More list-spew for my own reference.
First Half of February
- Holy Fire, by Bruce Sterling (in progress)
- Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques, Second Edition, by Ian H. Witten and Eibe Frank ****
- Specimen Days : A Novel by Michael Cunningham ***1/2
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy ****
- Reality and Rationality by Wesley C. Salmon *****
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz ****1/2
January
- Letters to a Young Mathematician by Ian Stewart ***1/2
- The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture by Andrew Keen **
- My California: Journeys By Great Writers by Donna Wares (Editor), Mark Arax (Editor) ***1/2
- Brasyl by Ian McDonald *****
- The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1 by Neil Gaiman ****
- Assassin's Quest (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 3) by Robin Hobb ****
- Royal Assassin (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 2) by Robin Hobb ****
December
- Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1) by Robin Hobb ****
- The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon ****
- The Annotated Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Douglas A. Anderson *****
- The Road to Middle-earth: Revised and Expanded Edition, by Tom Shippey ***1/2
- Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem****
- A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) by George R.R. Martin ****
- A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) by George R.R. Martin ****
November
- A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2) by George R.R. Martin ****
- A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) by George R.R. Martin ****
- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath ****
- American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China by Matthew Polly ***
- History of the Sierra Nevada by Francis P. Farquhar ****
- Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides ****
- Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose ****
October
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson*****
- The Android's Dream by John Scalzi****
- Soon I Will Be Invincible: A Novel by Austin Grossman ***1/2
- Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories by Chuck Palahniuk ***1/2
- Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayres ****
- Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge by Cass R. Sunstein ***1/2
- Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean by Douglas Wolk ***1/2
Comments (4)
How do you make it through those George RR Martin books? I couldn't make it through 10 pages.
Those Absolute Sandman's are friggin' beautiful, though, aren't they??
Posted by Robin | February 28, 2008 12:10 PM
Posted on February 28, 2008 12:10
The George R.R. Martin books are just fun-- not deep but suspenseful and engrossing. Generally, I found ASoIaF to be quite a bit better than many other fantasy series I have read (this perhaps says more of the lack of quality in the genre than it does Martin).
What about Martin's writing put you off so quickly? Do you have any fantasy recommendations?
And, yes indeed the Absolute Sandman series is quite spectacularly sumptuous. As I told my friend that I borrowed it from, this is how a book should be produced!
Posted by John | February 28, 2008 1:18 PM
Posted on February 28, 2008 13:18
I actually bought the first 2 volumes of Absolute Sandman for my husband for Newtonmas. It was only fair - he gave me Absolute Watchmen a few years ago :)
I'm not sure what I disliked about the Martin books. I think I found the (admittedly small) bit of one that I read to just be so cliche and typical of fantasy that I couldn't get very far. I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels in general (as opposed to sci-fi, which I'm pretty rabid about). I think I tend toward humorous fantasy because if you're writing about elves and magical staves, you'd best not take it very seriously. (For this reason I've read everything Terry Pratchett has written, as well as the Garrett detective novels by Glen Cook. I always hoped those would lead me into Cook's more traditional fantasy but it just hasn't happened yet).
Posted by Robin | February 29, 2008 10:09 PM
Posted on February 29, 2008 22:09
*poke poke* It's been quiet here. Don't think I haven't noticed.
Posted by Elex | March 11, 2008 7:49 PM
Posted on March 11, 2008 19:49