books read in 2008

Following Matt, and after being asked by Tom, here is the list of books I read in 2008. The ones I strongly recommend are in bold.

Middlemarch, George Eliot (1871) 17 Jan
The Improvisation Game, Chris Johnston (2005) 26 Jan
Prisoner’s Dilemma, William Poundstone (1992) 2 Feb
Secrets of Creation: Vol 1: The Mystery of the Prime Numbers, Matthew Watkins (2008, proofs) 5 Feb
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control, Kathleen Taylor (2004) 7 Feb
The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein (2007) 17 Feb
Breakdown of Will, George Ainslie (2001) 12 March
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (180) March
Kluge, Gary Marcus (2008) 8 April
V, Thomas Pynchon (1963) April
The Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif (2000) 23 May
Permutation City, Greg Egan (1994) 10 June
Meaning Medicine and the “Placebo Effect”, Daniel Moerman (2002) 8 June
Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman (2006) 15 June
Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon (1995) 21 June
Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, Atul Gawande (2007) 28 June
My Uncle Oswald, Roald Dahl (1979) 28 June
Sin City: Hell and Back, Frank Miller (2005) 6 July
Divided Kingdom, Rupert Thomson (2005) 18 July
Micromotives and Macrobehaviour, Thomas Schelling (1978) 15 July
Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter (1984) 25 July
Standloper, Alan Garner (1996) 17 August
Impro for Storytellers, Kieth Johnstone (1994/99) 18 August
Sight Unseen, Goodale & Milner (2004) 24 August
The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fannon (1963) 23 August
Neither Victims Nor Executioners, Albert Camus (1946) 24 August, r.
The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon (1965) 30 August
The Virago Book of Fairy Tales, Ed. Angela Carter (1990) 31 August
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1994) 7 September, r.
Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktore E. Frankl (1945/1959) 8 September
The Science of Self-Control, Howard Rachlin (2000) 18 September
Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern, John Grey (2003) 5 October
A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick (1977) 16 October, r.
Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, Ian Rowland (2002), 20 October
The Elfish Gene, Mark Barrowcliffe (2007), 25 October
Moominvalley in November, Tove Jansson (1971), 30 October
Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree, Kate Wheeler (ed., 2004), Nov
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCathy (1992), 11 December
Active Vision, Findlay & Gilchrist (2003), 28 December

39 is a lot less that Matt’s 104, but I reckon my commute is about fifty minutes less than his, and its hard to read while cycling 🙂

It’s about 50-50 fiction/non-fiction, but I reckon I spent most of the time on non-fiction since it is slower going. My top two would be ‘The Shock Doctrine’ and ‘Sight-Unseen’. A top three is too hard.