These are all the books I read in 2003, in approximate backwards order and with
brief comments:
-The Time Traveler’s Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
?finished last week 12/03
cheerfully quirky. a bit saccharine at times.?
-Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
by Neal Stephenson
?finished 12/03
this book is gigantor.
absolutely groovy 17th century stuff.?
Night Watch
by Terry Pratchett
?finished 12/03
another fun one from Pratchett?
-Album Zutique: No. 1
edited by Jeff Vandermeer
?finished 12/03
a tiny volume of “surrealist” or “decadent” short stories. I especially liked “The
Toes of the Sun”, “Dr. Black in Rome”, and “The Catgirl Manifesto: An Introduction”
-A Place So Foreign and Eight More
by Cory Doctorow
?Finished 12/03
Some groovy short stories. Especially “Craphound” and “0wnz0red”.?
-Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995
by Joe Sacco, Christopher Hitchens
?finished 10/03.
charming and scary. imagine american suburbia going crazy and killing each other. it’s about that bizarro.?
-Brooklyn Dreams
by J.M. Dematteis
?finished 11/03.
nice artwork. very interesting tidbits, but the overall plot arc is a little
disjointed.?
-City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Ambergris
by Jeff Vandermeer
“finished 11/03.
a most excellent collection of short stories. i cannot recommend this one highly enough!”
-Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done
About It, Second Edition
by Edward N. Wolff, Richard C. Leone
?Finished 11/03.
Basically, current American tax policy is crazily skewed towards (in the sense of
against) the lower and middle income brackets; towards the young and single; and towards minorities. This book is short.?
-The Star Fraction
by Ken MacLeod
?finished 10/03.
It’s a fun one. Probably will read others by this guy.?
-Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World
by Bruce Schneier
?highly recommended!?
-Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail
by Hunter S. Thompson
?damn! this was a good book!?
-Mike Nelson’s Death Rat! : A Novel
by Michael J. Nelson
?Funny funny funny!?
-Singularity Sky
by Charles Stross
?a great science fiction thing.?
-Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
by Al Franken
?got from the flatmate. it’s funny. and researched. a plus. it became less and less funny as time went on…?
-Bay of Souls : A Novel
by Robert Stone
?liked/disliked it. wouldn’t recommend to others. unless they like allthings voodoo/scuba?
-American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
?been meaning to read this one for quite some time not quite as good as i had hoped.?
-Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
by Clyde Prestowitz
?It’s very good.
Despite the deliberately provocative title, this seems to be a fairly even-handed and well-thought-out treatise on US policies and those policy repercussions abroad. That’s just my initial impression, anyway.
Additionally, I just read somewhere that this guy is advising the Dean campaign. Good news.?
-Altered Carbon
by Richard Morgan
?Finished this, la.
Quite good sci-fi, noir thingy.?
-Declare
by Tim Powers
?groovy supernatural, spy-thriller. ?
-Civilwarland in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella
by George Saunders
?short stories. very groovy. just finished the title story last night. if i ever start writing fiction, i can only hope that it would be so enjoyable…?
-The Master Game: Pathways to Higher Consciousness
by Robert S. De Ropp, Iven B. Lourie
?another stab at… who can say? the mind broils. why were so many of these books written in the first half of the 20th century and where are they now??
-God’s Secretaries : The Making of the King James Bible
by Adam Nicolson
?Very cool.?
-Pattern Recognition
by William Gibson
?You know, I’m thinking that Gibson’s writing keeps getting better and better. good summer vacation reading. Very fun indeed.?
-Hundred Camels in the Courtyard
by Paul Bowles, Jack Bowles
?very groovy. ring bird etc. read that story to her last night. s’good.?
-Dark Star : A Novel
by Alan Furst
?Finished this book. Spy story during the years 1937-1941. Very very good.?
-Super Flat Times: Stories
by Matthew Derby
?Man, these are the grooviest things.
****
Strange science fiction stories, loosely joined. (found on boingboing)?
-The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?
by Slavoj Zizek
?Trying to crush this together into a meaning slice.
***
What have I got myself into? I feel like I’m treading in very very deep water here.
***
Communism, Capitalism and Christianity. Not sure if I understand this book. I
understand bits of it, sure, but on its entirety? I liked how he brought in Star
Wars: Phantom Menace, though…?
-Open Conspiracy
by HG Wells
?HG Wells on where the world should be headed, post-nationalism. Heady stuff, though complicated, in light of WWII. ?
-The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics
by Richard Davenport-Hines
?An amazingly well-researched book on the history of narcotics.?
-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)
by J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandPr?
?Goddamn! but this is a huge band-wagon. Reading to see what all the fuss is
about… Pretty good. An improvement over the last one, methinks.?
-A Maze of Death
by Philip K. Dick
?I think I’m definitely a bit burnt out on Dick, after having read nearly everything that he’s ever written in novel form.?
-Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment
by Rudolph Steiner, Rudolf Steiner
?Got a little too bizarre to be understandable….?
-The 25th Hour
by David Benioff
?quite good. thanks colin!?
-Behindlings : A Novel
by Nicola Barker
?This book makes me giggle like a schoolgirl! Completely and utterly brilliant.?
-A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
?This book is EXCELLENT. Highly recommended!?
-Witpunk
edited by Claude Lalumiere, Marty Halpern
?I’ve been in a short story mood lately. These are stellar. ?
-The Girl in the Flammable Skirt : Stories
by Aimee Bender
?I can’t recommend this one highly enough!?
-Holes
by Louis Sachar
?Still excellent by the end. I wonder if the movie’s still around…?
-Galahad at Blandings
by P. G. Wodehouse
?Wodehouse is always fun. Jeeves and Wooster it’s not. I liked the other one better.
Although, the pig was a nice tough.?
-Unmanned (Y: The Last Man, Book 1)
by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jr. Jose Marzan
?Groovy. What if all the men in the world died? Better than a “What If? Wolverine died his hair purple” comic! Fun stuff.?
-The Tale of One Bad Rat
by Bryan Talbot
?powerful story about the aftermath and recovery from child abuse…?
-Narcissus and Goldmund
by Hermann Hesse
?Finished it. Phew. It’s good, but Doestoevsky does it better.?
?Ben’s been wanting me to read this for ages… I’ll get around to it one of these
days…?
-Lucky Wander Boy
by D. B. Weiss
?At last, a novel about old school video games. Charming.
A quick, enjoyable read.?
-The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
by Philip K. Dick
?Zipping through this one. Very different. Not science fictional at all. I may
consider buying this book.
This might be PKD’s best book. And I should know… (sigh)?
-Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel
by Jasper Fforde
?Very fun. On par with the first one, though lacking a certain… um… pathos that
the first one had. No romantic intrigue.?
-Radio Free Albemuth
by Philip K. Dick
?Bizarre-o. Like Flow My Tears, better.?
-Ubik
by Philip K. Dick
?How long has this book been lying on my floor? About half way through it. It’s
good. (in some ways, more interesting than calculating god. in other ways, not.)?
-Calculating God
by Robert J. Sawyer
?It’s an engaging read, but has some deep story-flaws.?
-First Steps in Inner Development
by Rudolf Steiner
?Liked it enough to request another of his books from the lib.?
-The Recognitions
by William Gaddis
?I finally read all of this damn thing. It was worth it, barely.
I would be very hesitant to recommend this to anyone…?
-Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages
by Harold Bloom
?These were all right. Had some fun reading some of the poetry.?
-Breaking Open the Head : A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism
by Daniel Pinchbeck
?Blow open your head! Wow. Too bad I can’t completely believe it. But a part of me does. What underlies the root of everything? ?
-Tomorrow Now : Envisioning the Next Fifty Years
by Bruce Sterling
?This book is Excellent. (and I’m only to the third chapter). Highly recommended.
I’ve finshed this. I’ll probably buy it, it’s that worthwhile.?
-Torso
by Brian Michael Bendis, Marc Andreyko
?I had never heard of the “Torso” killer in Cleveland. It’s a good (if very
gruesome) graphic novel.?
-The Dark Haired Girl
by Philip K. Dick
?The second half was far better than the first half. In fact, I would so far as to
say skip the first half of this book completely.
Made my brain go funny. Reality/illusion/the veil of maya…. wicked stuff.?
-Stormwatch: Force of Nature
by Warren Ellis
?Curious about Warren Ellis. Read some of his Transmetropolitan and his website, diepunyhumans.com. not as good as planetary?
-Planetary: The Fourth Man
by Warren Ellis
?Quite good. Makes me want to read more.?
-The Copenhagen Papers: An Intrigue
by Michael Frayn, David Burke
?Linsel recommended this. I’m glad he did. It’s groovy. And short. I’ll probably
finish it on the busride home. I DID finish it on the busride home, or close enough as makes no difference!?
-The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
by David Brin
?Essential reading for technophiles (and phobes) everywhere…?
-What If Our World Is Their Heaven? The Final Conversations Of Philip K. Dick
by Gwen Lee, Doris Elaine Sauter, Tim Powers
?I really dug this interview of PKD that took place just a few months before he
died. ?
-Essential Blogging
by Shelley Powers, Cory Doctorow, J. Scott Johnson, Mena G. Trott, Benjamin Trott, Rael Dornfest
?Maybe this will help me design my blog to look a little bit nicer. Some useful
information, but mostly seemed to be stuff that I had already figured out. The image upload feature in MoveableType was useful to know about though.?
-Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
by Cory Doctorow
?Fun, Short, Groovy. The ending wasn’t particularly surprising and came quickquickquick. But all in all, a very enjoyable read. I know of a couple of people who I might toss it their way…?
-The Invisible Kingdom (The Invisibles, Book 7)
by Grant Morrison
?Finally, book seven of the invisibles! I have all of the now. I’m a bit late coming
into them, but then I never was much of a comic book collector. Tend to wait for the graphic novel to come out.
It’s funny that GM has moved (temporally) far beyond his invisibles work. He’s doing something called the filth right now.?
-Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
by Philip K. Dick
?More of the same PKD kick. I can’t get enough of him lately.
I liked this book. Not so much as some of his others. I had read that this book
mirrored the Book of Acts (unwittingly, or so PKD says) but I just didn’t see it.
Perhaps my biblical lore is a bit rusty.?
-My Name Is Red
by Erdag Goknar, Orhan Pamuk
?Tried to read this once before. Got about 50 pages into and my time ran out. Damn that lib! They should stock more copies of the books that I want to read. Took me about six months to get ahold of it again. Why is this book so popular in Portland?
So I finally finished this damn book. It took me ages. The prose was dense and
interminable at times. And yet, very compelling. I’m not sure if it was the
translation or what, but this book was a VERY slow read for me.?
-Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons
by John Carter, Robert Anton Wilson
?Rockets and sex and the occult? How to resist a combination like that?
Finally finished this. What a sad, sad life that this fellow had. All his magickal
workings come to nought(?). Fascinating biography though. Makes me wonder what weird shit people in other industries NOW are involved with. ?
-TUMBLE HOME: A NOVELLA AND SHORT STORIES
by Amy Hempel
?I’m really looking forward to starting this one, based on her other book of short
stories.
These were also good. The novella “Tumble Home” wasn’t as gripping or as tight as many of her short stories; also, a lot of little things seem to have been recycled from other stories.?
-Ultimate Spider-man: Power and Responsibility
by Bill Jemas, Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley
?This was okay. The artwork was fun, but the writing, I fear, will be as dated in 5
years as the original is now. The movie actually had a more subtle story/plot
structure.?
-Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time, Book 10)
by Robert Jordan
?I own the other nine, so I figured that I should buy this one and start reading it.
Beginning to hope that the series ends soon…I read this damn thing over the
weekend. The characters getting a little stale, perhaps? I wanted just a bit, just a bit more action. Just SOMETHING to break the drear chattering monotony of this book.
In spite of that, however, couldn’t stop churning through the pages. Part of me
wanders if that isn’t habit, though…?
-At The Gates Of The Animal Kingdom : Stories
by Amy Hempel
?She is a stunningly good writer; recommended perpetually by C. Palahniuk. Worth reading any every sense of the word.?
-Akiko Volume Four
by Mark Crilley
?Very charming artwork. The stories were pretty simplistic.?
-Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
by Howard Rheingold
?Can’t remember now if I actually finished reading this. I think that I did. the
smartmobs website is worth checking out too. How did Rheingold get to talk to so many different people, that’s what I wonder…?
-Spiral Dynamics : Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Developmental
Management)
by Don Edward Beck, Christopher C. Cowan
?What can I say? I’m hooked on this kind of stuff lately.
Finally finished this. Interesting, but got a little repetitive towards the en
d. I need something a little more complicated…?
-Paris to the Moon
by Adam Gopnik
?My good friend Rachel recommended that I read a story in the New Yorker called “Mr. Linguini” or something like that. I loved it and so picked up this book as well.?
-In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis
by Philip K. Dick, Lawrence Sutin, Laurence Sutin
?I’ve been reading Philip K. Dick pretty steadily for the last couple of years. This
book is a 300-page excerpt from his 8,000 page metaphysical maunderings. If I ever got hit by a “pink laser”, I hope that I would manage to be as rational and
clear-headed as he seemed to have managed to be.?
-A Lesson Before Dying : A Novel
by Ernest J. Gaines
?I’m reading this for Portland’s Multnomah County Library’s Everybody Reads program.
I’m leading a discussion group about it. Whee!?
-Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny
by Robert Wright
?Very worthwhile.?