2009 Book List
This year was a pretty good year for reading. I managed to get through 61 books, with only 6 repeats (italicized. Of course, this does not count the several books that I started and did not finish — I will not count those until I actually finish them.
Of note this year, many of these books I checked out from the library or borrowed from friends, so I managed to save a significant amount of money over my usual book reading expenditures. I have marked the borrowed books with an asterisk.
- The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time, #12; A Memory of Light, #1) - Robert Jordan
- * The Last Colony - John Scalzi
- * The Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi
- * The Millionaire Next Door - Steven D. Levitt and Thomas J. Stanley
- * Under the Dome - Stephen King
- * King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard
- * Old Man's War (Book 1) - John Scalzi
- * The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time - Douglas Adams
- * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (P.S.) - Robert M. Pirsig
- * The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
- * This Immortal - Roger Zelazny
- * Drood - Dan Simmons
- * Batman: The Killing Joke - Alan Moore
- * Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel - Michio Kaku
- * The Design of Everyday Things - Donald A. Norman
- * I Don't Know What I Want, But I Know It's Not This: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Gratifying Work - Julie Jansen
- * Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #6) - Charlaine Harris
- * Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse, #5) - Charlaine Harris
- * Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse, #4) - Charlaine Harris
- * Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #3) - Charlaine Harris
- * Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse, #2) - Charlaine Harris
- * Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1) - Charlaine Harris
- Debugging by Thinking: A Multidisciplinary Approach (HP Technologies) - Robert Charles Metzger
- How to Win Friends & Influence People - Dale Carnegie
- * Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High - Kerry Patterson
- How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler
- * Agent to the Stars - John Scalzi
- Software Exorcism: A Handbook for Debugging and Optimizing Legacy Code (Expert's Voice) - Bill Blunden
- The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
- Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War - Nathaniel Philbrick
- Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Preacher Vol. 1: Gone To Texas - Garth Ennis
- The Double Helix - James D. Watson
- I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel - Tom Wolfe
- The Sandman Vol. 01: Preludes and Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman
- Of Saints and Shadows (The Shadow Saga, #1) - Christopher Golden
- Bone Crossed (Mercedes Thompson, #4) - Patricia Briggs
- Iron Kissed (Mercedes Thompson, #3) - Patricia Briggs
- Blood Bound (Mercedes Thompson, #2) - Patricia Briggs
- Moon Called (Mercedes Thompson, #1) - Patricia Briggs
- The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins
- * Just After Sunset - Stephen King
- * The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers - Keith R. Mcfarland
- Code Complete, Second Edition - Steve McConnell
- The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain's Untapped Potential - Tony Buzan
- 1984 - George Orwell
- Mean Streets - Jim Butcher
- Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1) - Jim Butcher
- Batman: Year One - Frank Miller
- Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware - Andy Hunt
- Crisis on Infinite Earths - Marv Wolfman
- The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master - Andrew Hunt
- Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, #11) - Jim Butcher
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller
- Upsetting the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 3) - Harry Turtledove
- * The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made Carburetor Possible - and Other Journeys - James Burke
- * The Conscience of a Liberal - Paul Krugman
- * The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life - Twyla Tharp
- Welcome to the Jungle (The Dresden Files, Prequel) - Jim Butcher
- Lord of Chaos (Wheel of Time, #6) - Robert Jordan
- Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, #1) - Jim Butcher
This year, I hope to do more mathematics and computer science reading than I normally do, as well as doing more study on personal finance. I am sure a healthy bit of fiction will fall into my reading list as well.
A Matter of Classification
Lately, I have been using the public library here in town a great deal more since I discovered that I could request inter-library loans over the Internet. That has helped to alleviate the aggravation of our branch's meager selection. But, there is something to be said for simply browsing the aisles and picking up books that interest me. This has led to a whole new set of frustrations with our library system.
First, let us imagine an author that you are interested in. For the sake of argument, let us say that author's name is Dan Simmons. Now, I have read several of his books and would like to find some new ones. In most libraries, I would just head to the fiction section and look in the 'S' section for the last name 'Simmons' an, lo, there would be books by the author that I want to read. Sure enough, if I do that at my local library, I can find a few books. However, I could also check the Mystery section — apparently, mysteries are not fiction after all. Look, there are a couple of Dan Simmons books over in the Mystery section. Oops, watch out, he has also written some Science Fiction novels; we had better check the Science Fiction section as well. Wait a minute... there are two Science Fiction sections, one for hard-cover and one for paper-back. I guess I have to check them both to see if he has any books. Oh wait, seeing the paper-back Science Fiction section reminds me, there is also a paper-back Fiction section! So, let us count them up: Fiction, Packet-back Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction, and Paper-back Science Fiction! There are five different places I have to check to browse and see if this author has books in this library.
"Wait," you may be thinking, "this is the age of computers. Surely you can just use the same website that you used to reserve books to find what sections books by your favorite author are in!" If you have thought that, you and I are of like mind. That does narrow down the search to just one section when I find a book I want. However, this raises another issue. While searching the library's website for King Solomon's Mines
in the Classics section, but War and Peace
was in the Fiction section.
Reading Brown Bear to Baby
This morning, Emily decided to read a story to Baby. She picked her favorite story from when she was one: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? ". If you are not familiar with the book, it is very rhythmic, repeating "Color Animal, Color Animal, what do you see? I see a next-color next-animal looking at me" over and over again, with each new color and animal chaining into the next one. We read the book so often when she was younger, so she was able to pretty much recite the story to her Baby. Periodically, she would forget which animal came next, so she would check to see if anyone was looking and then sneak a peek, very quickly, at the animal on the next page. Then she would continue on like nothing happened. It was too cute.
Thoughts on “Poltergeist”
On Halloween, I have a bit of a tradition: I like to watch a horror movie that night. The choice for this year was Poltergeist. I have seen Poltergeist many times over the years, starting from about the time I was ten. However, this was the first time I watched the movie since Emily has been born and the movie affected me differently. Every other time I have watched Poltergeist, I have identified with the little boy in the movie. A lot of really scary things happen to the little boy:
- He almost gets eaten by a tree,
- He sees lots of scary things occur, such as flying objects, ghosts, flashing lights, etc., and
- He gets accosted by one of the scariest, freakiest, clown toys that I have seen in a movie (Yes, I had a bit of an issue with clowns when I was younger, why do you ask?).
This identification with the little boy occurred well into my twenties. This is a horror movie — scary stuff happens, so you should be scared of it. This view of Poltergeist was different for me, though. Now, I have a two year old little girl of my own and I found that I identified with the parents in the movie much more than any of the other characters and that made the movie much more frightening to me than it ever really was in the past. Why? Well, let us examine what the parents go through in the movie.
First, their little boy almost gets eaten by a tree and, although the father is pulling and pulling, he really can do very little to stop it from happening. Next, they go back into the house and their little girl is missing. They search and they search, but to no avail — Carol Anne is nowhere to be found. Oh my God! She might be in the swimming pool. THE SWIMMING POOL! The abject terror that is evident on the parents' faces as they are searching for her is bone-chilling. Then, they discover that Carol Anne has been taken by the TV people. They can hear her over the static of the TV, they hear the fear in her little voice, but they cannot get to her — they cannot comfort her. Through the rest of the movie, the parents take all of the other strange goings-on in stride — they can deal with anything that the house can throw at them so long as they can get Carol Anne back. Finally, the parents manage to get their daughter back, only to have the spirits try to take her again. Once again, that feeling of powerlessness is overwhelming.
Poltergeist is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Now, I can watch it and gain a sense of dread that I did not have before. It is like a completely new movie to me.