I Read 73 Books in 2020

Here is my reading list from 2020.

I post this up here in the tradition of what I’ve done the last few years. (See 2017, 2018, 2019 here.)

1. Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21 by Rosa Koire
2. Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve, Your Health, Wealth and Happiness by S.J. Scott
3. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Use And What To Do About It by Marcia Angell, M.D.
4. Hoodwinked: An Economic Hitman Reveals Why the Global Economy Imploded – And How to Remake Them by John Perkins
5. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
6. The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
7. Propaganda by Edward Bernays
8. Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired: Solutions for a Better, Healthier Life by Russell Jones
9. War is a Racket by General Smedley D. Butler
10. The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs the Masters of the Universe by Matt Kennard
11. The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World by John Perkins
12. Shape Shifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation by John Perkins
13. The System and Revolution by V.A. Shiva
14. Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
15. The Smear: How Shady Political Operative and Fakes News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote by Sharyl Attkisson
16. Crystallizing Public Opinion by Edward Bernays
17. Entering the Shift Age: The End of the Information Age and the New Era of Transformation by David Houle
18. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
19. The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You by Patrick McKeown
20. Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
21. Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington
22. Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World by Scott Harrison
23. Fauci: The Bernie Madoff of Science and the HIV Ponzi Scheme that Concealed the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic by Charles Ortleb
24. Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez
25. Plague of Corruption: Restoring Faith in the Promise of Science by Dr. Judy Mikovitz & Kent Heckenlively, JD
26. Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma has Corrupted Healthcare by Peter C Gotzsche
27. You Are Enough: Revealing the Soul to Discover Your Power, Potential, and Possibility by Panache Desai
28. Common Sense by Thomas Paine
29. The Man Who Could Fly: St. Joseph of Copertino and the Mystery of Levitation by Michael Grosso
30. Influx by Daniel Suarez
31. No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy by Linsey McGoey
32. The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman by Peter Rost MD
33. The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It by Warren Farrell, PhD and John Gray, PhD
34. This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by Peter Pomerantsey
35. The Official U.S. Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare Handbook: Guerrilla Warfare, Resistance & Insurgency
36. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
37. Change Agent by Daniel Suarez
38. Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen
39. Spark: Take Your Business From Struggle to Significance by David A. Hilton
40. Touching the Jaguar: Transforming Fear into Action to Change Your Life and the World by John Perkins
41. Soul-Centered Healing: A Psychologist’s Extraordinary Journey into the Realms of Sub-Personalities, Spirits, and Past Lives by Thomas Zinser, Ed.D.
42. Unrestricted Warfare: Translated from the Original People’s Liberation Army Documents by Col. Qiao Liang and Col. Wang Xiangsui
43. The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America by Allan M. Brandt
44. Creating a Private Foundation: The Essential Guide for Donors and Their Advisors by Roger D. Silk and James W. Lintott
45. King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
46. Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard
47. Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five by John Medina
48. Li Qingyun: Longevity Methods of a 250-Year-Old Taoist Immortal by Stuart Alve Olson
49. The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to Our Ancestral Diet by Paul Saladino MD
50. Tower of Basel: The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World by Adam LeBor
51. Finding a New Normal: Permission to be Real in Your Grief by Ray Leight
52. The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care – And How to Fix It by Marty Makary, MD
53. Detox Declutter Dominate: How to Excel by Elimination by Perry Marshall and Robert Skrob
54. The Elixir of Immortality: A Modern-Day Alchemist’s Discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone by Robert E. Cox
55. Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump by Michael Cohen
56. I Choose to Live: On 29 May 1996 Sabine Dardenne was Kidnapped by Marc Dutroux. She was Twelve Years Old by Sabine Dardenne
57. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
58. The Ultimate Isometrics Manual: Building Maximum Strength and Conditioning with Static Training by Paul “Coach” Wade
59. The Practice of Soul-Centered Healing: Vol. 1 Protocols and Procedures by Thomas Zinser, Ed.D.
60. Gone in 20 Minutes: Helping People Nationwide Like You Recover From Their House Fire Disasters by Dick Emerine, PhD
61. The Serpent on the Staff: The Unhealthy Politics of the American Medical Association by Howard Wolinsky & Tom Brune
62. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben: The Unholy Alliance Between Hitler and the Great Chemical Combine by Joseph Borkin
63. The Scrum Fieldbook: A Master Class on Accelerating Performance, Getting Results, and Defining the Future by J.J. Sutherland
64. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
65. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
66. Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quigley
67. Renegade Millionaire: 7 Secrets to Extreme Wealth, Autonomy and Entrepreneurial Success by Dan S. Kennedy with Lee Milteer
68. Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in American by Richard E. Brown
69. Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism by Sharyl Attkisson
70. Not For Sale by Operation Underground Railroad
71. How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
72. The Complete I Ching by Taoist Master Alfred Huang
73. The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse by Dale Pendell

Some Details About My Reading This Year

At 73 books I read less than the previous year. Well, that’s not exactly accurate. I think many of these books are significantly bigger than previously. The 1,311-page Tragedy & Hope being the biggest of the bunch, but plenty 400 and 500 page books too.

In addition, with the pandemic I was doing more online research and a bit less in reading books, which I would say is the main reason my total was less.

On top of this were life events such as my home burning down and moving out of state that took up my time.

But there was good news in that. I never replaced my TV, so my reading time increased towards the end of the year. (From #50 on was all in just the last three months of the year.)

I would love to dig into the many great books I read but will not be spending that much time on it this year. Too many other pressing projects. Still I’ll give a little bit…

Top 12 for Expanding My Worldview

I will give a Top 12 List for understanding how the world really works:

1. The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. This I re-read leading up to my interview with Perkins. Great place to start as he’s also a great writer.
2. The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs the Masters of the Universe by Matt Kennard. Very similar to the John Perkins book but from a journalist and covering more current events.
3. The Smear: How Shady Political Operative and Fakes News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote by Sharyl Attkisson. All three of Attkisson’s books are well worth reading. Doing so will give you a good understanding of how news is broken, especially why it’s gotten so much worse in in the last two decades.
4. Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma has Corrupted Healthcare by Peter C Gotzsche. If you read one book on the subject of Big Pharma’s criminal actions, this is probably the definitive text. It’s what I read that really gave me the strong hypothesis that Big Pharma actually operates as a criminal cartel.
5. No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy by Linsey McGoey. It’s interesting that any criticism of Bill Gates is now thought of as far-right conspiracy theory. But it’s not true. There are very legitimate reasons to criticize this billionaire. I borrowed heavily from this book for this article here – Non-Conspiracy Criticism of Gates Foundation
6. Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen. Operation Paperclip is one of the well-known and disclosed conspiracy theories. It’s when the US government brought over Nazi scientists, including war criminals to the USA and covered their tracks. This was even discussed in one of the Avengers movies. Nazism didn’t so much die as it went underground. The consequences of such are darker than any neo-nazi thing going on today in my opinion.
7. Unrestricted Warfare: Translated from the Original People’s Liberation Army Documents by Col. Qiao Liang and Col. Wang Xiangsui. Information warfare. Scientific warfare. Narrative warfare. I’ve talked about the Battleground for Your Mind. This book written by Chinese Communist Party members shows the evolution of wartime thinking and strategy helping to inform what’s occurring today. Parts of it are a slog but other parts let you understand how war is waged today and we’re actively in it.
8. The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America by Allan M. Brandt. Understanding how industry captured science and politics is essential understanding. Big Tobacco were the pioneers. I’m working on a report that distills down this information. This is the definitive history on the subject.
9. Tower of Basel: The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World by Adam LeBor. The Bank of International Settlements is one of the most important banks in the world…that next to no one knows anything about. Deep ties with Nazi’s, including laundering gold stolen from countries and the teeth of concentration camp victims. The BIS is literally structured beyond any national government…and not transparent at all. Learn the history here. (More Nazism going underground. This book specifically mentions the Redhouse Meeting which is chilling and something I’ll definitely cover in the future more so.)
10. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben: The Unholy Alliance Between Hitler and the Great Chemical Combine by Joseph Borkin. I.G. Farben was a chemical conglomerate that was responsible for Hitler’s War Machine. After WW2 they were broken up into smaller companies…but not really. These companies still exist making up agricultural, chemical and pharmaceutical giants (Bayer is one). Nazism becoming corporatism.
11. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer. Understand how the Koch Brothers used their money to make more money and manipulate, well, just about everything. Shows the history and outcomes of the Kochtopus. Recognize that this is just one powerful group making use of these tactics.
12. Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quigley. A history of the world from before WW1 through to the Cold War. Fascinating overview which includes the paradigms, the systems that led to many things such as the rise of Hitler. Does not shy away from known conspiracies either like Rhodes and the Round Table groups.

It’s important to realize that no one book will give you everything you need to know. Instead it is best to look at each as a lens through which to get a view on a particular area. And that lens likely comes with some of it’s own baggage, even ideology that can distort other lenses.

Favorite Novels

I was going to say, let’s end on a more positive note, but in a way this fiction is just as dark! I’ll mention two of my favorites here, very different from each other.

Influx by Daniel Suarez – Suarez is one of my favorite sci-fi writers. This story involves a Bureau of Technology Control that keeps powerful and disruptive technologies from the public. We know there are some hidden technologies by our governments. The question is how far does it go? This book takes those concepts and runs far with them.

The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse by Dale Pendell – This book is about a pandemic that starts in 2021. It was written in 2010. It’s an odd book in its structure, telling stories across the span of time. Some from right after the pandemic (this one being actually very deadly). Others centuries and millennia afterwards. It stretches the mind to see civilization collapse and spring up again in ways that show the cycles repeating.

Your Turn

If you have any questions about any of these books go ahead and ask them in the comments below.

Also please share your top one or two books that you read last year.