I have decided to share with you what I read each month so if you want to read along with me you can. My sister always kept a list of the books she read but I have never kept track of them. I wish now that I had but I never saw a value in it. However, some have asked about what I am reading so here it is. Some seem to think I am bragging when I say I read 2-5 books a month. My sister read books per day. In addition, every month there are 200,000 books and at least as many scholarly papers printed. Faced with that fact I cannot help but think that every day I am losing ground.
I have always resisted writing a site like this because I realize precisely how much I don’t know. I finally relented and started writing when friends and family impressed upon me that I know so much more than most other people about such a wide range of issues that I need to share it and not simply let it die with me because “I don’t know everything” yet. I am reminded of a Political Science Professor I had at the University of Nebraska who was also a retired Colonel in the US Air Force, Colonel Phil Dyer, who said, “I wish I could have taught college right out of high school. I had all of the answers then. Now, every year, I just accumulate more questions.”
In practice I read several books at a time both for research and for personal development. As I prepare articles I often go through sections of several books and those will not be included here. Here I will only list the books that I have finished in the month indicated. If I have almost finished but still have a chapter yet to go on the first day of the following month then I will not include it. If I have not finished it will not be listed here.
They will be posted such that the most recent month is entered at the top of the list. Also, within that month I will list books first and some of the articles or scientific papers I read (but not all of them since I don’t always write down all of the identifying data on articles I read. Therefore if I DO list them they were important.) They will not be listed in the order they were finished but in the order of what I believe to be the Most Useful to the less useful, for you my readers.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please drop me a message at Daniel.Saber@sabersedge.online or in the comments section below.
Happy reading as together we develop the character and the foundational knowledge that we will need to preserve our Republic and Western Civilization.
Daniel Saber
Gott Mit Uns / May the Force Be With You / So Say We All / This is the Way
FINISHED READING
SEPTEMBER 2025
TOLSTOY, Leo – What Men Livie By and Where Love Is, There God is Also – Published by Fleming Revell Company, Westwood, NJ – [The book is quite old and doesn’t have a date for publication] My wife and I were going through boxes that were still not unpacked and I grabbed this little book thinking it was a collection of aphorisms. It is actually two stories about people finding the presence of God in their daily lives. As you would expect from Tolstoy they are quite good.
I also read several of John Wesley’s Sermons – a project i will continue on a weekly basis indefinitely as part of my spiritual reading:
“The Almost Christian” [1741 A.D.] – This was the sermon Wesley gave to his colleagues at Oxford University when it was his turn to preach. He used the opportunity to indict all those who put on the “affectation” of being Christian but who did not have the love or bear the fruit of a Christian. Since his entire audience was composed of fellow priests and professors who taught or worked in Christian circles it did not make him popular.
“Scriptural Christianity” [1744 A.D.] – Wesley’s turn as university preacher at Oxford came up again on August 24, 1744, on the feast of St. Bartholomew commemorating the “Great Ejection of the Nonconformists in England in 1662 in which both of Wesley’s grandfathers had suffered. Meanwhile the Methodist Revival was gaining a great deal of momentum in England and Wales. Due to his obvious friction with mainstream religion, it was expected by many he would find a substitute. Instead, he preached the gospel as he understood it, it was an evangelical proclamation that challenged the more staid Anglican practice of the time. Albert Outler, a biographer and compiler of Wesley’s writings described the event thus: “But Wesley apparently decided not to avoid the situation, and the stage was set for a confrontation… Wesley’s sermon became the talk of the town. The Vice-Chancellor requested to see his notes, which could have been censured. The university officials, however, decided to punish him by [what Wesley called] “a mortifying neglect.” Methodists, then and later, could see no proper warrant for anyone to have taken offence at such a sermon that simply preached the gospel. John Wesley himself was straightforward in his reaction: “I am now clear of the blood of these men. I have fully delivered my own soul.” [This of course, is referring to the passage of Ezekiel 33:6-8 – 6 But if the sentinel sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any of them, they are taken away in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at the sentinel’s hand. 7 So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8 If I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked ones, you shall surely die’, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. – Daniel Saber note to reader.] His Methodist readers would have recognized the heroic stature of their leader who had preached “plain truth” to academic people to their face and at the cost of rejection by them. Wesley later published this sermon to combat the sophistry and out and out lies many were saying about it. [for more on sophistry see: How Are you Being Lied To? Cutting through the Lies – SabersEdge.Online ]
“The Means of Grace” [1746 A.D.] – This sermon talks to of us Wesley’s problem with people who make their faith such a personal thing that it is completely inward, in his day they were called Quietists who believed that all that mattered was a personal conviction in their heart and their own relationship with Jesus. There are many today who need to hear this sermon, I think. The sermon itself is based on the third chapter of the book of Malachi. Outler says this: “What is clear is that a sizeable group of Methodists in 1746 still continued to regard all “outward observances” as superfluous, or even harmful, in their spiritual life. Considering themselves to be true evangelicals, they understood their conversions and “baptism of the Spirit” as having superseded their water baptisms, the Eucharist, and all other sacramental acts (or ordinances as they preferred to call them,) [This included other physical “means of grace” such as the rosary or ‘sacramentals’ as the Catholics called them or any other practice they dismiss as “empty ritual” – this ignores that God created us as physical creatures and, as such, physical practices engage our whole being in worship engaging body, mind, AND soul in the act of faith or worship allowing grace to reach us in – what for some – would be a new way. – Daniel Saber.] It is these Methodist ‘quietists’ who are the primary audience for this sermon. Wesley’s purpose to enforce upon them the validity, and even the necessity, of ‘the means of grace’ as taught and administered by the Church of England.”
“The Catholic Spirit” [1750] – Again I will turn to Albert Outler’s description of this sermon: ” ‘Catholic Spirit’ is the most formal articulation of [Wesley’s] …nondogmatic method in theology. In it we find yet another statement of essentials.” Outler explains, “There was a non-dogmatic strain in Anglicanism that had discouraged the formulation of creeds, confessions, and systematic treatises. Wesley was certainly opinionated and partisan himself, with a stubborn loyalty to what he understood to be the essential core of Christian truth. But he also agreed with the Cambridge Platonists before him that most of the cruel controversies in religion that had spilled so much blood and ink were quarrels about ‘opinions,’ i.e. subsidiary doctrines affecting the fullness nd variety of religious language, not its primary object. He also agreed with William of St. Thierry that love is the surest way to truth and the highest goal of thought. He [Wesley] had a clear enough view for himself of the Christian essentials but never ever tried to formulate them in an unrevisable statement.” [For more on Wesley’s view see: Don’t Be Lawful Stupid – Wesley’s Rules for Life – SabersEdge – Cutting Through Lies to Get to Truth – Reforging Foundations ; ]
“The Duty of Constant Communion” [1787 A.D.] – This sermon represents what Outler calls “Wesley’s fullest and most explicit statement of his eucharistic doctrine and praxis as well as his untroubled reliance upon a classic expression of the ‘catholic tradition’ in current Anglican doctrine at the time.” It is no secret that Wesley, the Church Fathers, a collection of Medieval saints, and the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann all added a deeper understanding to my own understanding of the Christian Faith. I have said before the story of my District Superintendent asking me as a young seminarian who my informing theologian was, and I responded John Wesley. He then asked if I didn’t think we had learned a lot since Wesley to which I responded, “Sir, I read the newspaper this morning and from the headlines I would say that humanity has not learned anything since Moses gave us the Ten Commandments.” I had, apparently also learned Wesley’s blunt delivery of my faith, and how, by doing so like Wesley NOT to win friends and allies in the church hierarchy.
AUGUST 2025
Completed Books:
Jefferson on Freedom; Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way by Thomas Jefferson Published by MJF Books, Fine Communications 2011 by Skyhorse Publications. This is a very handy little hardback that can be carried in your purse or briefcase or even a cargo pocket. I have read it several times and will probably read it again. It includes parts of letters, speeches, and other writings by Thomas Jefferson in small easy to read snippets. It is something that you can carry with you and read while waiting for meetings to start or as something to organize your thoughts in the morning before you begin your workday or the workweek. I highly recommend it for your active library.
The Coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee this book was written as a pocket booklet for Communist revolutionaries and was published originally in 2007 in France and then in 2009 in the United States by a California Publishing House. This book addresses the problem of Communist Revolution and insists the reason that it hasn’t worked is because it needs to simultaneously overthrow the “imperialistic, capitalist tyrannies” worldwide in a global insurrection. It encourages communists not to expect to duplicate the issues or events in other countries and that revolution should “resonate” according to the organic issues in the country where the communist Revolutionaries are working. As I have often said, “The issue is not the issue, the issue is always the revolution.” The communist belief that they will work with ANYONE who is working to violently overthrow “the powers” is why Communist agents of influence use Feminists, Gays, and atheist anarchists, and Christian organizations combining with proponents of Sharia Law and the Caliphate and Pro Palestine movements. While these organizations should hate each other they hate us more and they believe the communists can eliminate these other organizations (like Islamic Religious extremists,) after the Republic or dictatorship has been toppled. As I have pointed out before, this was their strategy when the backed the Islamists in Iran who rebelled against the Shah of Iran to establish the Islamic Republic, however the Islamists betrayed the Communists before the Communists could betray the Islamists, and they beheaded or simply shot all the Leftists who helped them overthrow the Shah. Interestingly enough, this book doesn’t mention that. It is an important read for anyone who wants to get an insight into how Communists are thinking today.
The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkein Edited by Christopher Tolkein – This is a fantasy novel that takes place in the earliest days of Middle Earth and follows the children of Hurin. A human noble who was captured by Morgoth and kept alive and tortured. His line was cursed by Morgoth and the Dragon Glaurung and it is not a happy tale. Because of the curse and their own impetuous nature, the Children and descendants of Hurin go from disaster to disaster their bold heroism sometimes saving them and other times getting them into deeper trouble. It is good, as are all of Tolkein’s writings but if you are easily depressed you might give this book a pass.
Rights of Man by Thomas Paine; with an introduction by Eric Foner and Notes by Henry Collins; Part One originally published in Great Britain in 1791, Part Two in 1792, Penguin American Library 1985. This book was written largely in response to the writings of Edmund Burke who was, unlike President Washington, celebrating the French Revolution. As such it could be confusing for someone to read who doesn’t know the writings of Edmund Burke. I greatly prefer Thomas Paine’s works Common Sense and The Crisis. In fact, maybe it’s time I reread those.
Papers or Readings:
STUDY MARCH 2023 – By Bertrams and Krispenz. It was a fascinating study. I will share the abstract summary of the study for you here. It included a lot of chemistry and other details but the overall message was that the Neo-Con and Globalist tyrants of the right seem to be connected with the Dark Triad Personality Traits of psycopathy and narcissm the “social justice warriors” of the Left are equally messed up and far from being altruistic their activism tend toward the same Dark Triad traits and it is their activism for “good” causes that provides them with their own “narcissistic” supply to feed their superiority complex. Here is the Abstract: “In two pre-registered studies, we investigated the relationship of left-wing authoritarianism with the ego-focused trait of narcissism. Based on existing research, we expected individuals with higher levels of left-wing authoritarianism to also report higher levels of narcissism. Further, as individuals with leftist political attitudes can be assumed to be striving for social equality, we expected left-wing authoritarianism to also be positively related to prosocial traits, but narcissism to remain a significant predictor of left-wing authoritarianism above and beyond those prosocial dispositions. We investigated our hypotheses in two studies using cross-sectional correlational designs. Two nearly representative US samples (Study 1: N = 391; Study 2: N = 377) completed online measures of left-wing authoritarianism, the Dark Triad personality traits, and two variables with a prosocial focus (i.e., altruism and social justice commitment). In addition, we assessed relevant covariates (i.e., age, gender, socially desirable responding, and virtue signaling). The results of multiple regression analyses showed that a strong ideological view, according to which a violent revolution against existing societal structures is legitimate (i.e., anti-hierarchical aggression), was associated with antagonistic narcissism (Study 1) and psychopathy (Study 2). However, neither dispositional altruism nor social justice commitment was related to left-wing anti-hierarchical aggression. Considering these results, we assume that some leftist political activists do not actually strive for social justice and equality but rather use political activism to endorse or exercise violence against others to satisfy their own ego-focused needs. We discuss these results in relation to the dark-ego-vehicle principle. [Which of course completely explains why so many leftists are hypocritical and inconsistent in their beliefs. They don’t actually hold these beliefs they are just using them for narcissistic supply. In other words, appeals to Leftist to ask them to be consistent are completely off base and useless because they simply don’t care. – Daniel Saber]
“Rebellion” by Fyodor Dostoevsky – This is a dialogue from the Brothers Karamazov I found in the book The Problem of Evil, Selected Readings. This book is not currently on my reading list but it caught my eye because I actually am remiss have haven’t read Dostoevsky. As I get older it becomes clearer and clearer to me that this was a mistake of my youth.