The 3 Books to Read in December

Welcome back, it’s been a while! While I apologize for my absence in posts, it turns out that planning and executing a transatlantic move, with two pets no less, is infinitely more of a task to take on than I had prepared for. While my wife was a badass and took care of most of it, it still required a lot of teamwork. Thankfully, we have made it to Oklahoma City, and boy have we hit the ground running. I want to begin by saying that leaving Europe was much, much harder than I thought it would be. For what was a pretty up and down experience for myself, I truly didn’t think I would be so sad and emotional leaving our apartment and our city. Maastricht was truly the best possible place we could have spent the last 3 years, and I will forever recommend it to anybody who will listen. I cannot wait to take our future children there, show them where we lived, and relive the memories.

Reminiscing aside, it is an exciting time for us as we begin our adventure in Oklahoma City. We purchased a house in a suburb of Oklahoma City called Edmond. The house is perfect for us, and it has a perfect backyard for Ruthie to romp around in. It turns out that owning a home and making gradual renovations is actually a pretty fun time. We’ve owned the house for almost two weeks and we’ve managed to redo three rooms already. While Oklahoma is no crazy European adventure, it still has plenty of things in the state, and in the surrounding states, to explore. The great thing about Katie and me is that we can turn any old place into an exciting, adventurous time.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had a ton of time to read the last couple of weeks, but I still have a few suggestions to add to your reading list for the month of December. If not a reading list, since this is the month of giving, you can think of this as a possible shopping list for the reader in your life as well. As usual, I hope you enjoy it!

It’s very fitting that my first book post in Oklahoma includes a book that takes place in Oklahoma. Killers of the Flower Moon is a story of a brutal period of time, referred to as the “Reign of Terror,” between 1910 and 1930. In that time period, the Osage Indians were one of the wealthiest tribes in the United States. After decades of mistreatment and forced relocation by the US Government, the Osage struck gold in the form of oil in the lands that the US Government forced them onto. While that fortunate situation led to wealth beyond belief, it also led to violence and tragedy amongst their tribe. The white people who befriended the tribesmen were the same people who were murdering the tribesmen for the rights to the land that was rich in oil. If they weren’t murdering them for their headrights, they were charging them tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds of thousands of dollars in today’s money) to perform simple tasks such as writing up wills and contracts or fixing a car. This book does a fantastic job of detailing the brutality of the situation, as well as the immense level of greed that the white people surrounded the tribe. Another plot that runs parallel to the story of the Osage tribe, is how the Bureau of Investigation, now known as the FBI, came to fruition. The lead agent on the case was a Texas lawman named Tom White, and the book goes into detail about his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, and how they handled the investigation. Overall, this is a fantastic book that covers what was really a wild time in America’s history. It is wild to think that barely 100 years ago, there were train thieves, bank robberies, and still basically a wild west. This book also forces you to think about the atrocities that have been committed against Native Americans since 1492, all the way through the early 20th century, even still today. It is truly unfortunate that we have strongarmed them of nearly everything that once owned, and left them with the scraps. I strongly recommend giving this a read.

Ideally, this book would have been on my November edition of what to read, since it is very relevant to one of the candidates in the election, but since I didn’t get a chance to share it last month, I still think it is important to include in this month’s edition of what to read in December. Banking books will forever fascinate me. I don’t think I will ever have a career in the high finance world, but this book is one of many that provides a peephole into the chaos, corruption, and crazy antics that these rich bankers get away with. While the title makes it sound like the entire book is about Donald Trump and his antics with Deutsche Bank, that is only a sliver of the entire story. Most of the story focuses on Deutsche Bank and their rise to one of the biggest firms on Wall Street, to their collapse. The collapse is where Donald Trump plays a part in the story. Deutsche played fast and loose with their lending. After Trump repeatedly went back on his debts to the bank, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars, the bank continued to lend him massive sums of money to keep themselves on the upper echelon of institutions on Wall Street. It is truly fascinating to read how such intelligent people can make such horrid decisions in their jobs. At one point Deutsche Bank was lending to Trump, Jeffery Epstein, Iran, and Syria, as well as aiding in laundering money for Russia. Horrid decision making may be an understatement for Deutsche. This is the second book I have read by David Enrich, and when you get past the venom in his pen for Donald Trump and rich bankers in general, I do enjoy the way he tells stories.

Up there with Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger, this is one of my favorite memoirs that I have ever read. As you read reviews, you will realize that is the case for loads of other people. I have always been a Nike person. Whether it be their marketing campaigns, their uniforms for college teams, or their running shoes, I have always thought they have done an impeccable job. There is a reason they have been number one in sneaker sales for the last decade at least. This book tells Phil Knight’s journey from a skinny track star at Oregon under Bill Bowerman, to CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world. The story of how Knight started Nike, then named Blue Ribbon, is quite an awesome story. Even how they came up with the name and logo is awesome. The Greek goddess of victory, Nike, is such a badass name. Even the inception of the infamous Nike swoosh is badass. When asked what the hell a swoosh is, Knight responded, “it’s the sound of someone going past you.” I mean come on, how awesome is that? For an awkward guy who gets so stressed out that he hugs himself during tense negotiations, Knight is quite the astute leader and business mind. I mentioned this about General Mattis and Robert Iger in my books to read in October post, and Knight shares the same line of thinking. Knight is a believer in the school of thought that you shouldn’t tell people how to do things. You hired your people because you trust that they are brilliant and can take care of a task in an exceptional manner. As Knight says, “let them surprise you with their results.” I am not an expert in leadership, but if three of the more successful leaders in the last 20 years share the same style of management, you have to think they are onto something. Shoe Dog is a fantastic book that I cannot recommend enough. It should be required reading for every business school student and every person in a leadership position.