| A Beginner's Guide to the World Economy by Randy Charles Epping, 232 pages Tony Pisarenkov 10 December 2003 Truly a beginner's guide, so much so that any semi-regular reader of the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal will have little, if anything, to learn from it. I had hoped that it would discuss the social implications of globalization at greater length, but in fact the entire book is dedicated to defining basic concepts. The most useful section is the glossary of terms in the back. | A Blood Dimmed Tide The Battle of the Bulge By the Men Who Fought It. by Gerald Astor, 513 pages Jeff Gadd 22 February 2003 The Battle of the Bulge is bad for the American's and German's soliders who fought in this part of the WWII. Great plots of using real soldiers stories from both sides and put them together in this book. Hard to tell who won this part of the war. My guess the winter storm won this battle against them. |
A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker, 192 pages Steve Gadd 27 September 2006 As long as I'm calling myself a fan, I may as well read the rest of this guy's canon. This book is a collection of thoughts captured over several weeks while the narrator got up before dawn to build a fire. No real plot, no chronology, just trademark close observation of everyday banality -- the way his toes automatically rise in the shower in the presense of falling soap, his duck's defensive maneuvers against the house cat, the amazing longevitiy of one ant which outlived all its comrades in an ant farm, the "negative thump" of a paper match pulled from its book. |
A Brief History of the Dead (2006) by Kevin Brockmeier, 252 pages Jonathan Misirian 14 March 2007 Brockmeier’s novel is set in two realities… one is the near future of those living, the other reality is the netherworld where recently deceased people ‘live’ for as long as they are remembered by those not yet dead. Brockmeier resurrects the Greek mythological Lethe, and makes the interplay between the two realities a source of rich insight |
A Brief History of the Mind by William H Calvin, 219 pages Steven Krise 14 June 2008 Rather disappointing - read like someone's lecture notes padded out to book length. |
A Brother's Blood by Michael C. White, 323 pages Mike Gadd 16 October 2002 This has to be the slowest moving whodunit I've ever read. The subject matter seemed reasonable enough, it just went nowhere and took too long to get there. I did learn that there was a POW camp in Maine that held Germans during WWII. For the story, a prisoner escapes and drowns in a nearby lake. Jump to present day and the prisoner's brother is in town asking questions about what happened. Nobody's talking. Not a good way to move a book along. The story leaked out like it was being leached from a stone. |
A Caress of Twighlight by Laurell K. Hamilton, 326 pages Julie Gephart 02 June 2002 Proof that political maneuvering can be just as tedious in a faerie court as it is in a human court. Only perhaps with more sex. |
A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History by Timothy Day, 306 pages Tony Pisarenkov 18 September 2006 A potentially interesting topic (how sound recording affected the performance and consumption of classical music) covered in an inadequate, disjoint, excessively England-centric and effete fashion. If I see the word demisemiquaver one more time, I will strangle someone. |
A Child's Book of True Crime by MS. Chloe Hooper, 238 pages Mike Gadd 26 March 2004 This book was lousy. It had potential, but when a parallel storyline kicked in on alternate chapters with talking animals it lost me. Next time leave Kitty Koala and Terence Tiger at home. |
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, 185 pages Steve Gadd 31 January 1996 |
A Cold Mind by David L. Lindsey, 311 pages Mike Gadd 21 February 2003 This book was written in 1983 and was rather contemporary in it's own way. I'm used to reading books that were written within the last couple of years. I had to get used to hearing about the Bee Gees, women being called 'foxy', lp records playing in the background... stuff like that. It took a while to get through it too, with all the snow shoveling and sledding to do. I liked the story well enough, I guess. It helped that the title was fitting. |
A Comprehensive Interpretation of the Life and Work of Christa Wolf by Hajo Drees, 156 pages James Donahue 20 March 2003 The work is as dry as the title, but provides a maximum amount of information in a minimum amount of time about the famed East German writer. |
A Concise History of the Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes, 432 pages James Donahue 02 October 2004 I have to confess that I wish I were not studying for Comps, so that I could read the books that Jaqi is reading. Nevertheless I am stuck skimming through umpteen books on the Russian Revolution, mostly based not on archival sources (Soviet archives were and are closed), but on emigre memoirs and polemics written by non-Stalnist socialists like Trotsky. Because of the limited source base, most of the histories simply repeat themselves. Pipes is however the best of this class. His analysis is very conservative and very cynical of the regime, which gives his work a honed edge and intellectual value too often lacking in other, more sympathetic accounts of the most brutal government in modern history |
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, 462 pages Tony Pisarenkov 26 December 2003 In all of literature, Shakespeare included, there is no character more repugnant, deranged, conniving, self-absorbed, disconnected from reality yet able to pervert it to previously unfathomable extents, than Ignatius J. Reilly. A masterpiece of the ludicrous. |
A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) by John Kennedy Toole, 462 pages James Donahue 12 November 2007 One of the funniest satires I have ever read. An overweight, maladjusted, half-insane medieval studies MA terrorizes New Orleans and a cast of locals, putzing from job to job, mixing a passion for the lost wisdom of Boethius with his addiction to moral disapproval of teen-bop movies. A satire full of warning for anyone (like me) who cannot seem to get out of school! |
A Cook's Tour: In Search of a Perfect Meal by Anthony Bourdain, 288 pages Tony Pisarenkov 20 April 2007 Less foodie-ish than Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, and a surprisingly decent bit of travel writing. Entertaining and enjoyable all around. |
A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow, 324 pages Mike Gadd 04 November 2002 Another British mystery, another decent book. It's tough, though, finding a good read, and then learning that it was a rookie effort. I have to wait for the next one to come out. |
A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester, 417 pages Steve Gadd 19 June 2009 The story of San Francisco's destruction during the 1906 earthquake and fire, along with a helpful overview of plate tectonics. |
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck, 132 pages Jeff Gadd 01 November 2002 A boy who get's a pet pig and who's dad is a butcher has to choise between loveing his pig or dad at the end. As sad as Old Yeller. |
A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane, 286 pages Mike Gadd 20 November 2004 I thought I'd give some of Mr. Lehane's early work a spin. This certainly had more humor than Mystic River did. |
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, 314 pages Steve Gadd 30 September 2002 Classic tragedy, a bit flat on the romance. |
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, 314 pages Tony Pisarenkov 20 November 2005 I used to think that I liked Hemingway. I am not so sure anymore. |
A Feast of Creatures, Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs by Craig Williamson, 230 pages Steven Krise 04 September 2002 A book in 3 parts. Zen-like Walt Whitman-influenced intro to riddles as means of enlightenment followed by translations of the 91 Old English riddles of the Exeter Book. Finishes with short commentary on each of the poems. Worthwhile for the first two parts. Includes an index of proposed solutions to the riddles. |
A Fez of the Heart by Jeremy Seal, 334 pages Steve Gadd 22 November 1999 Inspired by an old fez found in an attic, the author travels through modern Turkey looking for the story behind the outlawed hat. |
A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren, 304 pages Brad Snyder 25 August 2005 The subtitle of this book is, "Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian". As you can probably surmise from the extremely long subtitle, McLaren has written a book where he draws some of the good from about every single Christian, political, and social philosophy. In so doing, however, he comes off sounding as if he believes, well...nothing. Great if you're a nihilist; bad if you're the pastor of a church...like McLaren. I give this book one whole thumb down, instead of the usual two I would give a book I hate, first because there were at least three paragraphs that I liked, and second because I'm being "generous". |
A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (2006) by Michael Kazan, 306 pages James Donahue 05 May 2006 Good terse biography that purports to put Bryan's faith at the center of the story. Yet, to me, Kazan seems religiously tone-deaf, unable to do much with Bryan's faith other than repeatedly point to it. I get the feeling that Kazan is not nostalgic for a time when religion still mattered in presidential debates so much as nostalgic for a time when heartland evangelicals still voted Democratic. Very readable, informative, engaging, but still a bit disappointing to me. |
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. |
A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe by Tony Judt, 141 pages James Donahue 02 December 2003 This is one of the best and the most compact book on European unification out there. Judt is wise to be a "Euro-skeptic" and points out many substanitive issues standing in the path of total unification. |
A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003) by Libba Bray, 403 pages A Bennett 15 June 2004 Blah. Yeck. And yet, more blah. Amazing that a novel set in both Imperial India and Victorian England at a girl's finishing school rife with corsets and rosewater manages to sound not one whit like its main character (or any character in it) ever left the year 2004, much less middle America. And don't get me wrong--one of the most perfect renderings of this time period and these locales was written by a woman living in Tennessee. (See also The Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett) Dear Ms. Bray: Please add also to my list of outrages regarding your novel: why, why write all four hundered some pages in first person PRESENT tense? P.S. I hate you. |
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene, 186 pages Steven Krise 12 June 2007 Death came to him in the form of unbearable pain. It was as if he had to deliver this pain as a woman delivers a child, and he sobbed and moaned in the effort. At last it came out of him and he followed his only child into a vast desolation. |
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, 225 pages Tony Pisarenkov 05 July 2006 Brideshead Revisited did more for me, and I agree that the connection between the first and second parts of the book is strained at best (the alternate ending provided free of charge does no better), but Waugh's mastery at creating what are quite possibly the most vapid and despicable characters in all of XX-century literature with a mere flick of his pen comes through loud and clear. |
A Handful of Dust (1934) by Evelyn Waugh, 308 pages James Donahue 07 August 2007 Waugh's first non-satirical book is enough to make me despair of modern civilization. There is depressing, and then there is Waugh. Here Brenda Last leaves her traditional husband for no conceivable reason (boredom? silliness? callousness?), beginning a process that leads a country squire family into extinction. |
A Happy Death by Albert Camus, 167 pages Steve Gadd 14 September 1995 |
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers, 478 pages James Donahue 12 June 2002 A twentysomething combines Catholic guilt, the dual death of his parents, and anchorless postmodern wit to bleed himself onto too many pages. Advertized to me as an anti-memoir, I found it anything but. Eco once commented that sarcasm is the only way of expressing ourselves in a postmodern society inundated with narrative. We sih to say to the girl "I love you," but cannot because we've seen too many romantic movies; so we say "I love you" with sarcasm, to show our emotion and our contimitant knowledge that this emotion is hackneyed. We express, but without sacrificing our critical selves. This observation by Eco sums up Eggers: he hides behind sarcasm and postmodern self-awareness to defend to himself (and the reader) his obsessive need to talk of himself and write a memoir, to be known and analyzed by strangers. Lest one think I'm kidding, just read the second-to-last chapter of the book. He says it himself. Still to me, this is not an excuse for having written, or having read, this book. |
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, 437 pages Mike Gadd 10 March 2005 I picked this off the shelf at Target because I liked the way it started. It begins with a Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book. He lets the reader know that there is no overwhelming need to read the preface or the acknowledgements sections. You can also skip the table of contents, if you're short on time. You may possibly want to skip pages 239-251. These pages are primarily about twentysomethings whose lives are difficult to make interesting. In the preface there is a whole section of portions of the book that were omitted from the body of the text. He even lists how much money he was paid for writing the book and how the money was spent. The book itself was fine. A self-aware type of memoir. It seemed to run out of steam about 100 pages from the end. |
A History of German and Scandinavian Protestantism by Nicholas Hope, 603 pages James Donahue 01 July 2004 |
A History of Germany (2005) by Peter Wende, 185 pages James Donahue 08 January 2006 |
A History of Japanese Theology by Yasuo Furuya, 146 pages James Donahue 19 April 2004 |
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes, 307 pages Steve Gadd 31 May 1997 |
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes, 307 pages Steve Gadd 03 October 2000 This is a wonderful book. It reads like a 'best-of' collection of short stories, but they are all more or less directly linked to a central recurring image. Sort of a Milan Kundera with a self-effacing British sense of humor. |
A History of the World in 6 Glasses (2005) by Tom Standage, 274 pages James Donahue 20 December 2006 The six glasses: Beer (Fertile Crescent), Wine (Greece and Rome), Rum/Brandy/Whiskey (American Colonies), Coffee (Enlightenment), Tea (China in 19th-century), and Coca-Cola (20th-century America). Very Anglophoniccentric, but very entertaining with great trivia on our favorite beverages. |
A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage, 311 pages Tony Pisarenkov 29 September 2007 An enjoyable and surprisingly well-written, albeit brief, examination of the impact six beverages -- beer, wine, distilled spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola -- had on the political and economic history of mankind. Recommended. |
A History of Twentieth-Century Russia by Robert Service, 589 pages James Donahue 07 January 2004 Despite the mundanest of titles, Service writes a fairly readable textbook that tells the facts and provides some anecdotes. Lack of pictures is somewhat damning however (as it would be for any history book). Boning up for my class this Spring. |
A Journal of the Plague Year [audio] by Daniel Defoe, 0 pages Steve Gadd 16 December 1999 A firsthand account of the devistating Black Plague in London in 1665. |
A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell, 188 pages Mike Gadd 18 December 2002 Drab, dull, dry and certainly not worth the 188 pages. To think, I could have been standing in line at the WalMart having a great time. But no- I had to finish the book. |
A Likeness in Stone by Julia Wallis Martin, 280 pages Mike Gadd 30 December 2002 This story went a different direction from what I was expecting. You don't get too deep with the characters but the story is strong. I liked where it ended up. |
A Maiden's Grave by Jeffery Deaver, 416 pages Jeff Gadd 30 November 2001 |
A Maiden's Grave by Jeffery Deaver, 419 pages Steven Krise 07 November 2004 A hostage situation in an old slaughter house. The twists come in just where you expect them. |
A Map of the World by MS. Jane Hamilton, 390 pages Mike Gadd 20 July 2004 Probably the first book I've ever read just because of the title. The 'Oprah' endorsement should have been a warning. Apparently, she likes depressing stories. In this one, a farmer's wife (the local school nurse), has a neighbor's child drown in her pond as she is supposed to be babysitting her. Then she's accused of molesting half the schoolchildren and she's thrown in jail. The husband has to sell the family farm to bail her out and then they leave town after she's aquitted to try to start a new life. There. I just saved you the trouble. |
A Married Man by Catherine Alliott, 407 pages Kristin Schrock 20 May 2003 A romantic novel in which the heroine tries unsuccessfully to have an affair with a married man (only to find true love with a man who has been her friend forever, naturally) in which we learn that dead husbands, funny, dead children, not funny. |
A Meal Observed by Andrew Todhunter, 228 pages Tony Pisarenkov 14 May 2006 Part commentary on French gastronomy (and, by extension, national character), part memoir, told through the prism of a single meal at Taillevent, one of the most respected Parisian restaurants. If you are going to read only one book about French gastronomy, this is probably not it, but very entertaining and enjoyable if you're into that sort of thing. |
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, 208 pages Steve Gadd 30 August 1999 Papa reminisces about being "very poor and very happy" in Paris. |
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. |
A New Generation: Catholic and American by Michael Novak, 205 pages Micaela Larkin 16 July 2006 |
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes, 862 pages James Donahue 02 November 2002 |
A Place of Execution by Val McDermid, 404 pages Mike Gadd 07 March 2003 I learned a whole bunch of great new British phrases in this one. The story wasn't half bad either. I now know what it means 'to go completely hairless' or to 'have a feeling in your water'. I don't know what it means to 'sit there with my paper hat on pulling crackers'. I really shouldn't give a monkey's toss though, because it just doesn't mean owt. I'll just grab my mac and trilby and be on my way with a flea in my ear. |
A Poisoned Seasons (2007) by Tasha Alexander, 320 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, 253 pages Steven Krise 13 July 2002 Inspired by Percesepe's article here http://www.mississippireview.com/PublicScrutiny/Content/ps0104-percesepe.html I decided to read something from his list of authors I'd never read before. The style was disorienting at first, but worth the while to work through. Words I learned: soutane, athwart |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, 253 pages Steve Gadd 20 December 2008 Not as compelling as I remembered it, though the extensive lecture on hell is still harrowing. Probably the only place you'll find fart jokes in Latin, or the tidbit that "bollocks" is "the only English dual number." |
A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shallit, 304 pages Micaela Larkin 27 November 2006 Shallit offers an intelligent discussion of modern dating. |
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, 328 pages Jeff Gadd 03 September 2002 A young lieutenant in the Vietnam war and his experience there. |
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick, 278 pages Steven Krise 11 November 2007 How does a scanner see? |
A Separate Peace by John Knowles, 196 pages Steven Krise 19 December 2004 The prose is well written even if the story is a cliche thrice over (coming of age story set in a New England boarding school during WW2). |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Austere Academy: Book the Fifth (2000) by Lemony Snicket, 221 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning: Book the First (1999) by Lemony Snicket, 183 pages A Bennett 15 June 2004 It is hard to imagine a more marvelously, cleverly written novella. Delightfully drawn from the work of both Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, and yet somehow, perfectly, like nothing else, ever. Snicket easily takes as much fun from relating the details of his story as from the mechanics used to relate it. What luck there are 12 more unfortunate events in the series! Possibly the second most perfect non-literature book I have ever read (The Blue Sword being first). Not a misstep to be found amongst any of its thirteen, dolefully wonderful chapters. |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Carnivorous Carnival: Book the Ninth (2002) by Lemony Snicket, 286 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Ersatz Elevator: Book the Sixth (2001) by Lemony Snicket, 259 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Grim Grotto: Book the Eleventh (2004) by Lemony Snicket, 323 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Hostile Hospital: Book the Eighth (2001) by Lemony Snicket, 255 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill: Book the Fourth (2000) by Lemony Snicket, 196 pages A Bennett 16 June 2004 How unfortunate that when I needed a fix of this new book-bound drug that I was in a grocery store that only had book four to sell me, and not two or three. Encouragingly, a word here which means, "happily", such a bad beginning did little to dim my enjoyment of the text. |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Penultimate Peril: Book the Twelfth (2005) by Lemony Snicket, 368 pages A Bennett 30 October 2005 Take a lesson, JK! The next-to-last book in a series can be more than just a page-heavy stalling tactic. The Baudelaires spend this excellently-named tome pondering the nature of villainy, and moral cost of attempting to live nobly in a corrupt world. |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room: Book the Second (1999) by Lemony Snicket, 192 pages A Bennett 21 June 2004 A thrilling sidebar was offered around page 35 on dramatic irony. Rather made me wish I had it to copy and pass around to students when I was teaching. |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Slippery Slope: Book the Tenth (2003) by Lemony Snicket, 337 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Vile Village: Book the Seventh (2001) by Lemony Snicket, 256 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window: Book the Third (2000) by Lemony Snicket, 217 pages A Bennett 23 June 2004 An event containing flesh-eating leeches, hurricanes, a doll named Pretty Penny, and naturally the most severly nefarious non-magical villain about which I've ever read, Count Olaf. |
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch, 205 pages Kristin Schrock 20 November 2004 A bizarre love hexagon: Martin, who is married to Antonia, is having an affair with Georgie. Antonia confesses an affair with Palmer. Martin subsequently falls in love with Honor, Palmer's sister. Georgie has an affair with Martin's brother, Alexander (who may or may not be having an affair with Antonia). The novel opened with dialogue (so I didn't have high expectations) and even with all the Melrosian affairs, it was a bit dull until it took a much needed twisted turn towards the end. Recommended vocabulary: pusillanimity, sybarite, insuperably. |
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, 478 pages Steve Gadd 14 June 2005 Ever wonder how we know the mass of the earth, or the size of the universe? Years after being put off by dry science textbooks as a child, this author decided to learn as much as he could about the world, and significantly, to find out how we know these things. The result is an entertaining overview of the natural sciences as we understand them today, including the most interesting stories of the historic researchers. |
A Short Life of Soren Kierkegaard by Walter Lowrie, 260 pages James Donahue 27 March 2004 If you love Kierkegaard, you'll love this biography. Its written in the same meandering, maddening, charming fashion that relys on parables to make its point. Some have questioned, as they should, Lowrie's intense desire to reduce Kierkegaard's works to his life -- a roman a clef of one, so to speak. Yet if one uses Lowries analysis in reverse -- to see how Kierkegaard's life affected his work -- one will not be disappointed. (More 'serious' lovers of Kierkegaard should stick to Hanney's bio.) |
A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978) by Madeline L'Engle, 1978 pages A Bennett 25 October 2005 I have heard that certain Talmudic writings are slightly less didactic than this hollow, unsatisfying ‘novel’ (if you can even call it that). I did learn a cool new word for a model of the solar system, but I have forgotten it now, and am loathe to re-open the book to find it again. This book may have seemed cutting edge and relevant when it was written, but it now seems slightly hysterical in its nuclear obliteration fear-based narrative. |
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, 304 pages Steve Gadd 22 December 1998 I was surprised to find that I didn't like this any better than when we read it in high school. |
A Taste for Beer by Stephen Beaumont, 181 pages Steven Krise 04 August 2009 Written in 1995, just as the "craft beer" movement was gaining steam in North America, this book is an ode to beer and its pairing with other enjoyable experiences (including, eating food with beer, cooking food with beer (yes, a whole chapter of recipes), wine, whiskey, cigars, baseball franchises, movies, musical styles). |
A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love (2001) by Alan Jacobs, 172 pages James Donahue 18 November 2008 |
A Very Civil War by Joachim Remak, 185 pages James Donahue 22 August 2005 Remak portrays, with great illustrations and narrative punch, the Swiss civil of 1847. He compares it with the 1848 revolutions and the American Civil War, but his greatest skill is in portraying the individuals who made this conflict one of the least bloody in modern history. |
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, 320 pages Steve Gadd 14 March 1999 New York to New Orleans on foot. Pretty impressive. |
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, 276 pages Mike Gadd 13 March 2003 After only 2 books this guy has become one of my favorite reads. Reading this was like enjoying my own pint of Ben and Jerry's. His 'walk in the woods' was an attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail. The people he met, his buddy he hiked with, the strange noises outside his tent... all meshed into a delightful account. If only he had taken pictures. |
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, 274 pages Steve Gadd 16 September 2007 "Now here's a thought to consider. Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week." |
A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson, 276 pages Steven Krise 15 March 2008 Once, aeons ago, the Appalachians were of a scale and majesty to rival the Himalayas....That the Appalachian Mountains present so much more modest an aspect today is because they have had so much time in which to wear away. The Appalachians are immensely old--older than the oceans and continents (at least in their present configurations), far, far older than almost all other landscape features on earth. When simple plants colonized the land and the first creatures crawled gasping from the sea, the Appalachians were there to greet them. |
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (1998) by Bill Bryson, 274 pages Brad Snyder 20 September 2007 A fun book made all the more enjoyable by the fact that I have been in many of the same places Bryson visited in this book (most recently, the dreadful towns of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN). I too hiked small portions of the Appalachian Trail in my youth and now foster a strange desire to visit again sometime soon. Steve, thanks for the recommendation. |
A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle, 211 pages Jennifer Dear 25 October 2007 |
A Yankee in Meiji Japan by James Huffman, 278 pages James Donahue 31 March 2004 Biography of Ned House: first American journalist in Tokyo, intimate of Mark Twain, Nippophile, and all-around scamp. |
Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (2006) by Isabell Hull, 333 pages James Donahue 05 November 2006 Hull is simply one of the best historians still writing today. In this book she questions why and how the German army committed wartime atrocities in Africa (1907-8) and in Belgium (1914-18). Her thesis is that atrocities were not the result of barbarism or of top-down orders, but rather were the product of overwhelmed troops on the ground, underfunded and underprepared, yet expected to secure absolute order and cooperation from a (naturally) hostile civilian population. |
Absolute Power by David Baldacci, 505 pages Jeff Gadd 19 November 1999 |
ABSOLUTE WATCHMEN by Alan Moore, 446 pages Jonathan Misirian 07 August 2006 Moore’s the genius behind many of contemporary comics most insightful and introspective publications. This is a collection of a series of DC Comics from the mid 80’s. Multi-layered stories, existentialist angst, stunning graphics… all work together to make this collection a compelling read. |
Accidents by Yael Hedaya, 453 pages Jonathan Misirian 17 April 2006 Hedaya’s first novel. A widower writer with precocious daughter falls in love with another writer, whose father dies. Set in modern Jerusalem, translated into English. |
Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations by Stephen Schlesinger, 287 pages James Donahue 19 May 2005 Despite the jacket's promise of a story about 'superpowers' and 'secret agents,' Schlesinger's book is still a pretty convential story about the diplomatic negotiations of the 1945 San Francisco Conference that produced the final version of the U.N. Charter. A good read by a current UN insider, but falls too often into a narrow focus on the American delegation. |
Actually Useful Internet Security Techniques by Larry J Hughes Jr, 378 pages Steven Krise 17 October 2005 Probably more useful in an actual sense 10 years ago when it was written. Interesting (and mostly still relevant) discussion of protocol security and Unix architecture. |
Adam Bede by George Eliot, 592 pages James Donahue 15 August 2003 I am continually amazed at Eliot's talent, evident here even in her first novel, for conjuring up pastoral 19th-c England across class lines. In this work her theological acuity also shines through with her depiction the interactions between Dinah, a Methodist preacher. and Irwine, the Anglican vicar. A bit melodramatic, but I was into it. |
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent by Elaine Pagels, 154 pages Steve Gadd 14 July 1996 |
Adrift by Steven Callahan, 234 pages Steve Gadd 24 January 1996 |
Adrift by Steven Callahan, 344 pages Steve Gadd 27 June 1997 |
Adrift by Steven Callahan, 344 pages Steve Gadd 10 April 2000 The ever rereadable first person account of 76 days spent floating across the Pacific in a rubber life raft. |
Adrift by Steven Callahan, 344 pages Steve Gadd 22 September 2004 I read this book every few years and get a new appreciation for such things as fresh water, food, and a warm bed. This survivor's resourcefulness and determination are always impressive, and his precise drawings are a nice touch. |
Adrift by Steven Callahan, 344 pages Steve Gadd 18 April 2007 Day 14: I sit a thousand miles away from any companionship, money, or luxury, yet I have a feeling of wealth. Fifteen pounds of raw fish dangle from clotheslines that I've rigged in one half of the raft. I call it the butcher shop. The solar sill is beginning to glisten with condensation, coins tossed to this beggar by the aristocratic sun. It is not much, but the implications of my meager cache are great. Slowly I am evolving a home out of this rubber, string, and steel. |
After All (1951) by Norman Angell, 355 pages James Donahue 05 September 2006 Angell was an original and combative thinker about international relations and peace between the wars. Quite a life, written with a colorful eye: cowboying in California as a youth, running the largest English-language paper in Paris, advocacy for the League of Nations, buying a farm/island in the English Channel. But the tone of the book ruins much of it -- it is too much of a temptation for an idiosyncratic liberal who has never held power to spend too much time flaunting an "I told you so." |
After Dark (audio) by Phillip Margolin, 0 pages Kristin Schrock 20 March 2002 Dating Tip for Ugly Lawyers: Frame the object of your affection--who is, of course, beautiful--for murder. Defend that person. Fabricate evidence. It's okay, as long as it's all for love. |
After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity by Miroslav Volf, 306 pages James Donahue 31 December 2002 Volf contends for an ecclesiology modelled after trinitarian relationality, perichoretical personhood, and social constructionism. By doing so, Volf is able to affirm a Free-Church ecclesiastical reality with Catholic and Orthodox sensibilities. Throughout Volf is in excellent dialogue with Catholic, Orthodox, and Baptist theologians; one could read the book only for the comparative ecclesiologies of these traditions and be well satisfied. Definite influence of Barth and Moltmann on his theology. |
After the Quake: Stories (Translated from Japanese) by Haruki Murakami, 181 pages Kristin Schrock 22 January 2006 Read aloud during the car ride back from Goshen, Indiana. These stories all feature the 1995 Kobe earthquake at some point, and it works as a metaphor for vulnerability. I wasn't jazzed about the writing (that could be the translation), but some of the images were lovely. Besides, winter cornfields do get a bit monotonous after awhile. |
Age of Propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion by Anthony Pratkanis, 277 pages Jonathan Misirian 31 August 2005 Pratkanis provides a thorough overview of the history and modern use of persuasion. Advertising receives the brunt of the author’s work, but politics and religion also play significant roles. I found especially interesting the explanation of the granfalloon technique and how this helps to shape consumer behavior. |
Aimee Semple McPherson & the Resurrection of Christian America by Matthew Avery Sutton, 416 pages Micaela Larkin 17 June 2007 A++++ |
Airframe [audio] by Michael Crichton, 0 pages Steve Gadd 29 March 2000 A thriller set amid the political drama of the aircraft industry, sure to become a movie before long. |
Alchemy of Fire (2004) by Gillian Bradshaw, 247 pages Jennifer Dear 07 March 2007 Bookcover says: "A rich historical romance and a journey of self-discovery." Jen says: "Not that bad. But not her best." |
Aliens III by Alan Dean Foster, 218 pages Jeff Gadd 07 February 2002 Aliens they just keep going and going and going!!! |
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, 318 pages Steve Gadd 10 May 1998 Unbelievable true story of a soccer team whose plane crashed in the Andes. Find out all the frightful details the movie left out. |
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, 249 pages Jeff Gadd 19 August 2002 A book about what it was like for the Germans in WW 1. |
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, 302 pages Steve Gadd 17 February 1997 |
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, 302 pages Steve Gadd 09 August 2000 In the Hollywood spirit of finding a category to create a superlative, I would name this my favorite contemporary American realist novel. |
All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson, 277 pages Steve Gadd 11 January 2003 Gibson still has the ability to create vivid portrait of the near-future, though he relies on a couple of images a bit much (dirty ice, tires on wet pavement). He has recycled the best characters from earlier novels: Rent-a-cop Rydell, his bike-messenger girlfriend, and Fontaine, who embodies the eBay wristwatch habit Gibson wrote about for Wired. The story is good enough, but the ending is kind of flat and left me with the feeling that Gibson is still coasting on Neuromancer fame. I guess that explains why I got the book for a dollar from the library with a "Removed From Circulation: Low Demand" stamp. |
Aloft by Chang-rae Lee, 376 pages Jonathan Misirian 02 August 2005 Aloft, reminds the reader that serious fiction exists. Written with a depth of prose rarely seen, Lee's narrative invites the reader to savor each line of text. Written in a similar vein as The Corrections, Aloft makes a great summer read. |
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson, 499 pages Jeff Gadd 26 August 2003 Along came a creepy spider named Gary Soneji, who commits a kidnap of some kids at school,to be famous for,but things just go out of hand for him. He also calls himself the Son of Lindbergh. |
Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer by Maureen Ogle, 422 pages Steven Krise 18 June 2009 An thoroughly engaging, informative, and well-documented history of commercial beer brewing in America. The story begins in the frenetic frontier towns of Milwaukee an St Louis in the 1840s and traces all the important brewers and the events that shaped American brewing up through the early 2000s. |
Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern, 228 pages Jaqi Ross 16 April 2004 I didn't even realize it was the Jane Stern who contributes to NPR. Interesting read, but not fabulous. |
America (the book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, David Javerbaum, 227 pages Kristin Schrock 23 January 2005 Astute and funny primer on the U.S. Government. It successfully combines the respect for the system in place and the frustration of the system gone awry. I laughed and I learned some stuff--which, really, is not a bad way to spend your time. |
American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold (2002) by Harry Turtledove, 619 pages James Donahue 28 June 2007 Turtledove continues his alternative history through 1933, with the re-ascension of the Confederate Fascist party and the partially successful attempts of the U.S. to pacify the captured parts of Canada and the ever-simmering Mormons out West. |
American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (2003) by Harry Turtledove, 618 pages James Donahue 01 December 2007 Turtledove's alternative history of North America reaches the second world war, when a a defeated Confederacy is determined to win back lands from the North while ensuring that their African slaves will not stab them in the back again. |
American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving by Christian Smith, 287 pages James Donahue 31 October 2002 A sociological survey of Christians to determine the relative strength, perceptions of, common worldviews, and weaknesses of evangelicalism. The book has some very serious flaws: a poor definition of the categories, weighted questions in Chapter 2 and 3, and ignoring the margin of error while making some strong claims. Yet the book provides some interesting numbers, and the analysis in the last two chapters is quite good. Smith claims that evangelicalism thrives off of modernity and pluralism, creating an effective subculture dependent on individualism that is its greatest weakness and greatest strength. Good, in that it keeps a coherent religious view; bad, in that it renders them impotent within the larger culture. |
American Gods (2001) by Neil Gaiman, 602 pages Brad Snyder 05 December 2007 An ex-con named Shadow is enlisted to work for a man named Wednesday who turns out to be the manifestation of a pagan Norse god. Wednesday is trying to enlist the help of other pagan deities that were brought to America in the minds of millions of immigrants over thousands of years to fight the new American deities such as technology and media. Quite possibly the strangest thing I have ever read. |
American Gospel: God, The Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. by Jon Meacham, 399 pages Jonathan Misirian 14 August 2006 American Gospel is a gift to the polarizing debate regarding the historicity of religion’s role within America. Meacham deftly shows the failure of both the Right and the Left’s view of America’s religious roots. While both sides of the debate view the past through their skewed lenses, Meacham proposed a compelling argument for the role of religion w/n American politics. Expertly written, well documented, and truly fascinating! |
American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon by Stephen Prothero, 337 pages James Donahue 07 January 2004 Prothero outlines how Jesus slipped the bonds of theology to become everybody's best friend in America. The book is divided into two parts: the first one is Protestantism going from solus fide to solus Jesus; the second, on how outsiders have utilized Jesus to their own purposes. Focus is paid to Jesus Freaks, CCM, megachurches, liberalism, Thomas Jefferson, pop culture, Reformed Jews, and DL Moody, among other. Very informative but written with a great sense of humor. |
American Protestants and TV in the 1950s (2007) by Michele Rosenthal, 120 pages James Donahue 21 January 2008 Rosenthal argues that the late twentieth century advancement of evangelicalism over mainline Protestantism is attributable to its relative embrace of TV. She does a great job of showing the National Council of Churches disdain for such a lowbrow art form and suspicion of the effect of TV on a culture - but is that representative of "mainline Protestantism" by the 1960s? She does a good job demonstrating that the nascent NAE did not consider TV as a unique medium, somehow different in its substance from books, but rather as a morally neutral and uncomplicated purveyor of messages. What mattered was the morality and intent of the broadcaster, not the medium itself. Thus evangelicals dove into the redemption of the TV as a tool for influencing culture. But how can we jump from the NAE to the evangelicals who really control the airwaves: Falwell, Roberts, Robertson, etc? Its a dissertation that's long on solid, thought-provoking argument, but a bit short on primary research. (Now why didn't I think of that?) |
American Skin (2006) by Ken Bruen, 280 pages Jonathan Misirian 09 March 2007 Bruen’s back, perfecting his craft of writing sparse, literate, and violent crime noir. The genre is unique; in that for what it lacks in character development is made up in fast pace, lucid and taut writing. American Skin is Bruen’s attempt at moving the setting to the US, hence the adopting of Springsteen’s song as the title for the book. Murder, betrayal, love lost, and hard drinking...its all here. |
American Vertigo: Travelling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville by Bernard-Henri Levy, 308 pages Jonathan Misirian 15 May 2006 The Atlantic sponsored a French philosopher to retrace Tocqueville’s travels across America. Levy’s insights are at times relevant and profound; but more often then not are reflective of his French weltanschauung. |
Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion (2007) by David Gelernter, 230 pages Jonathan Misirian 25 October 2007 This book was recommended to me as a 21st Century Swiftian- A Modest Proposal. The conceit: showing the hypocrisy of America –the idea- by comparing it to Jewish Zionism. Either Gelernter is rabidly on the far right, or he is brilliantly on the left. At times I didn’t know whether to chuckle or shake my head in disgust. Read for yourself and see if the author is mad or a genius. |
America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln by Mark Noll, 568 pages James Donahue 17 October 2002 Noll's latest is a masterpiece. The book details how American Christianity became so unique, tracing its synthesis with republicanism and common-sense philosophy. His argumentation is solid, and his source base incredible. A vital book for anyone wishing to understand the cultural conditionings of their American church. |
Among the Thugs by Bill Buford, 313 pages Tony Pisarenkov 10 November 2002 A fascinating, if stomach-churning, look at the phenomenon of English football hooligans |
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, 193 pages Jaqi Ross 11 August 2004 A contemporary morality tale that is as profound as it is witty, we have Ian McEwan at his wisest and most wickedly disarming. And why Amsterdam? What happens there to Clive and Vernon is the most delicious climax of a novel brimming with surprises. |
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, 193 pages James Donahue 30 June 2005 This is my first McEwan novel, chosen because it won the Booker Prize in 1998. About halfway through the book, however, I began to suspect that this particular Booker was awarded more for the author's ouerve and reputation than for the merits of these pages. McEwan writes about 'weighty' subjects with the graceful, page-turning prose of a Tom Clancy. That's an achievement, but given the wonderful things I hear about McEwan, I hope that I'll find a bit more when I pick him up next time. |
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, 178 pages Kristin Schrock 02 February 2006 Not quite as poignant as Atonement, but still enjoyable examination of chance and choice and misinterpretations leading to tragedy. Although the final action that leads to the tragedy didn't quite track for me, his characters are vivid and his use of language masterful. |
An Alchemy of Mind by Diane Ackerman, 300 pages Steven Krise 30 January 2008 Reads like a book-length introduction to the topic of mind/brain. Uses a lot of interesting imagery, but makes references to all the usual places (Gazzaniga, Libet). Includes a chapter long diversion on how great Shakespeare is? |
An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks, 296 pages Steve Gadd 04 April 2003 An artist loses his color vision after a car accident, a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome shows no symptoms while he works, a man blind from birth regains sight after cataract surgery but has no comprehension of vision. Seven case studies presented in detail by the Awakenings doctor. |
An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca, 341 pages Steve Gadd 09 September 2002 The savior of Chrysler tells his side of the story at Ford, how he rose through the ranks with hard work and great success, only to be fired by a paranoid Henry Ford. Includes Iacocca's argument in favor of a government bailout for Chrysler, despite being a champion of the free-enterprise system, and a chapter against airbags, written before Chrysler's about-face on that topic. |
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, 328 pages Jonathan Misirian 28 August 2006 Is this a Gore-reinvention or a Gore-redemption? The author presents a detailed and honest appraisal of the global climate crisis.. the facts are indisputable as well as the photographic evidence. What isn’t answered is: ‘Is our current situation part of a consistent downward trend or is it part of a larger cyclical movement of changing climate patterns.’ |
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison, 195 pages James Donahue 20 June 2005 An excellent primer on bipolar disorder. To paraphrase those cheesy commercials: Jamison is not just a Johns Hopkins professor specializing in bipolar, she's a client. Seems like this is hitting a lot of people close to us - to name two just in D.C.: Susan Philips and Jabes Schuppe. Powerful stuff. |
An Unquiet Mind by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, 225 pages Jonathan Misirian 26 August 2005 An Unquiet Mind traces the path of manic-depressive illness in the author's life. Currently a professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, this personal account provides rich and lucid insights into the course of this illness. Dr. Jamison writes with tremendous clarity and grace. |
An Untold Story: The Roosevelts of Hyde Park by Eliot Roosevelt, 305 pages Micaela Larkin 03 July 2007 FDR's son psychoanalyzes his parents. |
Ancient Future Faith: rethinking evangelicalism for a postmodern world by Robert Weber, 256 pages Jonathan Misirian 01 June 2006 Weber’s premesis is this: the church today is faced with a post-mdoern culture. The way to effectively combat postmodernity is to return to our ecclestiacal roots. Weber explores the ancient rites and practices of the church showing their relevance and promise for today. |
Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-Forming Community by Robert E. Webber, 224 pages Brad Snyder 07 December 2005 Webber draws a connection between the pluralism in which we currently find ourselves culturally, and that of the first century church. He proposes adopting into our own worship and Christian lives some of the language, styles, and liturgy employed by the early church. |
And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander, 320 pages Micaela Larkin 01 February 2007 This book rocks. I picked it up because I liked the cover at Target. When I flipped it over I realized Ralph McInerny liked it. Opened up the flap to read that author went to ND and her dad taught there, I immediately bought it. It was a great mystery! Luckily, the sequel comes out in a few months! |
Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, 327 pages Jeff Gadd 27 February 2003 More Fairy tales and more plots! I still don't get them, but they make me know that I am too old for them now!!! |
Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business by Harold Livesay, 202 pages James Donahue 03 September 2004 From this gilded age to another. |
Angel City Of by Nancy Holder, 177 pages Jeff Gadd 12 June 2002 |
Angel Not Forgotten by Nancy Holder, 243 pages Jeff Gadd 14 June 2002 |
Angel of Death by Jack Higgins, 398 pages Jeff Gadd 11 July 2001 |
Angel Redemption by Mel Odom, 305 pages Jeff Gadd 18 June 2002 |
Angel: The Summoned by Cameron Dokey, 294 pages A Bennett 18 April 2002 Can Man sidestep the Death for which he is inevitably marked? Set during the immolation spree of an erratic serial killer in and around LA, the police are powerless to find the answers needed to stop the killings, but one PI believes he can thwart fate, expose a cult, and surmount the curse of his own Mark. Necessary vocabulary: fern bar, incunabula. |
Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, 569 pages Mike Gadd 12 May 2003 Cool story about a scientist who discovers and collects antimatter in an attempt to prove that God and science are mutually supportive. He's murdered and the antimatter is stolen. It has the ability to vaporize 6 city blocks in every direction. It's hidden somewhere in the Vatican. The scientist's daughter and a religious specialist are sent to find it. One of the quicker reads of the year. |
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, 569 pages Kristin Schrock 26 December 2005 This was recommended by a friend of mine. I loaned her Slaughterhouse Five and I got this one--not a fair trade. Clunky writing and an abundance of ellipses. Like this sentence: "The killer still remembered every word of that call..." which led directly to a flashback. Bleh. |
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, 307 pages Mike Gadd 07 February 2002 |
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 851 pages Steve Gadd 06 March 1999 If you're one of the few people for whom the ending hasn't been spoiled, read it soon. |
Anne's House of Dreams (1922) by L.M. Montgomery, 227 pages A Bennett 24 July 2005 As I remembered it, but many readings in my younger years seem to make me now read over-quickly to get to my favorite parts, which never seem to last long enough. And the quick-read means the book and the experience of it is consumed before I know it. |
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe, 216 pages Jaqi Ross 01 January 2004 Describes power politics in an imaginary West African country, Kangan, where a military coup has brought to prominence a Sandhurst-trained officer ill-prepared for political leadership. |
Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and the Making of the Modern World (2008) by Arthur Williamson, 534 pages James Donahue 12 September 2008 |
Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, 382 pages Steve Gadd 05 December 2004 The book gives some background on the Apollo program and a detailed account of the unlucky mission. It was interesting to see that after the oxygen tank explosion, the oxygen supply problem was fairly minor. The ordeal was more a marathon of mundane challenges: keeping the ship oriented and warm, saving power, and modifying the ship's trajectory to actually return to Earth instead of becoming a permanent tomb orbiting the sun for centuries. |
APOLLYON by Tim LaHaye Jerry Jenkins, 399 pages Jeff Gadd 27 March 2001 |
Apollyon by Tim LaHaye Jerry Jenkins, 399 pages Jeff Gadd 28 August 2002 The fifth in the Left Behind series which is very good to read and is interesting. |
Apologia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman, 437 pages James Donahue 12 April 2003 Newman's defense and account of his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Newman was one of the main leaders of the Oxford Movement in 19th century Britain, a movement devoted to combatting liberalism by returning the church to its orthodox roots. The book is very insightful and in many ways has mirrored some of my own thoughts. It is always amazing to me how one can reach across the centuries and touch a kindred spirit in another time and another place. The more things change. . . . |
Archimedes' Revenge by Paul Hoffman, 260 pages Steve Gadd 27 May 2003 An eclectic collection of essays in various mathematical fields: number theory, cryptography, topology, artificial intelligence, and game theory. The title refers to a cattle-counting problem posed by Archimedes that stood unsolved until the age of computers. The survey of other classic problems is interesting, as is the game theory demonstration that a truly democratic election is impossible. The chapters on artificial intelligence computer chess players are dated, however, and the book reads like notes for a lecture on the whole. |
Are You My Mother? by P D Eastman, 64 pages Steven Krise 20 December 2004 A confused if precocial avian of unspecified species searches for its mother in a variety of unlikely locales, interrogating those it meets with a refrain that lends its form to the book's title. These chance meetings with diverse inhabitants of the bird's environs have a hint of humor (due to the young fowl's naivety) however, the fun is tinged with a vague sense of dread derived from the inherent stress of losing one's primary caregiver and the imminent threat of predation that implies. Not to worry, though, it all ends well for our little feathered friend when a helpful frontend loader lifts it back into its nest just as the matron returns from her foraging expedition. |
Area 7 by Matthew Reilly, 507 pages Steven Krise 15 May 2003 Come here to stock up on your multi-syllabic-hypenated-descriptive-sounding-adjective-looking-word-like-things. Fairly good action sequences. Would be a much better movie. |
Arms of Love (Contemporary Catholic Fiction) by Carmen Marcoux, 454 pages Micaela Larkin 16 July 2006 Whatever happened to the Catholic imagination is it being surplanted by mega-evangelical dating texts? This is a strange book. It might be a bit better on a literary level if the author had not self-published. On a religious level, the book is downright disturbing. The author writes in the grand tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe, except wait a minute she is not a mid-century evangelical and you don't even have anyone to succumb to evil or a Christ figure like the little girl or Uncle Tom. They all accepted Christ into their lives and instituted "COURTSHIP" principles (no kissing before wedding) and life was perfect. I'm all for writing contemporary light fiction for religious people but I'm not so sure about books out in la la land. |
Army Blue by Lucian K. Truscott IV, 381 pages Jeff Gadd 25 September 2003 Lt. Matthew Blue IV is being court-martialed for deserting from the enemy in Vietnam, but the trial has a lot of twists to it. Is he innocent or guilty? A great book. |
Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life by William McNeill, 288 pages James Donahue 08 February 2007 |
Art Blakey: Jazz Messenger by Leslie Gourse, 209 pages Tony Pisarenkov 06 March 2009 A brief and very mediocre biography of the great jazz drummer Art Blakey. Does give you some appreciation of his role as a mentor to young musicians, but otherwise fairly worthless. |
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, 279 pages Kristin Schrock 30 December 2002 I read about this book in an article about Harry Potter: if you liked Harry Potter, you'll like this. Plus, it has darkness. I am all about the darkness. Artemis is a 12 year old criminal mastermind who is scheming to get his family fortune back. The scheme involves stealing some fairy gold. Artemis is a cool character, but we spend too much time with other annoying characters--which is probably so that at least one character will appeal to the young kids reading it. I don't think I won the race for fifth. Next year, Steves, next year. And, Juliette Binoche was in the movie Chocolat--which I didn't see but was innondated with previews. |
Artemis Fowl (2001) by Eoin Colfer, 279 pages A Bennett 31 December 2004 |
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, 243 pages Tony Pisarenkov 17 October 2004 Not quite what I expected from Faulkner and, frankly, not all that satisfying, although it is entirely possible, likely even, that many of the subtleties were lost on me. |
Assassins by Tim Lahaue J,B. Jenkins, 412 pages Jeff Gadd 03 October 2002 Assassins,Assassins,Assassins everyone wants to kill each other or someone else. |
Astronomy, The Evolving Universe by Michael Zeilik, 568 pages Steven Krise 14 December 2002 Surprisingly, Shannon's astronomy textbook at Cedarville. The astronomy prof must have been a guest lecturer to make use of a textbook that accepts current scientific knowledge on the topic. Anyway, this book took me easily the longest to read of all my books to date (probably 2 months). |
At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks, 277 pages Micaela Larkin 26 November 2006 ND's most famous writer after Edwin O'Connor and old Ralph takes on love and pathos in the South. |
At Play in Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen, 373 pages Kristin Schrock 24 June 2002 Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! The missionary from the west meets the mercenary from the east in a battle to the death in the jungles of Africa. Another book to feature an egret. |
Atom by Lawrence Krauss, 305 pages Steven Krise 08 December 2002 A history of the universe as told through the "eyes" of an oxygen atom bound in a water molecule in the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector in Japan. By glossing over hundreds of milions of years in a chapter, the author allows the reader to get a sense of the rhythms of cosmic evolution. Most interesting was the discussion of the origin of life on Earth. |
Atonement by Ian McEwan, 351 pages James Donahue 06 September 2005 While at colonial Williamsburg for four days, and obeying the advertisements to discover the "colonial me" (who turned out to be quite a slaveholding bastard, forced to remain sober in the presence of his in-laws), I kept my nose intermittantly buried in a book that hooked. Even though this forum seems to bear an a priori antipathy to multiple-persective books, especially self-aware ones, I very much recommend this book. Its style and theme -- narrative as sympathy/atonement -- can overcome its trendiness. |
Atonement by Ian McEwan, 351 pages Kristin Schrock 02 December 2005 Jim was right. The novel is told in multi-p.o.v. and shockingly I didn't mind because I liked all the characters except one, and that was the shortest part. I thought the ending particularly enjoyable as it rivals The French Lieutenant's Woman for cool commentary on storytelling. Chesterfields abound, but McEwan pretty much had me at the Northanger Abbey epigraph. Amazon.com Stats: 7.8 grade level with 9% of the words being complex. |
Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown, 520 pages James Donahue 31 December 2003 This is the standard biography of Augie despite its age of over thirty years. Brown nicely goes through all the evidence in a masterpiece of biography, even if he's bit Anglican towards Augie's gruffer sides. |
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, 236 pages Jaqi Ross 14 April 2004 Quick read - gotta love a memoir. |
Avalon (1965) by Anya Seton, 440 pages A Bennett 02 November 2005 It was an older hardcover. Don't know exactly how it came to be on my shelf, but it was delightfully free of blurbs or jacket writing that told me what the plot would be and where it would go. Unfortunately, rather than discovering a gem, I found myself saddled with a Viking tale of conquest and post-Arthurian dreaminess that traveled from Cornwall to London to Dublin to Iceland and even our own Merrimac River and kept threatening to go to Greenland. It never did, and no one found Avalon. A damaged man became a monk, the woman he might have loved was kidnapped and wed to a Viking after being nearly-raped by her own father. They found each other again just in time for him to die and for them both to still not say they might care for each other. On the last page he lets her know that during the intervening years he was praying for her soul. I don't feel angry toward this book (as I did The King's General), but I do feel sad. For as much as happened, there should have been some excitement. Apparently, the weak reigns of England's King Edward and Ethelred had none to offer, and I should have skipped reading this book about them and gone straight to post-1066 and Charlemagne. |