Observe and Rapport

I get a s**t ton of book recommendations. Most I politely file away.

But every now and then, the universe gets pushy. Multiple people from different corners of my life all insisting I read the same thing.

In this case, the book was Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

I’m not gonna lie, through the first 200 pages I was thinking, “This is the book everyone won’t shut up about?” I kept waiting for the big plot twist, the explosive action, the grand drama. Instead, it just sort of... wandered. Slooowly. It felt like an old cowboy muttering stories around a campfire while making coffee. But like a slow-burn TV series, I figured if I pushed through a few more episodes (or in this case, another hundred pages) something would click. Thankfully, it did.

What makes Lonesome Dove so remarkable is that it isn’t really a page-turner in the modern sense. The plot is almost secondary. The real engine of the novel is the characters: their quirks, their flaws, the way they talk. The characters feel more real than people I actually know. McMurtry lets you understand people so completely that you sympathize with them even when they’re being insufferable.

On the surface, the novel contains all the classic Western ingredients: cattle drives, gunfights, whiskey, outlaws, storms, raids into Mexico, river crossings, and plenty of dirt and sweat. But underneath all of that, the book is really about relationships - friendship, duty, masculinity, loneliness, aging, the quiet sadness of people who never learned how to say what they actually feel.

At the center of it all are former Texas Rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, two of the best characters I’ve ever encountered in literature. Gus is charismatic, hilarious, emotional, and endlessly talkative. Call is stoic, emotionally constipated, and seemingly allergic to vulnerability. Together, they form one of the most fascinating and oddly believable friendships I’ve ever read.

Rating: 4.7 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You may have noticed my recent turn toward Christianity. Don’t worry, I’m not turning into some Bible-thumbing Jesus freak. But I am more curious than ever, so consider this me following that curiosity wherever it leads.

I’ve felt a pull. Call it intuition, call it God, call it something I can’t quite explain yet. Either way, it’s been strong enough that I can’t ignore it.

So it felt a little weird when I walked past the Little Free Library in my neighborhood. I’ve passed it a hundred times and never once found anything worth grabbing. But this time, a book with the title Rediscover Jesus was staring me right in the face.
I almost kept walking. But something told me not to.

I felt like it was a sign that I had to start reading it immediately. The book is filled with short, but powerful chapters that can be read in 5 mins or less, that provide a little jolt to start your day and also make you uncomfortable... in a good way. I

What I appreciated most is how approachable it is. As someone new (or newly returning) to faith, I’m always bracing for the moment where things start to feel preachy or over the top. That moment never really came.

If anything, the book reframes Christianity in a way I hadn’t fully considered before. Growing up Catholic, faith often felt more like a ritual than a relationship. Show up, follow along, repeat. But this book makes a strong case that the whole thing is supposed to be personal.

I flew through the book, partly because it’s designed that way, but also because it felt like I was being pulled through it. Not by the writing, but by the questions it leaves you with after you close it.

Rating: 3.4 / 5 ⭐️⭐⭐️

After reading Mere Christianity, I went down the Christian apologetics rabbit hole, which eventually led me to the legendary Timothy Keller.

Keller was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC and one of the most influential Christian thinkers of our time. I was choosing between The Reason for God and The Meaning of Marriage. Given that I’ve been married for almost 5 years and had never really considered the Christian view of marriage, I opted for the latter.

Marriage is hard. But it is also, for me, the most meaningful commitment I’ve made. It’s a true covenant — a commitment to give yourself fully to another being. While love is what sparks a marriage, it is not the engine that keeps it going.

Keller’s argument is that marriage isn’t about self-fulfillment or even love, to a certain extent. It’s about mutual fulfillment through mutual sacrifice. Real love is tied to obligation.

A few years ago, I would have pushed back hard on that. Why bring God into it? Why involve the Church? Why not just keep it between two people? I even made that call myself. In hindsight, I missed the point.

But marriage is about sacrifice. You don’t become happy by marrying the perfect person and achieving your dreams. The goal is not to find the right person. The goal is to become the right person for someone else. And you only discover your own happiness after each of you has put the happiness of your spouse ahead of your own.

In other words, you must be willing to give something up before it can truly be yours.

As Keller puts it, “When the Bible speaks of love, it measures it primarily not by how much you want to receive but by how much you are willing to give yourself to someone.”

Rating: 3.9 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Well, suffice to say, this is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. Just a masterpiece from beginning to end.

I often heard it referred to as a “modern retelling of Cain and Abel,” but that is much too simplistic. Steinbeck takes the story and makes Cain (in the form of Cal Trask) the most human character in this book. He’s not driven by evil, but by a desperate need for love from a father who seems to favor his twin brother, Aron. The tension of Cal wanting to be good, but not knowing how, is what makes him unforgettable.

Set in California’s Salinas Valley, the novel traces two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - as they unknowingly reenact the oldest biblical stories: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the eternal pull between good and evil. But beneath all of it, Steinbeck is really asking a deeper question: Are we bound by our nature, or do we get to choose who we become?

That’s where the novel’s most powerful idea (and the inspiration for my next tattoo) comes in: timshel — “Thou mayest.”

Not “Thou shalt” (commandment) or “Do thou” (obligation) but Thou mayest. We have a choice.

It’s a subtle linguistic tweak, but it reframes God not as a dictator, but as a giver of freedom. It means that we have the free will to choose between good and evil, rather than having our destinies preordained. That seems to be the ethos of all of the characters within this book. Timshel gives power back to the individual.

That idea alone makes this book worth reading.

Also, Netflix is coming out with a series for East of Eden starring Florence Pugh. Excited for that to be released.

Rating: 5 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This place was made for guys like me📚

Checked out for the first time with Macy. It’s part bookstore, part bar, and part cafe. And they even have a kids section! So pumped to have a place like this in Huntington

Realized I never posted my 2025 favorites!

What C.S. Lewis does (and what fifteen years of Catholic education never managed) is explain the why. Not the rituals. Not the doctrine. The underlying logic of it all: why Christianity offers such a precise and surprisingly coherent map for navigating morality, love, and the aching complexity of being human. He uses plain language, concrete metaphors, and a refreshing intellectual honesty. He admits what he hasn’t figured out. He doesn’t try to convert you. He simply lays out why so many people don’t just choose faith, but find they need it.

For years, I’d written off the whole enterprise as theater for the credulous. Lewis dismantles that caricature. He shows that Christianity isn’t intellectual surrender, it’s intellectual humility. It’s the recognition that our moral instincts, our longing for meaning, and our ache for transcendence point somewhere beyond us. He translates what felt like suffocating Catholic jargon into something breathable.

There were moments I had to put the book down and just smile. Not because I was overwhelmed, but because, for the first time, someone had articulated what the priests and nuns of my childhood never could. The clichés I used to cringe at (“surrender,” “grace,” “letting Christ work through you”) started to actually make sense.

If you went to Catholic school and left feeling hollow, this book is what you were owed and never given. I feel like it’s a massive missed opportunity that Mere Christianity is not THE starting point for all young Christians — not the sacraments, not the Latin, not the guilt. THIS.

You may not finish Mere Christianity as a full-fledged believer. But if you grew up religious and walked away, I suspect you’ll at least understand what you walked away from.

That’s what happened to me. I went from not getting it… to getting it.

Rating: 5 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was one of the most fascinating non-fiction books I’ve read in a long time. Ryan Holiday often cites this as one of his most recommended books, and within the first 25 pages, I understood why.

John Vaillant takes us on a journey into arctic Russia in the mid-1990s. On the Pacific coast, bordering China, North Korea, and the Sea of Japan, this stretch of Siberian territory is as remote and isolated as one can get. He describes an unforgiving landscape that’s a mix of forest, jungle, coastline, and boreal tundra with wildlife extending from tigers, leopards, deer, wild boar, Himalayan bears, sea lions, crocodiles, moose, snakes, badgers, and hundreds more. Out here, the only role for humans is survival. Armed with tea, ci******es, and homemade bullets, the small population in the Primorye region lives on very little.

While the book is filled with rich history detailing post-perestroika Russia and the lives of the stoic bunch inhabiting this land, it’s really a story about a tiger.
The Amur Tiger is one of the largest cat species on the planet. The size of a station wagon, Amur tigers evolved to grow thick coats to survive the rough winters in northern Siberia. With night vision six times stronger than a human’s, they stalk their prey as solitary hunters, staying hidden and totally silent right until the moment they pounce. For decades, the people of Primorye lived somewhat peacefully among the tigers in their territory. There was a mutual agreement that as long as they weren’t bothering each other or disrupting their environment, they lived in harmony. That is, until one particular tiger began attacking the villagers — not out of starvation, but out of vengeance.

At the core of the story is the investigation of a unique mauling in 1997 and the team that is dispatched to look into the killing.

Recommending this one to anyone searching for a fascinating tale rich in history, lore, and drama.

Rating: 5 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alright, ya caught me. Another “power of your subconscious mind” book. This one has been on my shelf for over a decade, untouched. I remember hearing Terry Crews singing its praises on a podcast with Tim Ferriss. “In order to ‘have’ you must ‘do,’ and in order to ‘do’ you must ‘be.’”

Although I still put Joseph Murphy’s The Power of Your Subconscious Mind at the top of my list, this book is an excellent alternative on the subject matter.

It’s so easy to get caught up in life and all the stresses. Our natural state is one of negativity, anxiety, and worry. The last thing you want to hear is “Think positive!” or “Be grateful!” But that’s not what this is about.

What this book is about is tapping into the unseen power of the Universe. I realize how woo-woo that sounds, but once you embrace it, it doesn’t sound ridiculous at all. This unseen power is at your fingertips, ready to be harnessed. We’re just too busy to notice it and, admittedly, too lazy to work on it. To manifest this energy, this book teaches you how to visualize, contemplate, and focus on what it is you truly want in life. It reveals that we only get what we desire most, and how to apply ourselves with a laserlike focus upon a goal, task, or project.

Charles Haanel wrote this book in the early 1900s with complete conviction that we are not separate from the power and the creative energy that gave birth to all that is; we are a part of it. He implores the reader to recognize that our lives are truly under our control by virtue of the thoughts we have and the feelings that they generate. Those who do the thinking in the world create and rule the world around them.

The language is a bit antiquated, so the first 50 pages are a bit difficult. But once you get past that, the messaging becomes abundantly clear.

Rating: 4.4 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Just gonna peak in quick…