Lessons I Learned from Reading More than 100 Books

I created a reading challenge for myself to read 100 books in 2013.

I rang in the New Year having read 108 books. I tracked my monthly reading list and reviewed many of the books. The reviews also are linked on the list.

I used the Twitter hashtag #100Books to indicate reviews of the books I read and posts related to reading.

Now that I’ve reached the end of the challenge, I thought it would be fun to review for you what I learned, much like what Julien Smith did in his post, Lessons I Learned in Reading Over 200 Books.

Here are my three sentence or less reviews of the 108 books I read in 2013.

1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Doctors treated this woman’s body as a science experiment, just because they could. That’s just wrong.

Read my full review.

2. Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall 

Teens are difficult to get along with. Boys retreat. Girls stay and fight.

3. What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

Successful people have intentional morning routines that further their goals. They don’t repeatedly hit the snooze button.

Read my full review.

4. Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to build and online brand.

Read my full review.

5. Blacklisted from the PTA

Lela Davidson is one funny lady who writes about parenting mistakes that other people hide.

6. Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life

You can get a lot of things if you ask for them correctly and treat others right.

Read my review here.

7.  1-on-1 Management

The best managers spend focused time with individual employees, showing them how they matter to the organization and supporting their goals.

8. Finish Your Dissertation Once and For All

The best way to finish a big writing project is to schedule and protect writing time.

9. The Fault In Our Stars

Sick kids are sad, but they really understand life.

Read my review here.

10. Truth, Lies and Advertising

Successful account planners understand people and how to partner with them to create great work.

11. The New Elevator Pitch

 The best way to communicate effectively is to focus completely on your listener.

Read my full review.

12. Daddy Love

There are sick people in this world who do terrible things to children. This book was way too real about one such person.

Read my full review.

13. Cover of Snow

There are places where it does nothing but snow. Crimes happen there. The snow makes solving them more difficult.

Read my full review.

14. All She Ever Wanted

Postpartum depression is real, but it can be overcome.

Read my full review.

15. The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

Some people don’t fit in because of things about them that they can’t change. It’s unfortunate and unfair.

Read my full review.

16. Biography of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was a jerk. And he was brilliant. And he was a jerk.

Read my full review.

17. I Thought It was Just Me, But It Isn’t

Shame is a circle we fear and perpetuate.

Read my full review.

18. Never Knowing

Sometimes we think we want to know things, but the truth is worse than anything we could have imagined.

Read my full review.

19. Advertising Account Planning: A Practical Guide

A step-by-step guide for understanding the job of an account planner.

20. Unleash the Power of the Female Brain: Supercharging Yours for Better Health, Energy, Mood, Focus, and Sex

It’s amazing that women aren’t all totally crazy. Our hormones are all over the place. We’re rarely balanced.

Read my full review.

21. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence

We treat trauma victims like they’re crazy. They aren’t. They’re suffering.

22. Here I Go Again

When people don’t like you, it’s probably your fault. Change your wicked ways.

Read my full review.

23. What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekends

Hint: They don’t work. If they do, it’s focused and limited.

Read my full review.

24. 25 Tips for Productivity

Lots of good stuff here. My favorite is “Write down key information.”

Read my full review.

25. Whatever You Love

When everything is taken from you, you want to take everything from the person who caused that

Read my full review.

26. Say When

When has a marriage veered too far off from the ideal to be saved? Perhaps it depends on the marriage.

27. Lean In

Women still aren’t treated equally. Not even close.

28. Getting Things Done

This is the productivity book. I took good ideas from my second read of it, but I mostly still think it’s too complex.

29. Making Marriage Simple

To make marriage simple, treat your partner the way you want to be treated and notice how he/she treats you.

Read my full review.

30. The How of Happiness

To be happy, figure out what’s making you unhappy and either fix it or let it go.

Read my full review.

31. Living Dead Girl

Sometimes life is worse than death.

Read my full review.

32.  Think Like a Rockstar

If you think like a rock star, you can turn your customers into fans. Fans are loyal.

Read my full review.

33. The Perks of Being a Wallflower 

Being a teenager is a crazy, difficult thing, but it’s also an exciting time to find yourself.

Read my full review.

34. Save Me

How would you respond in an emergency and what might that response cost you?

35. The Joy of Teaching

This is a great guide on how to create teaching success. It’s a good read for a first-year teacher.

36. Primal Leadership

Real leadership takes focus, understanding and practice.

37. The Power of Unpopular

Doing what’s best for your brand and/or clients won’t always make you popular and it doesn’t matter one bit.

38. The Last Lecture

Knowing you’re going to die helps you focus on living.

39. The Affair

There is more than one side to every story. Sometimes there are three sides.

40. No Easy Day

This book is about the day Navy Seals caught Osama Bin Laden. It’s super interesting.

41. You Don’t Want to Know

Sometimes when you think you’re crazy it’s because the people you think you can trust are tricking you.

42. Simpleology

It’s not simple.

43. Stolen Innocence

Some children are born into terrible situations and it takes everything they have to break out of them.

44. Thirteen Reasons Why

We don’t understand why teens commit suicide, unless they leave us reasons.

Read my full review.

45. Always Watching

Sometimes the person you should fear the most is someone you would never expect.

46. Until I Say Good-bye

The story of a journalist battling ALS reminds me how heartbreaking the disease is.

47. The Sociopath Next Door

Sociopaths are everywhere. I bet you’ll identify at least one you know if you read this book.

48. Daring Greatly

You have to take big chances to do great things.

49. Spark

Exercise actually makes us smarter, not just physically healthier.

50. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery

Sometimes people with unfavorable lifestyles go missing and not that many people care.

51. The Execution of Noa P. Singleton

You can know things that you can’t tell to protect the ones you love.

52. Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked

Some people are bat shit crazy and they can ruin your reputation, even when you’ve done nothing wrong.

53. Denial: A Memoir of Terror

Rape stays with you and changes the person you become.

Read my full review.

54. The Last Hour

Life can change in a second.

55. A Thousand Tomorrows

A story on inconvenient love and loss.

56. Coming Clean: A Memoir

Hoarding is a terrible illness that impacts everyone around the hoarder.

57. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership

Gen. Colin Powell is a great leader with helpful stories to share.

58. The Crooked Branch 

Life for our ancestors was really hard and they did what they had to for survival.

59. Still Alice

Some illnesses cause people to lose their bodies, but not their minds. Others work the opposite way.

60. Me Before You

Love doesn’t chose the most convenient times or the most appropriate partners.

61. When Cancer Strikes a Friend

The best thing you can do for a friend with cancer is help them reestablish control as much as possible.

62. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

These “laws” aren’t secrets. They’re mostly just about treating people right.

63. The Time Between

All families have secrets, but knowing them doesn’t necessarily change the way you feel.

Read my full review.

64. Decisive

We have way too many biases that impact how we make decisions. Understanding these biases can help us make well-informed choices.

65. The Last Goodbye

You can’t run from your past forever.

66. The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting

Parents aren’t perfect. Children aren’t perfect either. These mutual imperfections make use perfect for each other.

67. The Missing Girl

Perverts stalk children. This book makes you not want to let yours leave your sight.

68. The Gifts of Imperfection

Embrace your imperfections. They’re actually good for you.

69. Monster

There are serial killers out there who get away with things most of us can’t imagine. However, they can’t get away with everything forever.

70. Amazing Things Will Happen

Work hard and embrace opportunities as they present themselves and amazing things will happen in your life.

71. The Husband’s Secret

It’s not what you think it is, but it’s so interesting.

72. The Secret Lives of Women

Women live all types of unexpected lives. It’s ok if these lives work for them. To each her own.

73. The Good Nurse

The good nurse was not such a good nurse at all. He was killing patients.

74. My Life Among the Serial Killers

A job researching and interviewing serial killers sound really interesting.

75. Bossypants

Tina Fey is one funny lady. This book will make you laugh.

76. Necessary Lies

You can’t save everyone from everything, even if you want to.

77. Release Me

Sometimes you need to read a trashy romance novel.

78. Claim Me

Sometimes when you read a trashy romance novel, you need to read another one.

79. Bringing Adam Home

The disappearance of Adam Walsh resulted in a greater understanding of how many children go missing each year and better methods of communicating about those crimes.

80. Complete Me

Sometimes you get so wrapped up in the steamy sex scenes in trashy romance novels that you read the trilogy.

81. The Stranger Beside Me

Crime author Ann Rule was great friends with a serial killer and she didn’t have a clue.

82. My Story: Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart never should have survived being kidnapped and held captive, but she did and somehow seems grounded.

83. Two Kisses for Maddy

It’s difficult when a spouse dies and leaves the other to care for their infant child.

84. Traumatic Neuroses of War

War damages people emotionally. We don’t take care of them after this happens.

85. There’s More to Life Than This

Theresa Caputo is awesomely gifted. I think we should be best friends.

86. The Rosie Project

Creating a statistically sound method for finding a wife doesn’t mean the plan will actually work.

Read my full review.

87. Everyone Communicates, Few Connect

Be quiet. Listen to people. Process what they say before you respond.

88. Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence

We lack focus. It’s only getting worse. It’s because our attention always is divided.

89. The Midwife’s Confession

You don’t really know people or what they’re capable of doing. Everyone has secrets, even those you think you know most.

90. In the Still of the Night

Parents shouldn’t outlive their children. When they do, they will stop at nothing to find out what happened to their child.

91. Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working Anymore

We have to be radical in our love for God and creating a lifestyle that shows it.

92. How to Talk so Teens will Listen and Listen so Teens will Talk

If you want your teen to listen, you should communicate with him or her like the adult he or she is becoming.

93. Attachments

When a quirky love story is set in a newsroom, it creates my favorite book of the year.

Read my full review.

94. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Understanding why you do what you do creates an automatic mission and a way to motivate those around you.

95. Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson

The Manson Family was brainwashed and scary crazy.

96. Close Your Eyes

Things you believe with all of your heart can be wrong.

97. Blog, Inc.

This is a basic book about blogging for anyone looking to start the practice. It was a great reference for the blogging class I taught.

98. Secondary Traumatic Stress: Self-Care Issues for Clinicians, Researchers and Educators

People who work with those who are traumatized are at risk of experiencing trauma themselves.

99. The Book of Matt

Matthew Shepard was murdered, but it may not have been because he was gay.

Read my full review.

100. Big Brother

Obesity is a sad, emotion-driven disease.

101. The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking

I don’t remember them. That has to say something about the book or about me.

102. My Horizontal Life

Chelsea Handler is a ho, but her stories are really funny.

103. Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting through to Absolutely Anyone

People respond well to those who really listen to them.

104. The Scent of Rain and Lightning

There is nothing quite a fun to read as a good whodunit with an unexpected twist at the end.

105. Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)

We love to point out what others have done wrong, but we make excuses for or justify our own mistakes.

106.Creep

Scary people don’t always look that way.

107. The Dinner

A whole book can, in fact, be written as set during a single dinner.

108. The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Crazy crap happens when a pond turns into an ocean.

I hope you enjoy these simple reviews. Happy Reading!