If I had limited space for sending my past self a list of authors to pay attention to, these would make the cut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Coupland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs Far out. For some reason, I had formed an internal classification of this book as typical empty nerdstuff. "We generate stories for you because you don't save the ones that are yours." Recommended by mpnolan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X:_Tales_for_an_Accelerated_Culture Pretty slick, though I was less able to identify with the characters than for Microserfs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpod Entertaining enough, but it felt like too many gimmicks with too little form or substance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Nostradamus There were a lot of loose ends. I didn't really get into it, but it was interesting and mostly well-told. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Delillo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Zone_%28novel%29 Another very good book from this author. Doubly impressive for being centrally about football and still being enjoyable for me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_%28novel%29 Very good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Names I really enjoyed this one. It was a little slow starting up, but I ended up appreciating it more in the way I would appreciate a poem than the way I would usually appreciate a novel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underworld_%28DeLillo_novel%29 Again, it grew on me as I read it. The idea of moving backwards in time as the book progressed was very effective. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Noise_%28novel%29 :-) Good recommendation by dwb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons_(novel) Really well put together, like an extended poem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Jones_Street_%28novel%29 This one ended up being pretty enjoyable. I think it got significantly better somewhere near its middle. OK, time to stop reading DeLillo before I overdose or something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Man_(novel) At first I wasn't very optimistic; 9/11 is a pretty heavy subject for DeLillo. However, he wound up pulling it off very well. The usual surreal elements crept in eventually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americana_%28novel%29 Y'know, I really liked a lot of it, but it spent a lot of time dragging in Part 3. I also found a pathetically prolix style that DeLillo seemed to abandon immediately after this one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Players_%28novel%29 This was short but reasonably enjoyable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_II Eh. Eh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolis Pretty good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_Artist Short and sweet. Neither great nor horrible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratner%27s_Star Sometimes interesting, but not particularly satisfying. It reminded me more of Kafka's The Castle than the previous DeLillo books that I've liked. Instead of putting strange characters in believable situations, DeLillo puts strange characters in absurd situations for the entire book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Dog The streak is spoiled. This one is very different from his two books that I read previously. Somewhat enjoyable, but too action oriented. Not enough improbable conversation. Too real. was much less intellectual than the above and much more "plot-centered"/"pulpy". It was still "good," but not really my style. I think this book and Ratner's Star show DeLillo going too far to opposite extremes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_DeWitt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Samurai_%28novel%29 This was so frenetic and nutty, in a way I've never seen before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copperfield_%28novel%29 Great, but perhaps a bit longer than I would have liked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Expectations Top-notch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Possessed_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raw_Youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambler_%28novella%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netochka_Nezvanova_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_of_Stepanchikovo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Dead_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_from_Underground is horrible. Anything else is worth reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Double:_A_Petersburg_Poem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum_%28book%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudolino http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose Off-and-on gripping. Definitely unique and imaginative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Flame_of_Queen_Loana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_the_Day_Before http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Ellison http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Man_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi_Boys It took a while to get started, but it ended up being reasonably good. It can't compare with American Gods, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe%27s_Faust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust_Part_Two http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_Affinities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Haddon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog_in_the_Night-time Totally identified with the protagonist.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Heller This is really something! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 Interesting and worth reading. Do/did most middle-class Americans really live like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Happened Kinda nifty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closing_Time_%28novel%29 Just my luck; I picked up another nontraditional sort of deal. I enjoyed it all the same. It almost makes me angry that I've had no exposure to "Classics" in my formal education. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_This_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_and_Then_%28Joseph_Heller_book%29 I picked this one at random from the library shelves because the title sounded good, not realizing that it was an autobiography. It was pretty good, as autobiographies go. The writing was amazingly good. This man past age 70 had an amazing knack for writing pleasing English. So, I'm on to reading some of his fiction! Not bad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_an_Artist%2C_as_an_Old_Man I gave up without finishing it. It was too loose and purposeless for me. Maybe I would have liked it if I had grown up with this biblical stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Knows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_and_Goldmund http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrud_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Wheel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Camenzind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_East As I would expect from a book alternately entitled "Fairy Tales," this one wasn't really my style. I hadn't realized that these short stories were written shortly before Hesse got into psychodrama. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_News_from_Another_Star http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Irving Wow. This book is amazing. Need I say more? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hotel_New_Hampshire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prayer_for_Owen_Meany Another excellent book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cider_House_Rules Great http://ourworld.cs.com/irvingpage/circus.htm Really good. Very different from his previous books, and yet very similar at the same time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Widow_for_One_Year Super duper as usual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water-Method_Man A grade-A good time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_According_to_Garp It didn't quite have the life of Irving's later novels, but it had a less intense version of their quality. http://ourworld.cs.com/irvingpage/garpbook.htm Good, but not his best. http://ourworld.cs.com/irvingpage/garpbook.htm Another good one, though a bit more erotic than expected! http://ourworld.cs.com/irvingpage/bear.htm This book was quite good, though the quality was inconsistent in places. I got the impression that this book was one of those attempts to merge several story ideas into one book. You'll see what I mean if you read it. http://ourworld.cs.com/irvingpage/bear.htm Pretty good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trying_to_Save_Piggy_Sneed_%28collection%29 Not bad. Not bad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Miller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexus_%28The_Rosy_Crucifixion%29 They don't make 'em like this anymore, no sir. There sure was a lot of sex! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plexus_%28The_Rosy_Crucifixion%29 Now here's a ball of energy for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_%28The_Rosy_Crucifixion%29 I wasn't disappointed. Very nice writing style, when he wasn't off in the Purple Prose Nebula. Definitely promising enough to warrant trying some of his better known books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn_%28novel%29 Too many spells of free association, but I forgive him. Final verdict: Rosy Crucifixion beats the Tropic originals, hands down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer_%28novel%29 I see the germ of the endearing qualities of Rosy Crucifixion. Very lively http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_%26_Dixon Very enjoyable. The 90's Pynchon is much more organized than the 70's Pynchon. The sudden songs were kept to a minimum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_Rainbow Interesting book. Very 70's. If all your life you've longed for a novel full of spontaneous singing, then Gravity's Rainbow may be your deliverance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland My appreciation for this guy just grows and grows. This book is both more down-to-earth and weirded than his previous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Overall positive opinion, though I often felt like it lacked organization and coherence. There really wasn't any clear connection between the two parallel stories that got about equal time and merged senselessly near the end. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crying_of_Lot_49 Worth reading, if only for another masterful treatment of paranoia. A few times I wondered if Pynchon had written a paragraph just to be confusing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Learner Not bad. I agreed with the author's comments in the introduction, which said that the last story, "The Secret Integration," was significantly better than the others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Day Plenty of good stuff here, but not quite enough to justify the length http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherent_Vice Different but fun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Roth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Stain This was really good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Married_a_Communist I like. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portnoy%27s_Complaint Soopah doopah pizzazz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Shylock This was quite good. I had to laugh when I finished reading it; the whole thing came together so well. I'm now nominating Philip Roth for Patron Saint of Paranoiacs. (Thomas Pynchon is the other main contender, as I see it.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuckerman_Bound More good stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Writer Every journey has a beginning. (I liked it.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pastoral Hey, pretty good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Counterlife More mind-blowing recursive fiction! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath%27s_Theater Another raunchy ride from Roth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plot_Against_America Interestin' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Ghost The End http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_American_Novel_%28Roth%29 OKish and enjoyable at times. This one was entirely comic without the authentic feel that so endeared the latest Zuckerman trilogy to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyman_(novel) I went into this one not realizing that the focus would be aging, illness, and death. Doesn't sound so enjoyable, right? It turned out to be a fun read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Facts:_A_Novelist%27s_Autobiography He couldn't avoid sticking in more of this self-referential stuff, eh? :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye%2C_Columbus Decent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letting_Go_%28novel%29 Kind of overdramatic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses Reminds me of Thomas Pynchon without the geek factor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight's_Children Entertaining enough. Too long and too much foreshadowing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.D._Salinger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye Seal of approval granted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sartre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reprieve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Reason_%28Sartre%29 (American collection of short stories) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_%28Book%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausea_%28Book%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Sleep Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus%21_Trilogy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_Cat_trilogy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace was rather disappointing. It was full of absurd Christian conversions and pointless and detailed descriptions of social activities, without the redeeming qualities of War and Peace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Is_Rich This was top-notch and a significant improvement over the first two Rabbit books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Redux I liked it better than the first book in this series. Definitely some good stuff here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%2C_Run It didn't always hold my interest, but in the end I liked it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_At_Rest So that's that. John Updike doesn't disappoint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest Awesome. That footnote business required some out-of-the-ordinary place-saving apparatus for efficient reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brief_Interviews_with_Hideous_Men I don't usually like books of short stories or things of similar form, but this one was super. With such great power to think of twisted ideas comes great responsibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivion:_Stories Wild stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_Curious_Hair More of the same, with more of a popular culture focus than the DFW stuff I read earlier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Supposedly_Fun_Thing_I%27ll_Never_Do_Again Heh heh heh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_the_Lobster And I thought he couldn't push this footnote stuff any further.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_and_More I'm left wondering how much of this is intended satirically. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broom_of_the_System I can see the germ of the good stuff yet to come, but this one just didn't hang together in the satisfying way of Wallace's later work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wolfe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bonfire_of_the_Vanities That was pretty swell. It reminded me of DeLillo and Heller in particular. Who knows who influenced whom! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_in_Full Quite good, though suspiciously similar to Bonfire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Charlotte_Simmons Agreeable enough, though it didn't have that special oomph. These authors are all worth reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_%28book%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restaurant_at_the_End_of_the_Universe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life%2C_the_Universe_and_Everything http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long%2C_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostly_Harmless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Zaphod_Plays_it_Safe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.c._boyle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_End_%28novel%29 It had its gripping stretches, but in the end it wasn't all that satisfying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Albemuth Pretty good. My kind of paranoid trip. I see more PKD in my future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle There was some interesting stuff in here. It had a weird feeling of having been hastily written, like ol' PKD was under a tight deadline. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._L._Doctorow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bathgate Mm, history-y. An all right book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_Is_the_Night http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby Not stupendous, but surprisingly good for something so often assigned in high school English classes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Goldstein http://www.trincoll.edu/~rgoldste/mind-body_problem.html Interesting and worth reading. At first I was put off by the seemingly forced and unnatural style of the writing, but it stopped bothering me. http://www.trincoll.edu/~rgoldste/late-summer_passion.html Interesting but uneven. I do wonder if the author is satirizing philosophers with some of the sections or if she really thinks that stuff is the bee's knees. This one ended up being a wild ride. The first few chapters seemed very promising, but the bulk of the book just didn't interest me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Greene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_and_the_Glory Not bad. Not awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blithedale_Romance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Seven_Gables_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marble_Faun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_Messiah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Dune http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_%28Book%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road Mildly interesting, but nothing too great. I guess I've been spoiled by all of the post-modern stuff that came later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here All right-ish. I liked the feisty 1920's charm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barleycorn_%28novel%29 Pretty swell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea-Wolf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_Martel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi It was pretty good, but uneven. Anyone who needed to wait for this one to "make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction" has been living in a paper bag. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_McCarthy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Pretty_Horses Interestingly compelling, though I'm sure the double-quotes industry had a fit when they saw this one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invitation_to_a_Beheading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabokov%27s_Dozen Mixed feelings. I liked the story about the crazy kid. :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_Life_of_Sebastian_Knight Bleh. Some brief periods when it held my interest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_O%27Nolan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Policeman This reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. I checked it out because the Lost writers cite it as an influence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Aspidistra_Flying A curious book. I think Orwell was trying to get across a social message, but it was generally unclear which of his characters and their views he agreed with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia is really journalism and not an attempt at fiction, so don't expect otherwise! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Palahniuk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Monsters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pirsig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance:_An_Inquiry_into_Values http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila:_An_Inquiry_into_Morals Some parts were very interesting. The "story" parts were pretty poorly executed. Altogether uneven and disorganized. Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants Quite well-written stylistically, and plenty of 1950's charm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Quinn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_%28novel%29 Interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_B Some thoughts worth thinking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Ishmael More interestin' stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_You%2C_Mr._Rosewater I liked this one a lot. Very good weaving of social commentary into an engaging story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Night http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five Fairly good. I find Vonnegut's repetition of phrases and overfrequent references to his other books annoying, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_of_Champions An interesting story, very reminiscent of Timequake, though I read them in the reverse order to that in which they were written decades apart. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hocus_Pocus_%28novel%29 Slightly above average quality. I think the non-linear narrative was too non-linear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle I thought it was mediocre. There weren't really any sympathetic characters for me in it, and the plot came across as somewhat disorganized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timequake I picked this one out expecting a novel. It turned out to be some weird unstructured autobiographical thing. Nonetheless, I ended up enjoying it. Some others that are above average http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Anderson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winesburg,_Ohio_(novel) I read this because Henry Miller seemed to be a fan. It was all right, but somehow didn't quite do it for me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Bronte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights Recommended by opet in #haskell. I ended up enjoying it. It didn't rock my world, but that's OK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Sleep I read this on recommendation from Andrew Clausen, and I was pleasantly surprised. Seeing as how it's a detective story, I was expecting something much, much more pulpy than I got. The plot and behavior of characters were close to what I expected, but it was very intelligently written. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gaddis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter%27s_Gothic My first impression was rage at the unconventional grammatical organization, where it's not clear what's a spoken quotation and what isn't. It got better further in, but not enough to make up for the confusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Kundera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_Being Kind of rambly and weird, but weird is good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Loos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen_Prefer_Blondes_(book) Nothing to write home about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Martone One or two of the stories were enjoyable; the rest didn't work for me. I read this because David Foster Wallace mentioned it in "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Niven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ringworld_Engineers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ringworld_Throne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Zhivago_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Notebooks_of_Malte_Laurids_Brigge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Robbins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Incognito This one leaves me with the impression that Tom Robbins may be "Thomas Pynchon for Dummies." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Turgenev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons Pretty unremarkable stories. Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi Interesting, though I'm not sure I got much out of it Lots of really interesting stuff in here, but the special education angle didn't appeal to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Axelrod I've seen the executive summary of this material so many times in other books that it's hard to evaluate the worth of the full version. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barrett_%28philosopher%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_Man:_A_Study_in_Existential_Philosophy This was quite clearly written, and I feel like I understand the basics of existentialism much better now than before I read this. David T. Beito, Peter Gordon, and Alexander Tabarrok http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voluntary_City It didn't always have me on the edge of my seat, but there was still plenty of thought-provoking stuff. A very interesting perspective on the roots of political behavior Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schooling_in_Capitalist_America:_Educational_Reform_and_the_Contradictions_of_Economic_Life A well-written presentation of an interesting perspective. I got a good chuckle out of the socialist elements, which stayed manageable until the last part of the book, which is entirely skippable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brooks_(journalist) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Animal:_The_Hidden_Sources_of_Love,_Character,_and_Achievement The first third or so was great. There's a very meta aspect to the later parts of the book, which was clever at first, but which I started to feel was being abused. I won't spoil the details of what I'm talking about. ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering For a light read, I enjoyed this well enough, more for the retro appeal than for the presence of much advice that seems relevant today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turning_Point_%28Book%29 I remember liking this book Way Back in the Day, but I can't stand it now. The author repeats the same hippie-targeted phrases over and over, with very prolix sentences that nonetheless fail to convey useful information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People It's unclear how useful this will be, but it was very entertaining. I'm glad I followed Paul Graham's advice and got my hands on an early edition, complete with content that doesn't follow today's rules for political correctness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_over_People:_Neoliberalism_and_Global_Order http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen An interesting perspective that I'd gotten plenty of from the blogosphere before reading this There were some interesting spans of idea-sharing, but, in the end, I didn't really get what the point of the book was. Reading it kind of felt like standing in the way of a firehose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancestor%27s_Tale Yay for evolution. The parallels between better ways of enabling evolution and better ways of building computer systems are interesting... and squirrels are cool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion Going in, I was feeling kind of guilty, since this kind of "preaching to the choir" subject matter is so popular among hapless fanboys. Nonetheless, there were some interesting arguments in here, and it's always fun to read Dawkins's prose. Makes me want to read more science-y books, in fact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Devil%27s_Chaplain Some decent material. I don't really like Dawkins's over-flowery writing style. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_the_Spell:_Religion_as_a_Natural_Phenomenon Well-written; I'm not sure exactly what I took away from it, but I enjoyed the ride. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel Interesting without really being riveting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Epstein Not always engrossing, but I feel more law-y already Quite well-written, and short enough that I don't feel bad about not thinking too hard about what I got out of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_Benjamin_Franklin It's hard to imagine a book written today being so explicit about a search for "moral perfection," but I found the approach really attractive. I wonder how thoroughly the author followed through with it. Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose I forgot to log this book until some weeks after finishing it, so I don't remember details, but it was probably pretty good. :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_L._Friedman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexus_and_the_Olive_Tree A really interesting synthesis of different aspects of globalization into a Unifying Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Is_Flat Reading this, I get a sense of what religious folk might feel readin' scripture. William H. Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins 99% estate tax or bust! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Underground_History_Of_American_Education An extremely illuminating book; highly recommended OK, but I didn't get much out of it that I hadn't already gotten out of Gatto's past writings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Glaeser Fun to read, though perhaps a bit of preaching to the choir, in my case I seesawed between liking and not liking it. The not liking came from feeling that it was a "one thing after another" kind of history book without a broader message (and also from some poor copyediting and laugh-out-loud bad phrasing). The liking probably had most to do with the consistent anti-urban-renewal focus. This seems like a pretty darned good proposal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Turbulence Got a little boring 'round the end, but interesting nonetheless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities Interesting ideas that I need to ponder more. It didn't always hold my interest in the particulars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chosen_(Jerome_Karabel) Some very illuminating information in here. The book was too long, but for some reason I followed through to the end anyway. There was good stuff appearing pretty frequently; there was just too much padding, too. An interesting read. I couldn't help noticing how little creativity seemed to be involved in the hoops that these kids were jumping through to earn their special status. Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz Not bad, not great; for me, more like a cheerleading exercise than anything else. You might not guess that a book about working memory would be much fun, but this was fairly informative and enjoyable. Contrary to my expectations, it really is almost entirely about working memory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From Good stuff. The earlier interviews (which were with the older programmers) I liked substantially more than the later ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Landsburg Short and sweet, but with high enjoyment value per page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Lane Interesting and well-written, in that plucky British style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_R._Lewis Plenty of thought-provoking stuff in here. My biggest point of disagreement had to do with the downsides of large-scale spectator-oriented athletics, regardless of if that kind of activity is "natural." I also don't feel encumbered by tradition in designing future educational institutions, so conclusions based on assumptions like the continued use of lectures aren't that interesting to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Livingston This was really fun and seems like a great extended pep talk for people considering doing the startup thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._C._MacKay http://www.withouthotair.com/ A really enjoyable and informative read. There's definitely something to be said for the signature British writing style. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Mander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimination_of_Television Interesting, though not especially well focused Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_growth Some interesting insights with solid experimental results http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Miller_(evolutionary_psychologist) Some good information about what seems to be a really useful theory This book doesn't seem to have much to say about education in highly technical fields. Thus, while I agree with the book's criticisms, I'm not sure the proposed solutions are generally applicable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nisbett An interesting overview. I was most bothered by ignoring the extremes of intelligence. This was an aggravating book. On the first page, I noticed a typo, a horrifying font/spacing convention, and the clumsy, patronizing, and preachy prose style. However, the core of information in the book seems very worth knowing. The way it is presented leaves me wondering how much I can trust in its accuracy, but I haven't yet seen a reason to doubt it. It would be nice to find a better, less emotional presentation of the same essential facts about the costs of animal-based food production and consumption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_G._Palmer Some insightful stuff, but also a few chapters that are too much about arguing against particular works; not enough convincing rational argument in general http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution:_A_Manifesto Largely agreeable, though not very novel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate No shortage of interestin' stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stuff_of_Thought As usual, an enjoyable read, though it was often hard to figure out what exactly I had learned from each chapter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_Instinct Not quite what I was expecting; too much focus on nitty-gritty details. The last chapter leaves me realizing that I was more interested in something like The Blank Slate, so on I go to that! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Posner Clear-headed and thought-provoking, though not earth-shaking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Poundstone At no point was it especially clear what the "theme" of this book was, but it was enjoyable anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone Definitely got me thinking, though the focus on particular archaic-feeling forms of social involvement seemed undermotivated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Riesman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Crowd Thought-provoking, though it was often hard for me to get past the dated elements of the book. The last few chapters were especially unsatisfying, partly for that reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Roughgarden Some interesting stuff, though I kept getting hung up on what exactly was the definition of "truth" of an evolutionary theory that this book was oriented around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyn_Saks Kind of harrowing, but a real page-turner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schlosser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation Interesting, but not a page-turner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Shoup This was a long one, but it was a lot of fun to read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Tabarrok I agree with what he's saying and somehow didn't learn too much; but I can't complain about such a short essay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America Interesting, though the value per page didn't seem quite high enough. Still, it stands the test of time pretty well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_T._Vollmann Long enough that I often wondered whether it was worth finishing. Overall an enjoyable experience, raising interesting issues about how large populations of people can organize themselves in a modern setting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_%28Colin_Wilson%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Occult:_A_History with Damon Wilson This started out interesting but devolved into seemingly random mentions of different authors and their works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wright_(journalist) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonzero Very thought-provoking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Animal More fascinating stuff, though falling off in interestingness near the end http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_God Compared to my expectations, this was a lot more about politics and a lot less about evolutionary psychology. Near the end, though, the author brings in a really interesting message about the origins of morality in social evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States Crash was not my kind of book. I felt all shock value and nothing poetic. The Master and Margarita really underwhelmed me. It read like a children's story, except less organized than you'd expect. The introduction with the edition I read revealed that it was the attempted combination of two different stories after they'd both been under development for a while. There was practically no characterization; just weird happenings. Seeing some of my favorites, you might expect I'd like this guy, but I've found the three novels of his that I've read to be very dull. I really didn't like Dead Souls. I gave For Whom the Bell Tolls a try recently, and the macho stuff turned me off, despite some of the nice non-shallow content. I've only read Brave New World, but it struck me as being very unsatisfying, with all the characters being very flat. Maybe this is the effect Huxley wanted, but that's not something I like in fiction. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man didn't resonate with me much. Maybe I'll try another of his books some day. I read all of her novels in high school and became obsessed with Objectivism. However, like most such people, I grew out of it, and now I have a rather low opinion of her fiction and her philosophy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Barthelme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Stories Abandoned because I don't like the format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_With_a_Thousand_Faces I stopped reading this after the first of two parts. There were some interesting ideas, though somehow I feel like I would have gotten just as much out of a short article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Weinberg I don't think I've really taken too much away from this book, especially given that most of what it talks about is based on the outdated computing conventions of the early 1970's. However, I have to say that Gerald Weinberg is one of the best nonfiction authors I have ever read. He has a very lucid writing style that keeps the reader interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Outcast_of_the_Islands I gave it a chance, but it just couldn't hold my interest, so I gave up. The writing was waaay too verbose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Wolff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School_%28novel%29 Eh, mediocre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Goncharov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblomov Not very remarkable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray I wanted to give this well-known story a try, and I was hoping the Wilde-ishness I'd read before wouldn't be involved too much. It was, and the interspersing of serious stuff with wit-wars didn't work very well. I didn't have the stomach to stay for the three stories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Selby%2C_Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Exit_to_Brooklyn The combination of the subject matter and the "experimental" disregard for English grammar and layout drove me away from this before I got very far into it. Like with the last one, I'm not sure if I got much out of reading this. In contrast, the prose here seemed overly preachy/condescending and generally didn't leave me with warm feelings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_russell After reading the first few essays in the book, I asked myself what I was getting out of the experience. Failing to find an answer, I set out for greener pastures. (I picked up the book because Everything and More cited it, and the title sounded interesting; that should teach me to live on the edge!) Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner I think I've been spoiled by books that analyze topics and synthesize new hypotheses or recommendations. I couldn't stand to finish this book, which is a mishmash of quoted stories grouped by topic, with minimal connecting text. From reading the description, I got the impression that most of the big elements of "quarterlife crises" weren't occurring for me, and that seems mostly accurate, based on what I read. I should make a note to, in the future, avoid reading books based on that kind of curiosity when the books were featured on Oprah. Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Superstition I didn't feel like I learned much from this book. The authors attacked particular quotations from a hand-picking of authors, so it's hard to tell which points are valid against the whole body of literature that they're dissecting. I don't know how it would be possible to do better, but that doesn't mean that this book is very helpful. The prose was also a little too purple for me. There was some interesting information and speculation in here, but too much of the book came across as moralizing. The copy-editing was also notably poor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hinde I had to bail on this one early on. It was clumsy stylistically and didn't seem to be painting any kind of big picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Pirenne This was enjoyable enough, but still on the low end of "good." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Archer_(scientist) A reasonable description of how little we know about climate changes and our effect on them A big old pile of meta-discussion about who said what about whom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Schmidt,_author http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds Somewhat thought provoking, but mostly unsatisfying. Most all of the author's complaints about PhD programs don't seem to apply to top computer science programs; I don't know how accurate they are elsewhere. I was surprised by this book's tone when I started reading it; somehow, when I first added it to my "to read" list, I hadn't realized that the book is targeted to "radicals" and "activists." The author doesn't spend any space trying to explain why the reader might want to become such a thing, so that was another serious turn-off for me. Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics