Anders's Education August 2024 - July 2025
Anders was a full time college student at ASU during this year. He also went to work with his father a lot and rowed at a yacht club near our house. Those were his main focuses, this is just the stuff he did to finish what we had started.
Key
Anything in red we highly recommend.
Anything in blue we recommend.
Anything in gray Anders or/and I do not recommend.
Anything in black we have no opinion (yet)
All work/books were completed unless otherwise noted.
BUSINESS/LIFE SKILLS
Business / Economics
To Read The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism by Olivia Fox Cabane
Read Blog Post: TTF Tech / Productivity: How I Work When I Work Well by Tom Owens
Read article What Is the C-Suite? Meaning and Positions Defined by Andrew Bloomenthal
Life Skills
Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends: How to Fight the Good Fight at Home by Sarah, Stephen, and Grace Mally – This book is not well written and has a lot of gospel references that Anders did not get, but he liked the quizzes a lot and it was able to paint a picture of an ideal to strive for.
READING
Karina Yan Glaser – Read The Vanderbeekers series again
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede
Searching for Dragons by Patricia Wrede
Talking to Dragons by Patricia Wrede
Calling on Dragons by Patricia Wrede
Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason – Anders says it wasn’t too scary, but it was gruesome. It had adult themes but Anders did not have an issue with it. He thought it was a phenomenal book.
The Terminator by Randall Frankes & Bill Wisher
Terminator 2: Judgement Day by Randall Frankes & Bill Wisher
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines by Randall Frankes & Bill Wisher
Kid Lawyer by John Grisham –
The Abduction by John Grisham –
The Accused by John Grisham –
The Activist by John Grisham –
The Fugitive by John Grisham –
The Accomplice by John Grisham –
Reread all the Heinlein books
Until the Lights Come Back On: A Cyber Thriller by Lilly Setterdahl – He learned a lot about Sweden. Otherwise this was just a fun book.
Nancy Farmer’s Sea of Trolls series
Ranger’s Apprentice The Ruins of Gorlan series by John Flanagan
*Got a Kindle. Reads a ton. Many many books not included here.
HISTORY (1950-present day)
*Years are approximate. Most documentaries are from YouTube, but I also use Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Netflix, among other things. I have put all documentaries in quotation marks. This is not quite proper grammar, but I don’t want to go back through them and check their length to see if it should be quotation marks or italics.
*Some books are from a previous era in history that we already studied, but that he was not a good enough reader yet to read on his own at that time.
*We listened to the music of each time period as well.
*It was not my intention to have Anders read every book ever written by Trump, but Anders enjoyed his books so much that he wanted to read all of them.
*I have been asked why I don’t do more of the classics or “best” works of literature. The answer is that I was an English major and I have read most of the so-called greatest works and I do not think they are great. I actually think they are mostly disgusting, propaganda that will turn you into a wimpy, emotional, suicidally compassionate loser. I would love to teach a college English course on how whoever is making those lists of great literature is a commie, female idiot. I see fiction similarly to TV. Most of it is trash. It's someone else’s fantasy about how it would be nice if the world worked. It does not teach you about reality. Just the reality of loser-writer’s wishes. (and yes, I am a writer, lol)
*There were a lot more books post 1990 that are not included, but I am at the farm and can't check the bookcase to see what they were. Also, as you can see, I have not had Anders write reviews yet. Not highest priority right now. But this will get you started....
Read The Story of the World, Volume 4: Early Modern Times by Susan Wise Bower
Read The Usborne History Britain (pages 294-)
Was read DuPont: Behind the Iron Curtain by Gerard Colby (pages 32-)
1950: Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism by Bartow J. Elmore – Very educational in regards to the way businesses manipulate situations to get ahead. Business is a brawl in the mud.
1950: Bill Marriott Success Is Never Final: His Life and the Decisions that Built a Hotel Empire by Dale Van Atta – Super good. It tells you so many interesting things about why Bill Marriott was so successful.
1950: Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey – mildly entertaining
1950: A History of Advertising: The First 300,000 Years by Jef I. Richards
1950: DuPont: Behind the Iron Curtain by Gerard Colby Zilg – The end is meh, but the first few hundred pages I learned how they became so successful. They sold information. They made a lot of money selling guns and ammo. The tried to get information before everyone else to make important buying and selling decisions.
1950: All About Eve (movie) – It was very good. She is evil.
1950: Loony Toons
1950: The Savage Peace documentary – This is a documentary about the German genocide after World War II. Did you know that 90% of Germans living in Germany that survived the killings were deported to other countries where they had to scramble to get citizenship because their German citizenship was revoked?
1951: Watched I love Lucy season 1 – meh
1951: Witness: A True Story of Soviet Spies and American and the Trial that Captivated the Nation by Whittaker Chambers – There are so many documentaries about US spies but there is little about Soviet spies, so this was crucial information.
1951: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth, Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov – Worth reading but boring.
1952: Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut – It’s has a funny plot. You learn a lot about how super computers work.
1952: The Quiet Man – boring but gave a good idea of middle-class life during this time period.
1953: The Death of Stalin: A comedy of errors – It was kind of funny.
1953: Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke – Great book. Entertaining but you learn nothing about history.
1954: Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman – fascinating and I loved learning about the fights the Scientologists had with the IRS (and how the Scientologist ultimately won)
1955: James Jesus Angleton, the CIA, and the Craft of Counterintelligence by Michael Holzman – I knew almost everything in this book. The new stuff gave me nightmares.
1956: The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke – another well written dystopian novel. It doesn’t really stand out though.
1956: The Searchers movie I enjoyed learning about the laws surrounding Native American reserves and how Native Europeans got them into their reserves. Just a solid, really good movie.
1957: The Letters of Tolkien – Some were boring, some were fascinating. It was fascinating to learn that every place he writes about in his books was based on a real place.
1957: The Untouchables by Elliot Ness -- One of the 10 best books I have ever read (After lord of the rings, men of iron, swiss family robinson, Mars, Tarzan, Lee Quan yew). It was a much cooler and better (not to mention over 700 pages shorter) written version of Donnie Brasco. Instead of going under cover these ten dudes went complete GOD mode on THE largest mafia family, and they destroyed it completely.
1957: The Untouchables movie (1987) – okay but skippable.
1957: Watched the first episode of Leave it to Beaver. Did not enjoy. Interesting that they present a two child family when the average household had 4 kids.
1959: Rio Bravo movie. It teaches good morals. and has a complex plot.
1960: Marshfield Dreams: When I Was a Kid by Ralph Fletcher—This was a super entertaining book of short, true stories about a boy’s childhood in 1960’s Massachusetts.
1960: This Side of Wild by Gary Paulsen—hilarious.
1960: Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen— really funny.
1960: The Flinstones—Interesting that at the time women wanted to go to the opera and men wanted to go bowling. The opera is not very popular anymore.
1960: Woodsong by Gary Paulson—All of Paulson’s books are amazing.
1960: Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen—Excellent.
1960: Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns 1960-1970 – To talk with normies you have to know this but it’s boring.
1960: The Moonball by Ursula Moray Williams— read half of it and stopped reading. I do not enjoy books without clear plots and purposes, books that seem to be more “exploratory.”
1960: The Autobiography of Malcom X: As Told to Alex Haley – The first half was interesting but didn’t care for the second half.
1960: First Children: Growing Up in the White House by Katherine Leiner – really interesting. most of the white house children were terribly spoiled.
1962: Navy Seals: The Combat History of the Deadliest Warriors on the Planet by Don Mann – so good I read it in one day. Really interesting stories.
1962: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence movie – enjoyed learning how towns and states could join the United States. plot development in the film was excellent as many congruent plots worked together.
1962: Africa Addio docuementary Italian version with subtitles – This is about the end of the colonia era in Africa. kind of interesting.
1962: The Jetsons—It makes fun of stay at home moms and has the teen daughter think her parents are losers.
1964: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory –
1964: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie -- The best things in life are the unexpected things. I think this movie showed me how useful it is to be a well-behaved child. It was a very fun movie. 50% of the movie was them singing and dancing.
1965: Dune, Children of Dune, and Messiah by Frank Herbert
1965: From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000 by Lee Kuan Yew -- This book ranks among the top ten books I have ever read. What I learned is that although the people were originally upset by his actions, they realized that it was for the greater good and so they seemed to be not too mad at him.
1965: The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop - loved the first half but lost interest when it got too focused on engineering and did not read the second half.
1966: Red Scarf Girl by ? It was a good story about a kid growing up in a poor family during the rise of the rising sun religious group. After the entire town turns against them for not liking the revolutionists they live like zoo animals. When the king's troops return they are rewarded for their loyalty.
1966: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu – Did not learn anything from this book. It was just fun.
1968: 2001 A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke – Plotless. The author tried to give it a plot but failed terribly. It was kind of interesting, like an exploration of what it might be like to explore space but… this might not be worth reading.
1967: YouTube USS Liberty Survivor Speaks Out | Candace Ep 118
1968: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick
1968 Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut -
1969: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1969: True Grit (movie) -- Not one of the best movies I have ever seen but it was definitely good.
1969: Youtube: How We Faked The Moon Landing With Bart Sibrel | Candace Ep 124
1970: Becoming Trader Joe: How I did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe – This restored some of my faith in humanity. It is an awesome story of how a man came from the back woods of LA and made a huge change in retailers.
1970: Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns 1970-1994 –There is nothing that stands out on these DVDs. The only thing that I took away from it is that now I can talk baseball terminology with baseball fans.
1972: Hockey: A People’s History episode 7 and 8 – Episode 7 is about women being allowed to join the men’s league. Episode 8 is about Wayne Gretsky. The Soviet Union started beating Canada at hockey until Gretsky. But then the LA Kings bought Gretsky. RIP Canada. Episode 8 was the best episode of the series. It is a red.
1972: The Godfather I, II, and III -- It was absurdly suspenseful. Imagine mission impossible but it is twice as long so you are watching a 15 min long scene where a guy gets ready to shoot the godfather and you are freaking out because you don't know if he is going to get shot or not. The moral of the movie was if you live by the sword you will die by the sword, but what normys would take away is that don't pursue money and power or your loved ones would get killed. Dad believes the propaganda in these movies is for children to not join the family business and follow their own dreams.
1975: Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt -- I liked the book except for the part where she saves a killer from getting killed. This book should not be read by anyone under the age of 10. Because the reader must be able to realize how bad it is for her to be saving a criminal from being brought to justice. My favorite part about this book is that I got to explore the fascinating possible downsides of immortality. I don't think the writer milked this concept for all that it was worth. Being unable to die while the sun dies and you are stuck floating for eternity in space until you hit another planet sounds terrible.
1975: Warning to the West by Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- It had a lot of very interesting quotes that I liked, such as, "For even in prosperity one must stay on guard," and "Only when you fall do you catch on." It also talks about how the Soviets only survived because of American aid, and then they told their country that the Americans are evil. Other than those and more quotes the book was just one very long speech. I think it would not be a must read but people have to at least skim it. Also the Soviets were the first people to do concentration camps.
1976: Donnie Brasco by Joseph D. Pistone -- I loved it. It was a very long book, but it kept me interested through the entirety.
1976: Rocky and Rocky II (film)
1979: Asshole Attorney: Musings, Memories and Missteps in a 40 Year Career by Douglas J. Wood – I recommend this book for kids interested in being lawyers only.
1979: Alongside Night by J. Neil Schulman -- It was essentially the french revolution but a lot less bloody and with really high-tech weapons and other devices.
1980: YouTube. McDonnell Technology Services: The Century: America’s Time – 1981-1989: A New World
1980: YouTube: History: Modern Marvels: How Las Vegas Became a City Like No Other (S2, E3)
1980: YouTube: History: Modern Marvels: Gadgets of the 1980’s (S12, E15)
1980: The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner - maybe an engineer type kid would like it.
1984: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
1985: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
1985: Crisis in Candyland: Melting the Chocolate Shell of the Mars Family Empire by Jan Pottker
1985: Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart -- I lost a lot of faith in humanity reading this book. The last half of the book was three best friends screwing each other over again and again. I did learn about how corrupt some people are though.
1985: F. Daniel Frost and the Rise of the Modern American Law Firm by Toni M. Massaro -- This is one of the lawyer books. This guy worked for a ship building company. He had to argue many weird cases. It was a very disgusting yet funny book. Red for someone who wants to be a lawyer.
1986: The Watchmen by Alan Moore – This was not written intentionally—there was no overall plan or plot from the beginning. I hate things like that.
1987: Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz – It sounds like the way Trump talks. The book explains how Trump went from having 20k to having two billion. Trump went to a military college
1987: Hatchet, The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Return, Brian’s Hunt - by Gary Paulson -- It was like a boy scouts manual but in a story form. I loved the book.
1989: Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin -
1990: YouTube. McDonnell Technology Services: The Century: America’s Time – The 90’s and Beyond: Then and Now
1990: YouTube. IntroBooks Education: History of Internet Documentary
1990: YouTube. Documentary Lab: Internet Revolution – Worldwide Web
1990: YouTube. NationSquid: How We Made the Internet
1990: YouTube. Real Life Legends: Stephen Hawking biography documentary
1990: YouTube: NationSquid: How ‘90s Internet Destroyed the Economy
1990: YouTube: Strange World: Dot Com Bubble Wall Street Documentary
1990: YouTube: The Big Picture: What Casued the Dot-Com Bubble
1990: Patrick Boyle: The Dot-Com Bubble Wall Street History
1990: Trying Cases: A Life in the Law by Haliburton Fales:
1990: Confessions of a Medical Heretic by M.D. Robert S. Mendelsohn
1990: Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty by Daniel Schulman
1990: Trump: Surviving at the Top by Donald J. Trump with Charles Leerhsen
1990: The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
1991: Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez
1993: The Bogart by Susan Cooper
1995: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
1995: Proceed with Caution: A Diary of the First Year at One of America's Largest, Most Prestigious Law Firms by William R. Keates
1995: Corporate Hell: A Memoir by Randy Zinn
1996: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass -
1999 Unrestricted Warfare by
2000: YouTube, Moconomy: The World of Hackers
2000: And Just Like That: Essays on a Life Before, During, and After the Law by Mark Shaiken-
2001: Trigger Warning: Tales from a Life in the Law by Brooks Eason
2001: YouTube: What REALLY happened on 9/11? | Candace Ep 9
2001: YouTuve: Former CIA Officer Exposes The Shadow Government | Candace Ep100
2004: Trump: How to Get Rich by Donald J. Trump and Meredith McIver
2004: Trump: The Way to the Top: The Best Business Advice I Ever Received-
2004: Trump: Think Like a Billionaire—Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life by Donald Trump
2007: Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen
2011: Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Out Minds and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom—Wow this was good.
2021: A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir by Colin Jost
2008: YouTube: Danny Cheek: Stock Market Crash of 2008
2008: YouTube: CrashCourse: How It Happened – The 2008 Financial Crisis: Crash Course Economics #12
2008: The Wall Street Journal: Warren Buffet Explains the 2008 Financial Crisis
2008: The Plain Bagel: The 2008 Financial Crisis – 5 minute History Lesson
2008: JRE Slips: Joe Rogan – Matt Taibbi Explains the 2008 Financial Crisis
2011 Liar, Liar by Gary Paulsen -
2013 Lying by Sam Harris
2015 You’re Never Weird On The Internet (almost) by Felicia Day
2016 Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
2024 Private Equity by Carrie Sun I
The Crime Factory: The Shocking True Story of a Front-Line CID Detective by Officer