Topic: 50 Books for 2008: List Thread

[ExitDose]

Finished:
1. American Pastoral - Philip Roth
2. The Vintage Mencken - H.L. Mencken
3. Libra - Don Delillo
4. Money - Martin Amis
5. Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
6. Low Life - Luc Sante
7. The Counterlife - Philip Roth
8. The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 1
9. The War Against Cliche - Martin Amis
10. The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
11. The Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell
12. Hey, Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland
13. Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
14. The Middle Passage - V.S. Naipaul
15. Born Standing Up - Steve Martin
16. Rings of Saturn - W.G. Sebald
17. AA Gill Is Away - A.A. Gill
18. Labyrinths Of Reason - William Poundstone
19. Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
20. The Dirt: Motley Crue - Motley Crue and Neil Strauss
21. Europeana - Patrik Ourednik
22. Spanking The Donkey - Matt Taibbi
23. The Areas Of My Expertise - John Hodgman
24. Assassination Vacation - Sarah Vowell
25. Wordy Shipmates - Sarah Vowell
26. Letters To A Young Poet - Rainier Rilke

Currently reading:
Underworld - Don Delillo
Gulag - Anne Applebaum

[ourpasture]

Finished:
Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon - Daniel Dennett
The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
In Praise of Idleness - Bertrand Russell

Reading:
Outlines of Pyrrhonism - Sextus Empiricus
Against Essentialism - Stephan Fuchs
Exploring Consciousness - Rita Carter

Next to be read:
Two Treatises of Government - John Locke
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Being & Nothingness - Jean Paul Sartre
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris

I read journals alot, such as Journal of Consciousness Studies.. that takes up a good deal of my reading.  Probably add more as I come across em.

[nerdo]

Read this year (not counting ones I gave up on because they were shite)
In no particular order as I think of them:

1. Curse of Chalion- Lois McMaster Bujold
2. Paladin of Souls- ibid
3. Hallowed Hunt- ibid
4. A Scanner Darkly- Phillip K Dick
5. Zombie Survival Guide- Max Brooks
6. World War Z- Max Brooks
7. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress- Robert Heinlein
8. Jingo- Terry Pratchett
9. Friday- Robert Heinlein
10. Revolt in 2100- Robert Heinlein
11. His Dark Materials Trilogy- Philip Pulman
12.""
13.""
14. I am Legend- Richard Matheson
15. Carpe Jugulum- Terry Pratchett
16. The Truth- Terry Pratchett
17. Witches Abroad- Terry Pratchett
18. Lords and Ladies- Terry Pratchett
19. The Wee Free Men- Terry Pratchett
20.  Hat Full of Sky- Terry Pratchett
21. monstrous regiment- terry pratchett
22. Wintersmith- Terry Pratchett
23.  The Last Continent- Terry Pratchett
24.  The Mote in God's Eye- Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle
25. Guards, Guards- Terry Pratchett
26.  Men at Arms- Terry Pratchett
27. Night Watch- Terry Pratchett
28. Thud!- Terry Pratchett
29. Soul Music- Terry Pratchett
30. Moving Pictures- Terry Pratchett
31. Phantoms- Dean Koontz
32. Fight Club- Chuck Palahniuk
33. The Puppet Masters- Robert Heinlein
34. The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
35. God is Not Great- Christopher Hitchens
36. Me of little faith- Lewis Black
37. Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat- Harry Harrison
39. House Atreides- Brian Herbert, KJ Anderson
40. House Harkonnen- Brian Herbert, KJ Anderson
41. Why People Believe Weird Things- Michael Shermer
42. Demon Haunted World- Carl Sagan
43. 1984- George Orwell
44. Casca: The Eternal Mercenary- Barry Sadler
45 Heir To the Empire- Timothy Zahn
46. Dark Force Rising- Timothy Zahn
47. The Last Command- Timothy Zahn
48. The Universe in a Nutshell-  Stephen Hawking
49. Wheel of Time- Book 1- Eye of the World- Robert Jordan
50. Wheel of Time- Book 2- The Great Hunt- Robert Jordan
51. Wheel of Time- Book 3- The Dragon Reborn- Robert Jordan
52. Wheel of Time- Book 4- The Shadow Rising- Robert Jordan
Currently:

WOT Book 5- Damn You Apeiron!
Misquoting Jesus- The story behind who changed the bible and why- Bart Ehrman
Guns, Germs, and Steel- Jared Diamond (I've been stuck about halfway through for months)

[Grimner]

Hmm, this might be a chance to see my "being-read-table" again.

The Planets - Dava Sobel **
Tau Zero - Paul Anderson ****
Quirkology. The Curious Science of Everyday Lives - Richard Wiseman ****
On Basilisk Station - David Weber ****
Coyote Rising - Allen Steele ***
The Varieties of Scientific Experience - Carl Sagan ****
The Book of General Ignorance - A Quite Interesting Book ****
Picknick am Wegesrand - Strugatzki (see Stalker and S.T.A.L.K.E.R) ****
Muldvarp i Siemens - Per-Yngve Monsen *****
God, the failed hypothesis (how science shows that god does not exist) - Victor J. Strenger ***
Science Friction - Michael Shermer ***
Why Darwin Matters, the case against intelligent design - Michael Shermer *****
Flim-Flam! - James Randi *****
Skeptoid - Brian Dunning *****
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories - Susanna Clarke ****
Trick or Treatment? Alternative medicine on trial - Simon Singh & Edzard Ernst *****
The Line of Polity - Neal Asher ***
Selling out - Justina Robson **
Why I am not a Muslim - Ibn Warraq***
Jerntigeren - Jack Higgins
Fortunes of war - Stephen Coonts**
Adventures in paranormal investigation - Joe Nickell ***
A wrinkle in time - Madeleine L'Engle ****
The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali ****
50 reasons people give for believing in a god - Guy P. Harrison ***  25
The portable atheist - selected by Christopher Hitchens ****
Goshawk Squadron - Derek Robinson *****
The last theorem - Arthur C. Clarke & Frederik Pohl ***
Den glemte soldat - Guy Sajer *****
Fairway to hell - Carl Hiaasen****
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson ****
Vitals - Greg Bear **
Cell - Steven King ***
A Song of Stone - Iain Banks ***
God is not great - Christopher Hitchens ***
The Graveyard book - Neil Gaiman****
Collapse - Jared Diamond*****
No present like Time - Steph Swainston***
Consciousness Explained - Daniel C. Dennett*****
Coyote Frontier - Allen Steele***
Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon****
Minotauros - Tor Åge Bringsværd ****
Why I am not a Christian - Bertrand Russell ***
De dødes båt - Knut Nærum ***
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien****
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer****
Youth - J.M. Coetzee***

Looks better already.

[Aporetic1]

Books read so far in 2008:

1. Mount Dragon- Douglas Preston& Lincoln Child
2. Murder On The Appian Way- Steven Saylor
3. Before Dishonor- Peter David
4. Tris Speaker: A Rough and Tumble Life- Timothy Gay
5. A Game Of Brawl- Bill Felber
6. The City at World's End- Edmond Hamilton
7. Waystation- Cliffard Simak
8. The Humanoids- Jack Williamson
9. The Kobayashi Maru- Julia Ecklar
10. The Wrong End Of Time- John Brunner
11. 2001: A Space Odyssey- Arthur C. Clarke
12. The Zombie Survival Guide- Max Brooks
13. The Blind Watchmaker- Richard Dawkins
14. Jimmie Foxx: The Pride of Sudlersville- Mark Milliken
15. Demon Haunted World- Carl Sagan
16. Guns, Germs and Steel- Jared Diamond
17. The Black Dahlia- James Ellroy
18. The Psychic Mafia- M. Lamar Keene
19. Roma- Steven Saylor
20. World War Z- Max Brooks
21. If I Never get Back- Darryl Brock
22. Crazy 08- Cait Murphy
23. The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
24.The Earth Abides- George R. Stewart
25. Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
26. A Midsummers Night Dream- Shakespeare
27. The Physics of Star Trek- Lawrence Krauss
28. Manhattan Transfer- John E. Smith
29. Quicker Than The Eye- Ray Bradbury
30. The Stainless Steel Rat- Harry Harrison
31. The Celebrant- Eric Rolfe Greenberg
32. The Man In The High Castle- Philip K. Dick
33. Yankee For Life- Bobby Murcer
34. The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge- Harry Harrison
35. The Time Trader- Andre Norton
36. Childhood's End- Arthur C. Clarke
37. Millions and Millions- Carl Sagan
38. Post Mortem- Patricia Cornwell
39. Slaughter House 5- Kurt Vonnegut
40. Troillus and Cressida- Shakespeare
41. A Painted House- John Grisham
42. Dark Fall- Dean Koontz
43. The Winters Tale- Shakespeare
44. Have Spacesuit Will Travel- Robert Heinlein
45. Letter to a Christian Nation- Sam Harris
46. The End of Faith- Sam Harris
47. God Is Not Great- Christopher Hitchens
48. Cradle of Saturn- James Hogan
49. The Ancestor's Tale- Richard Dawkins
50. Body of Evidence- Patricia Cornwell
51. Now and Then- Robt. B. Parker
52. Shadow Prey- John Sanford
53. The Bone Collector- Jeffery Deaver
54. The Medici Dagger- Cameron West
55. A Passion For Mars- Andrew Chaikin
56. Surely You Must Be Joking Mr Feyneman- Richard Feyneman
57. Breaking the Spell- Daniel Dennett
58. When Worlds Collide- P. Wylie& E. Balmer
59. Ancient Rome-The Rise and Fall Of An Empire- Simon baker
60. The Last Days Of Summer- Steve Kluger

[degro84]

Give Me a Break-Stossel (John Stossel is the man!)
Fooled by Randomness -Taleb
Shockwave: Road to Hiroshima
Space Race
Auschwitz (this is why history should be taught)
Albert Einstein’s Vision (Over my head)
The World is Flat (Globalization)
Demon Haunted World -Sagan
A Walk in the Woods -Bryson
Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman (Awesome Book!)

Currently Reading: Smartest Guys in the Room (Enron debacle)

I want to read the God Delusion, but something in the Catholic part of my brain won't let me!

[The Skeptic's Apprentice]

I've tried to remember all the books I've read in 2008, but can't seem to recall all of them. So I'm setting my deadline for reading 50 books at April 15, 2009.  

1. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer.
Owl Books (2002), 313 pages.
(Begun April 16, 2008 - Finished April 21, 2008)

2. Flim-Flam: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and other Delusions by James Randi
Prometheus Books (1982), 331 pages.
(Begun April 22, 2008)

[HarmLess168]

Books read since January 2008

1.) God is not Great - Christopher Hitchens
2.) Why People Believe Weird Things - Michael Shermer
3.) American Gods - Neil Gaiman
4.) Scientific American's Ask the Experts
5.) A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
6.) I Sold My Soul on eBay - Hemant Mehta
7.) Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay
8.) Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
9.) Sleeping Doll - Jeffrey Deaver
10.) The Dreaming Void - Peter Hamilton
11.) Semper Mars - Ian Douglas

Currently reading:

1.) Luna Marine - Ian Douglas
2.) The Night's Dawn Trilogy - Peter Hamilton

Up next:

1.) Europa Strike - Ian Douglas
2.) The End of Faith - Sam Harris
3.) The Portable Atheist
4.) A Brief History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
5.) Mass Effect: Revelation - Drew Karpyshyn

[Gaffer]

Read -

The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) by Peter Sagal
Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Frank Rich
The Gospel of Food by Barry Glassner
I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish by Douglas Adams
Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 by Gerald Posner
Nothing's Sacred by Lewis Black
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Reading -

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
Cosmos by Carl Sagan

[carrotflowers]

Started in May, 1 - 5 was all I could re-construct of the year thus far.

1. The Harsh Cry of the Heron: The Last Tale of the Otori (Tales of the Otori, Book 4) by Lian Hearn
2. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
3. New Spring by Robert Jordan
4. Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett
5. Heaven's Net Is Wide by Lian Hearn
6. The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno
7. Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
8. Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
9. Dragons of the Dwarven Depths by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
10. Rebel Ice by S.L. Viehl
11. Recovery Man by Kristine Katherine Rusch
12. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
13. Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
14. The Last Colony by John Scalzi
15. Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
16. Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan
17. Paloma by Kristine Katherine Rusch
18. Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson
19. House of Chains by Erikson
20. Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon

 ----eek, it's Kai Winn!
|
v

[squidinajar]

1.Candide - Voltaire (I've been on a kick lately reading books I should have read when I was in school)
2.Origin of Species - Darwin (I thought it would be a good read since I am getting more into skepticism)
3. House Atreides -Anderson (Not as good as the original Dune series, but still not bad)
4  Anna Karenina-Tolstoy. ( I just started it and so far I really like it)

[Zephyr]

1. the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon
2. The Discoveries Great Breakthoughs in 20-Century Science, Including the Original Papers by Alan Lightman
3. Ghost A Novel by Alan Lightman
4. Kiln People by David Brin
5. What is Life? Investigating the Nature of Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology by Ed Regis
6. The Brain That Changes Itself Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge


In progress...

• The Botany of Desire A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
• The Accidental Mind How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God by David J. Linden
• Evolutionary Dynamics Exploring the Equations of Life by Martin A. Nowak

[bjza]

I'm leaving out a lot of academic reading because that's either short articles to begin with or gets skimmed for important chapters or articles.

Currently Reading

• History Begins at Sumer. Samuel Noah Kramer.
• Introduction to Logic. Irving M. Copi & Carl Cohen.
• A Clash of Kings. George R. R. Martin.

Finished in 2008

• In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Scott Atran. (Begun in 07.) Review.
• Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininty. Julia Serano. (Begun in 07.)
• Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. Elijah Wald.
• Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. David Edmunds and John Eidinow. Review.
• Mesopotamian Myths. Henrietta McCall.
• The Code of the Woosters. P. G. Wodehouse. *
• Preludes and Nocturnes. Neil Gaiman et al. *
• The Doll's House. Neil Gaiman et al. *
• Season of Mists. Neil Gaiman et al. *
• Brief Lives. Neil Gaiman et al. *
• World's End. Neil Gaiman et al. *
• The Kindly Ones. Neil Gaiman et al. *
• The Wake. Neil Gaiman et al. *
• Baudolino. Umberto Eco. (Begun in 07.)
• The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America and the Meaning of Jazz. Kathy J. Ogren.
• Promethea: Book One. Alan Moore et al.
• Why People Believe Weird Things. Michael Shermer. Review.
• Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic. Bart Kosko.  Review.
• The Linguistics Wars. Randy Allen Harris.
• Serendipities: Language and Lunacy. Umberto Eco.
• Jirel of Joiry. C. L. Moore.

Poetry Collections
I tend not to read these cover to cover. Here are a few collections that passed through my hands this year.

• The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Richard Ellman et al, eds.
• The Complete Poems of Hart Crane.
• Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose.
• A Coney Island of the Mind. Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
• Selected Poems. Robert Bly.
• Selected Poems and Three Plays. William Butler Yeats.

My LibraryThing.

* = Reread. ("Vacation" with the folks lasted longer than planned, so I reclycled some old favorites.)

[Able-X]

I doubt I'll get to 50, I tend to read my books kinda slow and spend too much time on my computer, but I'll give it a shot

BOOKS READ:

1. The Portable Atheist - Christopher Hitchens
2. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
3. God Is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens
4. Ringworld - Larry Niven


IN PROGESS:

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson


On tap for this year per my Evernote list:

World War Z - Max Brooks
Syrup - Max Barry
Company - Max Barry
Spook Country - William Gibson
I Sold My Soul on eBay - Hemant Mehta
Bad Astronomy - Phil Plait

[IrishJazz]

k... reposted from bonehead move that ended up with this in the discussion thread...

1. The Miernek Dossier - Charles McCarrey - Fiction, complex espionage novel
2. Day of Battle - Rick Atkinson - US Army in Italy, WWII
3. The Raw Shark Texts - Science fiction? or something
4. Trawler - Redmon O Hanlon - Crazy Brit science writer on the North Sea in a hurricane
5. Retribution - Max Hastings - End of WWII with Japan
6. Lush Life - Richard Price - NYC novel, multilayered, Price is a great writer
7. The Boys of Everest - Clint Wills - mountain climbing history, more detail than Into Thin Air
8. Legacy of Ashes - how the CIA screwed up the world
9. Daniel Boone - Morgan - bio of the early explorer
10. Young Stalin - the title says it all, portrait of a totalitarian as a young thug
11. Armageddon - Max Hastings
12. Body of Lies - David Ignatius
13. The Last Fish Story - Kurlinsky
14. Spying on the Bomb-
15. Nothing to Lose - Lee Child (A skeptical stoic killer hero)
16. The Republic of Pirates- Colin Woodard
17. Rubicon - Tom Holland
18. Dark Voyage - Steven Furst
19. The Looming Tower
20. Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon
21. War and Peace - Tolst0y
22. Huckleberry Finn - audio- Mark Twain
23.  Dry Storage Room #1 - Fourtey
24. Empires of Light - Jill Jones
25. Spying on the Bomb
26. The Big Blowdown - Dave Robicheaux
27. Emergence - Steve Johnson
28. Handling Sin - Michael Malone
29. A Voyage Long and Strange - Horwitz
30. A Line Upon a Wind - Mostert
31. I Am America and So Can You - Colbert (audio... car trip to Philly)
32. American Creation - Joseph Ellis
33. Death From the Skies - if you need to ask, you probably just wandered in
34. Champlain's Dream - David Hackett Fisher
35. The Savage Wars of Peace - Max Boot
36. The Forever War - Filkins   Absolutely great...highly recommended
38. The Turnaround - George Pelaconos
39.  The Rest is Noise - Alex Ross
40. American Lion - Jon Meacham
41. From Colony to Superpower
42. Why People Believe Strange Things
43. The Greatest Battle
44. The Ruby in Her Navel (Barry Unsworth)
45. Void Moon (Michael Connelly - the villain is a magician)






Listened to Steve Martin read "The Pleasure of My Company" on a road trip, also recommended.

Always recommeded- Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities."  And, of course, the science fiction of Stanislaw Lem.