A list of books recently-read that I have discussed here.
For many years, Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote wonderful short reviews for The Atlantic. The short reviews were part of the month and part of the landscape; only when they were gone did I think about them. Short notes are tricky, but they make a nice sort of postmodern commonplace book, and way to share impressions and small joys.
This page is also an experiment in Information Architecture with Tinderbox. Tinderbox lets me gather and maintain this list automatically, so it's easy to build and easier to keep current.
David McCullough, 1776
Mike Daisey, 21 Dog Years
Matt Madden, 99 Ways To Tell A Story
Thomas Mallon, A Book of One's Own: people and their diaries
Laurell K. Hamilton, A Caress of Twilight
Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour
John Ringo, A Hymn Before Battle
James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
Christopher G. Moore , A Killing Smile
Sally Schneider, A New Way To Cook
Michael Pollan, A Place Of My Own
Jill Patton Walsh and Dorothy Sayers, A Presumption of Death
Tim Powers, A Soul In A Bottle
Charles Todd, A Test Of Wills
Roy Blount, Jr., About Three Bricks Shy Of A Load
Philip Jeyaretnam, Abraham's Promise
Paul Fussell, Abroad
Charles Stross, Accelerando
Francis Davis, Afterglow
Peter Faulkner, Against The Age
Steve Miller and Sahron Lee, Agent Of Change
Miyuki Miyabe, All She Was Worth
Sarah Turnbull, Almost French
Caroline H. Dall, Alongside
Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
Susan Cheever, American Bloomsbury
Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Louis Menand, American Studies
Ian McEwan, Amsterdam
Rick Atkinson, Army At Dawn
John Kantner, Ancient Puebloan Southwest
Arthur Phillips, Angelica
Anthony Bourdain, Les Halles Cookbook
Nicholas Royle, Antwerp
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Amy Bloom, Away
Ray Lemoine and Jeff Neumann, Babylon By Bus
Robert B. Parker, Back Story
Robert B. Parker, Bad Business
David Mamet, Bambi vs. Godzilla
C. S. Forester, Beat To Quarters
J. Percy Smith, ed., Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells
Cliff Atkinson, Beyond Bullet Points
Michael Bywater, Big Babies
Mark Hurst, Bit Literacy
Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen
Jason Epstein, Book Business: Publishing Past and Future
Michael Dirda, Book by Book
Peter Fleming, Brazilian Adventure
Barbara Seagram and Marc Smith, Bridge: 25 Ways to Compete In The Bidding
Martin Limón, Buddha's Money
Darothy L. Sayers, Busman’s Honeymoon
David Crystal, By Hook or by Crook
W. E. B. Griffin, By Order Of The President
Carolyn Keane, By The Light of the Study Lamp
Josiah Osgood, Caesar's Legacy
Christopher G. Moore, Chairs
David Lodge, Changing Places
Sarah Smith, Chasing Shakespeares
William Murray, City of the Soul: A Walk In Rome
K. C. Greenlief, Cold Hunter's Moon
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Conflict of Honors
William Gibson, Count Zero
Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead
Mark Mazower, Dark Continent
Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker
Susan Cummins Miller, Death Assemblage
Steven Bochco, Death by Hollywood
Tony Kushner, Death and Taxes
Derek Powazek, Design for Community
Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island
Andrew Dornenburg, Karen Page, Dining Out
Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think
Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, Double Homicide
Judith and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel: A Biography
Jennifer New, Drawing from Life
Scott Rosenberg, Dreaming In Code
Richard Barre, Echo Bay
Scott Meyers, Effective STL
Carlo D'Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life
Michael Buckland, Emanuel Goldberg and his Knowledge Machine
Clare Boylan, Emma Brown
Richard Russo, Empire Falls
Eric Sink, Eric Sink of the Business of Software
Jim Munro, Everyone in Silico
David Weinberger, Everything Is Miscellaneous
Roy Lewis, Evolution Man
Nathan Shedroff, Experience Design
Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, Faithful
Patrick O'Brian, Far Side of the World
Jo Walton, Farthing
Robert Harris, Fatherland
Anne Hollander, Feeding The Eye
Barbara Hambly, Fever Season
Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco
Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
Joshua Davis, Flash to the Core
George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman
Elizabeth Speller, Following Hadrian
Laurie King, Folly
Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics
Curt Cloninger, Fresh Styles for Web Designers: Eye Candy from Underground
H. G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights
Rick Moody, Garden State
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty
Georginal Howell, Getrude Bell
David Allen, Getting Things Done
Pico Iyer, Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
John Ringo, Gust Front
Jo Walton, Ha'penny
Edward Eager, Half Magic
Anne Perry, Half Moon Street
Magdalen Powers, Hand Over Fist
Marianne Fredriksson, Hanna's Daughters
Janwillem van de Wetering, Hard Rain
C. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
C. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Lia Matera, Havana Twist
John J. Nance, Headwind
Bill Buford, Heat
Patricia Marx, Him Her Him Again The End of Him
Peter Carey, His Illegal Self
Richard Fawkes, History of the Musical
Tracy Kidder, Home Town
Patience Gray, Honey from a Weed
Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog
Nick Hornby, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt
Julie Orringer, How To Breathe Underwater
Jancis Robinson, How To Taste
Michael Bigelow Dixon and Amy Wegener, eds., Humana Festival 2000
Robert B. Parker, Hundred Dollar Baby
Dan Simmons, Ilium
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City
Robert Harris, Imperium
Kent Beck, Implementation Patterns
Bill Bryson, In A Sunburned Country
Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows
Julia Spencer-Fleming, In The Bleak Midwinter
Ed Ayers, In The Presence of Mine Enemies
Jane Mendelsohn, Innocence
Edwin B. Kantar, Introduction to Declarer's Play
Charles Stross, Iron Sunrise
T. A. Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
Peter Carey, Jack Maggs
David Mamet, Jafsie and John Henry: Essays
David McCullough, John Adams
Sasanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Patrick O'Brian, Joseph Banks: A Life
Harlan Coben, Just One Look
Laurie R. King, Justice Hall
David Brin, Kiln People
Julian Stockwin, Kydd
Daniel Hecht, Land of Echoes
Cem Kamer, James Bach, Bret Pettichord, Lessons Learned in Software Testing
Patrick O'Brian, Letter of Marque
Thomas Kunkel, ed., Letters from the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross
Robert Brustein, Letters to a Young Actor
Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World
Laurie King, Locked Rooms
Andrew White, ed., London Walks
Tony Wheeler et al., Lonely Planet: Unpacked Again
Aaron Elkins, Loot
Michael Bywater, Lost Worlds
Jasper Fforde, Lost In A Good Book
Amy Bloom, Love Invents Us
Phillip Pullman, Lyra's Oxford
Hillman Curtis, MTIV
Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners
David Mamet, Make-Believe Town
Scott McCloud, Making Comics
Sidney Lumet, Making Movies
Geraldine Brooks, March
Robert Gildea, Marianne in Chains
Walter Satterthwait, Masquerade
Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Tim Parks, Medici Money
Armistead Maupin, Michael Tolliver Lives
Ross King, Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
Steven Goldman, ed., Mind Game
L. A. Banks, Minion
Andrei Alexandrescu, Modern C++ Design
Michael Lewis, Moneyball
Robert C. Martin, ed., C++ Gems
John Ruskin, Mornings In Florence
Terry Pratchett, Mort
Lloyd Jones, Mr. Pip
Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise
Cara Black, Murder in the Sentier
Alex Prud'homme and Julia Child, My Life In France
Amy Sohn, My Old Man
Dennis Lehane, Mystic River
David Walder, Nelson
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Alan Furst, Night Soldiers
Sheldon Morgenstern, No Vivaldi in the Garage
Holly Edwards, Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures
Robert Frost, North of Boston
Robert Frost, Robert Frost
Susan Cheever, Notes Found in a Bottle
Bill Bryson, Notes From A Small Island
Lucia Leão, O Chip e o Caleidoscópio
Laurie R. King, O Jerusalem
Tobias Wolf, Old School
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach
David Mamet, On Directing Film
Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking
A. S. Byatt, On Histories and Stories
Gustav Hermansen, Ostia: Aspects of Roman City Life
John O'Hara, Pal Joey
John Milton, Paradise Lost
William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride
Amir D Aczel, Pendulum
Ton DeMarco and Timothy Lister, Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
Kent Beck and Martin Fowler, Planning Extreme Programming
Rich Gold, Plenitude
A. S. Byatt, Possession
J. M. Hayes, Prairie Gothic
Curtis Sittenfeld, Prep
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Rory Stewart, Prince of the Marshes
Antony Griffiths, Prints and Printmaking
David Thomas, Andrew Hunt, Programming Ruby
Ted Allen et al., Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
Jessica Abel and Ira Glass, Radio: An Illustrated Guide
I. J. Parker, Rashomon Gate
Roz Kaveny, ed., Reading the Vampire Slayer
David Allen, Ready for Anything
John Varley, Red Thunder
Joshua Kerievsky, Refactoring To Patterns
W.E.B. Griffin, Retreat Hell
Stephen Fry, Revenge
Russell Meiggs, Roman Ostia
Mark Twain, Roughing It
George MacDonald Fraser, Royal Flash
Guy Kawasaki, Rules for Revolutionaries
Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
William Styron, Set This House On Fire
Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Triumph
Steve Martin, Shopgirl
Jeff Greenwald, Shopping for Buddhas
Robert Parker, Shrink Rap
Marianne Fredriksson, Simon's Family
Stefran Mumaw, Simple: Web Sites
Charles Stross, Singularity Sky
Tony Hillerman, Skeleton Man
Barbara M. Stecher, Sketchbooking
John Grisham, Skipping Christmas
David Lodge, Small World
Leigh Sauerwein, Song for Eloise
Luiz Alfredo Gracia-Roza, Southwesterly Wind
W.E.B. Griffin, Special Ops
Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Michael Cunningham, Specimen Days
William Gibson, Spook Country
Eileeen Gunn, Stable Strategies
Bob Woodward, State of Denial
Chan Lwok Bun and Claire Chang See Ngoh, Stepping Out
Diana Athill, Stet: An Editor's Life
William Grimes, Straight Up or On The Rocks
Ernest R. May, Strange Victory
Samuel Eliot Morison, Strategy and Compromise
Susan Goin, Sunday Suppers at Lucques
Robin McKinley, Sunshine
Bob Shacochis, Swimming in the Volcano
Doris Keans Goodwin, Team Of Rivals
Kent Beck, Test-Driven Development
Ali Smith, The Accidental
Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Jacques Pepin, The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen
Stephen Lekson, The Architecture of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise
Laurie R. King, The Art Of Detection
Alvin Liu, ed., The Art of Miyazaki's Spirited Away
Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar
George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate
William Kotzwinkle, The Bear Went Over The Mountain
Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories
Michael McGarrity, The Big Gamble
Ian McEwan, The Black Dogs
David Mamet, The Boston Marriage
Paul Fussell, The Boy's Crusade
Sujata Massey, The Bride's Kimono
Ellen Ullman, The Bug
Nicolai M. Josuttis, C++ STL
Thornton Wilder, Cabala
Stephen Lekson, The Chaco Meridian
Charles Stross, The Clan Corporate
Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish
Patrick O'Brian, The Commodore
Charles Neider, ed., The Complete Essays of Mark Twain
David Remnick , ed., The Complete New Yorker
John McPhee, The Crofter and the Laird
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code
Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club
Rick Atkinson, Day of Battle
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Erik Larson, The Devil In The White City
Phoebe Gloeckner, Diary of a Teenage Girl
Ian Pears, The Dream of Scipio
Michael Ruhlman, The Elements Of Cooking
Jesse James Garrett, The Elements of User Experience
Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall Of Rome
Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire
Charles Stross, The Family Trade
H. W. Brands, Franklin
Joe Sacco, The Fixer
James E. Packer, The Forum of Trajan in Rome
Laurie King, The Game
M. F. K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me
Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, The Goal
Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
Patrick O'Brian, The Golden Ocean
Roger Ebert, The Great Movies
Roger Ebert, Great Movies II
Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles
Charles Stross, The Hidden Family
Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian
Patrick O'Brian, The Hundred Days
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue
Jacob Gordin, Ruth Gay, The Jewish King Lear
Hiromi Goto, The Kappa C hild
Stefan Heym, The King David Report
Gene Wolfe, The Knight
Stephen Frye, The Liar
A. S. Byatt, The Little Black Book of Stories
Donna Tartt, The Little Friend
Charles Nicholl, The Lodger Shakespeare
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Jonathan Harr, The Lost Painting
Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
Michael Ruhlman, Making of a Chef
Michael Ruhlman, Making of a Chef
Philip K. Dick, The Man In The High Castle
Simon Winchester, The Map That Changed The World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology
David Poyer, The Med
Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club
Catherine Asaro, The Moon's Shadow
Carol Emswhiller, The Mount
John Lusk and Kyle Harrison, The Mouse Driver Chronicles
Jonathan Kellerman, The Murder Book
Bill James, Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
Sarah Waters, The Night Watch
Dorothy R. Sayers, The Nine Tailors
Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
David Mamet, The Old Neighborhood
David Mamet, The Old Neighborhood
Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World
Norman Ishkowitz, Ottoman Empire
Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds, Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd)
Rudolph Chelminski, The Perfectionist
Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree
Damon Galgut, The Quarry
Joann Sfar, The Rabbi's Cat
Michael Ruhlman, The Reach of a Chef: Beyond The Kitchen
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
Patrick O'Brian, The Reverse of the Medal
Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Richard J. A. Talber, The Romans: From Village To Empire
Phillip Pullman, Ruby in the Smoke
Sujata Massey, Samurai's Daughter
Tony Hillerman, The Shapeshifter
Stephen King, The Shining
Robert Brustein, Siege of the Arts
Tony Hillerman, The Sinister Pig
Michaerl Ruhlman, Soul of a Chef
David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Space Opera Renaissance
David Mamet, The Spanish Prisoner and The Winslow Boy
Tom Ehrenfeld, The Startup Garden
Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
Phillip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
Judith Jones, The Tenth Muse
Lyn Hamilton, The Thai Amulet
Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
Graham Greene, The Third Man
Patrick O'Brian, Thirteen Gun Salute
Peter Steinhart, The Undressed Art
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game
Tony Hillerman, The Wailing Wind
Rebecca Blood, The Weblog Handbook
Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History
Craig Smith, The Whisper of Leaves
David Mamet, The Wicked Son
Bo Leuf and Ward Cunningham, The Wiki Way
Joseph Moncure March (Art Spiegelman, illus), The Wild Party
Alan Furst, The World At Night
H. G. Wells, The World Brain
Patrick O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral
Joshua Ferris, Then We Came To The End
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, This Earth of Mankind
Val Davis , Thread of the Spider
John Le Carre, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Elmore Leonard, Tishomingo Blues
R. E. Delderfield, To Serve Them All My Days
Jo Walton, Tooth and Claw
Richard Fortey, Trilobite!
Russell Lee, Singapore Ghost Stories 8
David Mamet, True and False
Stephen A. Shaw, Turning The Tables
Marianne Fredriksson, Two Women
W.E. B. Grifiin, Under Fire
Michael McGarrity, Under the Color of Law
Brenda Laurel, Utopian Entrepreneur
Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
Boris Starling, Vodka
Jonathan Ames, Wake Up, Sir!
Emma Bull, War for the Oaks
Daniel Handler, Watch Your Mouth
John Rodzvilla, ed., We've Got Blog
John Carey, What Good Are The Arts?
Gregory Maguire, What The Dickens
Thomas Geoghegan, Which Side Are You On
Douglas Atwill, Why I won't Be Going To Lunch Anymore
Gregory Maguire, Wicked
Robert B. Parker, Widow's Walk
David Remnick, ed., Wonderful Town
Michael C. Feathers, Working Effectively With Legacy Code
David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer eds, Year's Best SF 10
Miriam Weinstein, Yiddish