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Below: dashed off notes on the last dozen books I've read.
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A Dirty Job • Christopher Moore I’ve read a few other books by Christopher Moore and this looked fun. So. In this story, Charlie Asher, a secondhand shop owner with a kid on the way suddenly finds that he’s moonlighting as Death. Which sort of casts a pall on the evening. (Sorry, obscure Python reference there). Anyway, in Moore’s typical light-hearted style, bad things may happen but quirky characters make the best of the situation – a situation that only keeps getting stranger. Quick, non-taxing, mostly fun read, nothing super great though. One plot point that the reader sees a mile off catches Charlie by surprise. I hate that. Still, this guy writes an entertaining story. [amazon] [6 may 2008] |
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The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science • Natalie Angier Science is cool. I didn't think so back in high school but I like to think I've matured since then. Back then I evaded chemistry by taking an earth science course (Rocks for Jocks). Seems a shame because now I find that stuff very interesting. What Ms. Angier so ably and entertainingly covers in this slim — under 300 pages — volume is the scientific method, probabilities, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. You don't have to be a Ph.D. to understand it either. I only wish some of my teachers in high school had been as interesting as Ms. Angier. (In particular, my physics teacher in high school was a waste of meat.) I've read about several of these subjects before in some other entertaining books. Two that come to mind are Innumeracy by John Paulos and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I'd recommend all of these books as they complement each other and if you're interested learning cool stuff and filling in a few gaps in your knowledge, these three books are excellent are a good place to start. And Ms. Angier has some fun turning a good phrase here and there. One passage that stood out was one in which she explains just what it means to be a scientific theory. It should be taught in school. The rigorous work and facts behind an established theory (like, say, evolution) makes a statement like "Of course, it's just a theory," sound especially obtuse. [amazon] [24 apr 2008] |
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The Book Of Lost Things • John Connolly I'd never read John Connolly before and it turns out he's usually writes in the thriller genre. But this tale could be shelved under fantasy. It's the story of a young boy named David who lives in World War II-era London. After losing his mother to an illness, he's not too crazy about the new woman in his father's life and then, whoa, he enters into another realm. This realm is ruled by a mysterious king and overrun with all manner of beasts. And David needs to be particularly wary of the Crooked Man. He goes through a series of adventures that are pretty hair-raising in a dark fairy-tale sort of way. And there's one comic interlude I was chuckling at that involved seven dwarves. Great story. [amazon] [10 apr 2008] |
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Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional • W. Jason Gilmore
This textbook was clearly written and furnished with good examples. I read it pretty swiftly, took a bunch of notes and now I've got some ideas on how to use what I've since learned. I was pretty happy with this writer and publisher. The only parts I skimmed through were a couple chapters on installation since that doesn't really apply to my situation. Now the real test will be how well I get with turning my ideas into fruition. Feeling pretty good, though, feeling pretty good.
[amazon] [9 apr 2008] |
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The White Tyger • Paul Park This is the third book (in a series of four) that was begun in A Princess of Roumania and it's only getting stranger. In fact, this is one of the strangest plots I've come across in some time. In this outing, Miranda learns more about the mysterious hidden world which seems to be populated by people's animal spirits. And the Baroness Ceausescu must be half-crazy and a cold-hearted bitch besides. She's such an odd character with a weird appeal to various men around her. Some of the stranger developments concern Miranda's friend Andromeda who is really Lieutenant Sasha Prochenko in Roumania. Prochenko seems to vacillate between three modes of existence and not always mutually exclusive. He's both a he (Sasha), a she (Andromeda), and at times, a dog. Or a furry he-she. Strangeness abounds. The Hidden World is the next book. [amazon] [27 mar 2008] |
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Memoirs of An Invisible Man • H. F. Saint This book has been in my top five favorite list since I first read it when it was published in 1987. I'd read it again a couple years later and now for the third time, nineteen years after that. Time flies. It was just as much fun this time around as well. It is such a well-done story about what would happen if an average guy, in this case a 34-year-old securities analyst, should accidentally become invisible. Not only that, he's also got four determined government agents trying to capture him as he tries to survive in New York City. It's not easy and the author gives a thrilling account of how the narrator, Nick Halloway, does it. It's such an inventive, cool story but unless the author's working under another name, it's the only thing he's written. It was also turned into a mediocre movie about ten years ago. Many things are changed from book to movie as you can imagine. Regardless, this story makes you wonder: what would you do in this situation? [amazon] [11 mar 2008] |
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The Name of this Book is Secret • Pseudonymous Bosch This was written for the Young Adult crowd but looked like it might be fun. Well, it was a little fun, a little clever, but ultimately not very satisfying. Not enough plot twists, really, and the narrator was being coy and that wasn’t really working out that well. I could've skipped this one. I'm going to be more discerning about what sorts of YA books I may try in the future. This was just far too lightweight. [amazon] [7 mar 2008] |
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The God Delusion • Richard Dawkins Although not as eloquent and gripping as Christopher Hitchen’s similar-themed book, God Is Not Great, this book is nonetheless pretty fascinating in its own right. Author and Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins puts religion, notably fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, to the same rigorous scrutiny that a scientific theory would be subject to and he gleefully tears them apart, relegating religion to the realm of “nonsense.” Like Hitchens, he lays waste to the absurd ideas behind intelligent design, and points a damning finger at various ridiculous people who have made outlandish statements inspired by their religion. Here’s a couple of telling quotes from Martin Luther:
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
Reason should be destroyed by all Christians. And here's a quoted passage about how wonderful it is to be under the thumb of religious law:
In 2006 in Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. ... He entertained certain thoughts which were not to the liking of the ruling party of his country. And this, remember, is not the Afghanistan of the Taliban but the 'liberated' Afghanistan of Hamid Karzai, set up by the American-led coalition. Mr Rahman finally escaped execution, but only on a plea of insanity, and only after intense international pressure. He has now sought asylum in Italy, to avoid being murdered by zealots eager to do their Islamic duty. ... It is pure thoughtcrime, to use George Orwell's 1984 terminology, and the official punishment for it under Islamic law is death. On 3 September 1992, to take one example where it was actually carried out, Sadiq Abdul Karim Malallah was publicly beheaded in Saudi Arabia after being lawfully convicted of apostasy and blasphemy.
And lest you think the Islamic countries have a corner on that kind of thinking, we have our own far right wingers in this country who would love to have the United States under Catholic law. Scary. Here's a couple more quotes to leave you with:
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~ Voltaire
Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do. ~ Bertrand Russell I found much of interest in this book and found it to be 90% captivating.
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Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes • Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein It's a quick, easy read and maybe gives you a barely superficial understanding of the basics of philosophy but too many of the jokes are lamedy-lame-lame. Plus I didn't find the authors sense of humor very compelling. There were one or two jokes that bore re-telling but overall I think this was a good concept that could've been handled better. But for a light introduction to Philosophy that's also an interesting read, nothing beats Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. I plan on re-reading that one someday. This one however I'm re-selling. Here's a brief excerpt from the glossary at the end of the book:
telos: Inner aim. The telos of an acorn is to become an oak tree. Similarly, the telos of a graduate student in philosophy is a tenured professorship at Harvard. This is his or her inner aim, despite the higher odds of a career at Wal-Mart.
[amazon] [12 feb 2008] |
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Hidden Warrior • Lynn Flewelling This is the second book of the Tamir Triad following The Bone Doll's Twin. In this part of the tale, Tobin, just barely into his teens, now knows that he is really a girl magicked to look like a boy. In the medieval peninsula of Skala there is a prophecy that the country will flourish and remain unconquered as long a female descendent of a certain king reigns. That's our boy. So now he's dealing ambivalently with his true nature, and having to hide that from both his closest friends and his enemies. In fact, the only one he can really confide in is his demon spirit known only as Brother. There's a few surprises in this part of the trilogy and I'll probably finish the third book soon. [amazon] [9 feb 2008] |
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The Tourmaline • Paul Park This book continues the tale begun in A Princess of Roumania in which a young woman named Miranda Popescu learned she was hidden away in our world but is a princess caught amidst political intrigue in an alternate real world where Roumania is one of the world's superpowers and is busy fighting off the advances from Germany in a Victorianesque era. The goings-on get even stranger in this second book (of a quartet) and we follow the exploits of Miranda and her friends Peter and Andromeda. Peter is actually a renowned soldier named Pieter de Graz and Andromeda is really a (male) soldier named Sasha Prochenko. But in this story she morphs from a dog to a young woman. Miranda also ventures into the hidden world while conjurers like the Baroness Ceausescu and the Elector of Ratisbon put their own plots into play. It sometimes gets confusing only to clear up later and I enjoyed the real sense of strangeness in this story. It's always interesting and I'll be reading the follow-up soon. It's called The White Tyger. [amazon] [25 jan 2008] |
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Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics: Hollywood's Best Mistakes, Goofs and Flat-Out Destructions of the Basic Laws of the Universe • Tom Rogers Apparently this guy Tom Rogers has got a very popular website where he deconstructs Hollywood physics illogic. But I found this book on a browsing expedition and snapped it up. It was a quick read and very informative. I now know much more about what you can and can not do with firing guns and machine guns. For instance if you have a guy firing two Mac 10 machine guns for three minutes. First of all, machine guns are only able to fire continuously for a few seconds at a time, otherwise, like any other gun, it'll get too hot and seize up. Second of all, two Mac 10's firing for three minutes would fire about 3000 rounds which would weight somewhere around 100 pounds. So if the guy doesn't have a sidekick toting a wheelbarrow full of ammo, that scene is highly unlikely. That's just one example from this book. (It also mentions some few movies that do get the details mostly right. In the case of gunfire, Blackhawk Down does it right.) Rogers also rips to shreds the entire conspiracy theory featured in Oliver Stone's movie JFK. Basically the whole movie is based on a laughable pack of lies. Interesting stuff. But the movie the author deems most implausible is The Core, which was a lame-o movie about a ship drilling to the earth's core which has stopped spinning and the crew want to restart it with a nuclear explosion. If you think about that for more than two seconds you can see how this flick could be deemed the crème of the crap. [amazon] [16 jan 2008] |
last dozen books read
A Dirty Job ~ Christopher Moore |
The Canon ~ Natalie Angier |
The Book of Lost Things ~ John Connolly |
PHP and MySQL ~ W. Jason Gilmore |
The White Tyger ~ Paul Park |
Memoirs of An Invisible Man ~ H F Saint |
The Name of this Book is Secret Bosch ~ Pseudonymous Bosch |
Life After Life ~ Raymond Moody |
The God Delusion ~ Richard Dawkins |
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar... ~ Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein |
Hidden Warrior ~ Lynn Flewelling |
The Tourmaline ~ Paul Park |
Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics ~ Tom Rogers |
aquisitions and turnover
"Acquired" includes books bought (B) or given (G). "Read" includes all books read that year whether or not it was acquired in the same year. "Sold" indicates number of books from that year's acquisitions that were subsequently sold.
"Acquired" includes books bought (B) or given (G). "Read" includes all books read that year whether or not it was acquired in the same year. "Sold" indicates number of books from that year's acquisitions that were subsequently sold.
| YEAR | ACQUIRED (B/G) | READ | SOLD |
| 2008 | 10 (6/4) | 15 | 6 |
| 2007 | 35 (27/8) | 34 | 9 |
| 2006 | 26 (20/6) | 29 | 4 |
| 2005 | 30 (20/10) | 41 | 4 |
| 2004 | 21 (19/2) | 34 | 6 |
| 2003 | 26 (24/2) | 31 | 6 |
see Reading List (a chronology)
woodge recommends:
God Is Not Great
~ Christopher Hitchens
Scar Night
~ Alan Campbell
The Immortal Game
~ David Shenk
Kushiel's Dart
~ Jacqueline Carey
The Ruins
~ Scott Smith
What Every American Should Know About Europe
~ Melissa Rossi
The Stolen Child
~ Keith Donohue
Water For Elephants
~ Sara Gruen
Silk Road To Ruin
~ Ted Rall
Caught Stealing
~ Charlie Huston
Rebels on the Backlot
~ Sharon Waxman
The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists
~ Gideon Defoe
Fast Food Nation
~ Eric Schlosser
English Passengers
~ Matthew Kneale
State of Fear
~ Michael Crichton
A Game of Thrones
~ George R. R. Martin
Dragonfly
~ Frederic S. Durbin
The World in a Phrase
~ James Geary
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
~ Jeff Lindsay
Comeback
~ Richard Stark
Cryptonomicon
~ Neal Stephenson
The Skinner
~ Neal Asher
Complications
~ Atul Gawande
A Short History of Nearly Everything
~ Bill Bryson
Carter Beats the Devil
~ Glen David Gold
The Lovely Bones
~ Alice Sebold
Life of Pi
~ Yann Martel
Geek Love
~ Katherine Dunn
Corelli's Mandolin
~ Louis De Bernieres
Water Music
~ T. Coraghessan Boyle
Perdido Street Station
~ China Miéville
Thank You For Smoking
~ Christopher Buckley
Bridge of Birds
~ Barry Hughart
Jennifer Government
~ Max Barry
books recently abandoned
- Magician: Master
~ Raymond E. Feist - The Fall of Hyperion
~ Dan Simmons - Special Topics In Calamity Physics
~ Marisha Pessl - There and Back Again
~ Pat Murphy - Pattern Recognition
~ William Gibson - The Plague Tales
~ Ann Benson - The Wizard
~ Gene Wolfe - The Etched City
~ K. J. Bishop - Memoir From Antproof Case
~ Mark Helprin
other readers
