Date	Title	Author	Thoughts
04/11/07	Reading Like a Writer	Franic Prose	How convenient is it to be an author with a last name of Prose? Anyway, I enjoyed this book. I should slow down and read a little closer to help my own writings. I think I do decent on details, all though I probably still don't think enough about them. All the chapters were interesting but I think the ones on gesture and dialogue will probably help me the most in the short term. She also has a fine list of books that should be read (as a reading writer). Perhaps I'll tackle a few of the most interesting sounding ones.
04/02/07	The Sea Shell Collector	Anthony Doerr	This is a collection of short stories given to me by Nate and Courtney for my birthday. I once told Nate that one of my favorite short stories was "The Caretaker"; he dutifully remember that detail and found a collection of the author's work for me. Anthony was twenty-nine when this set of stories was published a few years ago and I can't help but feel a hint of jealousy at his fantastic prose. His stuff is seriously so great. I loved every story, even had Robyn read "The Caretaker" out loud so I could hear it again and she could experience it as well. The last story "Mkondo" might be my other favorite. It's hard to pick and choose between all the goodness but if I had to "Mkondo" would sit there with "The Caretaker".
03/21/07	The Worst Hard Times	Timothy Eggan	This was a bookclub book picked by Alex. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It is a good example of how humans are quite capable of changing our environment in profound ways. While the story was tragic I found myself wishing I could see one of these giant sand storms, feel their power, watch the static electricity dance across barbed-wire fence, and then return home safely. :) I was also surprised to realize that I'd never heard about this event. Somehow I made it through 12 years of public education (plus four years of college) without knowing about this massive falling apart of the Dust Bowl. It didn't happen that long ago (1930s) so it's not like we could have truly forgotten about it already. My best guess is the details got lost in the stock market crash and the great wars that played out around it.
03/11/07	Road to the Patriarch	R.A. Salvatore	Jason gave this to me for my birthday; I had no intention of reading it right away but I read the first couple of pages (because it was there) and couldn't put it down.
In Progress	Parting the Waters	Taylor Branch	A (giant) book dealing with America during Martin Luther King Junior's life time. It looks to be highly informative and interesting, but a terribly slow read.
01/12/07	If You Want to Write	Brenda Ueland	Another book on writing. This one was less technique oriented and was more like having a personal cheerleader who wanted you to really grasp the intangibles. It was much more inspiring than The Art of Fiction. She convinced me everyone should write, not just those aiming to be published.
01/08/07	Winterdance	Gary Paulsen	This was about a guy who decided to run the Iditarod. It inspired me to do this. The writing I didn't much like but the stories kept me turning the pages. One thing I was particularly disappointed about was how Gary kept saying he became "us" or "we" (as in he became one with the dogs), but we learn very little about the individual dogs on his team. We hear a bit about two, his lead dog Cookie and his crazy dog Devil, but the rest aren't brought to life. By the end I felt like it was about "Gary" not the team. That being said, I've already recommended the book to someone else.
01/05/07	Heart of the Matter	Graham Greene	This is probably my favorite book club book so far. Greene has a lot of sentences and paragraphs that I felt accurately and succinctly describe the human experience. Scobie at first reminded me of myself but near the end I couldn't really understand him and how he kept letting things spiral out of control.
12/30/06	The Art of Fiction	Garner	Very good book for technique and style. Dude is no nonsense, makes me afraid to even try to write. I'd like to read one of his stories to see if they're as good as he makes himself sound.
12/10/06	Tropic of Orange	Karen Tei Yamashita	Another book club book. I wasn't huge on the story but I liked the characters. I kept reading just to see what would happen to the characters, to see them move about the story, but really didn't care where they went as long as they went somewhere. I had a hard time imagining the author writing some of the things in the book (like all the Mexican gangsta slang) but in the end I think I was the only one who even remotely enjoyed this book; it's funny because everyone else didn't like the book because of the characters.
11/23/06	Written on the Body	Jeanette Winterson	I kept having the impression that I'd read this book before. I'm still not sure I have, but the ending seemed so familiar. Regardless it was a good read. Love is such an interesting and complicated emotion.
11/10/06	Promise of the Witch-King	R.A. Salvatore	I needed a break from the heavy. I enjoyed this immensely. Realized about half way through that it is actually the second book in a trilogy and that I haven't read the first book yet. Luckily I knew the characters well enough that it didn't matter. I've gone back and purchased the first book; I'll read it soon.
11/05/06	For Whom the Bell Tolls	Earnest Hemingway	Heavy stuff. Love, love, love his writing. Loved the story. Probably one of my favorite books now. I especially liked his descriptions of sex--a whirl of emotions, feelings, and illogic.
10/29/06	Night and Day	Virginia Woolf	I'd never read her before. I love her language and her ability to describe feelings. The relationships were a little weird (which I'm sure she did on purpose) and at the end of the book I felt like I could feel her wrapping a ribbon around it and putting it in the mail. Lovely and pleasant all the same.
10/20/06	The Seagull	Anton Chekhov	Bookclub book, or play actually. It was good enough, very short, not sure what all the fuss is about.
09/20/06	The Future of Life	E.O. Wilson	I was expecting great informative things from this book, but it ended up feeling more like compilation of many things I'd already learned from a variety of sources. I was hoping for more solutions as well, but in the end all he really said was, "give money to Seirra Club." Another bookclub book.
08/27/06	The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana	Umberto Eco	Blog Entry
07/30/06	As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner	Blog Entry
06/12/06	Native American Testimony	Peter Nabokov (Editor)	I don't have much on my bookshelf I feel like reading and I've had an urge to pick something up about Native American history, to get at my roots. I think I may have found this book in a box of books someone had thrown out, I'm just like my father. It's an anthology of stories written by Native Americans. I didn't learn too much new, a little history, but mainly it was just some what depressing. Early Americans, even the greats like Washington and Jefferson real didn't treat these people right. It's so hard to understand the mentality of the time. I suppose if I were born back then I would have got all caught up in manifest destiny and ran the Indians of the land I wanted as well. It's sad either way, especially the stories about killing children and babies. We have a long history of violence, I hope someday we'll all be able to overcome it.
06/02/06	Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	Stevenson	I never realized how short this story was. I enjoyed it much more than reading Frankenstien, since the story was so short there wasn't really anytime for it to stop and ponder the roses or any other arbitrary thing the characters ran across. Again, I didn't find this story nearly as scary as Dracula. I think it's one of those stories that if I hadn't known before hand how it went it would be so much more interesting. Common knowledge of the general story line stole some of it's potential glory. I bought a book a while back that had Dracula, Frankenstien and this one in it, of the three I was least interested in reading this story, but as it turns out I'd rank it number two.
05/30/06	Frankenstien	Mary Shelley	Dracula was a much scarier and this story did a lot of navel gazing. I found myself often wishing the story would just move on. Goat from Swab wondered out-load if the monster in the story was a physical monster or a mental manifestation Dr. Frankenstien. I'm quiet certain it was written with a physical entity in mind, since the sailor sees the monster near the end of the story. This also was a book club book, picked by Wayne.
05/20/2006	Enterprise Java Beans 3	Billy	Looking at a new persistence mechanism at work. We're putting EJB 3 and the new Java persistence API against spring and hibernate. This particular book was the only one I could find dedicated to EJB 3 and was decent, but unfortunately most of it's examples assumed you were using JBoss (but I was using Glassfish). In the end I think we'll probably go with Hibernate and Spring.
In Progress	Exposure		Learning some more good stuff about photography. This book has helped me understand some of the mechanics of how the camera uses light as well as proper settings and exposures for different "difficult" scenarios.
05/15/2006	Marathon	Jeffery Galloway	I'm going to run this years San Francisco Marathon. Patrick let me borrow this book. Mr. Galloway is a big fan of the run-walk technique, but the book has also helped my train and adjust (slightly) my diet for the race. The marathon is July 30th.
05/09/2006	The Man in The High Castle	P.K Dick	Book club book that I didn't enjoy too much until we had our discussion about it. Still not my favorite book in the world but the reflective nature of it was interesting and it covered a lot of different ideas. However it was another book where I was left wondering what the point was exactly when I got to the end.
04/22/2006	The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay	Michael Chabon	This book has been on my wish list for a while, Thanks Wayne. Even at 600+ pages I went through it fairly quick (for me). There was some great story telling in it and the characters were interesting as well. Having collected comics as a kid the book instilled a feeling of nostalgia. My one complaint is that Sammy being gay felt contrived. Not sure why, but it felt out of place in the story. Not that I didn't believe Sammy could be gay, but, I don't know, I can't put my finger on it. Regardless, I'd recommend the book to anyone, even those who aren't big fans of comics.
04/15/2006	Digital Photography Boot Camp	Kevin Kubota	Helping Robyn with the business requires knowing the industry/business better. There was good info in here, but the section on workflow was so specific to the software that he uses (and that we don't) that it wasn't terribly useful.
04/05/2006	The Confessions of Max Trivoli	Andrew Sean Greer	I have a love-hate relationship with this book, or maybe hate is too strong a word--a love-dislike relationship. The writing and use of words kept me engaged and wanting to read more and more. But at the same time the author seemed to be overly interested in showing how many big words he knew, which is fine I suppose but it took away from the story some what. But the bigger problem I had was how every important event in Max's life was surrounded by some incredible event in his immediate environment, as if to say, "hey take note of this, it's important." I also felt that too often something symbolic would happen and the author would point out the symbolism, I didn't get to figure any of it out. On the other hand, I think I love Alice, or the idea of Alice, or the idea of something you love but can just never have, which in turn made me love Alice. And Max, the little monster, is a character who physically I have nothing in common with but who I felt a deep connection with. The relationship between him and Alice felt more real than other relationships I've read about. And like I said earlier, I couldn't put the book down.
03/27/2006	Wise Blood	Flanery O'Conner	Not sure I fully understand this book. It was recommended by Dustin and Jed so I picked it for bookclub. It's possible I think there is more going on than what really is. It was a bizzare story and I don't know how I feel about it. I'll probably miss book club but hopefully others have gotten more out of it than I did.
03/22/2006	Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln	Doris Kearns Goodwin	I'm left longing for days past and leaders from our Golden Age. I'm also inspired by the words of these great men. They push me to be better educate myself. The book deserves further discussion, but I'm not sure if I'll ever get to that.
In Progress	Core Security Patterns	Christopher Steel, Ramesh Nagappan, Ray Lai	After reading it a little bit and looking ahead I was able to spoof a user on our website. I say it's worth the price of admission.
02/13/2006	Code Generation In Action	Jack Herrington	This was a decent read. However, I'm far enough along in my own code generators that I didn't learn much from the book that I hadn't already found out firsthand. Mostly it reaffirmed things I already knew and gave a couple of useful pointers for structuring generators.
02/05/2006	Rapid J2EE Development	Alan Monnox	This book covered a little material in very little space. That being the case most everything was covered at a superficial level. But some of the topics I don't have much experience with so even a superficial level was a good level for me. I'll have to consider the advantages of AOP a little more and have a second look at Eclipse, or at least look into become more proficient with a some other debugger. I also was able to pick up some hints on better ways to structure my code generation projects and pointers on some functionality in Ant that I haven't been taking advantage of.
02/21/2006	Long Walk to Freedom	Nelson Mandela	This book took almost exactly two months to finish. Mandela left me with a lot to think about. His commitment to his cause and the organization that was leading the way was monumental. He has an uncanny ability to put aside his belief of what is best and submit to the will of an organization. I'm sure this could only be done to a point, but he had knack for realizing when it was the best course of action. I felt more inspired after reading Martin Luther King Jr.'s book but I wonder if that's due to my heritage. My biggest complaint is Mandela's writing style. Martin Luther King Jr. seemed poetic at all times while Mandela flirted with genius in various passages and speeches.
12/21/2005	The Red Badge of Courage	Stephen Crane	This one has been on my wish list for some time (thank you Robert for hooking me up). I recall reading it in High School and being somewhat impressed. I know that doesn't sound like much, but I was hardly ever impressed with anything I read in high school. The book was easy to read but felt like it was geared toward a younger audience. It's not clear to me if the overall message is "to be brave is good," "to be afraid is not the worst thing in the world" or "war is bad."
12/13/2005	The Selfish Gene	Richard Dawkins	This book required some very close reading and rereading. There are so many details to understand and so many assumptions about evolution one has to discard in order to fully appreciate what Dawkins is saying. While reading the book I felt much of it made sense but feared that my old understanding of Evolution would probably creep back. I'm not sure how to dislodge the old to make room for the new. Dawkins spent a lot of time on ESS (evolutionary stable strategies) when talking about why certain types of genes are more likely to be found in nature. I agreed with most of his analysis of competing strategies, but I was left to wonder for many of the scenarios if it would be better for the players if they could find a way not to depend on any other animal? For instance, he talked about how monkeys pick lice out of each other's heads. The ESS was a non selfish strategy that would pick lice out of other monkeys' heads in hopes that the other monkeys would do the same. But why not just develop an appendage that could pick the lice out of your own head, or skin that doesn't care about lice. There obviously must be a reason because monkey have developed communal lice picking, but I'm still curious why self sufficiency never caught hold in natural selection.
11/2/2005	The Life of God (as Told by Himself)	Franco Ferrucci	It's been awhile since I've devoured a book like I did this one. The odd part is I can't exactly place what I loved so much about it. I was swept away by the story, at times I felt like crying and others like... living. It was beautiful and sad, covered in darkness and illuminating a the same time. A celebration of life, warts and all.
10/25/2005	The Gospel in Brief	Leo Tolstoy	Blog Entry
10/19/2005	The Third Chimpanzee	Jared Diamond	I'd put this book off while doing my racing research but finally couldn't hold out any longer. It was decent, but not as good as I was hoping. It's obviously the basis of Guns, Germs and Steel and I suspect also for Collapse. A few of the chapters were just condensed versions of those books. None-the-less lots of interesting studies and facts in it.
In Progress	The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving	Niki Lauda	This book is well written and very interesting. (Un)fortunately it's convinced me that the life of a race car driver isn't for me.
9/10/2005	Going Faster	Skip Barber	I much more thorough look at everything a driver is doing or should be doing behind a wheel and preparing for a race. Packed full of useful knowledge.
8/29/2005	Speed Secrets 2	Ross Bentley	Similar as the first speed secrets but with a little more advanced reader in mind.
8/21/2005	Inner Speed Secrets	Ross Bentley	Not so much about racing. It was more about how to learn to learn. Tips on becoming focused and more aware.
In Progress	Drive to Win	Carroll Smith	A good book for learning the racing business. It covers everything from driving, car handling, marketing and sponsorships.
8/11/2005	Speed Secrets	Ross Bentley	This book has been helpful in learning racing techniques. I'm rereading it to memorize all the important details.
08/05/2005	Democracy in America Vol I	Alexis De Tocqueville	This book caused me to reevaluate a lot of American government and politics that I've taken for granted. Many of his insights and predictions have come true over the years. It's a great enlightening read. He also missed the boat on a couple points, but for now I don't have enough time to go into great detail. Blog Entry.
In Progress	Killer Video Games in Java		A decent book so far. The first little bit is really dealing with the fundamentals like loading images and sounds. This book is on hold while reading about racing.
06/20/2005	Love in the Time of Cholera	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	This book was hard to get into at first. Then about 60 pages in I really started to like it but near the end I began to think, "don't let them hook up, don't let them hook up." And then they hooked up. The story was interesting but I'm not sure I quite got why it's considered a great love story. The great lover who claimed to save himself for his one true love spent most of his life having sex with women. He was no woman hater but he didn't seem like that great of a lover either. Also of interest was how much less South American this book felt than Nostromo even though it was written by a South American. Often times in this story I thought the events were taking place in Europe or the United States. I wonder how much of that was related to the author vs the translator.
06/01/2005	The Horse and His Boy	C.S. Lewis	Continued with the heavy handedness. Also it was interesting how the middle eastern culture was used as the bases for the magical, the bizarre and the cruel
05/21/2005	The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe	C.S. Lewis	Better than the first one, but the allusions to Christ and God were a bit heavy handed. I didn't recall from my childhood how much these stories were stock full of Christian mythology.
05/12/2005	The Magician's Nephew	C.S. Lewis	A good children's story. It kept me engaged well enough.
05/07/2005	Nostromo	Joseph Conrad	I haven't read any books outside of writing books. It's good now to get back to doing some fun reading. I'm trying to pay more attention to style and how Conrad writes, but often find myself engrossed in the story itself. So far I really like this one. I love the characters but often get tired of the scenery descriptions. I picked this one up because one of the other books I read said this was Conrad's best, I think it may have been "The Coming Anarchy".
04/10/2005	Elements of Style	William Strunk Jr., et al	This one had a similar form to "Woe Is I" but it felt a little more stuffy and assumed I was already a well versed writer. This would be a good one for someone in college who is already doing a lot of writing.
03/27/2005	Woe Is I	Patricia T. O'Conner	This was the best writing book I read so far. She didn't get deep into defining complicated grammatical terms and she also didn't assume I knew what any of those complicated terms were. I'd recommend this one to any beginner.
03/15/2005	On Writing Well	William Zinsser	This one actually focused on writing nonfiction but the style guide and grammar parts apply to fiction as well. The guy seemed a little too stuck up for my taste, but I'm sure it helps him be a better writer.
03/01/2005	Complete Idiots Guide to Writing Well	Laurie Rozakis	It was Okay. I got it used and needed to start reading something about writing. The other books I read later were definitely better.
02/13/2005	Farenheit 451	Ray Bradbarry	Felt like a cross between 1984 and A Canticle for Leibowitz. Didn't quite put the fear of God in me like 1984 did but it was well written and engaging enough to make me read it in two days time.
02/09/2005	The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat	Oliver Sacks	This is a bookclub book I enjoyed more than I thought I would. He talks about a bunch of different real stories about people with disabilities. It's not so much a book about disabilities but about people.
01/25/2005	The Road to Wealth	Robert G. Allen	Makes me want to try it but it probably wouldn't work in San Francisco with the highest prices and sellers market.
In Progress	Bach, Escher, Godel	Need to look it up	Very interesting, had to take a break to read a little bit about buying a home.
12/06/2004	The Two Swords	R.A. Salvatore	The story was really good but I didn't feel fulfilled at the end. The main fight between Drizzt and the Orc King wasn't as good as I thought it would be and ended with no resolution. I felt the Orc should have died at the end of the trilogy, because outside of his size he's not that interesting of a character like Artemis was.
12/30/2004	The Professor and the Madman	Simon Winchester	The author seemed to want to flaunt his vocabulary a little too much, but other than that it was good. I learned a lot of interesting facts, not only about the Oxford English Dictionary (OED for those in the know), but also about a bunch of random words and literary events in relatively modern history.
12/20/2004	Artificial Intelligence for Video Game Engines	Don't Know at the moment	This was a good read. I skipped a couple sections that weren't pertinent to my short term goals so I was able to get through it reasonably quick. The best parts were probably the chapters that dealt with individual techniques such as state machines, genetic algorithms and fuzzy state machines.
12/01/2004	The Blade and the Chalice	Riane Eisler	It's hard to tell with history books who's right and who's missing facts. The book was good none the less and had me thinking about my religion and how it impacts others (especially women). The is room for growth for myself and Mormonism as an organization. One thing I didn't like so much was that the book seemed to imply that a society with no dedication to warfare (including defense) was the best possible type. I have to disagree though, those who are caught unprepared won't be around long. I think a society has to recognize that or pay the price of being taken over by a more war like society.
In progress	The 9/11 Commission Report	National Commission on terrorist attacks	The history in the book is most interesting. Unfortunately it feels like it's taken forever to read. It's hard to continue now that the election is over.
11/15/2004	David Copperfield	Charles Dickens	This was an interesting story but at the end all of the characters in the book were like, "that David Copperfield he's a great man, etc, etc." But I don't recall ever thinking that myself as I read the story. It seems like either the book wasn't really so much about Copperfield but about all the other characters or Dickens just didn't do a good job at creating the feeling of greatness in me and had to resort to having the other characters say how great Copperfield was.
10/25/2004	Elminster, The Making of a Mage	Ed Greenwood	I need a quick easy read. Not as good as most other D&D books I've read but still entertaining. I thought Elminster would have been cooler but he was always protected by the goddess and she was always saving him. Not so exciting.
10/12/2004	The Price of Loyalty	Ron Suskind	This was a highly interesting look into the inner workings of the Bush administration. But I found a few contradictions in the book and the author seemed to be worshiping the ground that Paul O'Neill walked on. I read it with a feeling like it couldn't be completely trusted.
09/28/2004	The Unbearable Lightness of Being	Milan Kundera	This is suppose to be a book club book but as of yet book club hasn't happened. It was a good book. I enjoyed the characters even though they weren't overly likeable, there still seemed to be something noble about them. The language was nice as well.
Sep. 2004	Uncle Tom's Cabin	Harriet Beecher Stowe	This was a great book that for some reason took me a long time to finish. Maybe it was too sad at times to read a lot of. It made me think a lot about who I am and how lucky I am to not have been a part of the ugliness of slavery in America.
Aug. 2004	The Odyssey	Homer	The story was well told. I couldn't identify much with the people. It was such a different time. They seemed to think that a hero was someone who was good at killing people, the more the better. I felt I needed to add it to my list of read books since it is a classic.
July 2004	A Traveler's History of Turkey	Richard Stoneman	The book wasn't great but it was only 200 pages and gave a brief overview of Turkey's history. I didn't want to be just another dumb tourist out there so I thought I'd do some research.
June 2004	The Art of War	Sun Tzu	It appears that much of wars strategy was simply common sense. This is another book I was reading to get ideas for my story.
June 2004	Return of the King	J.R.R. Tolkien	I didn't like this one as much. Maybe it was because I'd seen the movie recently so I felt like the story was just too fresh in my mind to be trying to go over it yet again. I still don't like Frodo as much as Bilbo.
May 2004	Guns, Germs, and Steel	Jared Diamon	Even if I didn't agree with everything he said it was still a good read and nice overview of world history. The book covered a lot of different sciences and ideas so I started to wonder how accurate or knowledgeable the author could be in all those areas. Quite a piece of work none the less.
May 2004	Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov	I listened to one album while I read this story so now I have a sound track to the book. It's weird, I can't listen to that album without thinking about Lolita. We tried to do a swab book club but it didn't quite turn out.
April 2004	Edda	Snorri Sturluson	It appears that a lot of Norse mythology was used in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It was nice to read the mythologies of cultures other than Greece and Egypt.
April 2004	The Cave	Jose Saramgo	I really didn't like the ending of this book. But I liked the dog and a lot of imagery in the beginning. I still often have pictures of the story in my head. Not sure why they have stuck with me so much.
March 2003	The Metamorphosis	Franz Kafka	I'd read this story before but was much more moved by it this time through. I felt so bad for the bug.
March 2004	Savage Inequalities	Jonathan Kozol	This was a book I read an article out of for a class once before and Robyn was reading stuff out of it for one of her classes. I thought it was actually something else when I picked it up but decided I'd go ahead and read it any way. While the author at times doesn't make sense and seems to be stretching the truth as well he's doing it for a good cause and the book has convinced me that I need to do something/anything to help those who are being jacked by our system, especially the children.
March 2004	Catfish and Mandala	Andrew X. Pham	Story about a guy who rode his bike across Vietnam. It was interesting but not my type of story exactly.
Feb. 2004	The Twin Towers	J.R.R. Tolkien	Still good. I'm having an easier type keeping track of the characters this time through. I remember when I was a kid I always got confused one who the white wizard was vs who the evil eye was.
Feb. 2004	Fellowship of the Ring	J.R.R Tolkien	Reading these again since Tolkien is the best. They're much better than I remember.
Jan. 2004	The Hobbit	J.R.R Tolkien	This one always was my favorite and it still is
Jan. 2004	The Lone Drow	R.A Salvatore	Another great Drizzt book. He can do no wrong. Reading the "about the author" section inspired me to try my hand at writing a fantasy story
Jan. 2004	Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling	Ross King	This was a good read of both world history and art history (which I know nothing about). The book was written much like a story and made it easy to read. Now I understand why the chapel's ceiling is considered so amazing.
Dec 2003	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	Ken Kesey	This was really good. It made me feel good during the story and was such a downer at the end. I think I might have a glimpse of what it's like to be crazy. Chief was such a great character.
2003	The Procedure	Harry Mulisch
2003	Dracula	Bram Stroker	It was Halloween time and it seemed appropriate reading. Stroker did a marvelous job setting the tone of the story by simply describing the surroundings. Everything was grey or black, cold and frightening.
2003	East of Eden	John Steinbeck	Loved this book. I want to read it again before I become a father
2003	Civil Disobedience	Henry David Theoreau	This essay gave me the desire and a bit of courage to stand up for what is right, even when it isn't the easiest path. I love the passage where he is sitting in jail and his friend asks what he is doing in there and Theoreau is equally disturbed that his friend is not in jail with him.
2003	night	Elie Wiesel	I'm not big on the historic stories that are depressing but I'm glad I read this one. I can only imagine what results this war had on so many of God's chosen people.
2003	Slaughter House-Five	Kurt Vonnegut
2003	Pygmalion	George Bernard Shaw
2003	The Annotated Chronicles	Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman
2003	The Woman Warrior	Maxine Hong Kingston
2003	Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress	Dai Sijie
2003	The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck
2003	Slapstick	Kurt Vonnegut
2003	Anthem	Ayn Rand	If you're going to read one Ayn Rand book, please don't make it this one (Nate).
2003	Siddhartha	Hermann Hessee
2003	Demian	Hermann hesse
2003	The Stranger	Albert Camus
2003	The Alchemist	Paulo Coelho	It's not often that I come across such an uplifting and positive story. I loved the fable-like manner the book was written in and I felt like I could concur the world after reading it.
2003	The Crying of Lot 49	Thomas Pynchon
2003	The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus	Christopher Marlowe
2003	Egmont	Johann Wolfgang
2003	Faust: A Tragedy I & II	Johann Wolfgang
2003	The Jew in the Lotus	Rodger Kamenetz
2003	Buddha	Karen Armstrong
2003	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance	Robert M. Pirsig	I don't know if it was the desired effect but this book made me want to go on a road trip. Maybe the philosophy that was being preached is integrally tied to a life style that would enjoy road trips--the open air, the earth passing by you and beauty at every turn. I don't agree with a lot of the philosophy on a intellectual level but it did successfully put me in a very particular state of mind.
2003	Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism	Ananda K. Commaraswamy
2003	Culture Jam	Kalle Lasan
2003	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcie Marquez
2003	A Canticle for Leibowitz	Walter M. Miller Jr.
2003	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	Not so scary.
2003	The Richest Man In Babylon	George S. Clason
2003	The Thousand Orcs	R.A. Salvatore
2003	Rasputin The Holy Devil	Rene Fulop-Miller
2002	The Sun Also Rises	Ernest Hemingway
2002	Lord of the Flies	William Golding
2002	Watership Down	Richard Adams
2002	A Tale of Two Cities	Charles Dickens	One of my all time favorite stories. I love it for much the same reason I love "The Last of the Mohicans"--there are so many different types of Love in the story, it makes you want to burst.
2002	Animal Farm	George Orwell
2002	1984	George Orwell	Awesome!
2002	My Antonia	Will Cather
2002	Einstein a life	Dennis Brian
2002	The Coming Anarchy	Robert D. Kaplan
2002	The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.	Clayborne Carson	I Think this should be required reading in high school.
2002	Lincoln's Virtues	William Lee Miller
2002	Angela's Ashes	Need to check	I still have strong visual imagery of this story even though I don't recall much about the events that took place in it. Like the kid living in a home where the whole bottom floor would flood and the family would have to just stay up stairs.
2002	The Founding Brothers	Joseph J. Ellis
2002	High Fidelity	Nick Hornby	Borrowed from Nate and Courtney
2002	Survivor	Chuck Palahniuk	Borrowed from Nate and Courtney
2002	To Kill A Mockingbird	Harper Lee	Want to read again before becoming a father
2002	The Apology	Plato
2002	Phaedo	Plato
2002	Crito of Plato	Plato
2002	The Fruits of Solitude	William Penn
2002	The Journal of John Woolman	John Woolman	He was a quaker.
2002	I Know This Much is True	Wally Lamb	The first book I read that made me cry.
2002	The Screwtape Letters	C.S. Lewis
2002	Mere Christianity	C.S. Lewis
2002	Catcher in the Rye		I forgot to put this book on my list until Nov 2005. I was sitting on the train and the woman next to me pulled out a book. I looked to see what it was but all I could see was a blank back cover and my mind was instantlly thinking about Catcher in the Rye. A few moments later I looked over toward her and saw the front of the book, it was indeed Catcher in the Rye.
2002	Snow Falling on Cedar	David Guterson	Picked it up while hanging out at the airport. My first modern fiction book.
2002	Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin	Benjamin Franklin	I was very impressed with how much Benjamin Franklin did as one of the founders of this country. He created a variety of civic institutes and served his country both at home and abroad. His attempt at perfecting virtues also stands brightly in my memory. I liked what he said about humility, something to the effect of "I found pretending to be humble served me very well."
In the past	Queen of the Damned	Ann Rice
In the past	Lestaht	Ann Rice
In the past	Interview with a Vampire	Ann Rice
In the past	Mehmnoc the Devil	Ann Rice	I read this series out of order starting with, what was at the time, the last book. I fell in love with the book and would like to read it again. It was good enough that I had to go back and read the rest of the books (which I didn't find quite as interesting, but decent enough). There is an important lesson in the story that may or may not be true about God but is pretty much always the case in world history: the victor in a battle isn't always who is "right," but who is more powerful. I've kept this idea with me for quite sometime, and, with the recent struggles my country has faced, this message has surfaced again in my thoughts.
In the past	Atlas Shrugged	Ayn Rand	This would be an excellent book if The Fountainhead didn't exists. Unfortunately it delivers the same message by using twice as many words as The Fountainhead. I found that half way through I began to frequently ask myself, "did she already make this point." I believe that Ayn Rand probably felt the point was worth making multiple times and maybe for some the point isn't as clear so it bares repeating, but I found it monotonous.
In the past	We the Living	Ayn Rand	A powerful book that did more to make me dislike the idea of communism than any governmental propaganda I've been inundated with. It also left me with a distaste for socialism as well. I've found my stance on aspects of socialism have relaxed over the years but I'm still weary of it's long term results.
In the past	The Fountainhead	Ayn Rand	Most of my philosophical ideas found voice in this book. Over the years I've grown much and expanded/altered the philosophy to suit myself better.

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