The Robinson Reading Report is back with the March edition!! We’re about a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lot of us have stayed home more than we usually do. Some of us have read more books than usual, including me. I’ve compiled a list of my favorite books I read this month, and maybe you can check some of them out too! If this is your first time reading the Triple R, here’s a quick run down.
Similar to Gabe’s Reading List, the Triple R will list my favorite books I read during that month. The RRR will come out on the last day of the month, and Gabe’s will come out on the first day of the next month. That way, we have both reading lists on separate days.
The Robinson Reading Report is, for all intents and purposes, my version of Gabe’s Reading List. It will list my top picks that I read, along with the book cover and the Amazon link. And that’s about it. Just a quick head’s up, I don’t read a lot of novels or fiction, but mainly educational-related, facts/trivia, or nonfiction. Also, all books listed below were rated at least 4/5 by me, with one Six Star book at the end. With that, let’s get started with the March edition of the Robinson Reading Report!
Word Wise | The Princeton Review
(Couldn’t find an Amazon link unfortunately)
Salutations! Do you want to have a rich and principled vocabulary? Well Word Wise is the book for you! I’ve certainly developed my vocabulary by reading this book. Written in an easy to read, not boring dictionary-type format, I encourage you to actually study some of the words in this book, as you’ll seem more astute in your day to day conversations! The Princeton Review has created an engaging and fun to read book for all of us to exercise our brains.
Fahrenheit 451| Ray Bradbury
A classic American tale definitely earns its spot on the Triple R. The story follows Guy Montag, a firefighter who’s job in a dystopian world is not to put out fires, but to start them, incinerating books, all of which are illegal. When Guy meets Clarisse, an innocent young girl who introduces him to a past where people could read in peace, he questions everything he’s ever known. Bradbury writes a novel with vivid mental imagery, which serves to all of us the realities that could happen, and why we should fight to stop them.
End Times | Bryan Walsh
We’ve all wondered the different ways the world could end, all of them very scary and hard to understand, but Bryan Walsh guides us into the disasters that could end the world. End Times explores supervolcanoes, asteroids, nuclear holocausts, pandemics (which I’m sure we’re all familiar with), and so much more. This truly is a brief guide to the end of the world, and I believe Walsh’s book is something we should at least skim over to be better prepared for a potential doomsday.
When All Hell Breaks Loose | Cody Lundin
In this day and age, surrounded by modern luxuries, we need to be prepared for a disaster, perhaps one in End Times, and Cody Lundin writes a survival manual unique among other books like it. With characters such as Vinny the Uptown Cockroach and Holy Cow as our cheerleaders, and covering topics that are a little taboo in other books, such as disposing of human waste and corpses, When All Hell Breaks Loose is a fun to read book where the author isn’t just telling us the stuff we need, but treating us as a friend and fellow companion during tough times.
The Martian Chronicles | Ray Bradbury
Bradbury, perhaps the greatest science fiction writer of all time, writes another beautiful piece of literature. Chronicling tales, stories, and expeditions of humanity’s conquest of Mars from its native inhabitants, Bradbury shows a time where humans are not welcome on a strange land where they arrive. With tales of victory and defeat, joy and sadness, The Martian Chronicles show us to be wary of unknown lands, and think twice about settling down.
Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe
Considered by many as the first English novel, Defoe’s classic story has stood the test of time as a great novel heralded by many. It follows Robinson Crusoe, a stranded sailor stuck on a deserted tropical island, where he must find the wits and ways to survive. Finding new companions such as Poll the Parrot and Shippy the Dog, along with some natives, Daniel Defoe’s classic story about the willpower of one man to continue on should inspire us to take example from Robinson Crusoe.
Then Everything Changed | Jeff Greenfield
I’ll admit it, I’m an alternate history junkie, and I love reading about it. We often forget the moments where if something often ignored never happened (or happened), it could change history. Jeff Greenfield’s book chronicles three points in time that could have changed world history, including LBJ, JFK, RFK, and Gerald Ford, among many more. Engaging and also a brush up on our history, Then Everything Changed concerns some of the many complex answers to the simple question: What if?
*Six-Star Book*
One Second After | William Forstchen
I picked One Second After as the Six Star Book because it talks about a disaster that many of us have never heard of before: an Electromagnetic Pulse. An EMP could wipe out electronics worldwide, and while it could come naturally from a solar flare, it can also be created by our own hands, by detonating a nuclear warhead miles up in the atmosphere. One Second After follows the story of John Matherson, a military veteran who fights to save his hometown of Black Mountain, North Carolina from the death and destruction from an EMP that America’s enemies created. Cited on the Congressional floor as a book all Americans should read, Forstchen’s amazing novel brings awareness to something so simple, yet so devastating.
The Congressional Report 