Books That I’ve Read in 2004 & 2005
“Always
read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it” – P.J.
O’Rourke
Used Books Online:
Mine is
Covered Treasures Bookstore in Monument, Colorado (covrdtreas@aol.com) owned by Mrs. Tommie T. Plank.
Much of what I know I have learned from the New York Review of Books
Deep Pockets (Linda Barnes) – The latest Carlotta Carlyle mystery (this is an advance reading copy and isn’t out yet). My favorite contemporary private dicks are Carlotta Carlyle, V.I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky), and Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton) in addition to Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout), Hercule Perot & Miss Marple (Agatha Christie) and Sherlock Holmes (A.C. Doyle) of previous eras and in addition to Chee & Leaphorn (Tony Hillerman), who are Navajo cops, and Jill Smith (Susan Dunlop), who is a Berkeley cop, and, I suppose, we might as well toss in Kinky Friedman, who plays himself or what he’d like himself to be, for good measure. Cambridge, MA, where Carlotta works, and Berkeley, CA, where Jill Smith works, are among my favorite places, as it the great southwest desert that is the home of the Navajo Nation. ANYWAY, as you can see, I know how to waste time and there are lots of authors willing to help me out in that endeavor. Deep Pockets has some twists that I like but I’m bummed that Carlotta seems to be getting back together again with Sam, whom I don’t like. Nevertheless, it’s a good read.
Surviving Extremes (Kenneth Kamler, M.D.) – The subtitle is “A Doctor’s Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance”. This is another advance reading copy that will presumably appear in stores sometime. I like this for reasons that may be obvious from perusal of this web site. It’s probably about time to start a new section in my library devoted to this kind of thing and include in it, in addition to this book, Richard Byrd’s Alone, Roland Huntford’s The Last Place on Earth, Alfred Lansing’s Endurance, Heinrich Harrer’s The White Spider, Maurice Herzog’s Annapurna, and probably Michael Shermer’s Race Across America, which has current relevance to me.
Digital Fortress (Dan Brown) – This is a 1998 book by the author of The Da Vinci Code. Jeez, this is a real page turner. I read the first 100 pages before going to sleep one night and devoted the next evening to reading the remaining 300 pages. It has to do with the NSA, everyone’s favorite agency (see James Bamford’s The Puzzle Palace for background), which has as it mission spying on all of us. The book is what is known as a “techno-thriller”. Brown isn’t a great writer but he’s good at writing books that are difficult to put down. This one has spies, assassins, computers, cryptography, and so on. I’m surprised that it hasn’t been made into a movie. There could be all sorts of scenes with people getting murdered and things blowing up. Hmmm. In the end I figured out the solution to the mystery before the dummies in the book did because I know the major difference between “Fat Man” and “Little Boy”.
All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten (Robert Fulghum) – I had never read this although I recall when it was popular. A friend gave it to me – it’s the 15th anniversary edition. On the whole I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot at the onset but it became more tedious as I worked my way through it. Maybe tedious isn’t the correct word – I’m not sure what is. The book is, in some figurative sense, 219 pages of smiley faces. 100 pages would have been fine but I guess I should be thankful that it isn’t 500 or 1000 pages. I wouldn’t have finished it but, at least, I wouldn’t have burned it as I did some awful 700 page thing of Robert Heinlein’s that I become so disgusted with that I opened the door of the woodstove and tossed it in. Fulghum doesn’t deserve that. Actually there were a few essays in the second half the book that I especially liked. There was one about two guys in their 60s who bicycled from California to Alberta to see a rodeo. My 40th high school reunion should be sometime this year. Perhaps I’ll bicycle from Colorado to Michigan for it. After all, in 1964, after graduating from high school, I bicycled the reverse route. He also has an essay entitle “Stick Polishing” where he describes people who are neat and organized and then himself. This appealed to me because I’m so much like him. I will re-read this essay from time-to-time when I am in despair over my inability to be neat and organized.
Flashpoint (Linda Barnes) – My reading this came about as a result of an “ah ha” moment. When I was putting Deep Pockets (see above) on my “Mysteries – Read” shelf (I guess I’m kind of organized about some things) I found Flashpoint, which I had gotten as an advance readers copy but had misselved without having read it. While reading Deep Pockets I had the feeling that I must have missed a book because of some discontinuities in the life of Carlotta Carlyle, Linda Barnes’ private dick. I was right, I had not read Flashpoint or had not remembered reading it. My 2000 list says that I read it but, frankly, I didn’t remember a damned thing about it. It’s possible that it’s one of those that I read very late at night (1 am-ish) after doing physics all evening. I always read something before going to sleep so that I don’t dream all night of physics but I sometimes don’t remember anything of what I’ve “read”. Flashpoint, which was good but not Linda Barnes’ best, must have been one of those.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Chris Hedges) – Hedges is or has been a war correspondent for the New York Times. This book is profound, sad, and terrifying. Recalling that this was written before the invasion of Iraq, Wesley Clark wrote of it: “A somber and timely warning to those – in any society – who would evoke the emotions of war for the pursuit of political gain.” The ideologues and phonies in the current executive branch ought to read this. Unfortunately there’s lots of dogma among that crowd but little real intelligence – ideology trumps everything else.
Deception Point (Dan Brown) – Continuing on a roll with Dan Brown! This is another “page turner”. Even at 560 pages I read it in two evenings. Now that I’ve read 3 or his 4 books it’s clear his writing is somewhat formulaic. He’s not a great writer but his books are fun to read. This one was somewhat annoying because of his portrayal of the scientists, who are the main characters. I found their adolescent banter to be annoying – I’ve known lots of scientists and haven’t known any who talked that way. If it wasn’t that then they were being referred to as Dr. X, Dr. Y, Dr. Z, etc. Baloney, they don’t do that either. Other than that, which may be a quidity, it was fun to read. They bad guys were real bad and, in the end, got what they deserved.
The Faith of a Writer (Joyce Carol Oates) – This was enjoyable to read. I had heard her give a short very enjoyable talk at an event in Denver about her life as a writer and then chatted briefly with her afterward. This seemed an appropriate book to read. I read her book reviews in the New York Review of Books but have not read any of her fiction. I’ll put that on my To Do List.
Angels & Demons (Dan Brown) – Okay, now I’m caught up having read Dan Brown’s entire oeuvre. Although some of the dialog in this is lame and annoying it’s a great improvement over his earlier books. Another page turner, of course.
The Havana Room (Colin Harrison) – This was an advance listening copy on CD. I listened to it on a trip to Albuquerque. I have lots of books on tape & CDs for long car trips. I liked the story.
In Praise of Slowness –How a worldwide movement is challenging the cult of speed (Carl Honore’) – This is a really interesting book. It’s basically about making life choices to slow down and get out of the fast lane and, in doing so, deals with most aspects of how we live our lives including how we have sex. It’s kind of the antithesis of the topic of Gleick’s book Faster: The Acceleration of Everything, which I’ve reviewed in a previous year. For me it represents a kind of validation of choices that I made years ago to eschew the fast lane, even if it meant making less money than I might otherwise earn, and live a more interesting and less stressful life.
The Complete Book of Long Distance Cycling (E.R. Burke & E. Pavelka) – You don’t have to peruse this web site for long to see that this is my thing.
Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned (Kinky Friedman) – This is very different from Kinky’s previous books, i.e. the mysteries. His mysteries have been getting more psychological and philosophical recently and now he writes non-mystery work of fiction (some of it may not be fiction) that remains funny but is also romantic. The main characters are all very sympathetic. I like them and the book. I’m interested in seeing where Kinky goes with his new direction in writing.
At this point I got far behind, so what follows is a random list for the remainder of 2004 and for 2005:
The Devil in the White City (Erik Larson)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night (Mark Haddon)
Younger Next Year (Crowley & Lodge)
How the Universe Got Its Spots (Jana Levin) – Amazingly good!
Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Lady Chatterly’s Lover (D.H. Lawrence)
Peace Kills (P.J. O’Rourke)
E = MC2 (David Bodanis)
It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science (Graham Farmelo) – My kind of thing!
A Matter of Degrees (Gino Segre’)
Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony (Marcia Bartusiak)
Bicycle (Herlihy) – Truly my kind of thing!
Iron Riders (Sorensen)
Freakonomics (Levitt & Dubner) – Awesome analyses!
The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova) – a hard read.
The Rule of Four (Caldwell & Thomason) – good yarn.
The Real Rule of Four (Joscelyn Godwin)
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Francesco Colonna; Transl. by J. Godwin)
Time Shifting (Rechtschaffen)
The Road Less Traveled (M. Scott Peck) – This is a profound book by the well known psychiatrist. I bought my copy in 1992 in the Lake District, Cumbria, England. I read it while staying in Cumbria, in a café in Oxford, sitting against a stone in Stonehenge, and in a café in Mont Saint-Michel as I was driving from Belfast to Toulouse. I recently re-read it. It’s still profound.
People of the Lie (M. Scott Peck)
The Dante Club (Matthew Pearl) – another good yarn.
R is for Ricochet (Sue Grafton) – different from the usual K.M. mystery.
Fire Sale (Sara Paretsky) – V.I. is always a favorite!
Skeleton Man (Tony Hillerman) – a good Hillerman.
The Sinister Pig (Tony Hillerman)
True to Life: Why Truth Matters (Michael P. Lynch) – it really does matter. See The Road Less Traveled above.
