Category: books

random 2008 lists

Here are a few random lists, of books & comics I read, and movies I saw, in 2008. I don’t suppose I have any good reason for posting these. I was just kind of bored with the Rose Bowl, so I started making lists. I’m not bothering to list anything I read or saw, but didn’t really enjoy, so you can assume that all these books/comics/movies are recommended to anyone who might have tastes similar to my own.

books I read in 2008:
1. Well of Lost Plots – Jasper Fforde
2. The Millionaires – Brad Meltzer
3. Zero Game – Meltzer
4. Areas of my Expertise – John Hodgman
5. Something Rotten – Fforde
6. Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson
7. Interesting Times – Terry Pratchett
8. The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
9. Idea Mapping – Jamie Nast
10. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon
11. Old Man’s War – John Scalzi
12. Death Masks – Jim Butcher
13. Bood Rites – Butcher
14. With No One as Witness – Elizabeth George
15. Certain Justice – P. D. James
16. A Taste for Death – James
17. Spirit House – Christopher G. Moore
18. Tales of Beedle the Bard – J K Rowling

some comics I read:
1. Coraline – Neil Gaiman / P Craig Russell
2. 21 Down – Gray / Palmiotti / Saiz
3. Teen Titans: Titans Around the World
4. Shadowpact
5. Fell – Warren Ellis / Ben Templesmith
6. a bunch of Hellboy and BPRD comics
7. Invincible (Vol 1-4, I think)
8. Kid Eternity – Grant Morrison / Duncan Fegredo
9. Challengers of the Unknown – Loeb / Sale

movies i remember seeing:
1. There Will Be Blood
2. Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
3. Stargate: Ark of Truth
4. Stargate: Continuum
5. Battlestar Galactica: Razor
6. Dark Knight
7. Hellboy 2
8. Iron Man
9. X-Files: I Want to Believe
10. Batman: Gotham Knight
11. Wall-E
12. Gone Baby Gone
13. No Country for Old Men

WSJ.com – Bush Is a Book Lover

According to this article by Karl Rove, President Bush read 40 books in 2008, 51 in 2007, and 95 in 2006. Pretty impressive, assuming these numbers are correct, and that Bush actually understood what he was reading. There are a couple of reactions (here and here) to this article on the Huffington Post site that express a certain amount of doubt as to Rove’s motivies in writing this piece, and the likelihood that Bush actually did read and understand all of these books. As for myself, I’ve been keeping a list of all the books I’ve read this year. I finished 17 books in 2008, mostly novels.

read more | digg story

mystery books

I finished reading Spirit House today, on my Kindle. I’m a little annoyed that there’s only one other book in the Calvino series available in the US. The remaining books are available mail-order from Thailand, but that’s kind of expensive. One of the good things about the Kindle is that it should make it relatively easy and risk-free to get a bunch of already-written books into “print” in the US. You don’t have to worry about upfront printing costs, the risk of returns from brick and mortar retailers, or any of that noise. Just put them out there on Amazon, and see what happens.

free books

Random House has made a number of their Kindle titles free to download, until 2/28/09. There are three Charlie Huston novels on the list, and a few other ones that sound interesting. I actually haven’t read any of Huston’s novels yet, but I did enjoy his run on Moon Knight.

Meanwhile, I’m fighting a cold this week. It snuck up on me on Sunday afternoon. I’m assuming I picked it up while I was out Christmas shopping. Hopefully, it won’t linger for too long. I want to be healthy for Christmas and New Year’s!

Cyber Monday

I spent a fair bit of time this weekend browsing around on the web, looking at Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. I didn’t find anything that I was really compelled to buy, though I did order a couple of Christmas presents this weekend. And I broke down tonight and ordered a couple of cheap Blu-Ray discs from Amazon, along with a copy of Thursday Next: First Among Sequels. This is another example, by the way, of a case where the hard-copy book costs less than the Kindle version — $6.49 vs $9.99. I haven’t bought many Kindle books yet, largely because the dead tree versions can often be had for less.

good books

Google Books is a good thing. I came across a reference to an anthology of poetry in a newspaper article today, and I wanted to track down the book. It’s an old anthology, published in 1917 or thereabouts. It does look like I could get a used copy on Amazon, but it’s old enough that I can download it in PDF format from Google. Their copy seems to have come from Harvard’s library, and looks to be pretty well beat up, which is kind of cool. This book includes one of my favorite poems, “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…”

WSJ.com – Ghost Tales

There was a good little article on ghost stories in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. Two of their recommendations — Ghost Stories by M. R. James and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, are available at manybooks.net in Kindle format. I think I’m going to read some ghost stories for Halloween!

WSJ.com – Opinion: The Digital Future of Books

Interesting article about the relationship between our devices and our attention spans. The author quotes Jeff Bezos, who hopes the “Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention.” I guess we shouldn’t expect a Twitter client to be built into the Kindle any time soon!

Flannery O’Connor

I’ve gotten a good number of books through Bookmooch since I joined up a couple of weeks ago. I just got a Flannery O’Connor short story collection in the mail today. I’ve only read a few of her stories, so I’m looking forward to reading more.

And I also just got approved for a free account on britannica.com, through their WebShare program, so I guess I’m a bona fide “web publisher” now. Either that, or they just rubber-stamped all the applications for this program. Either way, the Flannery O’Connor link above is to a Britannica article. The Britannica site is OK, but some of the bells & whistles they’ve got on it make it a little difficult to actually read the article, at least through Firefox.

Wikipedia has a reasonable article on her too, of course.

Last Lecture

I bought The Last Lecture in Kindle format a few days ago. I’m almost done reading it. It’s a pretty good read. Lots of short chapters, mostly random anecdotes from Randy Pausch’s life. There’s nothing in the book that’s likely to change my life, I think, but just a lot of interesting little insights, and some fun stories.
This is also the first book I’m reading, in its entirety, on the Kindle. It’s been a pretty smooth reading experience. Certainly no worse than reading an old-fashioned paper book, but not necessarily any better. Of course, there are some photos in the book, and they really don’t look at all good on the Kindle, so that’s a concern. In the future, I’ll probably avoid buying any book for the Kindle if I know it’s heavy with photos or other graphics.