This is the 3rd generation of the "Dan's Place" blog of my random thoughts that I initially intended to be like postings outside my cubicle wall -- a virtual bulletin board kind of thing, which started in June 2003.
Cooper: Diane, last night I dreamed I was eating a large, tasteless gumdrop, and awoke to discover I was chewing on one of my foam disposable earplugs. Perhaps I should consider moderating my nighttime coffee consumption. -- "Twin Peaks"
+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+---------------+----------+
| title | Authors | yearpublished | Finished |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+---------------+----------+
| Storming Las Vegas | John Huddy | 2008 | 1/2014 |
| Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The | Robert Spencer | 2005 | 1/2014 |
| Pilgrim's Progress, The | John Bunyan | 1678 | 5/2014 |
| Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | 1719 | 7/2014 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+---------------+----------+
Mid-year I started trying to read the great novels. So far it's been a pretty tedious slog. "Storming Las Vegas" was by far the most interesting of the four from 2014: a non-fiction account of thieves bumbling their way through the casinos' huge piles of cash.
It didn't take much ciphering to come up with this year's list. In my defense, time does fly like an arrow. The full list of what I read in 2013:
+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------+---------------+----------+
| title | Authors | yearpublished | Finished |
+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------+---------------+----------+
| Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The | Philip K. Dick | 1965 | 2/2013 |
I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads. I'm not sure what the title means. It's disturbing how quickly things pass from my memory -- but I don't think better (total?) recall would help with that title. However, I don't think it had much to do with the story, which was about people escaping their dreadful future life through a socially acceptable escapist drug.
Another year gone by, another year of meager book reading. But really, there's so much in the way of television and movies out there, how can I be held responsible. Even worse, this short list contains pretty much lighter reading. No epic novels this year. I do imagine, in the distant future, after most of humanity is wiped out, that I'll have all the time in the world to read everything. Until I accidentally step on my glasses, that is. Oh, cursed fate!
And, besides my own limited personal db, I am still maintaining my listings on Goodreads and Shelfari. Who can choose.
+-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------+---------------+----------+
| title | Authors | yearpublished | Finished |
+-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------+---------------+----------+
| Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer, The | Jennifer Lynch | 1990 | 3/2012 |
| Early Dayton | Robert W. Steele,Mary Davies Steele | 1896 | 6/2012 |
| I Hate Myself And Want To Die | Tom Reynolds | 2005 | 7/2012 |
| Sword Of The Prophet, The | Serge Trifkovic | 2002 | 9/2012 |
| Predictably Irrational | Dan Ariely | 2008 | 11/2012 |
| Blessed Are The Meek | Zofia Kossak | 1944 | 12/2012 |
+-----------------------------------+-------------------------------------+---------------+----------+
"The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer", of course, is one of the better-known "Twin Peaks" memorabilia. It may come as a surprise, but there is no small amount of "Twin Peaks" stuff that I never acquired, much to my regret. And when I saw that they (for some reason) decided to do a second printing of this thin volume a year ago, I snatched it up.
"Early Dayton" was published on Dayton's centennial. I found it in Google Books. Today it would probably be a self-published thing, like a family might do for its own history. There are some good historical sections about the first settlers and a few old pictures, but the majority of it involves listing a prominent citizen, and then listing that person's descendents and current living relatives, without much flavor.
"I Hate Myself And Want To Die" is just a list of 52 popular, depressing songs -- sometimes surprisingly so for those who don't pay much mind to the lyrics. Each song's accompanied by a brief essay, emphasis on brief. I really like the idea of something like this, but I imagined it being much better. Besides the briefness, the comedian in the author shines through in some write-ups more than others -- not laugh out loud funny, though. I recall it feeling more like the style of VH1's snarky talking-head countdowns and "I Love The Whatever" shows.
"The Sword of the Prophet" explains Islam from its beginning; guaranteed to be hated and denounced by the politically correct and people who favor "coexist" bumper stickers.
"Predictably Irrational" is all about behavioral economics. It doesn't really teach or explain much about economics (of any kind) in any great detail, but it does describe, for the layman, several fascinating behavioral economics experiments that try to decipher how people really behave and are motivated.
And, finally, I just finished "Blessed Are The Meek", which is subtitled, "A Novel About St. Francis Of Assisi". Turns out it really isn't about Francis as much as it's about Sir Jean de Brienne and the final Crusade. (I think it was the final one.) Francis keeps showing up in the early part of the book and again in the latter part of the book when the Crusade gets going. And that was fine. I wasn't expecting a bio of St. Francis. And I do like me some historical fiction. Not being much of a historian -- and that goes double for the 13th century -- I don't know where the historical ended and the fictional began, but I'd say this turned out to be the most enjoyable read on this list. If it were written today, instead of 70 years ago, give or take a decade (1944 is probably just when it was translated to English) , it would probably be twice as long and only the first part of a trilogy. Several subplots might have been greatly extended. But I thought it was good; which was probably enhanced by my low expectations going in.
For the record, on Goodreads, I rated them all 3 stars ("liked it") except the Dayton book, which I gave 2 stars ("it was ok").
And don't forget, it's still not too late to enjoy some Christmas Punch:
At this point in the year, it's safe to say I won't be finishing any more books -- since I'm not in the middle of any at the moment. Here's my list of books finished in 2011 in order read, which is longer than usual -- thanks, global economy!
(And I'm still maintaining my lists at both Goodreads and Shelfari, FWIW.)
Trickle Up Poverty
Michael Savage
2010
Anathem
Neal Stephenson
2008
Word Freak
Stefan Fatsis
2001
Stranger In A Strange Land
Robert A. Heinlein
1961
Foucault's Pendulum
Umberto Eco
1988
Complete Short Stories Of Ambrose Bierce, The
Ambrose Bierce
1970
I'd easily put "Anathem" and "Word Freak" at the top and the last two at the bottom. Really, I was disappointed in the last three. I'd heard so many good things about them. "Stranger In a Strange Land" turned out to be long stretches of dialog that sounded like lectures on philosophy, religion (a lot of opinions on religion), and the meaning of life. Where's the sci or the fi? Or at least some good Martian stuff. Maybe "Foucault's Pendulum" was the wrong Eco book to start with, but I like a good conspiracy. However, it seemed like lengthy passages -- dozens or hundreds of pages? -- that just droned on about nothing. Maybe it's a problem of translation to English. And then Ambrose Bierce. I'm guessing his more than 90 stories were amazing and shocking in the late 19th century. They're grouped into three categories -- ghost stories, tall tales, and war stories. Most of the time it felt like there were only actually three different stories -- and sometimes it seemed like only one. I mean, a lot of the war stories were pretty much the same as the main ghost story template -- except they took place during the Civil War. And all those ghost stories seemed like pretty much the same story with different characters and places. Was I ever shocked that the person the main character was talking to turned out to have died in a town 50 miles away a couple weeks earlier? No. Not the first time. Not the twentieth time.
Wow, it's pretty easy to be critical, yes? Well, I loved the writing style of "Word Freak"; kind of like the lengthier articles in "Wired" or "The New Yorker". And I admire that kind of obsession. And "Anathem", well, Stephenson is one of my favorite authors, if I had to make a list. Yes, the first 50 pages were a struggle, what with, not only all the wacky alien names, but worse, all the made up words, which I'd think a story of an alien culture could do just fine without. But once I got over that hump, it was a thrilling adventure. This is how I like my science fiction, I guess. I suppose it, too, was full of the philosophizing, but it never felt as if I were reading a sleepy lecture, no offense to the esteemed Mr. Heinlein.
I guess I shouldn't mention all the others and leave out one book from the list. The mere fact that I read Michael Savage's book should tell you enough, and I don't want to start a political fight with the haters. Instead, I'd rather remind you to enjoy some Christmas Punch!
If you're on Shelfari, join me there. My profile name is KillerOwl. I'm also trying out Goodreads -- might have to search by my name there. And the BiblioCommons service that may be available on your library's website after you login to your library account. (Searching may not be possible. Might have to make a list or review before someone else can see you.)
I finally have my "books read" list into a mysql database. I haven't come up with any good report output, but I'm imagining I'll have to write some kind of program to generate it; something automated and better than the old manually created lists I used to make. Obviously, I'm not setting the bar very high, I know.
Given that, here's a simple list of the books I've read in the last decade. Frankly, I'm surprised I was able to do this without relying on stored procedures or what not.
I realize this looks sloppy in Internet Explorer. But it looks just as intended in Firefox! The perfectionist in me wants to waste the rest of the night trying to get it to look good in "all" browsers -- but the realist in me says, meh.
mysql> SELECT distinct b.title,
-> (select group_concat(aa.firstname,' ',if(aa.midname is null,'',concat(aa.midname,' ')),aa.lastname)
-> from authors aa,books_has_authors bb where bb.authors=aa.oid and bb.books=b.oid ) "Authors",
-> concat(b.monthread,'/',b.yearread) "Finished"
-> FROM books b
-> WHERE b.yearread>=2001 order by b.yearread,b.monthread;
+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+----------+
| title | Authors | Finished |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+----------+
| Ways That Are Dark: The Truth About China | Ralph Townsend | 7/2001 |
| Check Your Local TV Listings | Omar Williams | 9/2001 |
| Lord Of The Rings, The: The Fellowship Of The Ring | J.R.R. Tolkien | 12/2001 |
| Lord Of The Rings, The: The Two Towers | J.R.R. Tolkien | 5/2002 |
| Death Of The West, The | Patrick J. Buchanan | 7/2002 |
| Final Judgment | Michael Collins Piper | 1/2003 |
| Jennifer Government | Max Barry | 1/2003 |
| Planet Of The Apes Revisited | Joe Russo,Larry Landsman,Edward Gross | 8/2003 |
| Franchising For Dummies | Dave Thomas,Michael Seide | 10/2003 |
| Lord Of The Rings, The: The Return Of The King | J.R.R. Tolkien | 11/2003 |
| Sellout: The Inside Story Of President Clinton's Impeachment | David P. Schippers,Alan P. Henry | 1/2004 |
| New Gambler's Bible, The | Arthur S. Reber | 3/2004 |
| Basic Blackjack | Stanford Wong | 4/2004 |
| Blackjack: The Real Deal | Phillip J. Vogel | 4/2004 |
| Snow Crash | Neal Stephenson | 4/2004 |
| Losing Bin Laden | Richard Miniter | 6/2004 |
| Madame Hillary: The Dark Road To The White House | R. Emmett Tyrrell,Mark W. Davis | 9/2004 |
| Diamond Age, The | Neal Stephenson | 10/2004 |
| Cryptonomicon | Neal Stephenson | 11/2004 |
| Acting | Richard Boleslavsky | 12/2005 |
| Moslems: Their Beliefs, Practices, And Politics | Gabriel Oussani,Hilaire Belloc | 1/2007 |
| Quicksilver | Neal Stephenson | 8/2008 |
| Confusion, The | Neal Stephenson | 10/2008 |
| Mystery | Peter Straub | 8/2009 |
| System Of The World, The | Neal Stephenson | 10/2010 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+----------+
25 rows in set (0.11 sec)
