Forget a summer reading list! Since we’ve all been stuck at home for weeks, I suggest you pick up a good book now!

Well, it’s a bit earlier than usual for me to release the list of books I have been reading the last 12 months, but considering that the Coronavirus has “slowed down” or (using a contemporary business term of late) “disrupted” our lives, I suggest you find a good book to read while waiting  for that vaccine that will save us all from doom!

In keeping with the times, maybe it’s time to consider the future of America or the whole world for that matter!  As you can see from the list below, I have spent a lot of time on trying get an idea of what the future holds for the rest of my days here on earth … as well as those for my kids and grandchildren … that is if we all survive the virus!!

If you’re optimistic and interested, then I suggest you focus your reading on Geopolitics!  Two new favorite authors that I stumbled upon in the last few months are George Friedman and Peter Zeihan.  These guys are real … and all the way back even ten years ago, each had already predicted much of what is happening in the US and the world.  The virus? Well, not precisely, but yes, to a serious disruption in our economy and political partisanship, among so much more.  Along with Friedman and Zelhan, Robert Kagan is well worth reading.

If geopolitics don’t float your boat, I’m sure that there are a couple of others that will grab you!

So, here’s my list for this season:

Geopolitics, World Order, and America’s Future

• The Storm Before the Calm: America’s Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, By: George Friedman
• The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, By: George Friedman
• Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World, By: Peter Zeihan
• The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder, By: Peter Zeihan
• The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America, By: Peter Zeihan
• The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World, By: Robert Kagan
• The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy, By: Ed Conway

American History

• The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, By: Nancy Gibbs, Michael Duffy
• The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians, By: David M. Rubenstein
• A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, By: Sonia Purnell
• The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, By: David McCullough
• Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, By: Wallace Stegner

Investigative Journalism

• Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide, By: Tony Horwitz
• How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, By: Michael Pollan
• Call Me God, By: Jim Clemente , Tim Clemente , Peter McDonnell

Biography and Memoir

• Educated: A Memoir, By: Tara Westover
• Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde, By: John Boessenecker
• The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin, By: Jan Stocklassa, Tara F. Chace – translator
• Incidental Architect: William Thornton and the Cultural Life of Early Washington, D.C., 1794-1828, By: Gordon S. Brown

Fiction and Maybe Not?

• Once Upon a River, By: Diane Setterfield
• Pachinko, By: Min Jin Lee
• The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret to America’s Future, By: Jonathan Cahn
• The Mystery of Shemitah: The 3,000-Year-Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future, the World’s Future, and Your Future, By: Jonathan Cahn

Business

• The Road to Reinvention: How to Drive Disruption and Accelerate Transformation, By: Josh Linkner
• The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy, By: Jon Gordon

Conservative Political Thought and Opinion

• Taken for Granted: How Conservatism Can Win Back the Americans That Liberalism Failed, By: Gianno Caldwell
• Unfreedom of the Press, By: Mark R. Levin
• Sh*tshow!: The Country’s Collapsing . . . and the Ratings Are Great, By: Charlie LeDuff
• Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, By: Peter Schweizer

Readying for a Drive through Wisconsin

• When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, By: David Maraniss
• Tales from the Green Bay Packers Sidelines: A Collection of the Greatest Packers Stories Ever Told, By: Chuck Carlson
• Hunting Camp 52: Tales from a North Woods Deer Camp, By: John Marvin Hanson

Maybe there’s a book or two that may interest you. I have to say; many are ones that friends recommended to me.

Have you read any of these? … Please, share your thoughts!

And what are your reading now? … Recommendations from others are where these came from.  So let me know!

Hang in there and enjoy the shutdown with a good book!!!

Be safe, my friends!

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Rocky Mackintosh, President of MacRo, Ltd., a Land and Commercial Real Estate firm based in Frederick, Maryland, has been an active member of the Frederick community for over four decades. He has served as chairman of the board of Frederick Memorial Hospital and as a member of the Frederick County Charter Board from 2010 to 2012.  He currently serves as chairman of the board of Frederick Mutual Insurance Company. Established in 1843, it is one of the longest enduring businesses in Frederick County.