Moses. Moses was never elected to any public office, but was for decades the most powerful man in New York. At one point, he held 12 different offices simultaneously and the layout of modern New York City—the good, the bad, and the ugly—is much his handiwork. It is a tale of brilliance but of obsession with power. It is a tale of vision but a vision that became irreparably skewed when the visionary lost his connection to the people impacted by his vision. That’s a lesson that anyone in power could stand to learn from.
“Holistic Management: a Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment” by Allan Savory with Jody Butterfield “Holistic Management: a Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment” by Allan Savory with Jody Butterfield
I plan to write much more about this book in the future. It is a dense, complex textbook. Allan Savory is arguably the world’s foremost mind on grazing livestock on grasslands. Over 50 years of research and experience are distilled into a definitive explanation of how grasslands work, why they must be grazed by animals to operate properly, and why holistic management of grasslands is the key to managing our environment. Savory’s ideas are often shocking to agriculture producers and environmental activists alike, but his ideas work and he has the experience to prove it. His concept of holistic management is a foundational tool for leaders who manage human systems and it should be considered in management by elected officials and business owners as well as land managers.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the “West of 98” website and forthcoming podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com.