2021 Books

This blog entry contains a list of the books I read or listened to in 2021. Links included for the summaries and notes if I added them to my site.

Books

Title	Author(s)	Summary
Modern Cybersecurity (Tales from the Near-Distant Future)	Many Authors (see details below)	These seven essays provide a roadmap to guide you through the journey of building a security program and how to put together the teams that will make that possible.
Extreme Ownership (How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win)	Jocko Willink & Leif Babin	What’s the secret to being a great leader? Whether you’re in a warzone or on the front lines of a corporate battle, Extreme Ownership argues that the best leaders take full responsibility for their actions and decisions, their teams, and their failures.
Discipline Equals Freedom (Field Manual)	Jocko Willink	Discipline Equals Freedom covers it all, including strategies and tactics for conquering weakness, procrastination, and fear, and specific physical training presented in workouts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced athletes, and even the best sleep habits and food intake recommended to optimize performance.
Life Scale	Brian Solis	Lifescale is a journey of self-discovery and growth. It’s about getting back into balance and remastering our destinies.
The Unicorn Project	Gene Kim	The Age of Software is here, and another mass extinction event looms–this is a story about “red shirt” developers and business leaders working together, racing against time to innovate, survive, and thrive in a time of unprecedented uncertainty…and opportunity.
GreenLights	Matthew McConaughey	Drawing on the Academy Award-winning actor’s journals and diaries from the last 40 years, this book presents a uniquely McConaughey approach to achieving success and satisfaction
Accidentally Wes Anderson	Wally Koval	A visual adventure of Wes Anderson inspiration, authorized by the legendary filmmaker himself: stunning photographs of real-life places that seem plucked from the just-so world of his films, presented with fascinating human stories behind each façade.
The Bucket List (1000 Adventures Big & Small)	Kath Stathers	Build your dream vacation with this eclectic and tantalizing collection of 1,000 life-affirming adventures spanning the 7 continents
The illustrated Art of Manliness	Brett Mckay	Distills more than 100 practical skills every modern man should know into an entertaining, easy-to-follow visual format.

Audiobooks

Title	Author(s)	Summary
Work Clean	Dan Charnas	The first organizational book inspired by the culinary world, taking mise-en-place outside the kitchen.
Can’t Hurt Me	David Goggins	He shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.
The Way I Heard It	Mike Rowe	A memoir crammed with recollections, insights, and intimate, behind-the-scenes moments drawn from Mike’s own remarkable life and career.
Yeager	Chuck Yeager	General Chuck Yeager, the greatest test pilot of them all – the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound
For the Love of Europe	Rick Steves	After 40+ years of writing about Europe, Rick Steves has gathered 100 of his favorite memories together into one inspiring collection
Gravity	Tess Gerritsen	An experiment on micro-organisms conducted in space goes wrong. The cells begin to infect the crew with deadly results. Emma Watson struggles to contain the deadly microbe while her husband and NASA try to retrieve her from space, before it’s too late.
Arrival	Ryk Brown	Three generations, born and raised on a starship hurtling through space. To never know an open sky. To never feel the wind on their face. To never witness the sun rise or set.
American Serengeti	Dan Flores	In a work that is at once a lyrical evocation of that lost splendor and a detailed natural history of these charismatic species of the historic Great Plains, veteran naturalist and outdoorsman Dan Flores draws a vivid portrait of each of these animals in their glory–and tells the harrowing story of what happened to them at the hands of market hunters and ranchers and ultimately a federal killing program in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Later	Stephen King	The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret
The Devil’s Hand	Jack Carr	(Terminal List #4) It’s been 20 years since 9/11. Two decades since the United States was attacked on home soil and embarked on 20 years of war. The enemy has been patient, learning, and adapting. And the enemy is ready to strike again.
The Stand	Stephen King	When a man escapes from a biological testing facility, he sets in motion a deadly domino effect, spreading a mutated strain of the flu that will wipe out 99 percent of humanity within a few weeks.
On the Road	Jack Kerouac	A quintessential novel of America & the Beat Generation On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac’s years traveling the N. American continent with his friend Neal Cassady.
Project Hail Mary	Andy Weir	Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival
Extinction Code	James D. Prescott	Geophysicist Jack Greer believes he may finally have found the resting place of the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago.
Bag of Bones	Stephen King	Four years after the sudden death of his wife, forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write, and plagued by vivid nightmares
The Hunt for Red October	Tom Clancy	Somewhere under the Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision. The Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back.
The Martian	Andy Weir	Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Savage Season	Joe R. Lansdale	(Hap and Leonard #1) Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, white and black, straight and gay, are the unlikeliest duo in crime fiction. Savage Season is their debut.
Mucho Mojo	Joe R. Lansdale	(Hap and Leonard #2)
The Two-Bear Mambo	Joe R. Lansdale	(Hap and Leonard #3)
The Family Corleone	Ed Falco	An exhilarating and profound novel of tradition and violence, of loyalty and betrayal, The Family Corleone will appeal to the legions of fans who can never get enough of The Godfather, as well as introduce it to a whole new generation.
The Godfather Returns	Mark Winegardner	It is 1955. Michael Corleone has won a bloody victory in the war among New York’s crime families. Spellbinding story of America’s criminal underworld at mid-century and its intersection with the political, legal, and entertainment empires.
The Godfather’s Revenge	Mark Winegardner	The third, and final, installment in Mario Puzo’s epic chronicle of the Corleone crime family
Contact	Carl Sagan	If you want to read about a “first contact” with an alien intelligence in a form as “real” as possible, this is your novel.
River of Darkness	Buddy Levy	In 1541, the brutal conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro and his well-born lieutenant Francisco Orellana set off from Quito in search of La Canela, South America’s rumored Land of Cinnamon, and the fabled El Dorado, “the golden man.”. Riveting history and a breathtaking adventure that will sweep readers along on an epic voyage unlike any other.