| German Pietism During the 18th Century by F Ernst Stoeffler, 265 pages James Donahue 10 June 2004 Very capable summary | Database Programming with Visual Basic .NET and ADO.NET - (Useless) Tips, (Pedantic) Tutorials, and (Shitty) Code by F Scott Barker, 524 pages Steven Krise 10 September 2006 If (IsTheSuck(oThisBook) = True) = True Then MsgBox "Yup, it sucks ass!", vbOkOnly+vbInformation rem the parenthetical adjectives were omitted from the cover of my copy of the book for some reason |
Codebreakers by F. H. Hinsley, Alan Stripp, eds., 310 pages Steve Gadd 07 February 2002 Accounts by the participants at Bletchley Park of their work cracking the Enigma code. |
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 200 pages Steve Gadd 08 May 2000 Another classic we were forced to read in high school, actually quite enjoyable when read at leisure. |
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 320 pages Erik Bauer 02 March 2001 I liked this book a lot more than "The Great Gatsby." It is beautiful, sometimes a bit boring, but beautiful. |
Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 315 pages Kristin Schrock 19 September 2002 The story of the disintegrating marriage of Dr. Dick Diver and his crazy wife Nicole (read: Fitzgerald and his crazy wife Zelda). It captures the poignancy, but the novel lacks structure and meanders. |
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 449 pages Kristin Schrock 06 January 2004 Finally. The story of an idle, affluent couple who find that they are living outside of their means. They were beautiful and apparently damned. There's some drinking and lamenting of one's fate. Recommended vocabulary: raillery, bilphism, retogravure, maxixe, brummagem, pusillanimous, sempiternal, umbrageousness (side note: don't think I didn't notice, Ms. Gephart, how you sidled in and took fourth place. I thought I was firmly entrenched. I'll be watching you.) |
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 172 pages Tony Pisarenkov 07 September 2008 Though I had read Gatsby many years ago, I remembered virtually nothing, so it was just like reading it for the first time, and just as enjoyable. |
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 349 pages Tony Pisarenkov 09 November 2008 Not entirely sure what to make of it. Reads like a book that has been written in chunks over a period of many years. A few passages hit close to home. Others, however, made no sense at all. |
The Ultra Secret by F. W. Winterbotham, 191 pages Steve Gadd 16 January 2002 A convincing account of how the cracking of the German Enigma code played a decisive role in World War II. |
The Post-American World (2008) by Fareed Zakaria, 260 pages James Donahue 17 August 2008 An excellent survey of the U.S. options since the recent "rise of the West." Best points: good on multipolarity of power politics. Worst points: Zakaria (who is from India) focuses on Asia to the total exclusion of South America and Africa. |
Real Life, Real Love by Father Albert Cutie, 357 pages Micaela Larkin 05 December 2006 Yes, his name is Cutie. :) |
Notes from the Underground by Fedor Dostoyevsky, 220 pages Tony Pisarenkov 05 August 2008 |
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor, 251 pages Erik Bauer 10 October 2000 I realized rather quickly that I'm not a big fan of southern culture, but I finished the book anyway. I suppose I need to give Faulkner a try just to be fair. |
The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, 572 pages Brad Snyder 14 June 2006 O'Connor's stories are captivating snapshots of real people, with all their haughtiness and conceit on full display. The endings are often sudden and violent, and yet there are also glimpses of redemption. Hauntingly beautiful. |
Much to be Done by Frances Hoffman, 245 pages Julie Gephart 28 February 2003 "Private Life in Ontario from Victorian Diaries." Not as pioneer-oriented as I had been led to believe, but there were still some interesting bits. |
The Scarlet Threat by Francine Rivers , 401 pages Micaela Larkin 21 June 2007 My attempt to read evangelical historical fiction. Well written but..... |
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief by Francis Collins, 295 pages Jonathan Misirian 31 August 2006 As the head of the Human Genome Project, Collins writes with the authority of a respected scientist. The Language of God follows philosophers like Wolterstorff and Nash, yet is written for a more general crowd. Part personal spiritual discovery, part defense of theistic evolution; The Language of God shines light on the intersection of faith and reason. |
Baptism by Francis A. Schaeffer, 25 pages Brad Snyder 11 March 2006 I had a friend that once confessed to me that he did not want to be baptized in his Baptist church because he thought it was little more than a hazing ceremony. The Reformed denominations don't treat it as the center of theology like Baptists do, and this little booklet is an excellent and concise explanation of that understanding from both a logical and theological perspective. |
Vipers' Tangle by Francois Mauriac, 281 pages Micaela Larkin 16 April 2006 Novel dissecting the interior life of middle-class french lawyer.... Catholic Classic Best line:"Our thoughts, our desires, our actions struck no root in the faith to which we paid lip service. All our strength was employed in keeping our eyes fixed on material things." |
Time and Tide : A Walk Through Nantucket by Frank Conroy, 144 pages Jaqi Ross 29 June 2004 Frank Conroy first visited Nantucket with a gang of college friends in 1955. They came on a whim, and for Conroy it was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with this "small, relaxed oasis in the ocean." This book, part travel diary, part memoir, is a hauntingly evocative and personal journey through Nantucket: its sweeping dunes, rugged moors, remote beaches, secret fishing spots, and hidden forests and cranberry bogs. Admirers of Conroy?s classic and acclaimed memoir Stop-Time will again delight in what James Atlas, writing in the New York Times, called his "genius for close observation." |
The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina by Frank Rich, 335 pages Jonathan Misirian 09 April 2007 Rich, a columnist for the NYTimes, describes the innumerable missteps of the Bush Administration, clearly making the point that the Administration’s drive to create their own reality surpassed their need for honesty. The bungling of the reasons for entering the Iraq War has been well documented in other books… For far too long Bush has chosen to be the national cheerleader, urging America forward in the fight against Terrorism, w/o bothering to ask questions like, ‘Is this the right fight?’ and, ‘How do we know when we’ve won?’ Sadly the cost of this mismanagement of the Iraq War is the lives of over 3100 American troops, and over 50,000 Iraqi civilians. |
The Trial by Franz Kafka, 286 pages Steve Gadd 15 January 1999 The dizzying origin of the adjective 'kafkaesque.' Not as poignant as the short stories, though the parable ('Before The Law') toward the end is quite potent. |
The Castle by Franz Kafka, 417 pages Steve Gadd 29 January 1999 A sprawling, disorienting, and unfinished opus. Camus has an enlightening essay on Kafka's work in the collection The Myth of Sisyphus. |
The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, 460 pages Steve Gadd 14 December 1999 As good as existential dystopian literature gets. |
Letter to His Father by Franz Kafka, 63 pages Steve Gadd 26 December 2001 Revealing glimpse into the troubled relationship that fueled Kafka's nightmares. |
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933) by Franz Werfel, 817 pages James Donahue 06 July 2007 In 1915 seven towns of Armenians took to the mountain of Musa Dagh to resist the Ottoman genocide. They were rescued by a French cruiser after months of resistance. This books novelizes their experience while encrusting it in Biblical allusions: Musa Dagh is akin Ararat, Armenians to Israel, the holdout lasts forty days, etc. It is an original take on genocide, devoid of the by-now-cliche liberal musings on the Holocaust that populate bookshelves. Because the author is a conservative Catholic Austrian from before the age of Hitler. Thus, he musings on how genocide makes one feel one's blood, one roots; his refreshing postshots at the modernizing Arab leadership, and his theological/literary convictions on what it means to serves the "God of the nationS." Highly recommended. |
Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir (2005) by Franz Wisner, 274 pages Brad Snyder 29 September 2007 A guy gets jilted after a ten year relationship only five days before his wedding. What to do? Since everything is paid for, why not still have the party with all of your friends? But what of the honeymoon? Not wanting to waste all that money he spent to go to Costa Rica. Wisner invited his brother. They enjoyed the adventure so much that they sold their belongings and made a two year journey around the world out of it. Good story, witty and observant, even if it drags in places. |
The Holmes-Dracula File by Fred Saberhagen, 249 pages Jeff Gadd 09 March 2003 A little book of Sherlock Holme and his quest to solve a murder by Count Dracula. |
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 by Frederic Morton, 317 pages Tony Pisarenkov 05 November 2003 Loosely centered around the controversy-ridden life and suicide of Crown Prince Rudolph, "A Nervous Splendor" cronicles, without deep analysis but with great narrative flair, cultural, political and scientific events in Vienna during a single year, summer of 1888 through summer of 1889, with the implicit conclusion that these events were instrumental in shaping the history of the twentieth century in Europe. Principal personalities, in addition to Rudolph, include Freud, Brahms, Klimt, Bruckner, Schnitzler, Mahler, Herzl and Kaiser Wilhelm, among others. Not for the dedicated historian, but immensely informative in a journalistic sort of way, and a real page-turner. Highly recommended. |
Painted Desert by Frederick Barthelme, 243 pages Steve Gadd 06 April 1996 |
Painted Desert by Frederick Barthelme, 243 pages Steve Gadd 06 April 1998 Hilarious story with great cover art. |
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, 124 pages Steve Gadd 28 January 1998 Somewhat short but insightful autobiography. |
The Killing Zone A True Story by Frederick Downs, 267 pages Jeff Gadd 04 December 2002 Lt. Downs tells his story about how it was to lead soldiers in Vietnam and what it was like for him. In battle he lost a arm from a Bouncing Betty,a mine that when stepped on blowns up about waist high. |
The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State by Frederick Engels, 267 pages James Donahue 16 January 2003 |
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, 495 pages Jeff Gadd 27 January 2003 The Jackal a very clever assassin, gets caught by a very clever detective. Very interesting and greatly writting by the author. The Jackal's target is President Charles de Gaulle of France,hired by the SAO. |
Infinite In All Directions by Freeman Dyson, 299 pages Steve Gadd 05 October 1995 |
Disturbing the Universe by Freeman Dyson, 261 pages Steve Gadd 15 November 1995 |
From Eros to Gaia by Freeman Dyson, 345 pages Steve Gadd 15 February 1996 |
Imagined Worlds by Freeman Dyson, 208 pages Steve Gadd 12 July 2000 An imaginative and sensitive scientist looks deep into the future and imagines what might become of the human race. Other essays contrast Napoleonic and Tolstoyan modes of doing science. |
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietszche, 343 pages Steven Krise 11 August 2003 F so obviously left it wide open for a sequel by ending his opus at the dawn before the Great Noontide. I hear Arnold Schwarzenegger is thinking about starring in the movie version of the second book, "Also Sprach Zarathustra - Ich komme wieder". |
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future by Friedrich Nietzsche, 179 pages James Donahue 16 April 2003 A bit obtuse for Nietzsche. So heavy-handed and intentionally abusive to the reader. |
The Portable Nietzsche by Friedrich Nietzsche, 687 pages Steve Gadd 06 June 2003 "It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book -- what everyone else does *not* say in a book." While lugging this fat old Viking paperback around since January, I found that Nietzsche did compress his most remarkable, provocative, and memorable ideas into brilliant maxims and paragraphs. On the other hand, he also created ponderous, plodding tomes: Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, and the interminable Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Walter Kaufmann, the translator, explains in helpful introductions that Nietzsche did not bother much with editing, in one case beginning a new work the same day he finished the last. His philosophy, destined to be distorted by Nietzsche's sister after his death, remains less accessable as a result. |
The Greatest Story Ever Told by Fulton Oursler, 299 pages Jeff Gadd 27 September 2002 The story of the Life of Jesus Christ on Earth. |
Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863 - originally) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 74 pages James Donahue 01 May 2007 |
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 597 pages Steve Gadd 25 June 1995 |
Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 110 pages Steve Gadd 20 January 1996 |
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 940 pages Steve Gadd 29 December 1997 |
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 532 pages Steve Gadd 09 December 1998 |
Notes From Underground and other stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 239 pages Steve Gadd 10 October 1999 A classic short work by the classic author. 'White Nights' another favorite. |
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 940 pages Steve Gadd 08 December 2006 |
The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 940 pages James Donahue 31 December 2006 Thanks to Steve for reviving my interest in an old Christmas habit from college! |
The Brother’s Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 912 pages Jonathan Misirian 17 December 2007 One of my perennial favorites by FD. Every year at the advent of the first frost, I pick up a Dostoyevsky novel. I had wanted to read The Brothers last year, but the parallels to my life, were too striking (3 brothers –one in ministry, one in business –and the other in law enforcement- a recently deceased father, and wounds too fresh), and so prevented me from completing this masterpiece. |
Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 110 pages Steve Gadd 12 August 2008 |