Compared to the average American, I read a massive number of books. I try to read around 10 books a month. I accomplish this because I don’t have TV in my house and I carry a book wherever I go. Whenever I have a few spare moments, I spend them reading. In 2024, the number of books I read was lower than some previous years, but I still managed to finish almost 100 books.
I won’t bore you with the details from all of them. The books listed below are the cream of the crop. They are the most informative and influential books I read last year. The books are ordered solely based on the date I read them. I think some of you will enjoy this reading list.
The Travelling Ape: What Travelling (Nearly) Everywhere Taught Me about Humanity, Geopolitics, and Happiness
If you don’t know, I’ve written a moderately well-received travel safety book. After reading my book, the author asked me to “blurb” his new book. This is what I wrote:
“I found The Travelling Ape to be an incredibly insightful and entertaining travel narrative. Mike’s passion for adventure and desire to experience other cultures really comes through in his writing. The book is a unique combination that both educates and entertains. If I had my way, The Travelling Ape would be required reading in all secondary school/university geography and world history classes. It kindles a passion for learning about other places and will make the reader want to take a trip around the world.”
Eat the Weeds: A Forager’s Guide to Identifying and Harvesting 274 Wild Foods
I’ve been interested in edible/medicinal wild plants for more than 40 years. This is absolutely the best book available on the subject.
The Attack
A fictional account of what the next mass terrorist attack in the United States could look like.
Front Sight: Three Swagger Novellas (Earl Swagger)
Three generations of Swagger men killing bad guys with Thompson machine guns makes this one a fun and entertaining read. But it’s not all Thompson play. You shotgun aficionados might appreciate the prose in the paragraphs below.
To set the stage, the protagonist is an agent of the newly formed FBI. He’s one of the “gunfighters” hired by the Bureau to train the new agents and fight the gangsters in the 1930s.
He bought a Browning Auto-5 with a shortened barrel and loaded it with magnum loads of #4 buck to shoot up an illegal drug lab in the Chicago stockyards.
“He fired five No. 4 charges into the crate of pento. It was like firing a Thompson gun jacked on a saxophone bohemian’s noseful of cocaine, and it unleashed discordant percussive notes at burst speed. The flashes, given the shortness of the twenty-inch barrel and the darkness of the room, blossomed incandescent and vast, and the shells rushed through the gun’s process as if on an express train, in obedience to a finger that had pulled oh so many triggers.
The shells emerged, now empty husks bereft of powder and shot, at blur speed, spinning crazily atop one another as they were flipped out by the ejector. Mr. Cutts’s compensator, set to apogee, coaxed each flotilla of twenty-one pieces of lead in the widest possible pattern. The shot tore, shredded, disintegrated, shattered, destroyed. In less than a second, the crate had been pulped beyond recognition, and yielded only remains of tattered cardboard, flecks of which floated heavily in the air, splintered glass vials, and Bakelite caps.”
If you are a fan of historical fiction that gets the gunfighting right, you’ll like the book.
Solid active shooter information.
The Key to Prostate Cancer: 30 Experts Explain 15 Stages of Prostate Cancer
I’ve read dozens of prostate cancer books since my diagnosis about five years ago. This is by far the most useful of the lot. It breaks a very complicated process into very simple action steps and provides all the advice your doctors don’t have time to give you.
Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
Understanding exactly which type of conversation you are having is a communications game changer.
Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture
A masterful examination of the role of firearms in modern culture.
One of the best travel books I’ve read, especially useful for new or anxious international travelers.
Arc Road: The Horrific Murders of Three Police Officers in Gwinnett County Georgia That Changed Law Enforcement Forever
An entertaining true-crime narrative that reads like fiction. It describes 1960s law enforcement in the rural south and covers the investigation of the deaths of three sheriff’s deputies who were killed while investigating a stolen car late at night in 1964.
Trail Safe: How to Avoid Danger in the Backcountry
I re-read this one as penance for my wilderness fall and forgot how good the information was. Anyone who enjoys the outdoors should read this one.
A page turning historical account of the outlaw pair that dispels a lot of popular myths.
A day-by day account of the riots in Minneapolis following George Floyd’s death written by a friend who lived very close to the areas where the protests took place. I predict this one will be revered as a historical reference in the years to come when the events described are “memory holed.”
If It Was Comfortable, They’d Call It Camping
A modern day primer covering best practices for spending significant amounts of time away from civilization.
While you are contemplating book purchases, don’t forget my travel safety book. For even more great books, check out my Recommended Reading page.
Some of the above links (from Amazon.com) are affiliate links. If you purchase these items, I get a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.
