| Painted Desert by Frederick Barthelme, 243 pages Steve Gadd 06 April 1996 | Painted Desert by Frederick Barthelme, 243 pages Steve Gadd 06 April 1998 Hilarious story with great cover art. |
Painted Windows (1922) by Gentlemen with a Duster, 137 pages James Donahue 13 March 2006 A behind-the-scenes caricaturist of the British church scene takes them all on -- with jacket blurb by Chesterton. |
Pale Horse Coming by Stephen Hunter, 540 pages Mike Gadd 16 May 2004 Excellent sequel to 'Hot Springs'. |
Papa Hemingway by A. E. Hotchner, 335 pages Steve Gadd 06 November 2002 The last 15 years of Hemingway's life, as chronicled by one of his closest companions. Hemingway planned both his work and his leisure with military rigor, counting both as essential parts of a good life. The result is an impressive itinerary: spring in Paris at the racetrack, summer following bullfighters in Spain, fall hunting in Ketchum, and winter entertaining celebrities at the Cuban finca. "Hotch" freely admits his admiration for Papa, but is also quite frank in describing the sad descent into paranoia leading to the author's suicide in 1961. |
Paris in the Fifties by Stanley Karnow, 337 pages Steve Gadd 07 September 1999 An enjoyable collection of essays by a Time journalist. |
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik, 338 pages James Donahue 19 September 2002 A really delightful series of essays by an American writer who moves to Paris with wife and kid in order to live the un-American life. (At one point, he cites his strone desire to raise a child without Barney around.) Each sentence is a gem, written with an eye to the same detail that makes all the difference. The essays cover a span of about four years, and it wonderful to see his development into an emigree. Having spent some time in Paris, the best damn city on earth, I loved the way he focuses on the small epicurean delights of the city: the views, the food, the joie de vivre, the cheese, the small hidden agoras. Gopnik also does an excellent job of making the French seem rational to Americans; he explains the French love of strikes, hatred of sports, and history of culinary pursuits. A great book that at least Gareth must read. (Seeing as how he's only read 'two' books this year; what's up with that Garf-man?) |
Parliament of Whores by P. J. O'Rourke, 233 pages Steve Gadd 28 October 2006 O'Rourke applies his acid tongue to excesses of American government, a pretty easy target. His conclusion: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. "God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. ... He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvangtaged.... Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful.... He gives everyone everything they want without a thought of a quid pro quo.... Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus." |
Passing by Nella Larsen (1929), 122 pages Micaela Larkin 19 July 2006 By harlem renaissance's premier woman writer--- "first published in 1929, Passing is a remarkably candid exploration of racial and sexual boundaries." |
Passport Israel by Donna Rosenthal, 96 pages Brad Snyder 14 December 2005 Working for an Israeli-owned company, I thought it would be prudent to brush up on Israeli culture, business, customs, and etiquette. I hope it works... |
Pastime by Robert B. Parker, 330 pages Mike Gadd 22 April 2002 |
Patriot Games by Tom Clancy, 616 pages Jeff Gadd 30 July 2001 |
Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815-1914 (1991) by Sandi. E. Cooper, 210 pages James Donahue 30 July 2008 The best general survey of the nineteenth-century Continental peace movement available. For those who've heard of the Interparliamentary Union, Alfred Nobel, the women's peace movement, international arbitration, or the Hague Conferences but have not yet found a good synthetic work on these subjects, this is the best alternative for you. |
Payton by Connie Payton, 237 pages Jonathan Misirian 16 January 2006 This collector’s book commemorating the life of Walter Payton is fulfilling both visually and emotionally. Lush photographs and a behind the scenes look at this great running back’s life, along with a commemorative DVD. |
Peace Kills by P.J. O'Rourke, 197 pages Steve Gadd 20 July 2007 O'Rourke on Kosovo, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, and Iwo Jima. Reads like Dave Barry but with bombs and policy instead of boogers and poop. |
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis, 250 pages Jonathan Misirian 29 March 2006 Few comics deal with death as humorously as does Pearls… Bitter, existentialist ranting combined with minimalist comic strip art. |
Peasant Uprisings in Japan by Anne Walthall, 257 pages James Donahue 01 March 2004 |
Pere Goriot by Honore Balzac, 244 pages James Donahue 11 September 2002 Two parvenu daughters take advantage of their bourgeois father while a law student attempts to make the Parisian scene. Fairly melodramatic, but worth it just to be able to say 'I'm reading Balzac.' |
Perfect Trust by Charles Swindoll, 72 pages Jeff Gadd 05 January 2002 About Perfect Trust in God |
Persuader by Lee Child, 465 pages Mike Gadd 14 April 2004 The more I read from this guy the more I like him. Great character development over the 6 books he's done so far. The plot moves along nicely and the big finish is always plausible. |
Pet Sematary by Stephen King, 371 pages Jeff Gadd 07 March 2002 I am not going near any cemetary's for awhile. |
Petain: How the Hero of France Became a Convicted Traitor and Changed the Course of History (2005) by Charles Williams, 289 pages James Donahue 24 September 2006 The latest biography of Petain defends him at every turn. Petain was the French general who won the bloody Battle of Verdun, stood loyally by the government in the 1920s, then stepped up to the plate to form the pro-fascist Vichy France after defeat to the Germans in WWII. Most see Petain as an opportunist, a Catholic monarchist, a sell-out of French honor. Williams sees instead an old man out of his political depth, fooled by younger ambitious scoundrels, and a womanizing secular uninterested in political and religious restoration. |
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, 372 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 mid-century melodrama |
Phantoms by Dean R. Koontz, 343 pages Jeff Gadd 08 January 1999 |
Philip Dru: Administrator (1920) by Edward House, 299 pages James Donahue 15 March 2007 Lying feverishly, recovering from a bout of appendicitus, Raully reads an old utopian novel about a settlement house worker who learns of a big-business conspiracy to seize the government by stacking the elections and the Supreme Court, and who then rallies the virile youth of the West and the South to rebel against the government, then installs himself as Administrator and painstakingly rewrites the laws to create a just republic, before marrying his gal Gloria and sailing around the world. This book would just be a bad novel, a combination of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the Jesus Film, and Braveheart, if not for its historical interest. Shortly after writing this expose of his fantasies, the author, Colonel House, met Woodrow Wilson and became his right hand through the most turbulent, centralizing, and aggressive presidency in U.S. history. |
Philipp Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch by K James Stein, 334 pages James Donahue 11 June 2004 Very good biography of the populizer of the Pietist movement (the movement that put the evangelical in the German Evangelical Church). As a sidenote, church history may be the only remaining field that uses the word "patriarch" in titles in a non-condemnatory way |
Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, 380 pages James Donahue 28 January 2003 |
Photographing Fairies by Steve Szilagyi, 321 pages A Bennett 25 February 2003 Despite the title, this is not a fantasy novel. In death/spiritualism-obsessed Victorian London, a failed American painter (and now portrait photographer), Charles Castle’s life starts coming apart, just at about the time a strange country constable brings him photographic ‘evidence’ that fairies exist. A few visits with Arthur Conan Doyle later, and Castle is convinced that the photographs just *might* be real. Grasping at what he sees as his last possible moment to save himself from artistic and financial ruin, he hops a train to the country desperate to prove the phenomenon with his own photographs. Along the way he is robbed, beaten, seduced, enlightened, and never manages to photograph a single fairy. The book is “written,” or, as he later confesses, ‘thought’ on the last night of his life, hours before he is to hang from the gallows for a murder that he did not, in fact, commit. Did he find what he was looking for? The proof he sought? Possibly. Is he simply a madman trying to convince readers he was an innocent pawn caught in supernatural happenings far beyond his—or any mere mortal’s--control? Possibly. Based on a version of actual events. Necessary vocabulary: diaspora, concomitant, homunculi. Also, along the way, Castle shares helpful ‘tips’ for the up-and-coming Victorian-era photographer. No, seriously. I’m not making that up. |
Pietism and the Making of Prussia by Richard Gawthorp, 284 pages James Donahue 06 June 2004 |
Pietism as a Factor in the Rise of German Nationalism by Koppel Pinson, 207 pages James Donahue 27 June 2004 |
Piety and Politics by Mary Fulbrook, 189 pages James Donahue 08 September 2003 Fulbrook contends that pietistic religions (Baptist, Puritan, Brethren, Lutheran Pietist) participated in 19th-century revolutions not because of their theology or class, but because certain governments opposed them. Don't read if you're a Elizabeth I fan. (Yes, this is how I spend my time.) |
Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier by Joanna L. Stratton, 267 pages Julie Gephart 28 June 2002 Recollections by women who settled in Kansas during the 19th century. For the most part, far more fascinating than I had anticipated, but the end got less interesting as it veered into politics and war. |
Plan B: further thoughts on faith by Anne Lamott, 320 pages Jonathan Misirian 06 April 2005 Lamott writes from the fringes of Christianity. Lucid writing and revealing prose mark her work. Lamott expertly summarizes her faith in a way that is accessible to so many who feel disenfranchised by organized religion |
Plan of Attack (2004) by Bob Woodward, 470 pages Jonathan Misirian 17 January 2007 Woodward’s 2nd volume traces the Bush administration’s internal plans to link Saddam with 9-11. The blood lust for war drove the administration to misconstrue intelligence, over play the WMD card, and cast aside any who presented a different option from all-out war. Powell is the tragic figure here, the diplomat - reluctant warrior, who sold the world the case for war with his UN speech, only to later regret his role. |
Planets in Peril by David Downing, 168 pages James Donahue 12 December 2002 Didn't entirely understand The Space Trilogy. Hence, this book which helped answer some of my questions and reference the work against the background of Lewis' scholastic works. |
Planning Your Pregnancy & Birth - Third edition by The American College of Obstetricians and Gyneco.., 469 pages A Bennett 28 December 2005 from page 237, "Between feedings, place chilled cabbage leaves around your breast. The leaves of cabbage are soothing and fit nicely around your breast." This quote would probably seem more strange as opposed to funny to me if I hadn't recently read The Penultimate Peril, in which Esme Squalor spent 95% of the book in a bikini made entirely of lettuce leaves. |
Play Poker Like the Pros by Phil Hellmuth, 394 pages Steven Krise 09 July 2009 Phil gives us his advice on reading players (with his famous "4 animals" categorization) and then in-depth strategy on all the most popular poker games - Hold 'Em, Omaha 8 or Better, Stud, Razz, and Stud 8 or better. Includes the obligatory last chapter on internet gaming. |
Play Winning Poker...In No Time by Alison Pendergast, 183 pages Steven Krise 15 June 2009 If you've played any kind of poker - winning or otherwise then this isn't the book for you. A shallow, uninteresting intro to poker that covers the topics you expect, giving advice you've already heard. |
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut, 341 pages Kristin Schrock 24 March 2003 I love Kurt Vonnegut, but this one doesn't have the zip of his other works. He creates a dystopia in which the world is run by managers and engineers and machines replace the workforce (so, really, it's a sort of "work sucks" book). The dramatic oomph of the book rests with our hero who is continually faced with choices but through circumstances is never allowed to make them. Also, he may or may not hate his father (which may be buried in most of Vonnegut's books). |
Playing with Boys by Alisa Valdes Rodriguez, 368 pages Micaela Larkin 27 November 2006 Awful sophomore chic lit |
Plum Island by Nelson DeMille, 574 pages Mike Gadd 22 September 2003 A cop recovering from gunshot wounds on Long Island becomes involved in trying to solve the murder of 2 of his friends who work on Plum Island, a bio-research facility. |
Point of Law by Clinton McKinzie, 417 pages Mike Gadd 09 November 2003 Book 2 from the mountain climber / special agent. This one is set in time before the first book. I find that extremely distracting. Otherwise, the rock climbing scenes were engrossing enough. |
Point of Origin by Patricia Cornwell, 397 pages Jeff Gadd 31 August 2001 |
Poker Face by Judi James, 256 pages Steven Krise 24 July 2009 Sort of like "Lie to Me" meets "Poker After Dark". The key is to practicing studying people's behavior so you can learn to compare the performed gestures with the unconscious leakage and microexpressions to see if the two classes of behaviours are congruent. Incongruent signals = bluffing. |
Poker for Dummies by Richard D Harroch & Lou Krieger, 80 pages Steven Krise 30 April 2005 A reference for the rest of us. |
Poker Night - Winning At Home, At the Casino, and Beyond by John Vorhaus, 275 pages Steven Krise 05 April 2009 Suggestions, guidelines, and ideas about setting up and hosting your own poker home game. Includes discussion of poker variants, tournaments, and how to alter your strategy as you step out from the home game to public poker venues. |
Poker Nights: Rules, Strategies, and Tips for the Home Player by Scott Tharler, 128 pages Steven Krise 14 April 2009 Slicker (literally) and more colorful than Vorhaus's book about home poker. However, Tharler tries to cover every home poker variation imaginable and consequently only devotes a paragraph at most to describe the rules, action, and strategy. This is a very light-weight book without much meat to offer. |
Poland by James Michener, 640 pages Micaela Larkin 11 June 2007 Awesome |
Politics, Society, and Christianity in Vichy France by W.D. Halls, 391 pages James Donahue 08 September 2004 Only interesting if you're already interested. |
Pollyanna Grows Up (1915) by Eleanor H. Porter, 308 pages A Bennett 25 October 2005 Not the erotica the title might suggest to some. Pollyanna does indeed grow up--a shocking ten or so years between pages (not even broken by a division in the book). Wholesome, but not boring. I wish all books still had fancy frontispieces. With that classy sheet of rice paper to keep them protected from the title page. |
Pop Goes Religion: Faith in Popular Culture by Terry Mattingly, 211 pages Brad Snyder 31 October 2006 The Catholic Archbishop of Denver, a journalist, and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top are standing in the elevator lobby of a Denver hotel...sound like the beginning of a joke? No, it's the amusing true tale that Mattingly uses to illustrate the theme of his book. Mattingly writes the syndicated "On Religion" column for the Scripps Howard News Service. This book is an accumulation of those articles, divided into chapters by topic. His articles don't tell you what to think, but leave you thinking. The chapter about movies was nauseatingly Lord of the Rings-, Star Wars-, and Matrix-centric, but the rest of the book is a gem. |
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth, 274 pages Tony Pisarenkov 26 May 2003 Disturbing for all the right reasons. The sort of book that is unpleasant while you are reading it, but remarkably eye-opening once you put it down and think about what you've just read. If there is a man that cannot relate to at least something here, I have yet to meet him. It all gets just a bit too much by the end, but still, essential stuff. |
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed by MS. Patricia Cornwell, 367 pages Mike Gadd 26 January 2004 Whether or not you think she's right Ms. Cornwell put in a fair amount of time trying to prove her point. You get a detailed write-up of each crime scene as well as witness statements and autopsy descriptions. Modern day forensics wouldn't have had too much trouble catching this guy, but back then there wasn't much done. Some of her arguments seem pretty strong, while others are terribly weak. Several times she makes the case that since she can't prove that somebody was not in a particular place then he must have been there. The 'perp' happens to be a famous British painter and I've read that Ms. Cornwell bought quite a few of his original paintings. She even sliced one up hoping to find some evidence underneath the paint. Quite the dedicated one she is. |
Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man by Norman Mailer, 370 pages Steve Gadd 13 January 1999 Sometimes flattering, sometimes not, an engaging bio of the often profligate young artist. |
Prayer Of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson, 98 pages Erik Bauer 30 November 2001 The small book that packs a lot of controversy. |
Prey by Michael Crichten, 367 pages Mike Gadd 09 December 2002 Very disappointing. I expected a much better effort. The subject matter seemed so promising too. It wasn't for a lack of research on his part, it just wasn't a very good story. 'Timeline' was so much better. Maybe next time. |
Prey by Michael Crichton, 363 pages Jeff Gadd 31 December 2002 Not one of my favorite M.C. books, but interesting enough. Of Course I don't Know what Nanotechnology is or what a Nanoparticles were or how they worked them. A book for technologics for sure. |
Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field by Melissa Nathan, 279 pages Kristin Schrock 15 July 2002 Recommended to me by someone at the library when I said that I loved Pride and Prejudice. That, of course, didn't mean that I needed to read the same book by a different author. It's about a bunch of people putting on Pride and Prejudice as a play and what do you know! People start acting like their characters! Quel Surprise! Fun with typos: at the beginning of the book it says that Elizabeth and Darcy will share a song at the end. So I'm expecting them to bust out with, 'Look at us, aren't we a pair!' . No song. They share a SNOG. 'cuz it's British and all. Egret count=0 |
Principles of Brewing Science by George Fix, 189 pages Steven Krise 24 March 2006 This is what I was hoping for when I had purchased BrewChem 101. A nice technical discussion (but not so narrow as to read like a journal) of the biochemistry of brewing with a little physics thrown in at the end to cover how the gas laws relate to carbonation. |
Privilege: Harvard and Educating the Ruling Class by Ross Douthat, 288 pages Micaela Larkin 15 September 2006 |
Professional VB.NET 2nd Edition by Et al, 985 pages Steven Krise 05 April 2004 "This book explains the underlying philosophy and design of the .NET framework and Common Language Runtime, and details the differences between Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic .NET." At least the title isn't all acronyms. Note to Ms Bennett, one of the dozen authors was a women. I'm working on it. |
Programming ADO by David Sceppa, 363 pages Steven Krise 02 May 2009 God, I wish I had known about this book 5 years ago. A wonderfully comprehensive discussion of Microsoft's (now defunct) universal data access technology, ADO. Worth the price of the book for the chapter on the ADO Cursor Engine alone. |
Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 by David Sceppa, 835 pages Steven Krise 10 November 2007 Get a practical introduction to the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 libraries (ADO.NET 2.0) that communicate, access, sort, and interact with data from .NET-connected applications. Includes coverage of XML data and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. |
Prophecy of Darkness by Stella Howard, 215 pages Jeff Gadd 09 March 2002 |
Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (2006) by Thomas Albert Howard, 448 pages James Donahue 04 May 2007 |
Purity of Blood (2006) by Arturo Perez-Reverte, 267 pages James Donahue 11 May 2007 One of the best pageturner authors out there. And this one comes with a moral: Never trust anyone who only reads one book! (Read at nights in Glen's apartment in Wannsee) |
Put Out More Flags (1942) by Evelyn Waugh, 254 pages James Donahue 23 August 2007 After two years of slugging it out in the Mediterrean with the British Army, Waugh sat down to write a satiric update of his comic characters from previous books. The book is interesting, but seems to fall pretty flat for several reasons. First, the antics of the Bright Young Things are more sinister than comic in a time of war. But more importantly Waugh just cannot write lite anymore. A moral edge is there in the satire that wasn't before. The stories mean something now. Which means: I hope Waugh's next book is something different. Waugh has changed, and his narrative voice needs to change: from satire of the glitterati to ??? |
Pyramids by Terry Pratchett, 380 pages Steven Krise 20 November 2005 When the hatch closed above him, Autocue sidled over to one of the [Trojan] hores's massive legs and put it to a use for which it wasn't originally intended. And it was while he was staring vaguely ahead, lost in that Zen-like contemplation which occurs at moments like this that there was a faint pop in the air and an entire river valley opened up in front of him. It's not the sort of thing that ought to happen to a thoughtful lad. Especially one who has to wash his own uniform. |