Books

I like books. Here is some record of what I've been reading recently and chosen (or remembered) to note down. If you care to, You can also see the complete list of what I've ever entered into this system.

September

-zip-

August

  • David Aaronovitch. Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History. 2010 - Perhaps feeling that only anti-conspiricists will pick up this book anyways, the author panders to them at great length while making no efforts to convince the credulous. The effect is to make him sound smug, and to lead a rationalist like myself to wonder if in fact there isn't more to the events under discussion than he lets on.
  • Patrick O'Brian. The Far Side of the World. 1984 - [r] Now this one is a sea-story, and a shipwreck-story, and everything you could want except for a tidy resolution. And I don't own the next in the series!
  • Frank Meeink as told to Jody M. Roy, PhD. Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead. 2009 - My goodness, for all the terrible things that happen to Meeink (many of which are entirely his own fault) he's a pretty lucky guy to come through so well! His story is quite a page-turner.
  • Patrick O'Brian. Treason's Harbor. 1983 - [r] The next book: on land on the Sinai but still a sea story.
  • Patrick O'Brian. The Ionian Mission. 1981 - [r] Back to Patrick O'Brien after a few years away, I started in the middle of the series where are the good yarns and wonderful prose and not too much introduction or wrapping-up.
  • Jim Baggott. The First War of Physics: The Secret History of the Aton Bomb, 1939-1949. 2010 - Convincingly scholarly and very readable. Does what it says on the tin.
  • Robert Ferguson. The Vikings: A History. 2010 - Unlike most histories of the vikings this one is focused on placing them within the larger geopolitical context, which paradoxically has the effect of placing the emphasis on the vikings themselves rather than the effect they had on their victims. It's also a fascinating read.

July

  • Cory Doctorow. Little Brother. 2010 - I read this online, so it wasn't so much a page-turner as a down-scroller. Even more than Makers this book shows that the author can't imagine people thinking any different than he does unless they're villains, which leads him to posit completely unbelievable future scenarios.
  • Cory Doctorow. Makers. 2009 - There are some interesting ideas in this utopia-in-a-dystopian-future story, but it doesn't quite all hang together.
  • Tristam Stuart. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal. 2009 - Having lived for some time as a freegan, the author really knows what he's talking about. The book is a little long and repetitive for my sake, but no one can say it's not persuasive, and sections of it are entirely fascinating.
  • Carola Dunn. Sheer Folly. 2009 - More Daisy Dalrymple. Fun characters and wonderful 1920s setting make the story, which is good because the mystery barely gets a look in in this one.
  • Deborah Copaken Kogan. Hell is Other Parents, and Other Tales of Maternal Combustion. 2009 - Book doesn't match title. It's really just a collection of anecdotes about the author's life, mostly relating to her actor son and his work in Hollywood. Oh, and her kids' private schooling. Occasionally amusing, but mostly meh.
  • Christian Wolmar. Blood, Iron, & Gold: How the Railroads Transformed the World. 2010 - Given the title and the cover I expected this to be pop history; it is not. Rather, it's a sort of survey by an author who is tremendously interested in and knowledgeable about railways, giving it something of the flavor of trainspotting. Still, very informative and mostly interesting.
  • Stephan DeStefano. Coyote at the Kitchen Door: Lving with Wildlife in Suburbia. 2010 - For some reason while reading this book I kept thinking of the author as a woman. I have no idea why. It is kind of annoyingly organized but filled with some fascinating facts and history; I just wish there were more!

June

  • Shannon Hayes. Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture. 2010 - I was very excited when I heard about this book, but unfortunately the production doesn't entirely live up to the premise. Still, it's an important book and I'm firmly behind its ideas.
  • CJ Cherryh. Regenisis. 2009 - Oh my goodness, so little happens in Ms. Cherryh's books. It's a testament I suppose to her skill as a writer that they are still, in a way, enjoyable.
  • Todd Farley. Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry. 2009 - I already knew that standardized test scoring was ridiculous, but now I know it's also rather amusing. Unless you're a student, teacher, or administrator who'll be affected by the test results, of course.
  • Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer. The State of Jones: The Small Southern County that Seceded from the Confederacy. 2009 - Actually more about one man and his family: Newton Knight, who led the anti-Confederate resistance in Jones County. Not a bad read, but not trustworthy history either.
  • Sarah Vowell. Assassination Vacation. 2005 - I sometimes wonder who reads all those pop-history books like Cod and Salt and anything by that Simon Winchester; clearly Sarah Vowell is one big fan. She didn't produce a pop-history, though, just a sort of fanboy account of presidential assassination trivia and memorabilia. Well-written, at least.

May

  • William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. 2009 - An incredibly inspiring story about farming and engineering and overcoming tremendous obstacles. Inspiring in theory, that is—actually, the author is so awesome and incredible he makes me feel pretty useless in comparison!
  • Deborah Wiles. Each Little Bird That Sings. 2005 - [j] A sad story, but what else would you expect from a book about death? Good characters with great names.
  • Mark Teague. The Doom Machine. 2009 - [j] Kids keep aliens from conquering Earth, free alien homeworld from oppressive queen. An amusing read, if shallow.
  • Beverly Cleary. Ribsy. 1964 - [j] Rascal would've done fine as a dog in 1964, what with the roaming all over the place, the eating all kinds of foods, and the occasionally getting to go into school buildings. It was a more innocent era, then. I'm glad he doesn't get lost very often though.
  • Dave Eggers. The Wild Things. 2009 - A novel based on Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and the movie screenplay, which Eggers co-wrote. As his childhood issues were apparently not anything like mine, the book didn't really speak to me like the original—with it's open-ended universality—did.
  • Gail Gauthier. The Hero of Ticonderoga. 2001 - [j] A quick, light read, but one that left me wanting to hear more about the characters, which is surely a good sign.
  • William Alexander. The $64 Tomato. 2006 - Dude is too rich for his own good is the problem. Also, the year that he calculated the price of each of his tomatoes at $64 he managed to harvest just nineteen of them from a garden of like 2000 square feet, so he's not much of a farmer either. A bad bad book.

April

  • Robin D.G. Kelley. Thelonious Monk: The life and times of an American original. 2009 - This book takes the idea of biography very literally, leading the reader through Monk's performing life practically week by week. I'm sure some folks would find this tedious, but to me it illuminates his life and times better than a more impressionist account might have.
  • Iain McCalman . Darwin's Armada: Four voyages and the battle for the theory of evolution. 2009 - Really two books' worth of information: the voyages, and then the battle. The four voyages don't really have that much to do with each other, and the battle part of the story is much too condensed for my liking, but it's still a grand read.