Book Tagged

I’ve been tagged by Lanny Cardow in this tag game that seems to be taking over the Canadian Conservative blog world. I’ve been reading about them for three days now and I wondered when I would get tagged. I have to answer some questions and tag five new people – that will be a hard tag since there aren’t many people left! So here it is:

Number of Books That You Own:

This is really hard to guesstimate as they are in three separate locations. Here in California I have only 8. These are the ones that I’ve bought since I’ve gotten here. I did not feel like carrying books with me when I was moving here.

In Richmond Hill, I have probably around 30-40. These are mostly political, political strategy, or biographies that I really enjoy. There are few books in Richmond Hill that I have not read. (With the possible of exception of two: Trump’s Art of the Deal and Forbes' A New Birth of Freedom: Vision for America.

Finally, I have about 40-50 or so in storage. These are mostly business books.

Last Book I Bought:

Three just arrived from Amazon.com. (Now that I'm in California I don't have to pay the sales taxes, so I'm buying lots of books.)

They were:
1. How to Win Friends and Influence People. I've meant to buy this for some time but had never gotten around to it.
2. Reagan's Revolution. Bellator Libertatis tells me that this is one of the most boring, yet exciting books he has ever read. It also has the word "Reagan" in it and I could not avoid buying it.
3. Law School Confidential. This book got here two days ago and I'm already 120 pages into it. This is partially because I am excited about the idea of going to law school and partially because this book is written very well.

Last Book I Read:

Unlike others, I only read one book at a time. The last book I read was Trade Warriors. It's written by the famous/infamous Marc Busch and it talks about the importance of strategic trade. I wouldn't recommend it unless you are deeply interested in the academic side of global trade. Being the free-trade geek that I am, I enjoyed the book. What made it more enjoyable is that I had Marc Busch as a professor while I was reading the book and I could see so much of him in the book.

Five Books that Mean a Lot to Me:

Please note that this is only what comes to mind right now. I may change this at any point.

1. Dutch: The infamous Ronald Reagan biography. It's the first book I read twice and it turned a high school student into a serious ideologue. Many don't like Edmund Morris' book since it is, in part, fictional. I thought that it was absolutely brilliant. I think every President should have an official biographer.

2. A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years With Ronald Reagan: Another biography about Ronald Reagan. It's not as well written as Dutch, but with the exception of Nancy and two or three others, Michael Deaver knows Reagan better than anyone else. This book also gives a bit of insight into one of Reagan's only failures. (i.e. Lebanon) (My copy is actually signed by Deaver!)

3. Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America: This book actually made me cry. I read it for the second time shortly after Ronald Reagan's death. I know that it is odd that three of my top five books are about, or by, Ronald Reagan, but those that know me well would not expect anything else.

4. Grapes of Wrath: I read this in high school for my senior project in OAC English. We had to pick a classic and I picked Grapes of Wrath. I picked it because I had enjoyed John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. It was short. Its character's were easily understood.

To my surprise, Grapes of Wrath was nothing like Of Mice and Men. It is, however, a classical American story. I challenge anyone to read the book and not want to take a drip down Route 66. (Now get your kicks on Route 66!) In fact, a friend of mine is doing just that this summer. He is driving from Windsor to California, and is using a good chunk of Route 66.

5. Parliament of Whores: P. J. O'Rourke is funny. He is brilliant. He is the original Jonah Goldberg. I forget a lot of the lines. This can only mean one thing: it's time to read it again!

Tag:

I am tagging:
Bellator Libertatis
Hartley Lefton
The Famous PA
The Famous Administrator
and finally Andrew Coyne

There.

back again

So I've been on an extended blog-vacation for some time. For those of you who are wondering, this was caused by a scare after my National Post op-ed regarding Iran. Some believed that the Iranian government would not look kindly upon the relatives of a foreigner who bashes them in national media. Since I have lots of relatives back in Iran still, I decided to stop using the other site that made more prominent use of my last name.

But I've been brought back to life thanks to Lanny Cardow's book tag.

I'll have a new post on that shortly.