Note: Dan is stepping in today to share three books he recommends you read during quarantine. He’s an avid reader, and always has great recs. Please note this post contains affiliate links. Thanks for the support!
I am coming to the close of my annual reading challenge. Last year I set a goal of 50 books, and I was able to hit 51. This year I opted for the alphabet reading challenge. The goal is to read a book beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Since it doesn’t have to be in alphabetical order, so you can jump around. In the beginning it was easy, I was able to just pick titles and cross off letters. However, as I am coming to the end, it is harder and harder to find books. I made it even more difficult on myself because I would not allow titles to have any articles, ‘the’, ‘an’, or ‘a’ to appear before the official letter. I did that twice for books early on and received a lot of flack for it. (The Devil in the White City and The Lost Man) So for any remaining letter, the very first word in the title must begin with the correct letter. I am open to suggestions for any of the blanks. See below for the current list and you can follow along at @mrtschalkboards and DM me there if you have any recs.
Alphabet Challenge
There are a few books on this list that are worth reading during quarantine.
Washington Black - Both Candace and I read this book. I grabbed it while in a bookstore on vacation in Grand Cayman - back in the old days when people could travel. This book is extremely well written. It follows the life of young Washington Black. Washington Black grew up on a slave plantation in Barbados around the 19th century. The story is remarkable and will surely take you away from the current chaos that our world is dealing with. If you are looking to get away, grab this book and hold on tight.
No Ordinary Dog - This was more recent and is a super quick read. If you’re up for it, you can finish it in one night. I think it took me two days. It is a true story following the life of Cairo, the dog that was with the Navy SEALs for the Osama bin Laden raid. Cairo is a Belgian Malinois and is no joke. These dogs are trained to fight in combat and are lethal. It is a very cool look at the inner workings of being a Navy SEAL and what goes into being a dog handler on their special missions. It is a great choice for all dog lovers.
Upstream - This is my current read and is not on the list yet. I only put the books on the list after I finish them. I was struggling to find a ‘U’ book and then this came up while browsing. Upstream is all about being proactive in a reactive world. The idea is that we need to prevent problems rather than scrambling around putting out fires. The term ‘upstream” comes from an old parable.
‘There were two men sitting by the stream. One of them sees a child struggling to swim. Both men jump in to save the child. As they pull the child out of the water, they look back and see another child that is drowning in the river as well. After a dozen or so saves, one of the men starts walking upstream. When asked what he is doing, he replies, “I am going up the river to stop whoever keeps throwing these kids in.”’
I may have butchered that story a bit, but you get the idea. I am about halfway through the book and it makes a lot of sense. It is one of those books that you read and think to yourself that you really need to change your approach. But then you never do, ha!
So far this challenge has been the perfect amount of difficulty. I am starting to struggle as far as finding books titles are concerned. I may go back and redo the letters ‘L’ and ‘D’ because those books truly do not start with the correct letter. The other issue is that I set this as my yearly challenge. I will likely be done by the Fourth of July, so it’s time to start thinking for the second half of the year. I have always been intimidated by long books, I may challenge myself to read something over 1000 pages, War and Peace??