| Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis, 319 pages Tony Pisarenkov 26 January 2004 This now classic paean to self-destructive straight-lacedness is a good book that did not age well, although the last handful of chapters ends up being engaging and satisfying in its own strange way. | Bad Bridesmaid: Bachelorette Brawls and Tantrum Tales by Siri Agrell, 171 pages Micaela Larkin 25 March 2007 Signs that you are a bad bridesmaid: You don't know the difference between taffeta and tulle, but you think they're both ugly. |
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. |
Barbara Goldsmith by Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, 236 pages Micaela Larkin 29 June 2006 Superb. Romance, Chemistry, and Modern Science!!! This short tome is a part of the tiny biography series that you can pick up at half-price books. |
Barmaid's Brain: And Other Strange Tales from Science by Jay Ingram , 276 pages Jaqi Ross 28 June 2004 This hugely entertaining collection of popular-science essays is sure to appeal to fans of Oliver Sacks, Stephen Jay Gould, and Lewis Thomas. Like those best-selling authors, Ingram, a veteran science writer and television host (he anchors the world's first daily, science-based television show), combines snappy writing with interesting and unusual science. |
Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville, 57 pages Steve Gadd 20 September 2008 "At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable," was his mildly cadaverous reply. |
Battlestar Galactica: Resurrection by Richard Hatch and Stan Timmons, 278 pages A Bennett 04 November 2003 "There are those who believe that life *here* began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who, even now, fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens..." And then there are those who, like me, believe that this novel--poorly written for even a fanfiction--is not worth the paper it's printed on, much less the webspace it would have occupied had its putrescence been posted (as all fanfiction should be) free, online. |
Beach House by Pat Conroy, 800 pages Mike Gadd 31 October 2003 It hasn't taken me this long to read a book in years. Not at all disappointing though. Incredible depth and feeling, even harrowing at times. A story about a man who flees from South Carolina to Rome with his young daughter after his wife commits suicide. He's running from his past and everything his family represents. He eventually comes full circle to the point where he realizes he needs his family and friends to find out who he is. |
Beach Music by Pat Conroy, 816 pages Micaela Larkin 01 January 2006 Forgotten gem! Conroy manages to construct an intriguing story that connects Rome, the Holocaust, the South, and Vietnam in a bittersweet emotionally wrought tale of a man coming to grips with the past. |
Beam Me Up, Scotty by Michael Guinzburg, 243 pages Mike Gadd 02 February 2005 |
Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte, 213 pages Steven Krise 05 October 2008 I couldn't discern the line connecting some of the chapters to the overall theme of the book, but it is forgivable. His statements about sparklines and multimodal presentation of data are consciousness-expanding and his excoriation of PowerPoint is deep, thorough, and interesting. |
Becoming Americana by Lara Rios, 307 pages Micaela Larkin 27 November 2006 Chicana chic lit... sophomore slump! |
Becoming Human by Ian Tattersall, 258 pages Steven Krise 21 September 2008 Gets a little scattered and speculative in the last chapter (on human consciousness and the future of our species), but overall a good survey of hominid evolution with a focus on how our unique brand of brain/mind evolved. |
Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps by Lara Rios, 284 pages Micaela Larkin 17 November 2006 Chicana Chic Lit |
Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management by Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby, 167 pages Tony Pisarenkov 19 October 2007 |
Behind Enemy Lines by James Dean Sanderson, 248 pages Jeff Gadd 26 January 2002 Great short storys of war missions in WWII very interesting. |
Beijing Coma (2008) by Ma Jian, 586 pages James Donahue 29 October 2008 Dai Wei lies in a coma after the student protests of 1989 have been brutally shut down. The narrative combines what he observes now with his memories of his former life, allowing us to contrast the romantic dreams of his youthful friends with the compromised actualities of modern-day China. Highly recommended. |
Benjamin Franklin : An American Life (Audio) by Walter Isaacson, 0 pages Julie Gephart 14 January 2004 I sure got some historical schooling in this one. Old Ben was part of every single thing that happened in America for 50 years. |
Beowulf by Seamus Heaney, translator, 116 pages Tony Pisarenkov 12 January 2008 Re-read in preparation for John Gardner's Grendel |
Beowulf - The Donaldson Translation, Backgrounds, & Sources Criticism by Joseph F Tuso (Ed.), 205 pages Steven Krise 02 September 2002 The Donaldson Translation is a more literal translation of the OE Beowulf manuscript and is interesting in that you get to see the kennings and metaphors of OE right before your eyes. Followed by a number of essays and essay excerpts advancing the myriad (and often contradictory) interpretations and analyses of the longest of Old English poems. |
Beowulf and Other Old English Poems by Constance B Hieatt (Trans.), 149 pages Steven Krise 13 April 2008 Now the ghoul found that never in the world, anywhere on earth, had he met a man with a mightier handgrip. He became afraid in his heart, but he could not get away any the sooner. He was eager to be off; he wanted to flee to his hiding place and seek out the company of devils--his circumstances there were unlike any he had ever before encountered in all the days of his life. The brave kinsman of Hygelac remembered his vows of that evening: he stood upright and got a fast hold on the monster; |
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. |
Beyond the Heather Hills by Melissa Wiley, 189 pages Julie Gephart 05 June 2004 It was a wasted book without one single new skill to pass along. |
Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future by Jeffrey Bennett, 211 pages Steven Krise 10 September 2009 The author is a professor and textbox author, so he's spent a little too much time dumbing down his prose for creationist college students (shudder) that end up in his Intro to Astrobiology class, which was annoying. However, the book was a serviceable overview of the topic. |
Big Trouble by Dave Barry, 372 pages Mike Gadd 17 January 2004 Daves first attempt at writing that wasn't limited by a word count. Not a bad little story, with a healthy sprinkle of his warped sense of humor. |
Billions & Billions by Carl Sagan, 230 pages Steve Gadd 04 April 2007 Dr. Sagan used his last book to deny ever saying the phrase by which he is remembered. Some of the chapters in this diverse collection are interesting and informative, and his farewell chapter is unflinching and touching. The majority of the book is taken up by sermonizing on the environmental crisis. As seems typical, these sections are annoying for calls to action based on facts asserted without reference to any supporting data (no endnotes, four pages of largely general-interest references), worst-case scenarios, and illogic. |
Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow, 244 pages Tony Pisarenkov 25 February 2003 A novel about a boy who joins an infamous New York gang in the waning days of its influence. Quite simply a great book -- good story, compelling characters and beautiful writing. |
Birds of America: Short Stories by Lorrie Moore, 291 pages Kristin Schrock 25 July 2002 Wonderfully sad, depressing stories. Not quite as many puns, but still very good. Interesting factoid: the city of Vicksburg, which surrendered to Grant on the 4th of July, refused to celebrate Independence Day until 1971. |
Bishop Stephen Neill: From Edinburgh to South India (2007) by Dyron B. Daughrity, 287 pages James Donahue 01 May 2008 Neill was the Anglican bishop in southern India in the 1930s and 1940s, the declining years of the Raj. Daughrity's academic biography unveils this "life in the middle," uncovering some salacious details along the way, but without really questioning the inherent "middle" position of all Western missionaries. |
Bitter Blood by Karen E. Taylor, 319 pages Jeff Gadd 17 October 2002 Next of Deirdre Griffin where she has to come back in New York,cause more vampires are killing people she knows. |
Black Angel by John Connelly, 496 pages Mike Gadd 15 August 2005 The strongest and best written of the series. The character builds in its complexity and you begin to see some of the bigger picture of why bad things keep happening to him. |
Black Dog by Stephen Booth, 466 pages Mike Gadd 24 January 2003 I've gotten to where I really enjoy a good British puzzler. This one's as good as any other. More than the usual amount of 'English-speak'. Sample sentence: Helen slotted tins of peas and new potatoes into the kitchen cupboards, glancing sideways out of the window, where she could see Gwen pottering in the garden, carefully deadheading roses with a pair of secateurs. I just found a good British to English translator online that I'll have to put to good use next time. |
BLACK HAWK DOWN by Mark Bowden, 427 pages Jeff Gadd 26 April 2002 Just like the movie a great book, hard to put down. Make's you feel like your there. |
Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, 430 pages Steve Gadd 14 May 2002 Minute-by-minute, bullet-by-bullet account of the peacekeeping mission in Somalia gone awry. |
Black Hawk Down [audio] by Mark Bowden, 0 pages Steve Gadd 26 February 2000 The ill-fated American intervention in Somalia, as seen by both sides on the ground. A gruesome and gripping minute-by-minute account of modern urban warfare. |
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West, 1158 pages Tony Pisarenkov 10 February 2004 "The answer is too long, as long indeed, as this book, which hardly anybody will read by reason of its length." (p. 773). The longest book I have read to date, and the only one that took me over a year to complete, "Black Lamb..." is razor-sharp political history thinly disguised as a brilliant travelogue. Writing in an age when members of a certain slice of society could travel and write without constraint, and regularly overwhelmed by an excess of enthusiasm, West is still, to me, the only way to understand Bosnia, Kosovo, and everything that happened in the Balkans in the last hundred... no, make it thousand, years. Without West, Robert Kaplan, Warren Zimmerman, Richard Holbrooke and many others could not have done what they did or written what they wrote. |
Black Mischief (1932) by Evelyn Waugh, 240 pages James Donahue 30 July 2007 |
Black Water Transit by Carsten Stroud, 420 pages Mike Gadd 31 January 2003 'Amazing narrative energy', 'ferociously driven'.... for once I agree with the jacket cover endorsements. This book reminded me of the movie 'The Fugitive' with the pace it took. It needs a new title though. |
Blackbird : A Childhood Lost and Found by Jennifer Lauck , 432 pages Jaqi Ross 29 August 2004 Writing from the viewpoint of the child, rather than as an adult looking back with a mature perspective, Lauck's memoir recounts a childhood troubled by an unending string of upheavals and heartbreaks. Lauck's loving mother was chronically ill and absent for long periods of hospitalization. When she was home, she was frequently bedridden, and young Lauck, her brother and her father took turns attending to her catheter. After her mother's death, the father uprooted the family and, in an attempt to give his children a stable family, quickly remarried to an emotionally abusive woman with kids of her own. More losses followed, including the death of her father. Lauck's poignant narration matches the tone of the text: her youthful voice sounds innocent, bewildered and wounded as she tries to understand the devastations going on outside her control. At the same time, there's a core of defiance in her voice, a refusal to be beaten down by life's adversity. |
Blackwater: The rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army (2007) by Jeremy Scahill, 382 pages Jonathan Misirian 17 November 2007 |
Blade Dancer by S. L. Viehl, 314 pages Julie Gephart 24 July 2004 I love a good sword-fighting book. |
Blankets by Craig Thompson, 582 pages Jonathan Misirian 01 March 2006 My skepticism vanished after reading but a few pages of this graphic novel. While comic-style literature has been relegated to kids and socially-awkward adults, Blankets elevates the art to a new level. I was unprepared for the combination of drawings and words, but was more then surprised at the power that a simple image conveyed… Thompson masterfully creates a compelling autobiography that deals with love and loss, faith and identity. |
Blankets by Craig Thompson, 582 pages Brad Snyder 24 March 2006 I'm new to this particular art form. The drawings added a depth missing from most standard books, but the two-dimensional nature made them subtle enough to allow my imagination some room to operate and that film tends to retard. The story is that of Thompson's search for meaning, drawn from his parallel experiences with Christianity and teenage love. A thought-provoking and engaging story. Thanks to Jonathan for the recommendation. |
Blind Faith by Richard Sloan, 295 pages Jonathan Misirian 11 January 2007 Sloan attempts to show the disastrous results when Faith and Medicine collide. Sadly, the weaknesses of the book outweigh the strengths… Sloan refers to the same two or three studies that back his point, and relies too heavily on anecdotal accounts for his main thesis. |
Blindness by Jose Saramago, 326 pages Jaqi Ross 10 September 2004 A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature. |
Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter, 393 pages Mike Gadd 04 December 2002 Not a bad rookie effort but it certainly won't have 'Patricia Cornwell glancing nervously in her rearview mirror' as the book jacket claims. Characters are too one-dimensional and the climax falls flat. How lame is it to have the bad guy drown because he can't swim? We're supposed to be satisfied by this? I think I'll likely pass on book 2. |
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, 288 pages Jonathan Misirian 04 October 2005 Gladwell’s latest is in the same vein as his The Tipping Point, an insightful look into the world of social psychology. Blink reveals that through training our brains can make effective rapid decisions. Gladwell combines a wide variety of experiences to validate his theory of how our brains function. |
Blitz, or Brant hits the blues by Ken Bruen, 268 pages Jonathan Misirian 13 September 2007 Literary crack. |
Blockade Diaries by Elena Kochina, 109 pages James Donahue 14 January 2004 Couldn't put it down. A woman's daily grind during the siege of Leningrad. Interesting stuff in here on ethics as she devises a new morality in the midst of desolation. |
Blood & Iron (2001) by Harry Turtledove, 630 pages James Donahue 24 May 2007 Turtledove continues his alternative history of the United States. In the defeated South, the KKK get political, blaming the defeat on the blacks and going after Whig politicians. In the North, Socialists finally manage to oust Teddy Roosevelt from the Powell House in Philadelphia while trying to digest the recently-swallowed parts of Canada. |
Blood and Milk: short stories by Sharon Solwitz, 236 pages Kristin Schrock 01 March 2003 Alas, this book will not secure my place in the Gadd-o-sphere. It was nice, even for a short time. For the most part, these stories are unremarkable. Women with husbands and children, usually feeling out of place, unhappy. And I don't think that just because the author once stole my pen. |
Blood Done Sign My Name : A True Story by Timothy B. Tyson, 368 pages Brad Snyder 12 April 2006 This story recounts the civil rights movement as it unfolded in and around Oxford, NC after the sickening murder of a black man at the hands of three whites--a murder for which no one was punished and ultimately led to a small revolution. Tyson is more than a passive historian viewing past events from a safe distance in the present, but was actually a resident of Oxford at the time. His father was the pastor of the United Methodist church and was known and hated by some for being sympathetic toward the plight of African-Americans. This murder is the pivot on which Tyson has related his journey through life, forced him to explore his world view, his own attitudes, and the history of his beloved North Carolina. If you are at all interested in race relations, read this book. |
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, 335 pages Steve Gadd 05 January 2002 Ornate, rich prose chronicles a violent southwestern saga. Could be titled Bloody Blood Meridian of Blood. |
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthey, 337 pages Steven Krise 06 November 2006 The judge said he would never die. |
Blood On the Tongue by Stephen Booth, 424 pages Mike Gadd 26 June 2005 A nice foray back across the pond. This is the third in a series that has been enjoyable to read. Some nice new British phrases in this one, too. |
Blood Secrets by Karen E. Taylor, 283 pages Jeff Gadd 09 October 2002 Deirdre Griffin a vampire has to find a vampire killing people she knows. |
Blood Work by Michael Connelly, 498 pages Steven Krise 15 May 2003 They're hardly divisible, sir - well, I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can't do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory - they're all blood, you see. |
Bloody Mary by J.A. Konrath, 315 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 Mystery! This is another freebie from my good friend who edits mystery novels! |
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, 242 pages Steve Gadd 18 October 2005 Not a theology book by any stretch, but a sort of autobiographical apology for the author's faith, written with a sense of humor and honesty. Thanks Jonathan for the gift. |
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller, 242 pages Jonathan Misirian 27 June 2005 Miller's an excellent writer, who lives outside of the mainstream. He writes with an authenticity that is rare and refreshing. As he explores Christian Spirituality, he gently guides the reader into his life and heart. |
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller, 256 pages Brad Snyder 20 August 2005 The "Mere Christianity" for this generation. Miller's writing style is conversational, humorous, and approachable. A must read. |
Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006) by Alexander McCall Smith, 227 pages Jennifer Dear 27 January 2007 |
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, 318 pages Kristin Schrock 25 September 2003 I loved Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse 5, so everytime I crack open another Vonnegut book I keep hoping to experience the same joy. Alas, this was not it. A pleasant enough read about Abstract Painting, World War 2, and, because this is Kurt Vonnegut, disappointed fathers. |
Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex by Judith Butler, 284 pages James Donahue 19 April 2003 Its the day before Easter, a beautiful day, and I am sitting here in my office reading about the politics of drag, the limits of the Lacanian real, and the subversiveness inherent in the (re)iterability of performative gender-naming. How did it come to this? Thank God my semester is almost over and that vacation is almost here. Perhaps then I will not be cluttering up this board so much. |
Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock by Andrew Beaujon, 276 pages Jonathan Misirian 27 July 2006 Billed as the first non-Christian in-depth look at Christian Rock, BPSML is a solid piece of writing. Beaujon sees both the camp and the soul of Christian Rock, providing the reader with ammunition against Christianity as well as hope because of it. |
Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock by Andrew Beaujon, 276 pages Brad Snyder 31 July 2006 A very concise, well-researched, accurate, and fair critique and explanation of Christian music and the evangelical subculture, written from the perspective of a non-Christian. You've gotta love any book that opens with quotes from Martin Luther and Hank Hill on the same page. Excellent. |
Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930 by Jerrold Seigel, 440 pages James Donahue 30 October 2002 An excellent cultural history of one my favorite periods and styles of art. Wonderful background info for appreciating the movie Moulin Rouge. |
Bold Sons of Erin by Owen Parry, 399 pages Mike Gadd 29 August 2005 It's been awhile since I picked up one of Mr. Parry's. This one got a little wordy even for me. More time needs to be spent pushing the story along and less on the opinionated soliloquy. |
Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics Past and Present (2004) by Oliver and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan, 320 pages James Donahue 10 January 2008 A group of essays, some better than others, on all sorts of digressions. On the whole however they are not as interesting to me as their monographs. Perhaps they would interest a specialist more. |
Bone in the Throat by Anthony Bourdain, 290 pages Mike Gadd 28 February 2002 |
Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas by Michka Assayas, 323 pages Brad Snyder 11 November 2005 This is the group of interviews that Bono had with Michka Assayas from 2002 to 2004. Assayas, as an interviewer, is excellent: he pulls things out of Bono that Bono admits he would never write himself in a memoir. Bono is a lot deeper and decent than his public persona as a rock star and activist. This book offers glimpses of his home life: his tender affection for his children, his admiration of his wife, his complicated relationship with his late father, and his deep faith in his Heavenly Father. |
Boomsday by Christopher Buckley, 318 pages Jonathan Misirian 16 July 2007 Buckley’s genius lays in his acerbic wit, and familial ability to use language to create the exact image that he wants. A master political-comedic novelist who continually makes me laugh out loud: e.g., a few years ago I was reading a short story of his about a director who was making a movie on the Royal Navy, the working title ‘Rum, Waves and Sodomy.’ Boomsday is a great summer read! |
Border-Line Personalities by Michele Herrera Mulligan and Robyn Moreno, 299 pages Micaela Larkin 06 December 2006 |
BraveHeart by Randall Wallace, 277 pages Jeff Gadd 08 April 2002 Great book,Great movie too. One word FREEEEE--DOMMMMMM |
Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman Capote, 160 pages Erik Bauer 03 March 2000 I want to live in New York City for a year. |
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, 295 pages Steve Gadd 17 September 2002 This book is just dumb. The story is dumb, the writing is dumb, and the author's drawings are dumb. Here are the three most clever things in the book: 1) The author inserts himself as a character. 2) He calls mirrors 'leaks.' 3) He describes some commonplace things in a super-literal fashion. This last gimmick is actually amusing a few of the hundreds of times he uses it. Really, there's nothing here that would surprise you coming from a slightly precocious fourteen-year-old. Why is this guy such a favorite? |
Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) (2008) by Stephenie Meyer, 768 pages Brad Snyder 18 August 2008 I was prepared to slam this book. I expected to hate it based on the previous two. I must now admit that it wasn't all that bad. It takes Meyer a long time to set up her story and to get to the action, and then the action is finished pretty quickly. This book followed that pattern, but surprised me a bit at the end with how much I enjoyed it. If you are going to read this, read the whole series. Also keep in mind that my thirteen year-old daughter and her friends LOVE it, so it might not be for many of the manly men on this forum. I have been pleased to share it with my daughter...to share in her world in this way, an opportunity we will share again when the movie is released in December. |
Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett, 448 pages Steven Krise 21 July 2009 Dennett's book length argument for why religion should be treated and studied as a natural phenomenon. Moderately interesting when he stopped bending over backwards trying not to scare away any religious readers. |
Brew Chem 101 by Lee W Janson, 117 pages Steven Krise 25 June 2005 Starts off as a 5th grade primer on chemistry, but peaks to an informative discussion of the chemistry of brewing in chapter 3. Sadly, it finishes off with what appears to be a required section for any book written about homebrewing, a discussion of the causes and cures for off flavors. I did finish it in a days time, so that's a good ppd booster. |
Brew Chem 101 - The basics of homebrewing chemistry by Lee W Janson, 117 pages Steven Krise 28 December 2002 Very broad overview of the chemistry of brewing from mash-in, through wort boiling, to fermentation. Highlights were the discussion of the chemical sources for off-flavors (and their remedies) in Chapter 5 and the discussion of beer-tasting in Chapter 6. The preceding chemistry was handled with broader strokes than I was hoping for. I guess I'll be searching out George Fix's "Principles of Brewing Science". |
Brew like a Monk by Stan Hieronymus, 272 pages Steven Krise 24 February 2007 Discussion of Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian ales and how to brew them. |
Brewing Made Easy by Joe Fisher & Dennis Fisher, 89 pages Steven Krise 03 October 2009 Like somebody created Cliff's Notes from the Cliff's Notes version of the New Complete Joy of Homebrewing. There's nothing to see here; move along. |
Brewing the World's Great Beers by Dave Miller, 150 pages Steven Krise 08 May 2005 I thought it was going to be a book of recipes for notable beers, but was just a rehash of the author's introduction to homebrewing book. In typical Dave Miller fashion a number of things are made harder than they really need to be. |
Brewing the World's Great Beers by David Miller, 150 pages Steven Krise 02 July 2007 Miller's a twat. He forgets that "crystal clear" beer is, for the most part, a creation of industrialized corporate brewers that has been marketed to the consumer as an improvement, when in fact a yeasty haze is integral to the character of many styles. He acknowledges on p 118-119 that filtering harms the quality of homebrew and yet still advocates it. What a wanker. |
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, 351 pages Tony Pisarenkov 09 July 2004 A fascinating and deeply moving story of a young artist's entanglement with an eccentric family of English aristocrats, struggling to understand the world, each other and, above all, the place that religion occupies in their lives. The best novel I've read in a long, long time. |
Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh, 351 pages James Donahue 26 August 2007 Waugh's new tone and newfound seriousness create this amazing read! This book was published on the eve of WWI (my own first edition was bought by a Lt. Col in the U.S. Army from nearby Goshen) and tells the story of a WWII officer struggling with the memories of the lost prewar Britain: pastoral, aristocratic, slightly superfluous, lamented. Waugh laments a Victorian world that "were the aborgines, vermin by right of law, to be shot off at leisure so that things might be safe for the travelling salesman, with his polygonal pince-nez, his fat wet hand-shake, his grinning dentures." Here Waugh also deals with his own Catholicism for the first time, though not head on like his contmporaries Greene or Chesterton, but as part of that lost world that Britain turned its back on. Waugh's Catholicism is alien, foreign, unmodern, something that Waugh seems compelled towards but not necessarily in favour of. (Read mostly in one long day waiting for the birth of Calvin Thomas Donahue.) |
Brideshead Revisited (audio) by Evelyn Waugh, 351 pages Steve Gadd 11 September 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. |
Bridget Jone's Diary by Helen Fielding, 271 pages Steven Krise 16 January 2005 v. g. |
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, 247 pages Steven Krise 26 June 2007 |
Brighton Rock (1938) by Graham Greene, 247 pages James Donahue 14 August 2007 One of the most compelling examinations of depravity (and its mirror image: grace) I have ever read. "'I mean - a Catholic is more capable of evil than anyone. I think perhaps - because we believe in Him - we are more in touch with other people.'" For even He believes. . .and shudders. |
Brimstone by Douglas Preston / Lincoln Child, 752 pages Mike Gadd 12 June 2005 Good to see my favorite writers back on track after Still Life with Crows. A good story this time with a main character that gets more fascinating the more you learn. |
Bringing up Boys by James Dobson, 284 pages Mike Gadd 08 September 2004 |
Buffy Blooded by Christopher Golden & Nancy Holder, 276 pages Jeff Gadd 04 November 2002 |
Buffy Crossings by Mel Odom, 243 pages Jeff Gadd 04 November 2002 |
Buffy Obsidian Fate by Diana G. Gallagher, 294 pages Jeff Gadd 05 June 2002 |
Buffy Return to Chaos by Craig Shaw Gardner, 293 pages Jeff Gadd 22 May 2002 |
Buffy Sons of Entropy by Christopher Golden & Nancy Holder, 317 pages Jeff Gadd 12 June 2002 |
Buffy Visitor by Laura Anne Gilman, 163 pages Jeff Gadd 28 October 2002 |
Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault, 352 pages Micaela Larkin 16 May 2006 I'm taking on classic mid century paperback fiction books this month. This book might be of interest to you if you like Greek mythology, drifting conversations, and a slow pace. Not my cupt of tea! |
Burn Factor by Kyle Mills, 353 pages Steven Krise 23 October 2003 "If you haven't read Kyle Mills yet, you should--I do." It's funny that Tom Clancy, a) uses a run-on sentence and b) thinks I care what he reads. The lame cover quotes aside, the book was pretty good. Go ahead, be like Tom and me. Read the damned book. |
Burning Chrome by William Gibson, 191 pages Steve Gadd 10 June 1997 |
Burnt-out Case by Graham Greene, 199 pages Steven Krise 13 September 2004 He came to the end of even that. |
Bush at War (2002) by Bob Woodward, 400 pages Jonathan Misirian 21 January 2007 Woodward’s behind the scenes look at the planning and strategy that led to the 100 day Afghanistan War. At times compelling and moving, -especially recounting the inside events in response to the September 11th bombings of the WTC and the Pentagon. Bush’s own voice paints himself as more of a Texas Sheriff, then the leader of a bloodied nation. |
Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe, 154 pages James Donahue 16 March 2004 The classic essay on the ethic of the samurai |