Reading Log 2008

Submitted by wshogren on Tue, 01/15/2008 - 04:00
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  1. December
  2. Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins: A Short History of Philosophy (1996)
  3. M. John Harrison: The Pastel City (1971)
  4. Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992) {re-read}
  6. November
  7. Sherwood Anderson: Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
  8. Bertrand Russell: Problems of Philosophy (1912)
  9. David Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
  10. Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent (1907)
  11. Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped (1886)
  13. October
  14. Jack London: The Call of the Wild (1903)
  15. Gene Wolfe: The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972)
  16. Simon Singh: Big Bang (2004)
  18. September
  19. Haruki Murakami: Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995)
  20. Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)**
  22. August
  23. Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker (1986)
  24. Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky (1999)
  26. July
  27. Norman Cantor: The Civilization of the Middle Ages (1993)
  28. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
  29. Kenneth Davis: Don't Know Much About Mythology (2005)
  31. June
  32. George Orwell: Homage to Catalonia (1938)
  33. William Strunk and EB White: Elements of Style (1957)
  34. Stephen Jay Gould: Full House (1996)
  35. Albert Camus: The Plague (1947)
  36. Jorge Luis Borges: Labyrinths (collected 1962)**
  38. May
  39. Stephen Jay Gould: Ever Since Darwin (1977)
  40. Franz Kafka: Complete Short Stories (collected 1971)***
  41. Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83) {re-read}
  42. Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase (1982)
  44. April
  45. John Barth: Giles Goat Boy (1966)
  46. GK Chesterson: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
  47. PG Wodehouse: Carry On, Jeeves (1925)
  48. HP Lovecraft: The Call of Cthulu (1929)
  49. HP Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness (1931)
  50. Italo Calvino: Baron in the Trees (1957)
  52. March
  53. Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass (1871)
  54. Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)**
  55. CS Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
  56. Tom Wolfe: The Right Stuff (1979)
  57. Haruki Murakami: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)**
  59. February
  60. Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age (1996)
  61. EM Forster: Aspects of the Novel (1927)**
  62. Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (~180)
  63. Soren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling (1843)
  65. January
  66. Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment (1866)***
  67. JR McNeill and William McNeill: The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History (2003)
  68. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)
Author Comments: 

** Really liked
*** Loved

neptune11/30/2008

Awesome choices. I love Russell's Problems of Philosophy, he explains clearly ideas which the likes of Kant over-complicate and extend needlessly. I wish it had been longer though...

wshogren12/04/2008

Getting through some of Kant's stuff wasn't one of my favorite activities. I did enjoy the Russell book, and wouldn't mind delving into some of his longer works (probably not Principia Mathematic, though)

JohnnyW12/04/2008

I just read Homage to Catalonia last month--what did you think of it? I liked it, but thought it was a bit uneven; certain chapters were much more compelling than others.

I'm also hoping to read The Secret Agent in the next month or so.

Johnny Waco

wshogren12/15/2008

I thought it was an interesting document of the Spanish Civil War (probably not the best source of historical information, though), but as a whole it wasn't the best thing by Orwell I've read. I enjoyed the droll style and down in the trenches POV, but like you said, it's a little inconsistent. The chapters detailing the war's political history seemed a little out of place.
I'd recommend reading The Secret Agent. Not Conrad's best (it probably would've been better as a short story), but relevant to today.