book reviews by tommy

2026 Book Reviews

Featured

The Life of Samuel Johnson (3 Volumes)

God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America

Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views

America's Uncivil Wars

Bad Blood: Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy and teh Tumultuous 1960s

1960: LBJ vs JFK vs Nixon by David Pietrusza

The Ai-Driven Leader

New Living Translation

City of God (Augustine)

2025 Book Reviews

Featured

2084 and the AI Revolution

Born To Be Wired

The Proving Ground

A Man of Letters

History Matters

Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future

KEATS: A brief life in nine poems and one epitaph

I will find you

Run With The Horses

Through Five Administrations

The Transformation Factor

Whatever It Is, I'm Against It

To Rescue The Constitution

Tell Me A Story

Featured

How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle

$100M Leads: How to get strangers to want to buy your stuff

Nightshade (Catalina #1)

The 5 Truths For Transformational Leaders (Mishrell)

Design Is Storytelling

An Unfinished Love Story

The CEO Test (Bryant/Sharer)

The Fixer: Spector #6 (Herzog)

Jesus Leader (Teague)

Israel and Civilization (Hammer)

Becoming A Student-Ready College

The Splinter: Spector #5 (Herzog)

The New China Playbook (Keyu Jin)

Death Without Company: Longmire #2 (Johnson)

Midnight Black: Gray Man #14 (Greaney)

The Leap To Leader (Bryant)

Humility (Murray)

The Great Dechurching (Davis & Graham)

The Cold Dish: Longmire #1 (Johnson)

The Year That Broke Politics (Nichter)

First Frost: Longmire #20 (Johnson)

Lectures to My Students (Spurgeon)

The Sleeper: Spector #4 (Herzog)

Weapons of Opportunity: Nick Flynn #3 (Brown)

The Target: Spector #3 (Herzog)

Treasury of David (Spurgeon)

This Could Be The Start Of Something Big (Berry)

City of God (Augustine)

The New Revised Standard Version Bible

2024 Book Reviews

Featured

Leadership In War: Essential Lessons From Those Who Made History

The Russian (Herzog)

The Asset (Herzog)

Broken (Winslow)

Countdown To Midnight (Brown)

Arctic Storm (Brown)

Matterhorn (Reich)

Take Charge of Your Life

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars (Lencioni)

Featured

The Mark of the Christian (Schaeffer)

Just Show Up (Ripken)

Academic Leadership and Governance of Higher Education (Hendrickson et al)

A Failure Of Nerve (Friedman)

LBJ's Neglected Legacy (Wilson, Glickman, Lynn Jr)

Long Bright River (Moore)

Red Sky Mourning (Carr)

Only The Dead #6 (Carr)

The Presidents & The Constitution: Lyndon B. Johnson

The Anxious Generation (Haidt)

The Boys In The Boat (Daniel James Brown)

In The Blood (Carr)

The President's Daughter (Clinton/Patterson)

Rogue Lawyer (Grisham)

Once An Eagle (Anton Myrer)

The Thiry-First Of March (Busby)

The Year Of The Locust (Hayes)

No Plan B (Child)

The Runner (Reich)

Wait Till Next Year (Kearns Goodwin)

Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson (Russell)

The Chaos Agent (Greaney)

Big Fish (Thomas Perry)

The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye (Lagercrantz)

The Girl Who Lived Twice (Lagercrantz)

Entrepreneuring In Established Companies (Brandt)

By Land And By Sea (Morrison)

City of God (Augustine)

Run With The Horses

book reviews by tommy

2023 Book Reviews

Featured

The Practice of the Presence of God (Lawrence)

Frog and Toad Together

Call Of The Chair (McKenna)

Die Trying (Child) (Copy)

Resurrection Walk (Connelly)

Generations (Twenge)

Forging Your Leadership Heart (Kiedis)

The Art of Tremendous (Jones)

The Devil's Hand (Carr)

Thoughts and Adventures (Churchill)

The 7 Most Powerful Prayers That Will Change Your Life Forever

He's Your Dog Charlie Brown (Schulz)

You Are What You Love (Smith)

Napoleon (Paul Johnson)

Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy Whitehouse (Dallek)

Opportunity Leadership (Parrott)

On Liberty (John Stuart Mill)

The Killing Floor (Child)

Savage Son (Jack Carr)

Featured

Letters For The Ages (Drake, Packwood)

The Black Box (Connelly)

What Makes A Great Coach (Doyle)

Six Types of Working Genius (Lencioni)

Eddie's Boy (Perry)

You're Only Human (Kapic)

Terminal List (Carr)

The Girl In The Spider's Web

True Believer (Carr)

Becoming Winston Churchill (McMenamin, Zoller)

CEO Excellence (Dewar, Keller, Malhotra)

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance (Gerstner, Jr)

A Small Town (Perry)

The Whistler (Grishman)

The Fifth Doctrine (Robards)

Traction: Get A Grip On YOur Business (Wickman)

The First Two Rules Of Leadership (Cottrell)

Strange New World (Trueman)

The Best And Brightest (Halberstam)

Burner (Greaney)

Kennedy & Johnson (Lincoln)

With The Bark Off (Spelce)

The Moscow Deception (Robards)

What Does It Mean To Be A Thoughful Christian (Dockery)

The Self-Aware Leader

NET Large Print Thinline Bible

A Place For Truth

book reviews by tommy

2022 Book Reviews

Featured

The Carroll Shelby Story (Shelby)

The Next President: The Unexpected Beginnings and Unwritten Future of America's Presidents

The Story of The Declaration of Independence

Saving Lady Liberty: Joseph Pulitzer's Fight For The Statue Of Liberty

Ninety-Two in the Shade (McGuane)

The Scaffolding of Rhetoric

Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill (Shelden)

The Constitution

James Patterson (Patterson)

One Word That Will Change Your Life (Gordon et al)

The Dip (Godin)

The Merchant of Venice

The Abyss: The Cuban Missle Crisis (Hastings)

The Vicar of Wakefield

Becoming A Life Coach (Chiarella)

Move Your Bus (Ron Clark)

Once A Thief: Christopher Reich

Together is Better (Sinek)

The Go-Giver (Burg and Mann)

Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living (Plantinga)

The Digital Leader (Charan & Vattikuti)

Total Power (Kyle Mills)

The Story of Old Glory

The Hunt for Red October

Featured

Smart Leadership: Mark Miller

10 Lessons For A Post-Pandemic World (Zakaria)

No Second Chance (Coben)

Transforming Leadership: James MacGregor Burns

The American Scholar: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leading Across Cultures: James E. Plueddemann

The Coddling of the American Mind: Lukianoff & Haidt

Self-Renewal: John W. Garder

The Burning Room: Michael Connelly

Sierra Six: Mark Greaney

The Christian Mind: Harry Blamires

Gentegration: Bobby Manning

Fins: Knoedelseder

Leadership: James MacGregor Burns

Invasion of Privacy: Christopher Reich

The Big Fella: Jane Leavy

Taking Charge (Beschloss)

Trillion Dollar Coach (Schmidt, Rosenberg, Eagle)

Gospel Patrons (Rinehart)

The Crossing: Harry Bosch #18 (Connelly)

My Years With General Motors (Sloan)

Absolute Zero #12 (Mars)

Zero Zero #11 (Mars)

Relentless (Gray Man #10 by Mark Greaney)

A Summons To Memphis (Taylor)

NIV Foundation Study Bible

Vengeance Zero #10 (Mars)

2021 BOOK REVIEWS

Featured

Chasing Zero (Mars)

CHristian Standard Bible

Decoy Zero (Mars)

Judgment Days (Kotz)

Leadership Is An Art (De Pree)

Better Off Dead (Lee Child, Andrew Child)

The Mission of God

What Only The CEO Can Do

Advent For Everyone

The Sacred Journey

The Wright Brothers

If You Want To Write

Engines of Change

Desiring The Kingdom

The Secret Coalition

The Amish Of Lancaster County

The Weapon Of Prayer

One Minute Out: Gray Man #9

The Four Loves (BBC Recording)

The Year Of Our Lord 1943

Blacktop Wasteland

The Four Disciplines of Execution

Featured

The Sacred Journey

The Four Loves (BBC Recording)

The Year Of Our Lord 1943

Blacktop Wasteland

The Four Disciplines of Execution

Last Hope Island

Urban Apologetics

Canoeing The Mountains

We Will Not Be Silenced

What's Holding You Back?

Seven Gray Swans

The March Of Folly

By Land And By Sea

The Effective Executive

The Quest For Cosmic Justice

The Rise And Triumph Of The Modern Self

Irreversible Damage

Common Sense 101

Crisis In Higher Education

Hillbilly Elegy

Basic Economics

The End Of The Affair

2020 Book Reviews

Featured

A Man Called Peter

This Is A Family Show

The Law of Innocence

David & Goliath

The Grand Design

Hero Tales From American History

Presidential Leadership

On Christian Teaching

Everyone Communicates, Few Connect

Opportunity Knocks

The Splendid And The Vile

Dreams Of El Dorado

The History Of The Ancient World

Managing Transitions

Mr. Midshipman Hornblower

Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglas

The Starfish And The Spider

Better Together

Walking With Destiny

Featured

Certain Woman Of An Age

Confronting Christianity

The Thank You Economy

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

High Performance Habits

2019 Book Reviews

Featured

The Storm Before The Storm

The Precious Present

ESV Thinline Bible

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Spirituality Of The Psalms

Remembering Roth

Before We Were Yours

A Christmas Carol

Anxious For Nothing

Organizational Communication

On The Brink Of Everything

The Reading Life

The 7 Laws Of Coaching

Man's Search For Meaning

The Ride Of A Lifetime

Mud, Sweat, and Tears

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

The Accidental President

Featured

The Measure Of A Man

Never Split The Difference

The Truth About Men: What Men And Women Need To Know

The Shadows We Hide

A Mango In The Hand

At The End Of The Open Road

Black Water Rising

Bluebird, Bluebird

Help Thanks Wow

The Grand Alliance

Naked Statistics

Mission Critical

Thomas Jefferson: The Art Of Power

Let My People Go Surfing

Astrophysics For People In A Hurry

Let Your Life Speak

Management Challenges For The 21st Century

2018 Book Reviews

Featured

Elegy Written In A Country Church-Yard

Jackson Davis and the Lost World of Jim Crow Education

What's Wrong With The World

The Boy And The Ocean

The Oak Inside The Acorn

How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

The Existentialists Survival Guide

Dark Sacred Night

Soren Kierkegaard

Political Science

Setting The Table

Liturgy Of The Ordinary

The World Beyond Your Head

The Memory of Old Jack

Christian Leadership Essentials

What The CEO Wants You To Know

The Day The World Came To Town

The Last Lion: Volume II

Portraits in Leadership

Nothing To Fear

The Good Neighbor

Featured

Waterloo (Copy)

The Everything Store

No Second Chance

Two Kinds Of Truth

The Alice Network

Leadership In Turbulent Times

A Thousand Splendid Suns

American Kingpin

High Potential Leader

Murder On The Orient Express

Strategize To Win

Lean In For Graduates

Walden On Wheels

Visions Of Vocation

The Agony And The Ecstasy

Leading with Vision

The Art of Neighboring

Featured

The Virtues of Aging

The Kremlin's Candidate

Lincoln At Gettysburg

The Life We Bury

Palace Of Treason

The Fellowship Of The Ring

Their Eyes Were Watching God

The Wisdom of John and Abigail Adams

The Burden Is Light

The American Spirit

Breakfast At Tiffany's

The Road to Unfreedom

Founding Brothers

Flashback! The 50's

The Everlasting Man

One Hundred and One Famous Poems

HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership

A Wrinkle in Time

On His Blindness

If You Can Keep It

Educated: A Memoir

Featured

Run With The Horses

The Last Lion: Volume I

The American Leadership Tradition

Our Iceberg Is Melting

The Best of O. Henry

We Can All Do Better

9 Things You Simply Must Do to Succeed in Love and Life

Twelve Years A Slave

Divided By Faith

The Warmth of Other Suns

Letter From The Birmingham Jail

Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in Education

In the Heart of the World

2017 Book Reviews

Featured

The Holy Bible (ESV)

Little Teammate

Manage Your Day-to-Day

Their Finest Hour

Good Advice On Writing

Crush It! Wow Now Is The Time To Cash In Your Passion

The Giving Tree

The Digital Photography Book

The End Of Reason

A Farewell To Arms

Churchill: The Life

Marching Off the Map

One-Page Business Plan

Reaching For Glory

Leading Without Power

The Midnight Line

Leadership Secrets from the Executive Office

Mercy Watson to the Rescue

What Do You Do with a Problem?

What Do You Do with an Idea?

Indomitable Will

Luther: The Life And Legacy Of The German Reformer