Books Read in 2009

101 titles

Martian Time-Slip
Philip K. Dick
★★★☆☆
Einstein’s Dreams
Alan Lightman
★★★☆☆
The Deep Range
Arthur C. Clarke
★★★★☆
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Azar Nafisi
★★★☆☆
Big Sur
Jack Kerouac
★★★☆☆
The Martian Chronicles
Ray Bradbury
★★★★★
A Theory of Justice
John Rawls
★★★★☆
Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957–1973
Clinton Heylin
★★★★☆
Locked in the Cabinet
Robert Reich
★★★★☆
The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt
Edward Wagenknecht
★★★☆☆
Justice as Fairness: A Restatement
John Rawls
★★★★☆
Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness
Joshua Hawley
★★★☆☆
The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory
Richard J. Bernstein
★☆☆☆☆
In the American Grain
William Carlos Williams
★★☆☆☆
Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories
Ghassan Kanafani
★★★☆☆
The Jeffersonian Transformation: Passages From The “History”
Henry Adams
★★★★☆
Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems
Gary Snyder
★★★★★
Slaughter-House Five, or, The Children’s Crusade
Kurt Vonnegut
★★★★★
Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches
Theodore Roosevelt
★★★☆☆
Thomas Jefferson: Author of America
Christopher Hitchens
★★★☆☆
The Strenuous Life
Theodore Roosevelt
★★★☆☆
The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Frederick Jackson Turner
★★★★☆
Beer in the Snooker Club
Waguih Ghali
★★★★☆
Trouble is My Business
Raymond Chandler
★★★★☆
The Doors of Perception
Aldous Huxley
★★★☆☆
A Stroll With William James
Jacques Barzun
★★★★★
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
★★★★★
The Evolutionists: American Thinkers Confront Charles Darwin, 1860–1920
J. David Hoeveler
★★★☆☆
Playback
Raymond Chandler
★★★☆☆
Moll Flanders
Daniel Defoe
★★☆☆☆
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
David Sedaris
★★★★☆
Turtle Island
Gary Snyder
★★★★☆
Looking Backward: 2000–1887
Edward Bellamy
★★★☆☆
ZOT! The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987–1991
Scott McCloud
★★★☆☆
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
★☆☆☆☆
Natural Science and Religion
Asa Grey
★★☆☆☆
The Stranger
Albert Camus
★★★★★
The Dark Side of Camelot
Seymour Hersh
★★★★☆
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
David Hume
★★★☆☆
The Complete Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi
★★★★☆
Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America’s Class War
Joe Bageant
★★★☆☆
Dance Dance Dance
Haruki Murakami
★★★★☆
Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War
Evan Wright
★★★★☆
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
★★★★★
Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times
Geoffrey Nunberg
★★★★☆
The Enchantress of Florence
Salman Rushdie
★★★☆☆
I Shot a Man in Reno: A History of Death by Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease, and General Misadventure, As Related In Popular Song
Graeme Thomson
★★★★☆
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers
★★★★☆
I Was Told There’d Be Cake: Essays
Sloane Crosley
★★★☆☆
The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins
★★★☆☆
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
Gordon Wood
★★★★☆
The Plot Against America
Philip Roth
★★★★★
The Land Where The Blues Began
Alan Lomax
★★★★☆
The Trial of Henry Kissinger
Christopher Hitchens
★★★★☆
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole
★★★★☆
The Shape of Things To Come: Prophecy & the American Voice
Greil Marcus
★★★☆☆
The Diamond Age, or: A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer
Neal Stephenson
★★★☆☆
Spock Must Die!
James Blish
★★★☆☆
A Short History of the United States
Allan Nevins & Henry Steele Commager
★★★☆☆
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller
★★★★☆
Alexander Hamilton
Ron Chernow
★★★★☆
Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist
Tyler Cowen
★★★★★
On the Shortness of Life
Seneca
★★★★★
New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought
Todd Buchholz
★★★☆☆
The Way We Talk Now: Commentaries on Language and Culture from NPR’s Fresh Air
Geoffrey Nunberg
★★★☆☆
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
Bernard Bailyn
★★★★☆
In the Beginning… was the Command Line
Neal Stephenson
★★★☆☆
Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte
★★☆☆☆
The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London
Lisa Jardine
★★★★☆
The Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 1: 1764–1769
Samuel Adams
★★★☆☆
Born in the U.S.A.
Geoffrey Himes
★★★☆☆
Peter Oliver’s Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion: A Tory View
Peter Oliver
★★★☆☆
The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution
Edmund & Helen Morgan
★★★★★
Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution
Alfred F. Young
★★★☆☆
Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence
Bernard Bailyn
★★★★☆
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
★★☆☆☆
Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!
Scott Adams
★★☆☆☆
Two Cheers for Democracy
E. M. Forster
★★★★☆
In Our Time
Ernest Hemingway
★★★★☆
Why I Write
George Orwell
★★★★★
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
Steven Johnson
★★★★☆
The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence
T. H. Breen
★★★☆☆
From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776
Pauline Maier
★★★★☆
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
★★★★☆
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
★★★★★
Neuromancer
William Gibson
★★☆☆☆
Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America
Brian F. Slattery
★★★★☆
The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
Ernest Hemingway
★★★★☆
Evolution: The History of an Idea
Peter Bowler
★★☆☆☆
Essay on Man and Other Poems
Alexander Pope
★★☆☆☆
The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
Fred Anderson
★★★★☆
The Sovereignty & Goodness of God
Mary Rowlandson
★★☆☆☆
Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift
★★★★☆
The Satanic Verses
Salman Rushdie
★★★☆☆
Alan’s War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope
Emmanuel Guibert & Alan Cope
★★★☆☆
How To Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq
Matthew Alexander
★★★☆☆
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin
★★★★☆
Travels with Charley: in Search of America
John Steinbeck
★★★★★
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
Philip Zimbardo
★★★☆☆
The American Revolution
Gordon Wood
★★★★☆