Better   
by Atul Gawande (2007)

read: 17 April 2008
rating: [+]

[review pending]

The View From The Studio Door   
by Ted Orland (2006)

read: 27 March 2008
rating: [+]

[review pending]

The 13th Juror   
by John Lescroart (1995)

read: 21 March 2008
rating: [+]

[review pending]

I’m a Stranger Here Myself   
by Bill Bryson (2000)

read: 14 March 2008
rating: [+]

This is Bill Bryson’s tale of how he came to live in the UK and met his wife, told as reflections during a walk through a lot of the English and Scottish countryside. My UK geography is terrible, so I may not have this all down correctly, but Bryson goes to a lot of nifty little towns and writes about what he finds there, occasioanlly interpersing these details with stories about his first trip to England when he was a young man. It’s a fun collection of trips with a little travelogue tossed in for good measure. Not as out and out hilarious as some of his other books, but still a great read and made me want to take a trip to England.

To Engineer is Human   
by Henry Petroski (1992)

read: 1 March 2008
rating: [0]

A really slow book from Petroski. While I was hoping for a lot of in-depth looks at engineering failures, this book was way more full of metaphors for engineering processes -- many relying on cute stories about Petroski’s own family -- than looks at specifics. The stories he does relate, about the design and building of the Crystal Palace and the Kansas City Hyatt walk way collapse, are worthwhile but the rest of the book doesn’t hold together as interestingly as those chapters.

Amazing Rare Things   
by David Attenborough (2007)

read: 29 February 2008
rating: [+]

[review pending]

The Historian   
by Elizabeth Kostova (2005)

read: 24 February 2008
rating: [+]

[review pending]

Everything is Illuminated   
by Jonathan Safran Foer (2003)

read: 1 February 2008
rating: [+]

I finished this book and went to read more about Trachimbrod (actually Trochimbrod) the location in the story where an entire town of Jews is destroyed and the town effectively vanishes from the earth. While the book is non-fiction and has a lot of fun and less-fun literary affectations, it’s based on a real place. When I went to read more, I learned that the movie made of the book was 1) based on a screenplay written by a guy I went to college with, and 2) featured a soundtrack by Gogol Bordello who was also featured in a movie I just finished watching: Wristcutters.

None of this has much to do with the book which I fell into and got stuck in. The recurring theme of memory and how for Jews their memories are like a sixth sense, felt as well as simply experienced. This particular story is two main stories. The protagonist, known alternately as “The Hero” and Jonathan Safran Foer, goes back to figure out what happened to the town where his grandfather lived. There is also the parallel story of the history of this same town, told in a rather fantastical way. I usually dislike books with two concurrent stories because I tent to like one more and flip ahead in the slower story to get back to the interesting one, but in this book both stories are equally captivating.

Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian   
by Scott Douglas (2008)

read: 30 January 2008
rating: [+]

Librarians will be driven crazy by this book’s cover because the cover shows someone standing on one of those noisy library stepstools, but it’s tilted which is, as we all know, impossible. This book, which I got as a proof copy from Scott, was a fun read. Scott is a public librarian in Orange County California and he tells some of his stories here. The book relates him being a library page, going to library school, moving to a new branch, watching his old branch be destroyed and, most of all, interacting with crazy people.

I emailed Scott and told him he probably needed a few synonyms for “crazy” because he used it so much. The crazy people in his stories are both patrons and staff and in fact I found his portrayals of the weird tics of library staffers to be even more true-to-life seeming than the patron stories which sometimes seemed embellished for effect. This book is amusing but it’s not just the library world played for laughs. Scott includes a lot of (too many) footnotes with interesting asides and even includes little research dossiers on particlar topics that will inteerst the librarian reader. You can go pre-order the book now from all the usual places and I suggest that you do.

Hard Evidence   
by John Lescroart (2002)

read: 1 January 2008
rating: [+]

The second in the Dismas Hardy series form John Lescroat, still introducing some of the characters. This book felt longer than some of his later ones, divided into a lot of parts. It has the same large cast of characters and general not-sure-whodunit plotlines that I’m used to. A decent read for a snowy holiday.

The Vig   
by John Lescroart (1998)

read: 28 December 2007
rating: [+]

One of the early Dismas hardy books in the series by Lescroart. I haven’t been up to much “serious” reading lately and having books to talk about with my sister and read on the bus/plane is about right for now.

read: 16 December 2007
rating: [+]

Hicksville is a made up town somewhere in New Zealand where everyone is a comics fan and comics are seen as real worthwhile literature. Dylan Horrocks has made the place up and populated it with real people and tells a story of one local guy made good and what happens to him there. There are quite a few little comic stories within the main story which I found a little difficult sometimes to differentiate but I’m sure that has more to do with my own linear eye than the story itself. Horrocks' style is similar to that of many other US indie comics artists but the range he displays in this graphic novel really shows off his abilities. Good story, good drawings, worth picking up.

1491   
by Charles Mann (2005)

read: 16 December 2007
rating: [+]

[review pending]

A Certain Justice   
by John Lescroart (1995)

read: 10 November 2007
rating: [+]

[review pending]

The Heart is a Little to the Left   
by William Sloane Coffin (1999)

read: 23 October 2007
rating: [+]

Gosh this book was wonderful. I kept it on my nightstand well past the overdue date because I kept swearing to myself that I would re-read it and ultimately haven’t. On the other hand, I haven’t returned the book either...

Coffin has a way with words and in this small collection of sermons he manages to put togehter a lot of good words about justice, poverty, our societal obligations to one another and why there’s no decent biblical reason for anyone to be predjudiced against gay people. It’s a really life-affirming set of essays, all of them both humorous and weighty, accessible and yet learned. For anyone who is looking for inspirational reading that’s a little deeper than the standard love yourself" platitudes, this book is a good starter tome on getting to love each other. Read it.