Reading in 2015

This year, one of my goals is to read more than I have in previous years. Every year, I intend to read more, but I'm trying to establish some good habits early in the year that I can build on throughout the year, and one such activity is reading. With Lady Jaye's recent visit concluded, I'm back to having some expendable time during most of my evenings, and one thing I've been pretty good about doing in this first week of the new year is reading most evenings. I set a goal on GoodReads of reading eight books in 2015. Since planning ahead tends to help to ensure that I accomplish goals (or, at least, I come closer to it than I would otherwise), I've made a list of the books I want to read this year. The first two are in order, and the rest are in no particular order.

1) Cyber War Will Not Take Place by Thomas Rid: Dr. Thomas Rid has been interviewed about "cyber war" on King's College London's War Studies Podcast several times: in October 2011, April 2013, and October 2013. I began reading his book in December, and have finished several more chapters in the last week. As I write this, I have a bit more to go, and I've been very pleased with Dr. Rid's arguments.

2) Warlords of Oman by P.S. Allfree: I've written extensively about my research about the Dhofar Rebellion. Last year, Amazon offered several new books on the conflict for download on Kindle, and I ended up reading a couple of chapters of this one before being distracted by other projects. I'm looking forward to picking it back up and reading through it once I'm finished with Dr. Rid's book.

3) Churchill's First War: Young Winston at War with the Afghans by Con Coughlin: Not quite a year ago, I listened to a lecture podcast from the Heritage Foundation in which Con Coughlin spoke about this book. I'm eager to read about Churchill's tenure in the Northwest Frontier (now in Pakistan, then in British India), which led him to write The Story of the Malakand Field Force.

4) Bleeding Talent: How the US Military Mismanages Great Leaders and Why It's Time for a Revolution by Tim Kane: Back in 2011, Dr. Tim Kane published an excellent article in The Atlantic entitled Why Our Best Officers are Leaving, in which he discussed the reasons why some of America's most talented military officers have chosen to leave uniformed service in favor of civilian jobs. Dr. Kane and a couple of other speakers were subsequently featured at an event at the Heritage Foundation. This book is an expansion of the article. Having never made it to commissioning for a number of the reasons discussed in the article and lectures, I'm very eager to read this, and suspect that it will satisfy my confirmation bias... Sort of like that Thomas Rid book.

5) Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force by Robert M. Farley: This one's another case of confirmation bias for yours truly. I've questioned the Air Force's need to exist as an independent service for a long time, and that suspicion only intensified as I studied for my master's degree in Strategy. I've listened to one interview with Robert Farley, and I've found another and another.

6) Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin: Lady Jaye's school participates in a literacy program, and this is one of the books on the list. We previously read No Easy Day and American Sniper together while I was in Scotland, and sort of burned out on Saving Private Sarbi, so we're eager to read this one together. The reviews suggest that even though the target audience is kids, it's a good overview of the atomic bomb program in the 1940's, so my time spent studying strategic nuclear doctrine makes me even more keen to read it.

7) Tower of the Sun: Stories From the Middle East and North Africa by Michael Totten: I've been following the dispatches of Michael J. Totten, a Portland-based journalist who's reported from a variety of locales. I was trying to read one of his earlier books, Where the West Ends, but that was sort of pre-empted by a combination of graduate school and laziness. I'm really looking forward to reading Totten's latest collection of dispatches.

Of course, that's not all I'll be reading this year. I do a chapter from the Bible most days, along with a passage from On War, and obviously the news. I'll also be reading from The Design and Evaluation of Physical Protection Systems by Mary Lynn Garcia and ATTP 3-39.32 (FM 3-19.30) Physical Security (the Army's physical security manual) as I pursue my PSP certification, and potentially additional materials should I choose to pursue my CISSP as well. As for that yet-to-be-chosen eighth book, I'm not sure what it will be. Maybe I'll follow up on Coughlin's book by reading The Story of the Malakand Field Force, or maybe I'll finish Where the West Ends, or H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, or Jules Vern's The Mysterious Island... Only time will tell.

UPDATE: Related: I may or may not have just submitted a profile for WarBooks.