Topic: Books I've read - 2018 edition

[BobbyR]

you know you were waiting 


1.     Bank Shot – Donald E Westlake – A heist job with a healthy dose of comedy.
2.    The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde – A jaundiced look at English society. Dorian puts his soul in a painting and goes on to a life of debauchery.
3.    Behold a Pale Horse – Peter Tremayne – One of a series about a 7^th Century Irish Nun/Lawyer named Fidelma. This one set in what today would be the area of Genoa. The author is the pen name of British historian, who I think I may have read. Good book I’ll need to look up the rest.
4.    The Coming Race – Edward Bulwer Lytton – Written is 1871 this is a hollow Earth, utopian novel. Dated but not as much as you’d think. Entertaining.
5.    The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy – Set in India, it jumps back and forth in time, exploring the effects of India’s so called “love laws” that made relationships between castes. Excellently written with a creative use of language.
6.    Hardcore Twenty-Four – Janet Evanovich – Diesel is back and a drug is turning people into Zombies. And she found another creative way to destroy a car.
7.    Crazy Horse and Custer, the Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors – Stephen E Ambrose – Comparing and contrasting the lives of these two who met at Little Bighorn. Enjoyable study.
8.    The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe – Published in 1719 it takes place mostly on the 1600s. One of those stories we all know but few have read. It’s not just him stuck on the island; he travels the world once he finally gets rescued. Pretty good.
9.    The Book Thief – Markus Zusak – Excellent book set in Germany during WW2 and narrated by Death himself. Stars a little girl who goes to live with foster parents and her personal experiences during the war.
10. The Neverending Story – Michael Ende – Never saw the movie but the book was good. A little bit of OZ inspiration in it I believe. I enjoyed the first half where they were trying to save Fantastica better.  It reminds me of something, but that’s another story to be told another time.
11.  Full Tilt – Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes – This is an older book, a series I don’t think she’s doing anymore. This is the 2^nd apparently, about a rich dude named Max Holt, who helps a newspaper owner and gets a price on his head.
12. Games Creatures Play – Charlaine Harris and Toni LP Kelner – An anthology of supernatural stories all involving games of some sort. The first is a meeting of Sookie and Manfred before Midnight begins.
13. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – KJ Anderson – A novelization of the movie based on the comic book. A fun read, but PJ Farmer did the concept better, and first.
14. An Irish Country Doctor – Patrick Taylor – Set in a tiny fictional Ulster village in the early 60’s this was a tremendous book. Funny, touching, entertaining. Fist of a series, I took his next two books out of the library to follow the story.
15. Dog On It – Spencer Quinn – Another series opener about a PI and his dog, narrated by the dog, who is frankly the more likeable of the two. But it was a good story.
16. An Irish Country Village – Patrick Taylor – The 2^nd in the series.  Begins the day after the 1^st ends. Barry’s reputation and relationship are both put in doubt. And a character is named after an old school mate of mine.
17. The Malay Archipelago - Alfred Russel Wallace – Originally published in 1869; this edition was a few years later, with some footnoted updates. I suspect a lot of the science and classifications are outdated, but it’s an interesting look at the methods and attitudes of the times. Also interesting was the final paragraphs where Wallace wonders if the so called “savage” races may be more moral than his own.
18. An Irish Country Christmas – Patrick Taylor – Third in the series, this one starts a few months later. And while the previous two were told from Barry’s point of view, this one switched between the two main protagonists. While I can’t wait to continue on, the author has a couple of more serious novels I may check out as well.
19. Young Witches & Warlocks – edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H Greenberg & Charles G Waugh – These three edited quite a few anthologies together. And while I’ve read (and own) most of the Good Doctor’s solo work, I’d not seen this before. No Asimov story sadly, and the stories were just ok, but I enjoyed rescuing a book that apparently hasn’t been checked out in 21 years.
20.Rats: observations on the history and habitat of the city's most unwanted inhabitants – Robert Sullivan – More interesting than you would expect the subject matter to be. Well written and touches on many ancillary topics like the plague and 9/11.
21. King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard – Another classic, enjoyable story with sensibilities that wouldn’t fly today.
22.Dark in Death – JD Robb – Someone is copying an author’s books to commit murders. A plot I’ve seen on multiple TV shows but I don’t think in a book. She makes it her own and even makes a comment about a pseudonym with to initials.
23.Welcome to the Monkey House – Kurt Vonnegut – I’ve come across a few of these stories before but most of them were new to me. Some great stories here. His first story Harrison Bergeron was written in 1950 and is even more relevant today.
24.Heat Storm – Richard Castle – The true author is Tom Straw but he gets the voice down well. As the title implies, this is a team up of Derrick Storm and Nikki Heat. And despite the show ending he implies the series will continue. I do miss the afterwards though.
25. The Lost Plot – Genevieve Cogman – An Invisible Library novel, involving internal dragon politics and the quest for an ancient Chinese book called Journey to the West (which actually exists), taking place mostly on a world similar to prohibition era America.
26.Dear Fahrenheit 451 Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks – Annie Spence – A Librarian writes love or Dear John letters to various books. Also a bunch of book lists at the end. Fun book, I need to write down some of the suggestions before I return it.
27.Fragile Things – Neil Gaiman - A short story collection with some poems thrown in. Wonderful book. I particularly love A Study in Emerald, a Holmes story set in a Lovecraftian world.
28.Almost Human – Lee Berger and John Hawks – The story of a paleontological dig in South Africa that found a new species called Homo naledi, possibly a cousin or ancestor to us. Very interesting story.
29.The War on Cops – Heather Mac Donald – An excellent expose on how the anti-cop hysteria and fake racism claims are hurting everyone, especially minority communities.
30.The Hittite – Ben Bova – Excellent book. A retelling of the Trojan war through the eyes of a Hittite warrior who finds himself in the employ of Odysseos after his own empire falls.
31. The Taking of K-129 – Josh Dean – “How the CIA used Howard Hughes to steal a Russian sub in the most daring covert operation in history”. In 1968 a Russian nuclear submarine sunk in the north pacific. This is the story of how the CIA retrieved it. Pretty remarkable and well written book. Amazing they kept it secret for 5 years. They only got part of it though. The nukes are still down there.
32. Robert B Parker’s Old Black Magic – Ace Atkins – Spenser is asked by a dying friend to take over a 20 year old art theft case. Good story, no Hawk. I almost wonder if Atkins doesn’t like writing him.
33. The Mark Inside - Amy Reading – In 1919 a Texas rancher named Norfleet was taken by con men. He didn’t take it in stride; he hunted them down, and helped bring down other bunko rings in the process. This tells the story and also “a small history of the big con”.
34. Fords, Yesterday and Today – Published in 1964 on the 350^th anniversary of New Jersey, this was compiled by students of Fords School #7 – which no longer exists. Very interesting look at the changes in the town to that point, and especially to look back at how it has changed since.
35. Fords - Joanne De Amicis Bulla. Part of the Images of America series. Had some of the same pictures as the previous book but a lot of interesting stuff.  This one came out in 2002. These were the only two books on Fords in the library.
36. Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne – A classic from a master. I’d never read it but I saw the film years ago. (Not to mention the Saturday morning cartoon.) Excellent of course. Still a good read. Read this on google books.
37.Eugene O’Neill A Life in Four Acts – Robert M Dowling – In depth biography of America’s first great playwright. Fascinating study; makes me want to read some of his plays. He actually came to prefer that his plays be read rather than performed.
38.Blind Man’s Bluff – Sherry Sontag & Christopher Drew with Annette Lawrence Drew – “The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage”. Published in 1998 so maybe a little out of date but still a compelling set of stories about some brave men who risked – and sometimes lost – all for their country.
39.Master Thieves – Stephen Kurkjian – Subtitled “The Boston Gangsters who pulled of the World’s Greatest Art Heist”. Specifically 13 pieces from the Gardner Museum. Ace Atkins really did base the last Spenser on this heist. And why is it always heist when speaking of art? Good book.
40.One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey – Probably more famous as a movie than a book, and though I’ve never seen it, I’ve seen scenes, so I had an idea. It was very good. It is sad to think it once was an accurate portrayal of mental hospitals. Hopefully it’s better now.
41. Strange Weather – Joe Hill – Four entertaining stories, the first being the best. He shares his dad’s penchant for political comments but he is much more subtle about it. Which isn’t saying much. He surprised me in the second story with an ending that seems to counter his stated purpose (from the afterward).
42.Priceless – Robert K Wittman with John Shiffman – The memoir of an undercover FBI agent who specialized in art crimes and retrieved many stolen pieces. Includes the tale of how the bureaucracy of the FBI screwed up retrieving the Gardner pieces.
43.This Idea Must Die – edited by John Brockman – A science website called edge.org poses a question to scientists in multiple fields every year. This book covers the question, “what scientific idea/theory needs to be disposed of?”  A bunch of repetition, some disagreement. I admit I didn’t understand every article.
44.Cop under fire : moving beyond hashtags of race, crime & politics for a better America – Sheriff David Clarke Jr. with Nancy French – Excellent book detailing the was on police in this country with some of his personal story added in.
45. The Moscow Deception – Karen Robards – sequel to a book I read last year, Bianca St. Ives thief and security consultant searches for the man she thought was her father to help get a price off her head. 
46. Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman – Mr. Nancy has figured in a few of his stories. He’s really Anansi a West African Spider god and trickster. This is the story of his sons. Fun read.
47.Brief Cases – Jim Butcher – Another anthology of short stories from the Dresden files. Some excellent ones as well, including a few narrated by other characters, and even one in the Rashomon fashion. Would be nice to get a new novel though.
48.The 17^th Suspect – James Patterson & Maxine Paetro – Lindsey investigates the murders of homeless people while Yuki prosecutes a woman accused of raping a man. Enjoyable, quick, popcorn read.
49.The Ministry of Utmost Happiness – Arundhati Roy – Story of an Indian transgender, and some militants. Nice enough story, not as good as her first book.
50.Blood Oath- Christopher Farnsworth – Apparently Andrew Johnson commuted the sentence of a sailor who killed his crewmates because he thought he was a vampire. The guy lived out his life in an asylum. This book supposes he was a vamp and has been serving the President as an agent for 140 years. Entertaining, I’ll have to read the next two.
51. Tabloid City – Pete Hamill – A day in the life of NYC featuring a newspaper editor who loses his two loves in the same night. Told from multiple points of view.
52.Medieval Holidays and Festivals – Madeline Pelner Cosman – A calendar of celebrations, explaining how they celebrated a holiday every month through the year. Includes recipes.
53.The Old Man of the Sea – Ernest Hemingway – Obviously a classic and well written, but ultimately unsatisfying. After reading this his suicide
 is no surprise.
54.The President’s Vampire – Christopher Farnsworth – Sequel to Blood Oath, Zach is a year into handling Cade and they come across someone creating lizard people. The parts about the shadow government are scarier than the parts about monsters.
55.Red, White and Blood – Christopher Farnsworth – Third in the series. The President is facing reelection when and old enemy of Cade’s reemerges from the other side and begins murdering campaign staff.
56.The View from the Cheap Seats – Neil Gaiman – A collection of non-fiction, speeches, introductions, and various short pieces he’s written over the years. Entertaining. Also points towards other things to read.
57.Sandman volume 1 Preludes & Nocturnes – Neil Gaiman – The first 8 issues of the comic released in graphic novel format. Pretty good.
58.Alone Against Tomorrow – Harlan Ellison – He died last month, so I searched him on the library website, got this and another of his anthologies. The Gaiman book above came up too because it had a couple of articles about him.
59.The Essential Ellison – Harlan Ellison – And some editors I don’t feel like listing.  It’s called a 35 year retrospective, and was published in 1987.  So there are 31 years more of work until he died in July, which inspired me to check out the last 2 books.
60.Night and Day – Nancy Stuart & Gayle Wilson – I didn’t even realize when I started this it was 2 separate but connected novellas. Interesting enough for a bathroom book.
61. Dexter by Design – Jeff Lindsay – I didn’t realize there were more than the 3 I read, there are 6. After his honeymoon Dexter gets involved with a duo who makes artwork out of corpses, after one of them stabs Deb.
62. There was a Little Girl – Brooke Shields – “The real story of my mother and me.” A love letter, defense of her Mom without white washing. Touching book.
63.True Betrayal – Nora Roberts – A grown woman finds out the mother she thought was dead is alive and owns a horse farm. She gets involved with Mom’s neighbor. The male lead reminded me of Roarke so much I heard his voice with an accent.
64. Leverage in Death – JD Robb – I didn’t read these two back to back on purpose. Someone is coercing men into becoming suicide bombers. Unfortunately no relation to my favorite TV show.
65.Robert B Parker’s Colorblind – Reed Farrel Coleman – Jesse comes out of rehab to a town about to be targeted by white supremacists. And he gets some personal news as well. Still enjoyable, but not quite the same.
66.Irish Girls are back in town – A collection of pretty good short stories from 19 Irish women writers.  The book was a fund raiser for two Irish charities, Barnardo’s and the St. Vincent De Paul Society. I found it in the street and rescued it.
67.Prometheus Bound – Aeschylus – Translated by Robert Whitelaw in 1907. Read this on Google books. I found a list of books to read from antiquity to 2009, this was on page one.
68.Alcestis and other plays – Euripides – Translated by Robert Potter in 1887. Contains six of the plays/books from the list referenced above: Alcestis, Electra, Orestes, Iphigenia in Aulis, Iphigenia in Tauris, and The Trojan Dames.
69.An Uncommon Reader – Helen Smith – Subtitle, A life of Edward Garnett, mentor and editor of literary genius. I had written down a book by this name to look up. Turns out that was a different book, a novel. But this was very interesting. Late 19^th century, early 20^th he mentored some big names like Joseph Conrad, DH & TE Lawrence among others. I’d call this happy serendipity.
70.Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury – I read the 50^th anniversary edition. I think I’ve read this before, but I didn’t really remember it. But as good as it was, the afterward and coda he added to this edition were tremendous. Written over a decade ago he talks about how people will drive censorship through what we now call political correctness.
71. Adam’s Tongue, How humans made language, how language made humans – Derek Bickerton – An amazing exploration into the evolution of language, what we know, what we think, what may have happened. Great book.
72.The British History of Geoffrey of Monmouth – A “history” – using that word more than loosely – of Britain’s monarchs from its founding until the anglos took over. Written in 1136, supposedly translated from the ancient Briton language into Latin, this was translated back into English in 1842. While not a true history it was source material for Shakespeare and Mallory’s Arthurian stories.
73.Lucian’s True History – Lucian – Written in 2^nd century Greece he admits from the beginning it’s all a lie. One of the early satires he is skewering travel authors who made up nonsense and tried to pass it off as travelogue. Some people also consider it the first science fiction story. Definitely a forerunner of Jonathan Swift.
74.Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation – Steven Brown, Salvatore Attardo, Cynthia Vigliotti – I put linguistics into the library search engine and this came up. I didn’t realize it was a text book. (Albeit, for non-linguistic majors.) Interesting anyway. I wonder how many other people voluntarily read text books years after they finish school.
75.The Strange Case of Dr. Couney – Dawn Raffel– “How a mysterious European showman saved thousands of American babies.”  Back when hospitals couldn’t afford or didn’t trust incubators Dr Couney took preemies and put them in incubators on Coney Island, Atlantic City, and various Expositions, and charged admission to see them. Literally saving thousands of them.
76.Dark Sacred Night – Michael Connelly – Bosch teams up with Renee Ballard on a cold case. One of his best.
77.I’m Eve – Chris Costner Sizemore and Elen Sain Pitillo – The true story behind the book and movie, Three Faces of Eve. Chris was Eve, Elen her cousin. Interesting story about multiple personality disorder, as it was called back then.
78.Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut – Good book. The story of a writer who ends up ruling a nation and chronicling the end of the world.
79.A Borrowed Man – Gene Wolfe – In the future writers a cloned and imbued with their original’s memories and kept in the library as reference, being considered not fully human. One gets checked out to help solve a mystery.
80.Wait till Your Vampire Gets Home – Michelle Bardsley – How many series about vampires do you suppose are out there?  Apparently this is number 2 in this particular series and a paranormal investigator becomes half dragon. 
81. Tequila Myth, Magic & Spirited Recipes – Karl Petzke – Got this at Dollar Tree. Short book on the history and story of Tequila, with a bunch of recipes that sound pretty good.
82. The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan – Written in 1678 I read an 1856 edition. The story – allegory? – of a man who decided to leave the world behind and head to the Golden City of GOD. And the sequel when his wife and children follow him.
83.The Confidence Game – Maria Konnikova – Got this at Dollar Tree which is surprising because it was very good. A look at why we all fall for cons in one form or another. Recommended. You may have to pay full price.
84.The Man who would be King – Rudyard Kipling – Written in 1888, the narrator is a British journalist in India who tells the story of two self-described loafers traveling to Kafiristan (now part of Afghanistan) to become Kings and how they fared there.
85.Look Alive Twenty-Five – Janet Evanovich – So Stephanie’s cousin boss puts her in charge of a deli that’s lost 3 managers. Hilarity ensues. Wulf from the Diesel books shows up.
86.Rockonomics The Money Behind the Music – Coworker gave me this. A history of the business end of the Music industry, especially the Rock side. Written in ’89, updated in ’93, long before digital music changed everything.
87.61 Hours – Lee Child. A Jack Reacher novel, first I’ve read. Takes place in ND, where apparently it is very cold. Pretty good. One thing that struck me is Reacher is 6’5” and they got Tom Cruise to play him in movies. HA!
88.The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling – My latest google book, 1894. It’s not all Mowgli.
89.Snow in August – Pete Hamill – Found this in Mom’s basement, excellent book. A young Irish boy in Brooklyn befriends a Rabbi from Prague. Takes a mythological turn at the end. This is the third of his books I’ve read and now I want to read them all.
90.The Golem As told by ElieWeisel – Illustrated by Mark Podwal – A short book, retelling the classic legend with some flourishes I hadn’t read before.

[The_Spoiler]

Thanks for posting this.  I am always a big fan of your annual list and have already added a handful of the books you catalogued here to me “to read” list (The Gaiman books and a few others)


Of the books you have listed here, I am big fan of “One Flew of the Cuckoos Nest”, “Fahrenheit 41”, and the Vonnegut books.  I also remember liking “The Picture of Dorian Grey” a lot but haven’t read it since high school, so it may be time for a revisit.


I may post my 2108 list below if I get around to converting it to a postagle format from Goodreads.

[BobbyR]

I'm too lazy for Goodreads. I belong but I rarely use it


Dorian Gray and some of the others I read on Google Books. When it's slow at the office I will go in and read something in the public domain. I don't normally like reading a lot on screen but this is a good way to read older books

[FATSEXY]

I haven't read that book by my ancestor, but I want to!


I was stoked when I saw "Behold A Pale Horse", but then I saw that it wasn't the William Cooper conspiracy manifesto and I cried a little.

[BobbyR]

Your ancestor's book is available on google books, have at it