| PAGES |
AUTHOR | TITLE |
DATE |
| 368 |
Dava Sobel |
Galileo's Daughter |
08/02/2009 |
| A very enjoyable, readable biography of the celebrated heliocentrist. |
| 385 |
Oliver Sacks |
Musicophilia |
28/02/2009 |
| Dr. Sacks is easy on the reader: entertaining, compassionate, and wise. This collection of case studies and reflections on music at first had the frustrations of a cookbook -- reading about something that doesn't convey well on the page. But I was soon caught up in his enthusiasm for music, and the peculiar ways in which people respond to it. Thanks, Tony, for the gift. |
| 272 |
David Sedaris |
Me Talk Pretty One Day |
04/03/2009 |
| A tolerable collection of amusing stories, perhaps a bit above the level of Dave Barry, and with regular F-bombs and social criticism to remind you that you're reading hipster counterculture and not mainstream drivel. In case those two are mutually exclusive. |
| 165 |
Nicholson Baker |
Vox |
07/03/2009 |
| The rare book that lives up to the blurbs inside the cover. A receipt tucked inside indicates that it was purchased at the Virgin Megastore San Francisco on March 25, 1999. |
| 430 |
Steven Pinker |
The Language Instinct |
10/05/2009 |
| Pinker makes the case for an innate ability to use language, pointing out that human languages have more similarities than differences, and a child's skill at learning to speak demonstrates that there is more than simple imitation at work. |
| 417 |
Simon Winchester |
A Crack in the Edge of the World |
19/06/2009 |
| The story of San Francisco's destruction during the 1906 earthquake and fire, along with a helpful overview of plate tectonics. |
| 0 |
John Gardner |
Grendel (audio) |
23/06/2009 |
| "My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it." |
| 215 |
Joe Simpson |
Touching the Void |
01/07/2009 |
| 432 |
Alan Weisman |
The World Without Us (audio) |
14/07/2009 |
| This extended thought experiment is quite interesting in many parts, with visits to people-free zones in Cyprus and the Korean peninsula, and informed speculation as to what will become of bridges and other landmarks. A good deal of print (or breath, in the recorded version) is spent less engagingly rehashing fears about ecology and overpopulation. |
| 352 |
Simon Winchester |
The Man who Loved China |
13/08/2009 |
| [audio] |
| 288 |
Amanda Ripley |
The Unthinkable (audio) |
28/08/2009 |
| [audio] |
| 351 |
Evelyn Waugh |
Brideshead Revisited (audio) |
11/09/2009 |
| Though it was a set of ten CDs and the book read aloud by Jeremy Irons, I am counting the pages I would have clocked with the paperback. |
| 224 |
Chuck Palahniuk |
Fight Club |
28/09/2009 |
| Lessons learned: The movie can be better than the book, when the book is written like a screenplay. There's no line so good that it can't be used three or four times. It's still possible to use four-letter words like "butt wipe" without sounding lame. |
| 288 |
Alex Kershaw |
Escape from the Deep |
09/10/2009 |
| 224 |
John Steinbeck |
Travels with Charley in Search of America |
18/10/2009 |
| 224 |
P. G. Wodehouse |
Right Ho, Jeeves |
19/10/2009 |
| 468 |
Thomas Hardy |
The Return of the Native |
27/10/2009 |
| 289 |
Ed Regis |
Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition |
10/11/2009 |
| 296 |
Art Spiegelman |
Maus |
16/11/2009 |
| 402 |
Cliff Stoll |
The Cuckoo's Egg |
22/11/2009 |