Two-thirds of the books are works of fiction, and most of those are mass-market paperback thrillers from writers with names — John Sandford, Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, Tom Clancy — familiar to anyone who has browsed an airport bookstore.
Gingrich believes these authors can offer profound lessons to American policymakers.
"All those who said we could never have imagined commercial airliners hitting large buildings had simply not been reading enough adventure fiction. Tom Clancy had a Boeing 747 hit the Capitol in one of his novels," Gingrich writes in a review of Sean Flannery's thriller about terrorists obtain who obtain a submarine, "Kilo Option."
"Similarly, if at some future time we discover that someone really vicious has acquired a very advanced weapon system by bribing a disgruntled military member of a decaying system, we should not be surprised if we read 'Kilo Option.'"
Likewise, Brad Thor's novels "will remind you that our enemies can be more clever, more patient, and more vicious that any think tank's rational projection of the future."
With some notable exceptions, Gingrich shows little interest in books by Washington's A-list politicians, journalists and pundits.
Of note is his review of Bob Woodward's "Bush at War."
Given that Donald Rumsfeld said that he never read Woodward's books about the Bush administration, it's interesting that Gingrich said he found The Washington Post journalist's books to be "often worth reading."
Despite some caveats, Gingrich gave Woodward's "Bush at War" three stars and wrote that it's "a good book worthy of every citizen reading it to get a better understanding of the war we are in."
Perhaps most curious is Gingrich's fascination with quantum physics.
"To understand fully the future impact on nano-science, and it will be significant, I felt it imperative to try to understand the basics of quantum mechanics," he writes.
So, from late 2000 to early 2001, Gingrich read several books on the heady subject.
Summing up Richard Feynman's "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter," Gingrich writes: Feynman's argument is that quantum behavior is truly outside the Newtonian principles of classical physics and contradicts our understanding of the world as we experience it at our large, bulky level."
"I strongly recommend it," he ends.
A few other observations:
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