The list

One of the great blessings of living in America is the availability of knowledge. At the finger tips of every American is a vast array of learning opportunities and I'm not referring to youtube. The learning opportunity that I am talking about is reading.

Education is a very hot topic in America today. The rising cost of higher education has many citizens up-in-arms. American's are blessed to live in a nation where education is a priority. Unfortunately in our endeavors to provide an equal opportunity to all American children the nation has produced some damaging programs. For example the No Child Left Behind Act or more recently the Common Core curriculum. The good news is that our individual education is not dependent on the government. We are responsible for the advancement of our own education. Yes we do need some form of structured formal education. We have to be taught the basics of math, science, history, civics, economics, etc. I also understand and appreciate the value of higher education. I am very grateful for the opportunity I had to attend a University. However, I think that one of the most important lessons I learned from College is that my education is far from done. As I mentioned earlier we live in a land of opportunity where knowledge is readily available. Unfortunately Americans don't always take advantage of these opportunities. According to the L.A. Times Americans spend an average of 5 hours and 40 minutes reading a week. A study conducted earlier this year reported that the average American watches more than 5 hours of live TV a day. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that if Americans aren't reading its not because they don't have time.

John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail and stated "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." The same applies to us today. We must make education a priority in our lives. We should be preparing for the future by learning from the past. We need to have an understanding and knowledge of our government if we are to preserve it. We need to see the sacrifice of those who went before us to fully understand the blessings we enjoy today.
Alexander Hamilton stated, "Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have is this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."
We need to be continually learning. This is why we have decided to start The List. The List is a continually growing compilation of book reviews. The reviews will be submitted by several different readers and cover several different topics. In creating this list we hope to provide our readers with a selection of great books that are informational, entertaining, and enlightening.

As John Adams said, "I have read my eyes out and can't read half enough. The more one reads the more one sees we have read."