| Dalva by Jim Harrison, 324 pages Kristin Schrock Saturday, July 13, 2002 This guy is really good. An epic tale about coming home and unearthing bodies in the cellar--literally. Unfortunately, it's a dual p.o.v and the second isn't as compelling as it throws in some journal entries about the last of the Sioux, Crazy Horse, and the Ghost Dance movement. Also, an egret shows up on page 103 (the fourth book in a row if you're keeping track). Recommended vocabulary: tendentious, pule | Dancing Girls and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood, 240 pages Kristin Schrock Saturday, March 27, 2004 Oh, Mags, how I love thee. This is a solid collection of short stories with a prevalence of dead babies and crazy women. Also contained this helpful sentence, "It is easier to love a daemon than a man, though less heroic." |
Dancing with the Virgins by Stephen Booth, 379 pages Mike Gadd Friday, April 18, 2003 Another solid effort from the writer of 'Black Dog'. Plenty of characters to keep you guessing, but plausible enough to be satisfying. |
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, 903 pages James Donahue Monday, June 28, 2004 Eliot's last work is a paeon to religious tradition and religious identity while examining Jewish life in Britain, an odd endpoint for the well-known evangelical-cum-liberal. Daniel, Ezra, etc. all fulfill their nomic and Semitics destinies while the WASPish Gwendolyn (Valley girl) and Grandcourt (Cheny-esque Republican) pursue decadence and self-absorption. Guess which wins out in the end? |
Dark Force Rising (1992) by Timothy Zahn, 439 pages James Donahue Monday, January 07, 2008 Did you know that Leia (who drops the "Princess") eventually gets trained the Force? |
Dark Hollow by John Connolly, 489 pages Mike Gadd Friday, March 22, 2002 |
Dark Horse by Mary H. Herbert, 267 pages Julie Gephart Sunday, April 07, 2002 This is that rare breed of fantasy novel in which the heroine actually bleeds and sweats and struggles to become a warrior. Of course, magic still rules in the end, but yay for swordplay! |
Dark Magus: The Jeckyl and Hyde Life of Miles Davis by Gregory Davis with Les Sussman, 174 pages Tony Pisarenkov Tuesday, January 02, 2007 An utterly unnecessary, and abysmally written to boot (despite the presence of a presumably professional co-author), memoir by Miles's son of his relationship with his father. Seriously, what new insight into Davis's art can we possibly gain by learning that a conniving aunt conspired to keep poor Gregory out of his father's will? |
Dark Night of the Soul/Saint John of the Cross: With a new translation and introduction by Mirabai Starr (2002) by Mirabai Starr , 180 pages Jonathan Misirian Tuesday, January 23, 2007 St. John of the Cross, 16th Century Spanish Mystic popularized the phrase that so many of us use today. Our ‘dark night of the soul’ is that spiritual distance we feel when God seems to have abandoned us. John knew abandonment and torture, being caught up in the counter-reformation, but he also knew the love and depth that are found in the presence of God. |
Dark Passions by Susan Wright, 432 pages Julie Gephart Friday, July 04, 2003 So, which do you suppose is more embarrassing – the soap opera title, or the fact that it’s actually a Star Trek novel? |
Dark Star (1991) by Alan Furst, 418 pages James Donahue Saturday, September 02, 2006 Dark spy story about a Jewish Soviet agent working his sources in Nazi Germany leading up to the war. I especially liked how Furst resists giving us the omniscient-narrator-revelations so common in spy mysteries. Here the intelligence is messy, confusing, yet still penetrable. |
Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes, 588 pages Steve Gadd Sunday, December 28, 2008 |
Darkest Fear by Harlan Coben, 319 pages Mike Gadd Tuesday, February 24, 2004 Another adventure for Myron Bolitor- Sports Agent/Detective. |
Darkfall by Dean Koontz, 371 pages Jeff Gadd Friday, September 15, 2000 |
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, 288 pages Mike Gadd Wednesday, September 28, 2005 A rather unique turn on the serial killer theme. In this case the killer works as a blood specialist at the police lab. He only kills 'bad people'. He is shocked and impressed to some degree to find a crime scene that mimics one of his own. He's not sure if someone is on to him or maybe he's having blackout episodes where he unknowingly is committing the crimes. |
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeffry Lindsay, 288 pages Steven Krise Sunday, October 26, 2008 A break from this 500 page opus I've been moving through for 4 months. |
Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane, 371 pages Mike Gadd Tuesday, November 30, 2004 Pushing through Mr. Lahane's early work. I'm still enjoying the dynamic duo private eye team that drive this series. |
Data Structures by Edward M Reingold and Wilfred J Hansen, 450 pages Steven Krise Tuesday, November 11, 2008 My at work bathroom reading material. Much better than the previous tome I read on data structures: it had a lot of discussion of algorithms, as well, including searching, sorting, and merging. Other titles in the "Little, Brown Computer Systems Series" include 'Personal Graphics for Profit and Pleasure on the Apple II Plus Computer' and 'Computer Games for Business, School, and Home for TRS-80 Level II BASIC'. |
Data Structures Using Pascal by Aaron Tenebaum and Moshe Augenstein, 545 pages Steven Krise Thursday, April 20, 2006 Revelation that data structures aren't so much about how data is physically stored but rather how it is accessed and manipulated. All the complex structures discussed in this book can use one or more arrays as the to physically store the data objects. |
Database Programming with Visual Basic .NET and ADO.NET - (Useless) Tips, (Pedantic) Tutorials, and (Shitty) Code by F Scott Barker, 524 pages Steven Krise Sunday, September 10, 2006 If (IsTheSuck(oThisBook) = True) = True Then MsgBox "Yup, it sucks ass!", vbOkOnly+vbInformation rem the parenthetical adjectives were omitted from the cover of my copy of the book for some reason |
Database Programming with Visual Basic .NET, Second Edition by Carsten Thomsen, 959 pages Steven Krise Monday, September 04, 2006 What Would Jesus Code? |
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, 454 pages Julie Gephart Saturday, April 03, 2004 It's a bad idea for me to start a Saturday afternoon television marathon with a special entitled "Secrets of the Celts," because then poor TiVo gets abandoned as I go dig out this old favorite book again. A familiar fairy tale is fleshed out wonderfully in ancient Ireland. |
Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States by Dave Barry, 178 pages Julie Gephart Thursday, October 10, 2002 If this isn't quite as hilarious as it was before, does that mean I've lost my sense of humor, or that I've developed a better one? Still a fun, short read. |
Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide by Dave Miller, 358 pages Steven Krise Saturday, January 18, 2003 The more in-depth and technical version of Miller's original opus. The detailed discussion of fermentation and its by-products was interesting. I still found his obsession with filtered beer and denigration of bottle-conditioning, malt extract brewing, and dried yeast unfounded. Whatever, I'm going to stop reading about it and go have a homebrew now. |
Day of Reckoning by Jack Higgins, 288 pages Jeff Gadd Friday, July 06, 2001 |
Dead Folks Blues by Steven Womack, 259 pages Mike Gadd Thursday, February 10, 2005 |
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, 417 pages Steve Gadd Saturday, January 24, 1998 Fragmented, but a classic. Jointly read with some school friends, I couldn't find a copy and had to download, print, and bind the text from the Online Books page. |
Deadly Waters by Christopher H. Meehan, 238 pages Steve Gadd Tuesday, September 26, 1995 |
Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben, 343 pages Mike Gadd Thursday, September 11, 2003 Another go with the sports agent crime fighter. Enough sarcastic banter for even me. |
Dear Gangster: Advice for the Lonelyhearted From the Gangster of Love by Gangster of Love, 164 pages Kristin Schrock Wednesday, March 12, 2003 Now that I have slipped into fifth place (d*mn you, Julie and your fast reading of monstrous books), I needed some light fare. This is a very funny compilation of an advice column for the lovelorn. Includes the following passage: "I have this dream that someday I will do something so outstanding that it will culminate with four triple back flips and a tearful hug from Bela Barolyi" |
Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeffry Lindsay, 292 pages Steven Krise Tuesday, December 02, 2008 Sort of like Dexter's "Wrath of Khan". |
Death and the Afterlife in Modern France by Thomas Kselman, 302 pages James Donahue Monday, August 02, 2004 |
Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, 384 pages Steven Krise Saturday, May 02, 2009 A series of essays from a self-proclaimed Stephen J Gould fan. Not as good as SJG, but interesting for the most part. Finishes up with a series of essays on the interplay of religion and science: "So the universe wants to kill us all. But as we have before, let's ignore that complication for the moment. Many, perhaps countless, questions hover at the front lines of science. In some cases, answer have eluded the best minds of our species for decades or even centuries. And in contemporary America, the notion that a higher intelligence is the single answer to all enigmas has been enjoying a resurgence. This present-day version of God of the gasp goes by a fresh name: "intelligent design". The term suggests that some entity, endowed with a mental capacity far greater than the human mind can muster, created or enabled all the things in the physical world that we cannot explain through scientific methods. An interesting hypothesis. But why confine ourselves to things to wondrous or intricate for us to understand, whose existence and attributes we then credit to a superintelligence? Instead, why not tally all those things whose design is so clunky, goofy, impractical, or unworkable that they reflect the absence of intelligence?" |
Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing your Soul by David L. Goetz, 204 pages Micaela Larkin Friday, April 14, 2006 This memoir-cultural critique-advice book is a winner. The author dissects the spiritual malaise of the evangelical suburbanite, and offers timeless solutions. Of course, he finds most of his inspiration in early modern French Catholicism. :) |
Death from the Woods by MS. Brigitte Aubert, 279 pages Mike Gadd Wednesday, December 24, 2003 The main character is a deaf, mute, parapalegic and she solves the mystery. Major points for originality even though the ending was a little over the top. |
Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway, 278 pages Steve Gadd Tuesday, July 09, 2002 Papa's textbook on bullfighting. Plenty of goring and an occasional anecdote liven up the story. |
Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 592 pages Tony Pisarenkov Sunday, July 05, 2009 Had its moments, but on the whole -- definitely a slog. Céline's Journey... was much better, and that's saying something. |
Death with Interruptions (2008) by José Saramago, 238 pages James Donahue Friday, January 02, 2009 A beautiful novel that I cannot recommend highly enough. |
Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy, 990 pages Steven Krise Wednesday, September 05, 2007 |
Deception Point by Dan Brown, 558 pages Mike Gadd Saturday, July 09, 2005 Along with Digital Fortress, this one can be left on the shelf. A moderately good concept is left begging for some real life characters. There are some ridiculous plot changes and the big 'reveal' at the end couldn't have been worse. |
Decisive Battles of the Civil War by Lt Col Joseph B Mitchell, 207 pages Steven Krise Saturday, May 11, 2002 Broad, if not in-depth, overview of the Civil War. Interesting feature is that troop movements are outlined on modern day road maps. |
Decline and Fall (1928) by Evelyn Waugh, 293 pages James Donahue Monday, July 09, 2007 Fresh off his conversion, Waugh wrote his first novel to savage the literate 'chatocracy' among whom he had spent his 20s. Brilliant satire: See Pennyfeather mix and mingle with Lady Circumference (and her son Lord Tangent), the underworld of Capt. Grimes and Philbrick, and finally meet his end in a reformed penitentiary after he runs afoul of the League of Nations. |
Deep Ancestry - Inside the Genographic Project by Spencer Wells, 247 pages Steven Krise Thursday, April 17, 2008 The human race began 60,000 years ago with a single family in an African valley. Today we have carried our genes to the very ends of the Earth--and the DNA in each of us encodes a fascinating encapsulated history of our species and its travels over the ages. Dedicated to uncovering the secrets of deep ancestry, the Genographic Project is an ambitious scientific venture of unparalleled scope and profound implication. |
Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer by Thomas Dubay, 122 pages Micaela Larkin Friday, July 21, 2006 |
Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker by James Gavin, 448 pages Tony Pisarenkov Sunday, March 18, 2007 Sordid does not even begin to describe it. Anyone who thinks they have seen the limits of humans' capacity to act irrationally need only to read about the countless lives Chet Baker ruined while extending his own beyond any reasonable expectation. |
Defenders of the Faith: A Guidebook to Clerics and Paladins by Rich Redman & James Wyatt, 96 pages Steven Krise Wednesday, February 05, 2003 I feel kind of stupid entering D&D manuals, but that's what I'm reading right now to keep up my pages/day since I've stalled on this piece of shit by Joseph Heller I've been working on since December. |
Defending the Damned: Inside Chicago’s Cook County Public Defender’s Office (2007) by Kevin Davis, 308 pages Jonathan Misirian Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Davis follows a specific case, in which the defendant was charged with killing a Chicago police officer. Through the process, he receives unparalleled access to the Public Defenders strategy sessions, court hearings, and unfettered access to the family of slain officer. Davis humanizes a profession that many scorn, while shinning light on an at-times corrupt legal system. |
Deference and Defiance in Nineteenth-Century Japan by William Kelly, 291 pages James Donahue Saturday, March 13, 2004 Dry social history of three peasant revolts in a small Japanese province from 1841-1873. |
Defining Vision by Joel Brinkley, 435 pages Steve Gadd Monday, January 04, 1999 Fascinating account of the race to develop high-definition television. |
Degree of Guilt by Richard North Patterson, 531 pages Jeff Gadd Sunday, November 26, 2000 |
Demon Seed by Dean R. Koontz, 301 pages Jeff Gadd Wednesday, March 10, 1999 |
Descartes' Error by Antonio R. Damasio, 267 pages Steve Gadd Monday, December 09, 2002 A neurologist argues for the importance of emotions and physical sensations to thought. Much of the text is conjecture, but his analysis of case studies adds some color. The most interesting of these is Phineas Gage, who in 1848 amazingly survived an accident in which an iron rod was shot through his head. His mental abilities appeared normal afterwards, but he became cold emotionally and lost the ability to plan for his future. Thanks to Steven Krise for the gift. |
Desecration by Tim LaHaye/Jerry Jenkins, 405 pages Mike Gadd Tuesday, September 24, 2002 Book 9 in the ''Left Behind'' series. Concept is still good and the story is interesting enough to keep up through however many more they are going to write. The writing quality is at best adequate and can certainly be distracting. |
Desecration by Tim LaHaye Jerry Jenkins, 405 pages Jeff Gadd Sunday, December 22, 2002 The nineth in the series as the AntiChrist takes his throne. People must choise a mark as a believer,or of the AntiChrist, or they will be put to death. The unbelievers are put through more plagues,diseases, and the seas turning to blood. |
Deuteronomy by God (via Moses' hand), 29 pages Ian Hassell Sunday, March 31, 2002 Completes the account of Israel's pre-Canaan history. Great parallel to our own spiritual lives - God loves us, we screw up, God still loves us, we screw up some more... |
Dexter in the Dark by Jeffry Lindsay, 303 pages Steven Krise Sunday, November 02, 2008 Sort of like Dexter's "Superman 3". |
Diana Mosley: Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel by Anne De Courcy, 353 pages James Donahue Thursday, December 15, 2005 At age 23, Diana divorced the heir to the Guiness empire to marry the young, dashing, older leader of the British Fascist Party. Her path led her through public revilement, imprisonment, and eventual exile. Although she never regretted it. Its an odd choice for a bio, as she is most interesting because of those whom she knew and whom she entertained - Churchill, Lord Halifax, Hitler et al, Mosley, her novelist sister Nancy Mitford - not for herself. (Compare with Mme de Stael or Rachel Varnhagen, other hostesses who also managed to be personalities.) This seems to be a biography of a mirror, enlightening only via reflection. |
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2007) by Jeff Kinney, 226 pages Brad Snyder Thursday, December 25, 2008 Fun book written from the perspective of a sixth grader and the social pressures he faces. I laughed a lot. |
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2008) by Jeff Kinney, 216 pages Brad Snyder Thursday, December 25, 2008 Same premise as before, only the kid's in seventh grade, and his older brother, Rodrick, has a secret he holds over his younger brother's head. Not as funny as the first, but still amusing. |
Diary: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk, 261 pages Jaqi Ross Sunday, July 25, 2004 DIARY takes the form of a "coma diary" kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband, Peter, lies senseless in a hospital after a suicide attempt. Once Misty was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after her marriage and return to once quaint, now tourist-overrun Waytansea Island, she is just a resort hotel maid. Peter, it turns out, has been scrawling vile messages all over the walls of hidden rooms in houses he has been remodeling—an old habit of builders but dramatically overdone in Peter's case. Angry homeowners are suing left and right, and Misty's dreams of artistic greatness are reduced to ashes. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kinkaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively. The canvases are taken away by her mother-in-law and her doctor, who seem to have a plan for Misty—and for all those annoying tourists. . . . |
Die Trying by Lee Child, 422 pages Jeff Gadd Sunday, January 20, 2002 A great Jack Reacher book of suspense and a great ending too it. |
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, 374 pages Mike Gadd Friday, January 09, 2004 A little slow out of the gate this year. It's a little musty down here in the basement. You guys enjoying the view up there? A better book to read would have helped. This one had it's moments, but not many. When a 5th grader (conceivably) could figure out the big puzzle at the end before the NSA director character does it leaves a lot to be desired. |
Dinner with a perfect stranger by David Gregory, 100 pages Jonathan Misirian Tuesday, November 29, 2005 Gregory presents a simple apologetic for faith in Christ, through a dinner conversation between a seeker and Jesus. |
Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History by S J Gould, 480 pages Steven Krise Monday, March 30, 2009 |
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, 306 pages Steven Krise Thursday, December 06, 2007 "Mis Pearce!" he called out, "kindly send out a revised bill, would you, to our dear Mrs Sauskind. The new bill reads 'To: saving human race from total extinction--no charge.'" He put on his hat and left for the day. |
Dirty Jokes and Beer by Drew Carey, 277 pages Steven Krise Saturday, May 03, 2003 Um, yeah, the title says it all. The chapter with 101 big dick jokes was hilarious, but the final third, "Stories of the Unrefined" (aka Drew tries his hand at writing short stories) can be safely skipped. |
Disappointment With God by Phillip Yancey, 258 pages Steven Krise Thursday, June 20, 2002 A gift from my father-in-law. A theodicy addressed to those who still want to believe. The book made a few novel points along the way, but to keep from failing in its mission of giving sound reasons for remaining a theist in the absence of any subjective experience of god's presence, it needed to support the use of the Bible as an authority and explain the virtue of faith over empirical rationality. Most ludicrous statement is that the Old Testament is a story of God's continued condescension. |
Disclosure by Michael Crichton, 497 pages Steve Gadd Wednesday, December 27, 2006 As usual, Crichton has done his homework and includes some interesting factual background on his theme, in this case the legal consequences of sexual harassment in the workplace. The plot was engaging enough to be a quick read, but hardly compelling. The surprise ending was in the postscript revealing that the book is based on a true story, but it has been so obfuscated that it hardly matters. |
Discover Your Roots by Paul Blake and Maggie Loughran, 237 pages Steven Krise Thursday, May 28, 2009 Written in the "52 Ideas" style where there are 52 chapters, each one focused on a particular theme or idea. The more astute will note that this means each chapter is slightly more than 4.5 pages long meaning each great idea is either commonsense or discussed too shallowly to offer any real insight. On the whole, useless. |
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee , 220 pages Jaqi Ross Monday, June 28, 2004 David Lurie is hardly the hero of his own life, or anyone else's. At 52, the protagonist of Disgrace is at the end of his professional and romantic game, and seems to be deliberately courting disaster. Long a professor of modern languages at Cape Town University College, he has recently been relegated to adjunct professor of communications at the same institution, now pointedly renamed Cape Technical University: |
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, 220 pages James Donahue Tuesday, February 01, 2005 I was really enwrapped in this story of South Africa. Coetzee writes so well of morally-laden issues without being moralist. Well deserving of the Booker. |
Disturbing the Universe by Freeman Dyson, 261 pages Steve Gadd Wednesday, November 15, 1995 |
Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanies by Jeffery Herf, 527 pages James Donahue Sunday, July 21, 2002 Herf compares the development of divergent paths of public memory and policy in East and West Germany from 1945-1990. He ably uses newly opened files from the Soviet Bloc to do so. Good analysis, but heavily biased toward the SPD party. |
Doctrines and Origin of Fascism by Giovanni Gentile, 103 pages James Donahue Thursday, September 05, 2002 He ought to know being the official philosopher of Mussolini. |
Donde te lleve el corazón by Susanna Tamaro, 139 pages Steve Gadd Saturday, September 15, 2001 A series of sentimental letters from a widow to her estranged granddaughter. |
Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man by Tim Allen, 210 pages Brad Snyder Tuesday, May 16, 2006 This is basically an extension of the TV show "Home Improvement", only with his real-life circumstances thrown in. It's my love for the TV show that made me interested in reading the book, and while it was funny at points, I found it needlessly crass at others. |
Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865 - 1871 (1995) by Joseph Frank, 501 pages James Donahue Tuesday, May 22, 2007 The 'miracle' for Frank here is that F-Dos actually manages to get his life on track. He finally founds a stable wife (half-Russian, half-Swedish), rediscovers his faith in the Russian Christ (after an encounter with Holbein's portrait of a dessicated Christ), stops gambling (after blowing lots of money in Baden-Baden), and manages to produce three masterpieces in a reltively short time (Crime and Punishment, Idiot, Devils) that finally turn his literary potential into a literary career. The downside of this to me, the reader, was reading a much less interesting biography, half of which was literary analysis of his major works. |
Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849 (1976) by Joseph Frank, 392 pages James Donahue Wednesday, January 10, 2007 After a decade of reading Dostoevsky, it occurred to me that I know little to nothing of his life. Frank’s series of biographies are said to be the best, and there’s nothing here to prove ‘them’ wrong. Frank is reacting against tendencies of critics to read Dostoevsky as a prophet, as an anti-bolshevik, or as a existentialist. In other words, Frank presents F-Dos as a 19th-century figure, not a 20th-century anachronism. This is a great history which situates Dostoevsky in the middle of the Russian liberals and literati up until his arrest and mock execution in 1849. (Read at John's apartment in Providence) |
Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865 (1986) by Joseph Frank, 375 pages James Donahue Friday, January 26, 2007 During these years Dostoevsky reestablished in Russian letters as an editor and critic of one of the premier journals of his time. He also lost his wife (after travelling to Europe to pursue a mistress who had run off with a Spaniard) and his brother (after travelling to Europe to gamble and write leaving his brother with the sole burden of running the journal.) Most of his works from this time are satires against the other literary journals that espoused the antihumanist socialism that he came to despise. Frank's reading of his most famous work from this time -- Notes of an Underground Man -- as a satire of his socialist rivals (rather than as the birth of existentialism or modernist interiority) brings out aspects of the book I had never considered before. |
Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859 (1983) by Joseph Frank, 304 pages James Donahue Monday, January 15, 2007 After his faked execution, Dostoevsky spent four years in the Siberian gulag and five years as a conscript. During this time Tolstoi, Goncharov, and Turgenev rose to the to of Russian culture while Dostoevsky traded in his romanticized view of the people for real-life, gritty experience with the Russian lower classes. F-Dos refers to this time as the "regeneration of my convictions." He emerged from his exile convinced of the importance of moral personality, the redeeming role for Russian culture in the future of the West, and the centrality of Christ for both of the above. In other words, he became the ‘Johnny Cash’ of the the Russian intelligentsia: cool, experienced, rebellious, and yet oddly old-fashioned. Special kudos to Frank who takes F-Dos' conversion and convictions seriously (no Freud or leftist conspiracy theories here), even though he does not share his subject's sensibilities. |
Dostoievsky (1924) by Nicholas Berdyaev, 227 pages James Donahue Tuesday, December 19, 2006 Berdyaev was a Christian philsopher censured by the Orthodox church for his anti-erastianism and then caught up on the fringes of the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1917 he became head of philosophy at University of Moscow under the new regime, but was exiled in 1922 for his religious commitment. From Paris he became one of the most influential Christian thinkers in Europe for the 1920s and 1930s. This book contains some of his earliest lectures in the West on his favorite writer. He muses on the Russian Muse but in reality he is thinking about the revolution, for he sees in Dost's thought on freedom, faith, and evil/sensuality/power the keys to understanding why the Bolshevik regime fails the humanity it claims to serve. Dost was, to Berdyaev, a true revolutionary of the spirit, and, "in general, revolution of the spirirt opposes the spirit of revolution as revolution." An excerpt: "Christianity has always been reproved by atheistic socialis for not having made men happy and given them rest and fed them, and by preaching the religion of earthly bread socialism has attracted millions and millions of followers. But, if Christianity has not made men happy or given them rest or fed them, it is because it has not wished to violate the freedom of the human spirit, because it appeals to human freedom and awaits therefrom the fulfilling of the word of Christ. The terrible problem of liberty simply does not exist for socialis; it expects to solve and achieve the liberation of man through a materialist and planned-out organization of life; its object is to overthrow freedom and get rid of the irrational element of life in the name of happiness, sufficiency, and leisure. Men [quoting Grand Inquisitor here] 'will become free when they renounce freedom'. . . .Christianity is not to blame that namkind has not willed the accomplishment of God's Word and has betrayed it; the fault lies with man, not with the God-man." |
Double Fudge by Judy Blume, 213 pages Brad Snyder Sunday, July 30, 2006 More out-loud reading to my kids. This is the final book in the "Tales Fourth Grade Nothing" series. Better than the last one. |
Douglass’ Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes, 416 pages Jaqi Ross Sunday, February 01, 2004 Rhodes offers a fictionalized account of the two women at the center of the life of legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass. |
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, 0 pages Steve Gadd Monday, July 07, 2003 Twenty-five year old Eric Blair left his comfortable middle-class lifestyle to get an appreciation for the way the other half lives. This journal of dishwashing and tramping became his first book. Very entertaining and eye-opening if you can ignore the racial stereotypes. In some countries the copyright has expired so you can find the complete text available for download. |
Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes, 527 pages Micaela Larkin Thursday, April 19, 2007 Excellent biography of Dylan... |
Down to the Bonny Glen by Melissa Wiley, 321 pages Julie Gephart Sunday, March 14, 2004 In this volume, I learned the proper method for harvesting flax, as well as how to permanently set dye using the two-week-old contents of a chamber pot. |
Downtown Owl: A Novel (2008) by Chuck Klosterman, 288 pages Brad Snyder Wednesday, December 24, 2008 If this had been written by Jerry Seinfeld, it would have been funnier, but it's definitely the novel about nothin'. |
Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, 56 pages Steve Gadd Saturday, July 15, 1995 |
Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? (2007) by Clare Pettitt, 210 pages James Donahue Tuesday, December 18, 2007 Everyone knows the punch line. Here Pettitt uncovers the story behind the line, the meeting between the Scottish missionary Livingstone and the Welsh-born, American journalist Stanley. The strength of the book however lies in the webs surrounding the story that Pettitt unravels: the connection between the story and the Anglo-Saxonism surrounding the Alabama arbitration; the African workers that accompanied Livingstone's body back to England, "faithful until the end"; Stanley's later involvement in romanticized boy scouting and the Belgian genocide in the Congo; the competing African and English, Christian and imperialist, appropriations of Livingstone, a diehard Scot and hapless, difficult missionary who rode his wife to an early grave, failed to convert even his trusted valet, and lived in an uneasy truce with the home missions societies. |
Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick, 273 pages Brad Snyder Saturday, February 23, 2008 A book my daughter loved and recommended. An eighth-grade boy comes of age through his brother's battle with leukemia. |
Dry Heat by Jon Talton, 224 pages Micaela Larkin Thursday, September 08, 2005 The main character is a cop turned academic historian turned cold case detective in his native hometown of Phoenix. The author is the only insightful columnist in the local paper, and his books provide a nice overview of the nation's largest unknown city. :) |
Duchess: A Novel of Sarah Churchill by Susan Galloway Scott, 379 pages Micaela Larkin Sunday, November 26, 2006 Excellent historical fiction... it makes you want to read more about the subject! |
Dulles by Leonard Mosley, 497 pages James Donahue Tuesday, November 15, 2005 A composite biography of John Foster - FCCCA bigshot and Ike's S-of-State -, Allen - chief of European intelligence during WWII and main figure of the early CIA -, and Eleonor - influential economist and key diplomat to postwar Austria and Germany. Two brothers and a sister at the heart of it all. Tone is colloquial and readable, personality and story-driven. (Mosley was the "Bob Woodward" of his generation.) |
Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross by Caroline Moorehead, 716 pages James Donahue Saturday, October 15, 2005 Very worthwhile, solid history. |