Two Great Books

This might be the best 1-2 combo of books I’ve picked up all year.

I just finished my second list to Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic and The Obstacle is the Way). I’d call it a guide to slowing down and focusing your mind, spirit and body. All in short, easily digestible chapters that reference contemporary case studies and classical philosophers. I listened to it twice and had to buy the book so I could mark it up. Tim Ferriss, one of my favorite podcasters, often asks the question “what books do you like to give away”. This one will be my answer to that question.

Where Men Win Glory  by John Krakauer (Into Thin Air and Into the Wild) is a tougher read. I’m about half-way through. It’s the story of Pat Tillman, a football player for the Arizona Cardinals, who turned down a $3.6M pro football contract to enlist in the Army Rangers following 9/11. The first third of the book tells the story of how Tillman’s life and the event of 9/11 intersected. In 2004 he was killed in Afghanistan in what turned out to be a friendly fire accident. The book is filled with the history of the Afghan war and Tillman’s journey from high school to college to pro football, excerpts from his journals and interviews with friends and family, and the investigation and cover-up that followed his death. The book jacket describes Tillman as a “driven, complex and uncommonly compelling” person. Better than I could say it.

Any great books you are reading or have read that you would suggest?