10 Books I WANT To Read In 2021 ｜｜ Conservative books included!
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Summary
10 Books I Want to Read in 2021: Judaism Straight Up by Moshe Koppel, Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, The Righteous mind by Jonathan Haidt, and The Little Bookshop by Robert Kiyosaki.
Transcript
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Hello Classic Crew and welcome to today's video where I'm going to be talking about 10 books I
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want to read in 2021. So we've been in the month of January for quite a bit now but something that
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I like to do at the beginning of each year is to go through my goals and what I would like to
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accomplish over the year and for the first time in my life I actually made a vision board. I know
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it sounds a little hokey and maybe it is but as somebody who's very visual it is super helpful
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for me to take a look at my vision board whenever I'm starting to get bogged down in the day-to-day
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stuff so I can keep in mind what the bigger picture is and the things that I'd really like to accomplish
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over the course of the year. But one of the things that I have dedicated myself to this year is to
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read more. I used to read books all the time. I still read but not nearly as much as I would like
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to. So I thought by giving myself a goal of reading 20 books in 2021 that it would give me
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something to work towards. Now hopefully I can actually read 20 books but the books that I've
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chosen are not easy. I'm not reading just kind of fluffy super easy fiction stuff that you can pick
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up at the bookstore in their kind of bestseller section where it's just a little bit more simple.
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The stuff that I've chosen to read is heavy so that means that each book will take me a little bit
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longer to read. So if I don't get through 20 books this year at least I'll have gotten through a good
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number of books that I feel good about having read. So I thought I would share with you 10 of the books
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on my list that I am planning on reading this year because I am looking forward to investing more time
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into making myself better and reading better books. So let's get into it. P.S. If my voice sounds a
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little weird today it's because this is the day after I had surgery. I talked about that in my last
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scoop video and I think I'm going to be talking about it a little bit more in my upcoming scoop
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video. Just kind of my experience and how everything went. But if I sound weird that's why I got the
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surgery yesterday and my voice is still sort of recovering. Apparently anesthesia can just kind of
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give you a sore throat. So that's where we're at but let's hop in. The first book that is on my list
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is called Judaism Straight Up. So this book was written by Moshe Koppel and this is the description
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on Amazon. In Judaism Straight Up, Moshe Koppel explores the central differences between traditional
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societies, including traditional Judaism, and contemporary cosmopolitan ones. He explains
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everything you always wanted to know about the subtleties of Jewish morality, tradition, and belief
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and how these have unfolded to beat cosmopolitanism at its own game, advancing cooperation, fairness,
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and freedom. Written with incisiveness and droll wit and a scientific sensibility that draws on
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economics, game theory, and other disciplines, Judaism Straight Up reveals the secret of Jewish
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traditionalism's endurance. So I'm reading this because I am a religious Jew and I think this topic
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is really interesting. Having read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind before reading this book
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is so helpful. Makes everything so much clearer. It is so helpful because a lot of the ideas that
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Moshe Koppel talks about Jonathan Haidt talked about in The Righteous Mind. So that's kind of a
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cool hand-in-hand sort of thing. But I've already started the book. I'm about 100 pages in and I am
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really enjoying it. I feel like I'm really starting to learn more about kind of this idea that being a
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religious Jew means that you sort of have to straddle the line between tradition and modernity
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because you are in a modern world. You are dealing with modern ideas of morality and stuff like that
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but you are living a more traditional life. So I think it's interesting to see what he has to say
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about that and I'm really looking forward to finishing it. I'm probably going to do a video
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on it and I'm excited to share it with you guys. Number two is basic economics. So I started this in
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2020 but the book is very large. This is the size of the book. So it's not something that I'm expecting
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to finish all in a week. I'm expecting to kind of read it throughout the year but hopefully I can
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finish it faster than that. I loved it when I started it. It is so easy to understand. I'm telling
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you if you are somebody who's trying to understand economics and sees this book and thinks it's too big
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it's going to be too much for me you're totally wrong. This book is so easy to read. It is not hard to
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read. I have understood every single concept that Thomas Sowell has written about. Thomas Sowell is
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the author and it is fantastic. I'm highly recommending it even though I haven't finished
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the book yet because I can tell where he's going with it and I can understand everything and that is
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so awesome. So I'm really excited to finish this in 2021. Hopefully I will finish it soon. Number three
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is zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. So my dad recommended this to me a while ago so I figured
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it was probably time for me to read it. It was written by Robert Peersig and this is the description
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on Amazon. One of the most influential books written in the past half century, Robert Peersig's
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zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is a powerful examination of how we live and a
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breathtaking meditation on how to live better. Following a father and his young son on a summer
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motorcycle trip across America's northwest, it is a story of love, fear, growth, discovery, and acceptance.
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Both personal and philosophical, it is a compelling study of relationships, values, and eventually
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enlightenment, resonant with the confusions and wonders of existence. So I did start reading
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this book already and it does sort of read like a novel. It's easy to read and you're getting these
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big ideas in an easy to digest way. So I think I'm really going to enjoy it. I like books that teach
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you a lesson so this is a book that seems like it's going to do that and I am excited to read it this
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year. The next book on my list, number four, is Freud, The Making of an Illusion by Frederick Cruz.
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So my husband actually bought this for me when we first got married. He went to the bookstore and
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picked me up a present because he knows I'm interested in Freud and psychology and this book
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sort of picks apart Freud and I thought that was interesting. I never actually got around to reading
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it so this is the year I'm going to read it. Here's the description on Amazon.
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Sigmund Freud is one of the most influential figures of Western society. His ideas transformed
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the way that we think about our minds, ourselves, and even our thoughts. But while he was undeniably
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a visionary thinker, Freud's legend was also the work of years of careful mythologizing and a fierce
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refusal to accept criticism or scrutiny of his often unprincipled methods. In Freud, The Making of an
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Illusion, Frederick Cruz dismantles Freud's totemic reputation brick by brick. Looking at recently revealed
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correspondence, he examines Freud's own personality, his selfishness, competitiveness, and willingness
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to cut corners and exploit weaknesses to get his own way. He explores Freud's wholehearted embracing
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of cocaine as a therapeutic tool and the role it played in his own career. And he interrogates
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Freud's intellectual legacy, exposing how many of his ideas and conclusions were purely speculative
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or taken wholesale from others. This book looks super interesting. I actually really love biographies
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and this is a biography, but it's from a little bit of a different perspective. It's not just talking
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up the man who the book is about, it's actually kind of picking him apart. So this sounds like it's
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going to be really interesting and I'm excited to read it because I think many of us know that a lot of
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Freud's ideas were not actually that accurate to the human mind, but it's so much of what we talk about
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as far as psychoanalysis and psychology. And so I'm interested to see, okay, how much of this
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is based on just Freud's own problems. It just sounds fascinating. So that's another thing I'm
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excited to read. Next up is Anna Karenina in Our Time. So this was written by Gary Saul Morrison
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and Gary Saul Morrison is actually a mentor of my husband's. My husband went to Northwestern and
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Gary Saul Morrison was a teacher there. So he wrote this book. I read Anna Karenina a couple of years ago
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and fell in love with it. I absolutely, great book. If you haven't read Anna Karenina, you should read it.
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It's fantastic. But I've only heard great things about Anna Karenina in Our Time, which takes a look
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at Anna Karenina and how we should be using it to inform us now. So I'm going to read you the
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description. In this invigorating new assessment of Anna Karenina, Gary Saul Morrison overturns
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traditional interpretations of the classic novel and shows why readers have misunderstood Tolstoy's
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characters and intentions. Morrison argues that Tolstoy's ideas are far more radical than has been
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thought. His masterpiece challenges deeply held conceptions of romantic love, the process of social
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reform, modernization, and the nature of good and evil. By investigating the ethical, philosophical,
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and social issues with which Tolstoy grappled, Morrison finds in Anna Karenina powerful connections
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with the concerns of today. He proposes that Tolstoy's effort to see the world more wisely
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can deeply inform our own search for wisdom in the present day. Anna Karenina in Our Time
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actually delves into the ideas that Tolstoy was trying to get across and sort of how it's been
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bastardized today to treat Anna Karenina herself as the heroine when she's not. So this is another
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book that I'm really excited to get my hands on. So the next thing I'm reading is something that's
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going to be a little bit more on the lighter side because I have been telling you a bunch of books
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that are quite in-depth, quite heavy, and so this one I just thought would be nice to break it up,
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and it is called A Historical Tour of Walt Disney World. This was written by Andrew Kist, and it
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looks really fun. It looks really fascinating. The whole story of Walt Disney World is super cool.
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If you haven't watched the documentary The Imagineering Story, which is on Disney+, you really
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should because it is fascinating, all of the things that go into creating these parks. It's really,
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really cool. So I thought I would pick up the book and read it. It's just something a little bit
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lighter, but it's still fascinating and interesting to me, so I'm really excited to dig into that
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because I love the history of theme parks. I think that that's so fascinating to read about
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and to learn about. Number seven is War and Peace. So I did start this last year, but I definitely got
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sidetracked. It's intimidating. This book is so many pages, but I loved Anna Karenina so much I couldn't
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not read War and Peace, so I'm excited to sit down and really invest time into reading it. I recognize
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it is going to be a project, but I would love to actually know this book and understand this book,
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and something I would like to say, something my husband taught me. So both of us are Russian
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literature people. We love Russian literature, and something he learned from his mentor, Gary Saul
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Morrison, is that the translation really matters. There's a new set of translators on the scene.
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Their names are Richard Pavir and Larissa Volokonsky, and they are not the people you should be
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reading for translations. Constance Garnett is probably the best one to read for translations,
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but essentially what it comes down to is when you're translating Russian literature,
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you can either try and translate it word for word, where you're not getting the meaning or intention
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of what the author was actually trying to write, or you can translate it and try and get the idea of
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what the author was saying, even if it's not exactly word for word. These new translators are doing
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the word for word thing. So a lot is getting lost in translation emotionally and with the intention
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of what the author was trying to say, as opposed to little nitty-gritty language things, which make the
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books lose their heart. So I would not recommend buying the new fancy books that are translated by these
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new translators. Instead, look for some of the older translations, because they were translating the book
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for its intention, and that's actually better. So in any case, I am looking forward to reading
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War in Peace. It's a big investment, but it's something I really have been wanting to finish for a long time,
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and I think that I should get as much out of it as I did out of Anna Karenina. I love Tolstoy. Tolstoy
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is one of my favorite authors, so hopefully this is something I can accomplish in 2021, but I won't be too hard
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on myself if I don't, because War in Peace is very long. Number eight is The Splendid and the Vile. So I
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love Eric Larson. He wrote The Devil in the White City. He wrote In the Garden of Beasts. I just love
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his writing. I think it's fantastic, and I picked up The Splendid and the Vile last year. Again, I
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started it, and I didn't finish it, but I was enjoying it before I stopped, and it is about
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Winston Churchill, so I will pull up and read for you the description on Amazon. On Winston Churchill's
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first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had
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already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would
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wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold
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his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy
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ally and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Eric Larson shows, in
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cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people the art of being fearless. There's a
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little bit more written here, but the idea of reading a book about Churchill and how he dealt
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with being prime minister during World War II, and also his family drama. I just, I can't
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wait, because Eric Larson writes history like it's novels. He writes history like they're
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fiction, and that's, to me, my favorite. I like reading stories, so this is something I'm excited
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to read and to continue reading. Clearly, I got started in a lot of books in 2020 that I didn't
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finish, so 2021 almost feels like the year of finishing books I've started, but I still am
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excited to read it. Number nine is The President, The Pope, and The Prime Minister. This was
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written by John O'Sullivan, and I was actually inspired to read this after watching The Crown
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and seeing the way that they portrayed Margaret Thatcher. I thought to myself, this doesn't
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seem super accurate. This seems biased. I would like to know more about her, and so I was trying
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to think about what I wanted to read next to kind of learn about her, and I figured out that this book
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seemed like a good fit, because it was also going to teach me a little bit about Reagan and was also
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going to teach me a little bit about the Pope. So I'm going to read you the description on Amazon,
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which says the President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister is a sweeping dramatic account of how
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three great figures changed the course of history. All of them led with courage, but also with great
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optimism. The Pope helped ordinary Poles and East Europeans banish their fear of Soviet communism,
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convincing them that liberation was possible. The Prime Minister restored her country's failing
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economy by reviving the vigorous virtues of the British people. The President rebuilt America's
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military power, its national morale, and its preeminence as leader of the free world.
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Together they brought down an evil empire and changed the world for the better.
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So this book looks fascinating. I love the idea of intertwining these three figures in history,
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and of course they were intertwined of their own accord, but also having a book that talks about
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the three of them on their own, but also in relation to each other, sounds absolutely fascinating.
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So this book I think is going to be a great addition to the list, and I'm excited to see what
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it will teach me. And the last book that is on my list is actually the Torah. I haven't read the Torah,
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the Old Testament, the Bible, in a little while, and I would love to reread it probably in the English
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initially, and then I would love to go back and read it in the Hebrew with the commentaries. So I
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have read it in Hebrew a few times, and I've read the commentaries, but I think it would be interesting
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for me to read it in English because, you know, English is my first language. So it would be,
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it's going to read a little bit more close to home, and then when I go back to read it in the
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Hebrew, which is the language it was originally written in, and I do understand, I'll get an even
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deeper sense of it. I think that'll be really cool to read the Torah and the Bible almost like a book.
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Of course it's so much more than just a book. It's so much more to me and to so many of you,
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I'm sure, but I think it would be interesting to sort of try and read it that way and internalize
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it as a story because that's how we learn, is through stories. I can also listen to it on
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Audible, which is cool, and I think it'll be important for me to take that time this year,
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and then of course if I have extra time I'd like to read Nevi'im, which is prophets, and Ketuvim,
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which is writings. So then I would read all of Tanakh, which is the Torah, the prophets, and the
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writings as one group. So those are just 10 of the books that I am excited to be reading this year.
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I hope that maybe some of you guys will find some inspiration in this list, and you guys will read
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them too, or if you've already read them, I'd love to hear that in the comments. It's a pretty
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conservative list. It's got a lot of books there that were written by conservatives, which is cool,
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and also has a more conservative viewpoint on the world, which is nice. And as I read each one,
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I'll be able to put it on my vision board and on my reading list, and by the end of the year,
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hopefully I'll have read more than I did last year. So thank you guys so much for watching today's
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