A few books you should read

I think I read more books from October thru December of 2011 than I'd read in quite some time. Here are the ones I liked:

Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager by Buzz Bissinger.
Bissinger, the author of Friday Night Lights, spent much of the 2003 baseball season in the clubhouse of the St. Louis Cardinals, where he got to know the atmosphere of the team, its players, and its coaches. Three Nights in August chronicles a 3-game series from that season against the Cardinals' arch rival Chicago Cubs. The games are viewed through the eyes of Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa. It's a detail-packed book that gives new insight into baseball strategy. I'm a life-long baseball fan and still I learned things I never knew about how far ahead of the game a mind like LaRussa's is constantly working during a game. You don't have to be a Cardinals fan to enjoy this book, but you do need to enjoy baseball. (I was particularly engrossed in this book because I began reading it the day before the 2011 World Series, which the Cardinals would win a few days after I finished.)

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton & Rose Friedman.
I discovered Milton Friedman (by accident) when I came across some youtube videos of some of his lectures from the 70s & 80s. The Friedmans (Friedman & Friedwoman?) are economists who have championed free-market capitalism more influentially (perhaps) than anyone else in the last 50 years. Having never read anything on economics before, I found Free to Choose to be quite accessible. It basically makes the case for a small-government free enterprise system. If you're not already an economic conservative, these two might make you one!

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard.
No matter what you think of Bill O'Reilly's politics, you won't find them in this book. It's worth reading for anyone remotely interested in the events of April, 1865. Even though I was pretty sure I knew the climax of the story (Lincoln gets assassinated -- sorry for the spoiler), I felt suspense all along, like I was reading a thriller or a murder mystery. I also learned a lot. Maybe I was just completely ignorant before picking it up, but all I really knew was that Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth. This book will take you behind the scenes of the conspiracy that unfolded in the week prior to the assassination, including the last few days of the Civil War itself. When I finished, I picked up another book on Lincoln, because it got me interested!