“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. ~Haruki Murakami
Here are my top picks for books to inspire, inform and help you build health and wealth in 2017.
PERSONAL FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT
- Family Wealth: Keeping it in the Family — How Family Members and Their Advisers Preserve Human, Intellectual, and Financial Assets for Generations by James Hughes: Hughes outlines the steps to success and wealth preservation for wealthy families. His ideas can help families that want to be wealthy get there too.
- Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales: Gonzales translates the lessons learned in wilderness survival to practices we can use for a successful life. Beautifully written, this book is hard to put down.
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R Covey: Developing superb leadership skills is arguably the most valuable education for the 21st century. Covey is one of the masters.
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey: Stephen Covey’s son applies his father’s philosophy for the younger generations. This is one to help the teens you love develop character and invaluable skills.
GEOPOLITICS
- The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot: Talbot has written the best book on the Kennedy assassination to date. He nails those responsible while weaving a fascinating story of American history. If you want to understand the US “deep state,” this is not to be missed.
- Covert Wars & Breakaway Civilizations: The Secret Space Program, Celestial Psyops and Hidden Conflicts by Dr. Joseph Farrell: So you think you understand the financial systems? You better consider the covert side of the economy. No better source than “high octane” speculation from Farrell.
- We Have Dared to Be Free by Dr. Dady Chery: Dr. Chery’s diary of the American invasion of Haiti in 2010 grew into this remarkable book on US disaster capitalism in Haiti, including the destruction of local farmers to create markets for US agricultural exports.
- The Essential Saker: From the Trenches of the Emerging Multipolar World: Originally published as blog commentaries on the outrageous geopolitical events unfolding in recent years, the Saker rocks and rolls the reader through the political changes underway in and between the US, Europe and the developing world. Filled with deep insights, this collection will inspire deeper laughter and a few tears.
THE COVERT SIDE
- People of the Lie by Scott Peck: Peck’s classic provides powerful insight on identifying, understanding and managing people who do evil.
- Secret, Don’t Tell by Carla Emory: Mind control has been going on for centuries. Emory starts in the 1400’s and brings you down through history. This is one of the best books for understanding the core technology at the heart of rigging the global financial markets and just about everything else.
- The Franklin Cover Up: Child Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska by John DeCamp: To understand how a “control file” system is used to govern America, it is essential to understand pedophilia. One of the best documented cases is the Franklin scandal. Several people gave their lives so that this story could be told. Unfortunately, the slave trade continues in America on a covert basis.
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
- The New Grand Strategy: Restoring America’s Prosperity, Security and Sustainability in the 21st Century by Mark Mykleby, Patrick Doherty, and Joel Makower: When the US military realized the civilian leadership did not have a vision for the country, they set out to create one. They kept going when they joined the private sector and academia. Here it is.
- The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World by Sally Denton: If we are going to make America great again, we are going to have to restructure the US government contracting model to one held to a standard of sound investment of taxpayers resources. If you want to understand how things got so out of whack, Sally Denton’s history of Bechtel is a must read.
- Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford: If we are going to make our places great, we are going to have to grapple with robots and automation. Ford walks us through the recent history of America’s workforce and considers what the impact of robotics and new technology will be.
- Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits by Catherine Austin Fitts: If we are going to make America great again, we need to understand what has been destroying it. This is Catherine’s case study of how the US prison industrial complex made Washington and Wall Street rich while bankrupting American communities and taxpayers.
STATISTICS
- World Almanac 2017: Each year I use the new World Almanac to review the basic statistics of life on Planet Earth. You can too!