Books Read in 2006

Best Books of the Year

Book Club possible books

• Stumbling into Happiness by Daniel Gilbert -- good article in NY Times
  explores the idea that little daily pleasures are better than big payoffs,
  the variety is overrated and doesn't lead to happiness, good review in NYT
• The long tail : why the future of business is selling less of more
  by Chris Anderson -- very interesting.
• The wisdom of crowds : why the many are smarter than the few and how collective
  wisdom shapes business, economies, societies and nations
  by James Surowiecki -- very interesting
• Consider the Lobster and other essays by David Foster Wallace
  -- good essays: on a right-wing radio host, porno award show
• A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again : essays and arguments
  by David Foster Wallace -- xxx
• Fooled by randomness : the hidden role of chance in the markets and in life
  by Nassim Nicholas Taleb -- xxx
• Synthetic worlds : the business and culture of online games
  by Edward Castronova -- xxx
• Monkeyluv : and other essays on our lives as animals
  by Robert M. Sapolsky -- xxx

Books I Read

• High priority books to read
  • Yin Yu Tang: the architecture and daily life of a Chinese house
    by Nancy Berliner -- good review in the NY Times
  • Incompleteness: the proof and paradox of Kurt Godel
    by Rebecca Goldstein -- recommeded by Joyce Carol Oates
• Books to read later
  • The wealth of networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom
    by Yochai Benkler -- good review on NPR.
  • Wikinomics : how mass collaboration changes everything
    by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams -- good review on NPR.
  • Prime Green: remembering the sixtiesby Robert Stone -- good review in the WSJ.
  • Make it Stickby Chip Heath and Dan Heath -- good review in the WSJ.
    About how some ideas stick in your mind and others don't. SUCCESs =
    Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story
  • Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: a low culture manifesto
    by Chuck Klosterman -- xxx
  • Dead Clever by Scarlett Thomas
    -- good review in NY Times -- other offbeat mysteries
  • Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby -- xxx
  • The polysyllabic spree by Nick Hornby -- xxx
  • Grass for his pillow by Lian Hearn -- set in medieval Japan of the imagaination
    science fiction
  • My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman -- good review in the NYTimes
  • JPod by Douglas Coupland -- good review in NYT
  • The Great Mortality: an intimate history of the black death, the
    most devastating plague of all time by John Kelly -- good review in NYT
  • Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan
    -- science fiction about an investment banker in the future
  • Temptations of the West: how to be modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and beyond
    by Pankaj Mishra -- good review in NYT
  • The Big Ripoff by Timothy P. Carney -- good review in WSJ
  • Oracle Bones: the journey between China's past and present
    by Pater Hessler -- good review in NYT
  • The Book of Lost Books: an incomplete history of all the great books
    you'll never read by Stuart Kelly -- good review in NYT
  • Politics Lost: how american democracy was trivialized by people who
    think you are stupid by Joe Klein -- says the prologue and the middle
    on are the best, the first part is weaker, good review in NYT
  • My life in the middle ages: a survivor's tale
    by James Altas -- good review in NYT
  • Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: a story of economic discovery
    by David Warsh -- good review in NYT by Paul Krugman
  • Another day in the frontal lobe: a brain surgeon exposes life on the inside
    by Katrina Firlik -- good review in NYT
  • Windswept: the story of wind and weather
    by Marq de Villiers -- good review in the NYTimes
  • Sahara: the extraordinary history of the world's largest desert
    by Marq de Villiers -- good review in the NYTimes
  • Philosophy made simple by Robert Hellenga --
    he wrote "the 16 Pleasures", good review in the NYTimes
  • Decade of Nightmares: the end of the sixties and the making of the eighties America
    by Philip Jenkins -- good review in the NYTimes
  • Free Gift with purchase: my improbable career in magazines and makeup
    by Jean Godfrey-June -- The extent of gifts from advertisers in these magazines
  • The K Street Gang: the rise and fall of the Republican machine
    by Matthew Coninetti -- good review in WSJ
  • Poet's Choice by Edward Hirsch -- good review on NPR
  • The Box: How the shipping container made the world smaller and the
    world economy bigger by Marc Levnson -- good review in the WSJ
    but they said it is a little slow going in some places.
  • The box that changed the world by Arthur Donovan and Joseph Bonney
    -- Lots of colored pictures, mentioned in WSJ
  • Box Boats; how container ships changed the world
    by Brian J. Cudahy -- mentioned in WSJ
  • Overthrow: America's century of regime change from Hawaii to Iraq
    by Steven Kinzer -- very good review in the NYTimes
  • Like a rolling stone: bob dylan at the crossroads
    by Greil Marcus -- good review in the NYTimes
  • In Search of Memory: the mergence of a new science of mind
    by Eric R. Kandel -- good review in the NYTimes
  • Anatomy of a secret life: the pychology of living a lie
    by Gail Saltz -- good review in the NYTimes
  • Flapper: a madcap story of sex, style, celebrity, and the women of made america modern
    by Jpshua Zeitz -- good review in the NYTimes
  • To Hell With All That: loving and loathing our inner housewife
    by Caitlin Flanigan -- apparently she is a bit notorious as an anti-feminist but this
    review said that was inflated and the essays were overall pretty good.
  • Pornified: how pornography is transforming our lives, our relationships,
    abd our families by Pamela Paul -- show wrote a NYTimes review
  • China Shakes the World by James King -- good review by the British cabbie on NPR
  • The Angry Island: Hunting the English by A. A. Gill -- xxx
  • The Know-It All: One Man's Humble quest to become the smartest person in the world
    by A. J. Jacobs -- He reads the entire encyclopedia
  • Bandbox by Thomas Mallon -- About a magazine in NYC in the 30s
  • Food Inc: Mendel to Monsanto-- the promises and perils of the biotech harvest
    by Peter Pringle -- About bioengineered foods
  • Ardor: a novel of enchantment by Lily Prior -- set in an Italian town
  • The Closing of the Western Mind: the rise of faith and the fall of reason
    by Charles Freeman -- xxx
  • Parallel Worlds: a journey through creation, higher dimensions,
    and the future of the cosmos by Michio Kaku -- xxx
  • Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eicherwald -- About the Enron scandal
  • History of Beauty by Umberto Eco -- looks good
  • The Queen's Throat by Wayne Koestenbaum -- a meditation on opera
  • How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton -- xxx
  • In Ruins by Christopher Woodward -- xxx
  • Color by Victoria Finley -- xxx
  • Migrations to solitude by Sue Halpern -- xxx
  • The Tapir's morning bath : mysteries of the tropical rain forest
    and the scientists who are trying to solve them by Elizabeth Royte -- xxx
  • Wake Up, sir! by Jonathan Ames -- funny novel about a Jeeves-like servant
  • The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin -- xxx
  • Over the edge of the world: Magellan's terrifying circumnavigation of the globe
    by Lawrence Bergreen -- well-written, interesting history
  • Madam Secretary by Madeleine Albright -- xxx
  • Behind the Gates: life, security, and the pursuit of happiness in Fortress America
    by Setha Low -- good analysis of walled communities
  • The Pythons: autobiography of the Pythons
    by Graham Chapman, John cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idel, Terry Jones,
    and Michal Palin with Bn McCabe -- good review in NY Times
  • Hiding the Elephant: how magicians invented the impossible and learned to disappear
    by John Steinmeyer -- History and analysis of how stage magic developed
  • The minataur takes a cigarette break by Steven Sherrill
    -- the minitaur in modern times
  • Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin -- philosophical science fiction in the manner
    of Jonathan Swift and Jorge Luis Borges, a grand tour of imaginary societies
  • Powerful Medicines: the benefits, risks, and costs of prescription drugs
    by Jerry Avorn -- Like Marcia Angell's book on the drug companies
  • On the take: how america's complicity with big business can endanger your health
    by Jerome P. Kassirer -- Like Marcia Angell's book on the drug companies
  • Overdosed america: the broken promise of american medicine
    by John Abramson -- Like Marcia Angell's book on the drug companies
  • Runaway by Alice Munro -- rave review in the NY Times
  • Perfectly reasonable deviations from the beaten track : the letters
    of Richard P. Feynman by Michelle Feynman -- xxx
  • A random walk down Wall Street : the time-tested strategy for successful
    investing by Burton G. Malkiel. -- xxx
  • Selling sickness : how the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies
    are turning us all into patients by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels -- xxx
  • Why do men have nipples? by Mark Layner and Billy Goldberg -- xxx
  • Our culture, what's left of it: the mandarins and the masses
    by Theodore Dalrymple -- xxx
  • Shoes to die for by Laura Levine -- xxx
  • Over her dead body by Kate White -- xxx
  • Virtual Politics by Andres Wilson -- about Russia
  • Anything by Philip K. Dick -- xxx
  • Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghrab, and the War on Terror
    by Mark Danner -- xxx
  • Back from the land: how young americans went to nature in the 1970's
    and why they came back by Elinor Agnew -- xxx
  • What's going on? California and the Vietnam era
    by Marcia A. Eymann and Charles Collenberg -- xxx
  • Hippie by Barry Miles -- book of photographs
  • Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares -- xxx
  • The Second Summer of sisterhood by Ann Brashares -- xxx
  • Girls in Pants by Ann Brashares -- xxx
  • A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the human spirit
    by Alan Lightman -- essays
  • The Road to Reality: a complete guide to the laws of the universe
    by Roger Penrose -- 1099 pages, very hard, hardly that "The Emperor's New Mind"
  • This is not civilization by Robert Rosenberg
    -- vibrant first novel about a misguided but well-meaning Peace Corps volunteer.
  • A meal observed by Andrew Todhunter
    -- recounts a four-hour meal at a three-star restaurant
  • no place to hide by robert O'Harrow Jr. -- about privacy
  • Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: the bizare battle of Lake Tanganyika
    by Giles Foden -- WW II battle on a African Lake with nutty british people
  • Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan
    -- Another Takeshi Kovacs mystery, masterly reworking of cyberpunk and noire genres
  • Zorro by Isabel Allende -- retelling the tale
  • Positively fifth Street by James McManus -- poker poetry
  • The biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez
    -- Freudian theory of gambling as sublimation
  • Big Deal by Anthony Holden -- about tournament poker
  • Irrestistable Empire: America's advance through Twentieth century Europe
    by Victoria de Grazia -- good but not great review in NY Times
  • rats: observations on the history and habitat of the city's most unwanted
    inhabitants by Robert Sullivan -- Rats in NYC
  • Robbing the bees: a biography of honey -- the sweet liquid gold that
    seduced the world by Holly Bishop -- xxx
  • Extremes: surviving the world's harshest environments
    by nick middleton -- okay review in MY timesv
  • The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All time
    by Jimmy Guterman -- xxx
  • Searching for the sounds: my life with the grateful dead
    by Phil Lesh -- very good review in the NY times
  • Like a rolling stone: bob Dylan at the Crossroads
    by Greil Marcus -- good review in NY times
  • Mystery Train by Greil Marcus
    -- finest book ever written about pop music
  • A girl becomes a comma just like that by Lisa Glatt
    -- dark first novel of a girl taking care of her mother with cancer
  • The Missing Person by Alix Ohlin
    -- funny, good review in NY times
  • Hellfire by Nick Tosches -- biography of Jerry Lee Lewis
  • Dino by Nick Tosches -- biography of Dean martin
  • How to be idle by Tom Hodgkinson
    -- very good review in the NY Times
  • The Outlaw Sea: a world of freedom, chaos and crime
    by xxx William Langewiesche- xxx
  • Steinberg at the New Yorker- by Joel Smith
    -- 89 covers and other drawings
  • The Ethical Brain by Michael S. Gazzaniga
    -- good review in NY Times
  • Social Brain by Michael S. Gazzaniga
    -- has written five books on the brain
  • A Different Universe: reinventing physics from the bottom down
    by Robert B. Laughlin -- he thinks there is too much reductionism in physics
    he talked about mergent properties. Good review in NY Times
  • The Long Road Home" one step at a time by G. B. Trudeau
    -- strips of B.D. injury in Iraq and recovery
  • Friends, Lovers and Chocolate
    by Alexander McCall Smith -- xxx
  • Adventures of the artificial woman by Thomas Berger
    -- satircal fantasy
  • Open Wide: how hollywood box office became a national obsession
    by Dade Hayes andf Jonathan Bing -- xxx
  • Under and alone: the true story of the undercover agent who infiltrated
    America's most violent motrocycle gang by William Queen -- okay review in NY times
  • Spinning the Globe: the rise, fall and return to greatness of the
    Harlen Globetrotters by Ben Green -- xxx
  • War reporting for cowards by Chris Ayres -- xxx
  • The Russion Debutate's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart -- xxx
  • Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart -- okay review in NYTimes
  • Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay -- flamboyantly offbear debut novel
    about a witty homicidal maniac who makes a point of only killing those who deserve it
  • Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay -- second Dexter novel
  • Truth: a guide by Simon Blackburn -- refuting relativism
  • True to life: why truth matters by Michael P. Lynch -- refuting relativism
  • Mind Wide Open: your brain and the neuroscience of everyday life
    by George Johnson -- xxx
  • Night draws near : Iraq's people in the shadow of America's war
    by xxx -- Anthony Shadid
  • Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire -- sequel to "Wicked"
  • Don't get too comfortable by David Rackoff
    -- Satirical essays from a "this American Life" regular
  • Going Sane: maps of happiness by Adam Philips -- xxx
  • Caravaggio: painter of miracles by Francine Prose -- xxx
  • White Teeth by Zadie Smith -- good review in NY Times
  • National Pastime: how americans play baseball and the rest of the world plays soccer
    by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist -- okay review in NY Times
  • Hunger: an unnatural history by Sharman Apt Russell
    -- okay review in NY Times
  • Anatomy of a rose by Sharman Apt Russell -- from Western NM Univ.
  • Bait and Switch: the (futile) pursuit of the american dream
    by Barbara Ehrenreich -- xxx
  • Truth and Consequences by Alison Lurie -- very good review in WSJ
  • Let my people go surfing: the education of a reluctant businessman by Yvon Chouinard
    -- memoir of the guy who started Patagonia, Inc.
  • Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jan Smiley
    -- Good review in NY Times
  • The Cult of Personality Testing: how personality tests are leading
    us to miseducate our children, mismanage our companies, and misunderstand
    ourselves by Annie Murphy Paul -- sounds very interesting
  • Hell bent for leather: confessions of a heavy-metal addict
    by Seb Hunter -- sounds good.
  • The Inner circle by T. C. Boyle -- novel about Alfred Kinsey,
    good review in NY Times
  • The Roads to Modernity: the British, French and American Enlightenments
    by Gertrude Himmelfarb -- good review in NY Times
  • Red Star over Hollywood: the film colony's long romance with the left
    by Ronald Radosh and Allis Radosh -- Good review in LA times
  • The Game: penetrating the secret society of pick-up artists
    by Neil Strauss -- Good review in LA Times, about picking up girls
  • Defining the World: the extraordinary story of Dr. Johnson's dictionary
    by Henry Hitchings -- Good review in LA Times
  • The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges
    -- Good review in LA Times
  • The Elements of Style (new edition)
    by William Strunk and E. B. White -- Good review in LA Times
  • Empires of the World: a language history of the world
    by Nicholas Oster -- Good review in LA Times
  • Guymas Chronicles by David Stuart -- Christy recommended it
  • Queen of the South by xxx -- spanish book about drug running in
    Sinaloa, Christy recommended it
  • Rescue Artist by xxx -- about art crime, Christy recommended it
  • A short history of Myth by Karen Armstrong -- Good review in LA Times
  • Bushworld [sound recording (CD)] : [enter at your own risk]
    by Maureen Dowd -- REQUESTED AUDIO
  • Spring forward : the annual madness of daylight saving
    by Michael Downing -- xxx
  • PopCo by Scarlett Thomas -- good review in NY Times
  • Life Interrupted: the unfinished monologue
    by Spalding Gray -- good review in NY Times
  • Spice: the history of a temptation by Jack Turner -- good review in NY Times
  • Eating Crow by Jay Rayner -- good review in NY Times
  • American Dream: three women, ten kids, and a nation's drive to end welfare
    by Jason DeParle -- good review in NY Times
  • Anansi boys by Neil Gaiman -- xxx
  • Making Great Decisions In Business and Life
    by David Henderson and Charles Hooper -- Economists talking about decisions
  • ICE : The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance
    by Mariana Gosnell -- good review in NY Times
  • Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte -- xxx
  • POSTWAR: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt -- NY Times Top 10 for 2005:
    Judt's massive, learned, brilliantly detailed account of Europe's recovery
    from the wreckage of World War II presents a whole continent in panorama
    even as it sets off detonations of insight on almost every page
  • PREP by Curtis Sittenfeld -- NY Times Top 10 for 2005
    This calm and memorably incisive first novel, about a scholarship girl who heads
    east to attend an elite prep school, casts an unshakable spell and has plenty
    to say about class, sex and character.
  • Doing our own thing: the degradation of language and music and
    why we should, like care by John McWharton -- xxx
  • The Imperial Presidency by Salinger -- xxx
  • American Jesus: how people see Jesus by Steven Prothoro -- xxx
  • The Beatles: the biography by Bob Spitz -- very good review in NY Times
  • City of Quartz by Mike Davis -- study of Los Angeles
  • The alchemy of Mind: the marvel and mystery of the brain
    by Diane Ackerman -- xxx
  • Stalking the Puzzle Lady by Parnell Hall -- good review in NY Times,
    there is a series of Puzzle Lady mysteries.
  • A Clue for the Puzzle Lady by Parnell Hall -- good review in NY Times,
    there is a series of Puzzle Lady mysteries.
  • Jar City by Arnalder Indridason -- Iceland mystery
  • Generation Rx: how prescription drugs are altering american lives,
    minds, and bodies by Greg Critzer -- good review in NY Times
  • The Woman at the Washington Zoo: writing on politcs, family and fate
    by Marjorie Williams -- Washington Post columnist, good review in NY Times
  • Absolute Watchman by Alan Moore -- comic book seris, good review in NY Times
  • Any by Italo Calvino -- xxx
  • Dean and Me (A Love Story) by Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan
    -- good review in NY Times
  • Flow: the psychology of optimal experience
    by Mihaky Csikszentmihalyi --- About "flow" "the zone" etc.
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau: restless genius by Leo Damrosch
    -- good review in NY Times
  • On Desire: why we want what we want by William B. Irvine
    -- good review in NY Times
  • Restless Giant: the united state from watergate to Bush v. Gore
    by James T. Patterson -- pretty good review in NY Times
  • The areas of my expertise by John Hodgman -- funny, good review in NY Times
  • The assassin's gate: america in Iraq by George Packer -- good review in NY Times
  • Exuberance: the passion for life by Kay Redfield Jamison -- good review in NY Times
  • Hatless Jack: the president, the fedora, and the death of the hat by Neil Steinberg
    -- good review in Times Literary Supplement
  • The Naked Woman: a study of the female body by Desmond Morris
    -- good review in Times Literary Supplement
  • At Day's Close: a history of the night-time by A. Roger Ekirch
    -- good review in Times Literary Supplement
  • Riddles of Existence: a guided tour of metaphysics by Earl Conee
    and Theodore Sider -- good review in NY Times
  • Off Center: by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson -- analysis of why
    the Republicans can govern so far to the right when the country is moderate.
  • Wrong about Japan: a father's journey with his son by Pater Carey
    -- good review in NY Times
  • A reluctant anglophile's pilgrimage to the mother country by Joe Queenan
    -- good review in NY Times
  • The End of Art by Donald Kuspit -- review in NY Times
  • Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews by Michael Fried -- good review in NY Times
  • What happened to art criticism? by James Elkins -- good review in NY Times
  • Utterly Monkey by Nick Laid -- husband of Zadie Smith, funny,
    good review in NY Times
  • American Gothic: a life of America's most famous painting by Steven Biel -- xxx
  • Warped Passages: unraveling the mysteries if the Universe's hidden dimensions
    by Lisa Randall -- good review in NY Times, recommended by Joyce Carol Oates
  • Still Looking: essays on American art by John Updike
    -- recommended by Joyce Carol Oates
  • The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer -- quirky, inspired meditation
    on photography, recommended by Joyce Carol Oates.
    He wrote "Yoga for people who can't be bothered to do it"
  • Infrastructure by Brian Hayes -- how things work, good review in WSJ
  • Molecular Gastronomy by Herve This -- good review in WSJ
  • The Quitter by Harvey Pekar -- graphic novel by the guy American Splendor
    was about, NYT says it is his best.
  • Drugs are nice: a post-punk memoir by Lisa Crystal Carver
    -- good review in NYT
  • Tab Hunter confidential: the making of a movie star by tab hunter with Eddie Muller
    -- NYT says the stories are more interesting than his movies
  • The hidden messages in water by Masaru Emoto -- quirky
  • Villages by John Updike -- a retired software engineer goes over his life,
    very good review in NYT
  • The Stag Hunt and the evolution of social structure by Brian Skyrms
    -- good review in the TLS
  • Undead and unwed by Mary Janice Davidson -- also:
    undead and unemployed, underappreciated, unreturnable
  • Coercion: why we listen to what "they" say by Douglas Rushkoff
    -- also "Cyberia" and "Media Virus"
  • Happiness: a history by Darrin M. McMahon -- good review in WSJ and NYT
  • American vertigo : traveling America in the footsteps of Tocqueville
    by Bernard-Henri L?vy -- xxx
  • My mother was a computer by N. Katherine Hayles -- the universe as
    computation, good review in TLS
  • xxxx by Austin Dacey -- upcoming (as of 2/7/2005) book on secular values.
    He wrote a great op-ed piece on relativism.
  • How Proust can change your life by Alain de Botton -- xxx
  • Proust among the stars by Malcolm Bowie -- xxx
  • The year of reading Proust by Phyllis Rose -- xxx
  • Malpractice in Maggody by Joan Hess -- xxx
  • Owls Well that Ends Well by Donna Andrews -- xxx
  • Big Foot Stole My Wife and other stories by Joan Hess -- xxx
  • The courtier and the heretic: Leibnitz, Spinoza, and the fate of God
    in the modern world by Matthew Stewart -- good review in the NY Times
  • We are what we think: a journey through the wisest and wittiest sayings
    in the world by James Geary -- good review in the TLS
  • No Two Alike: human nature and human individuality by Judith Rich Harris
    -- good review in the NYT
  • Leave it to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse -- classic comic novel
  • Scoop by Evelyn Waugh -- classic comic novel
  • Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins -- classic comic novel
  • The Belles Lettres Papers by Charles Simmons -- classic comic novel
  • The Dead Beat: lost souls, lucky stiffs, and the perverse pleasures
    of obituaries by Marilyn Johnson -- good review in the NY Times
  • Hiding in the mirror : the mysterious allure of extra dimensions, from Plato
    to string theory and beyond by Lawrence M. Krauss -- Very good reviews
  • The physics of superheroes by James Kakalios -- good review on NPR
  • The Disposable American: layoffs and their consequences
    by Louis Uchitelle -- good review in the NYT
  • Great Pretenders: my strange love affair iwth '50s pop music
    by Karen Schoemer -- good review in the NYT
  • House Thinking: a room-by-room look at how we live
    by Winnifred Gallegher -- good review in the NYT
  • American Theocracy: the peril and politics of radical religion, oil, and borrowed
    money in the 21st century by Kevin Phillips -- good review in the NYT
  • The White Man's Burden: why the West's efforts to aid the rest have done
    so much ill and so little good by William Easterly -- good review in the NYT
  • Perfect Madness: motherhood in the age of anxiety
    by Judith Warner -- good review in the NYT
  • Rediscovering Your Story: Proust, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, Morrison
    by Arnold Weinstein -- good review in the NYT
  • Wall Street versus America: the rampant greed and dishonesty that threatens
    your investments by Gary Weiss -- good review in the NYT
  • Satisfaction: a science of finding true happiness
    by Gregory Burns -- good review on Science Friday
  • Happiness: the science behind your smile
    by Daniel Metal -- good review on Science Friday
  • Kabul in Winder: life without peace in Afghanistan
    by Ann Jones -- good review in the NYT
  • Chances Are: adventures in probability
    by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan -- good review in the NYT
  • Politics Lost by Joe Klein -- good review in the NYT
  • Programming the Universe: a quantum scientist takes on the cosmos
    by Seth Lloyd -- good review in the NYT
  • A Year In the World: journeys of a passionate traveler
    by Francis Mayes -- good review in the NYT
• Other science
  • The Monster at our door: the global threat of the avian flue
    by Mike Davis -- very good review in NY Times.
    Good, well done, smart, maybe a little alarmist.
    A lot about the greed of big chicken processors and how the poor get
    screwed as usual.
  • The Geography of Thought: How asians and westerners think differently and why
    by Richard E. Nisbett -- Not as good as I thought it would be. Basically Asians think in
    systems where everything is interrelated and there can be contradictions. Westerners think
    about objects which are separate from other things and have fixed properties. They do not
    like contradiction. Eastern babies learn more verbs. Western babies learn more nouns.
    Easternerns think more about the group and relationships. Westerners think more about
    fixed principles.
    Greek, agency, categories, individual, standing out versus
    Chinese, harmony, connections, context, group, fitting in
  • Monkeyluv and other essays on our lives as animals by Robert M. Sapolsky
    -- a wonderful book. Lots of short essays about very interesting things.
    Excellent, great, fun, interesting. A series of short essays on a variety of topics.
    All interesting, good insights. How nature and nuture intertwine in devleopment.
    Desert cultures versus rain-forest cultures: the rain-forest ones are more laid-back
    and generally nicer, the dersert ones are harsh. Unfortunately our main religions:
    Christianity and Islam are desert-culture religions.
• Social commentary, social science and politics
  • Smartbomb: the quest for art, entertainment and Big Bucks in the video game revolution
    by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby -- very interesting, surveys the whole of the video
    game field by picking a personality in each area and profiling them.
  • Crap Cars by Richard Porter -- mildly amusing
  • Japanland: a year in search of wa by Karin Muller --
    good review in NY Times -- not that good, mildly interesting
  • Can't stop, won't stop : a history of the hip-hop generation
    by Jeff Chang -- pretty good
  • The city of falling angels by John Berendt.
    Quite interesting but one-sided and opinionated. About life in Venice.
    Centered around the fire in the opera house around 2002.
  • How soccer explains the world: an unlikely theory of globalizations
    by Franklin Feer -- okay but not great
  • Everything bad is good for you : how's today's popular culture is
    actually making us smarter by Steven Johnson -- Very interesting.
    His analysis is that video games make you become a scientist and discrover
    how the world of the game works and what the goals are. This is hard and
    good mental exercise and useful in life. It makes you smarter.
    He also notes how TV shows are much more complex now. They make it hard
    to understand what is going on. They have multi-threaded plots and lots
    of complexity. They make you smarter. Also the way TV has gone people
    watch episodes multiple times so they make them complex so you see more
    each time, like Seinfeld.
  • the Substance of Style: how the rise of aesthetic value is remaking
    commerce, culture, and consciousness by Virginia Postrel
    -- the basic idea is that surfaces and style are important, that people want
    their own style, the style is for fun and pleasure, and that people should
    not dictate style to others but just do what feels good for them.
    Not the good of a book really.
• History
  • THE LOST PAINTING by Jonathan Harr -- NY Times Top 10 for 2005:
    This gripping narrative, populated by a beguiling cast of scholars, historians,
    art restorers and aging nobles, records the search for Caravaggio's
    ''Taking of Christ,'' painted in 1602 and rediscovered in 1990.
    Very good. It tells about. the world of art history and restoring.
• Mysteries
  • the Oxford Murders; a mystery
    by Guillermo Martinez -- Good review in LA Times, a mathematical mystery.
    Very good, clever, and a fun mystery.
  • Across the Nightengale Floor by Lian Hearn
    -- set in medieval Japan of the imagaination
    Pretty good.
  • Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
    -- Another Takeshi Kovacs mystery, masterly reworking of cyberpunk and noire genres
    Very good imagination about how society would change if we could download our
    "stack" (our essense) and reload it into another body. Very interesting.
• Other
  • Wild Ducks Flying Backwards by Tom Robbins
    -- Collection of his short pieces over the last 30 year.
    Good review in LA Times. Some were interesting, some not.