2003 Reading Record Comments
  I start a Civil War reading kick. For even more information click the title or the book image for links to Amazon.
Page Count Grade 0-9 Date I finished Source (FPL Fargo Public Library)
Da Capo Da Capo
Best Music Writing Of 2002
by: Lethem, Johathan An interesting book. None of the peices were great, but the writing was good. Part of the problem was the artist the writers wrote about. Other than two short pieces about Joey Ramone's death, I didn't care much about any of the artists. 341 pages 5.0 1/11/03 Craig
Heal Your Headaches Heal Your Headaches
by: Buchholz MD, David I wish I had this book back in the mid 1980s. I'm not sure I would have followed it's advice but if I had it would have relived a lot of suffering. I knew from hard experience a lot of the advice in this book. Most doctors don't seem to know much about headaches. I like the idea - that all headaches are the same- there are not different types. This makes sense to me. 231 pages 6.0 1/17/03 Craig
Years Of Rice And Salt, The Years Of Rice And Salt, The
by: Robinson, Kim Stanley The stories were pretty good. Each book dealt with a group of people who got reincarnated together in an alternative Earth were all the Christians got killed by the plagues around 1000 AD. 658 pages 7.1 1/18/03 FPL
Gods And Generals Gods And Generals
by: Shaara, Jeff Almost as good as his father's "Killer Angels". This is the prequel to that book. 498 pages 7.2 1/27/03 Suzanne
Harrison Harrison
by: Rolling Stone I nice tribute to the man in words and pictures. I did think it could have gone into a little more detail especial the discography. 237 pages 5.7 1/31/03 FPL
Red Rabbit Red Rabbit
by: Clancy, Tom It's a good book and a okay story. Clancy goes back in time with Jack Ryan to write it but again the charactors seem a little stiff. Especially as Clancy writes them. Reading Woodward's Bush book, they seem more like how Clancy should flesh out his charactors. 618 pages 6.2 2/2/03 FPL
Bush At War Bush At War
by: Woodward, Bob Suzanne asked for this for Christmas but I read it first. I'm surprised Bush gave Woodward this much access. I'm more surprised how well Woodward makes the Bush team sound. I'm equally surprised how important Condoleeza Rice is. It's a good sign that I want to read some more Woodward books. 352 pages 7.2 2/3/03 Suzanne
Songbook Songbook
by: Hornby, Nick Judy gave me this book to read. It's pretty good. (Nick wrote the book "Hi Fidelity"- which became a great movie.) He looks at a number of his favorite 'pop' songs. There is also a CD with the book that has some of the more obsure of those songs. It was a nice read but nothing eye opening. 147 pages 5.5 2/5/03 Craig
Fire Lover Fire Lover
A True Story
by: Wambaugh, Joseph A very good book, about arsonists, fire inspectors, pyschopaths, and lawyers. I swear I've heard this story on PBS somewhere. John Orr reminds me of David Ortner and in a way helped me to understand him. 338 pages 6.9 2/6/03 FPL
Wired Wired
The Short Life And Fast Times Of John Belushi
by: Woodward, Bob Sad account of Belushi's death due to drug abuse. He was a product of the times- when drugs were 'cool'. I thought Woodward had a fair account. They were all eyewittness accounts, I don't know where the charges against this book could come from. I'm guessing the truth 'in total' was so harsh the interviewees felt their accounts were twisted? 423 pages 5.0 2/16/03 FPL
War In 2020, The War In 2020, The
by: Peters, Ralph Peters name came up in Suzanne's American Heritage. I found his non fiction articles online. I found his books at the library, so picked this one up. I enjoyed it. Like Clancy but the people are fleshed out and there isn't quite the equipment fetish. (There can't be because it takes place in the future.) 434 pages 7.3 2/19/03 FPL
King Of Torts, The King Of Torts, The
by: Grisham, John It was a good book. I thought it started good then got sort of dull and finish without an adequate ending. 372 pages 6.0 2/27/03 Victor
Seaborne Deception Seaborne Deception
The History Of US Navy Beach Jumpers
by: Dwyer, John B This is how not to write a history book: dry. Considering how interesting and exciting the subject is, the book reads like a dry list of facts, dates, names and equipment specs. 132 pages 2.0 3/6/03 FPL
Butlerian Jihad, The Butlerian Jihad, The
by: Herbert, Brian and Anderson, Kevin J Great book. They wrote the book (part one of three) I thought they should write. The website (www.dunenovels.com) shows a bunch of books (sets of three) they're planning to write. 612 pages 8.5 3/6/03 FPL
Flames Of Heaven Flames Of Heaven
A Novel Of The End Of The Soviet Union
by: Peters, Ralph The story takes place with the backdrop of a slowly crumbling Soviet Union. Sasha Leskov the artist, Shirin Talala the Uzbek mafia daughter and Misha Samsonov the military hero. There are a couple of very hot erotic scenes between Sasha and Shirin. 405 pages 7.0 3/8/03 FPL
Faded Coat Of Blue Faded Coat Of Blue
by: Parry, Owen A great story and a fun read. It seems Ralph Peters research was pretty good too. 338 pages 7.2 3/15/03 FPL
Gone For Soldiers Gone For Soldiers
A Novel Of The Mexican War
by: Shaara, Jeff Ron Maas pointed out Jeff had written this fine prequel to "Gods and Generals". I'm a little fed up with the Civil War but I still have a few more books to read on the subject. It's not too hard to take when they're as interesting as this one. 424 pages 7.0 3/22/03 FPL
Anyway Anyhow Anywhere Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
The Complete Chronicle Of The Who 1958-1978
by: Neill, Andy and Kent, Matt At first I thought it was like the Concert File, but it was much better. The stopped the book with Keith's death, maybe they're going to make a sequel or maybe they like Keith a lot. It's nice to see a different batch of photos from the Maximum R&B book. I'll have to keep my eye out to find this book cheap. 301 pages 8.0 3/27/03 FPL
Maintaining Motivation Maintaining Motivation
by: Mohr, Matthew D. I picked up this book because the author in the cover photo was standing next to a Dacotah Paper Company truck. He's their CEO. Appears to me my age. Who told this guy he could write a book. It's like random ideas tossed out with one time examples to make his point. The only good part was the text was big so it only took me a few minutes to speed read through this tripe. 126 pages 0.5 3/28/03 FPL
Shadows Of Glory Shadows Of Glory
A Novel Of Historical Suspense
by: Parry, Owen In this sequel the Civil War is a backdrop to Major Jone's investigation of a possible Irish uprising in upstate New York and his run in with a beatiful but tragic girl. Not as good as the first book but still okay 311 pages 6.5 4/4/03 FPL
Dune Messiah Dune Messiah
by: Herbert, Frank Book Two of the orginal Dune Series. This is the second time I've read it. It was better than I remember it but still, it seems like it could have been so much more. I think you could write at least one long book between book one and book two. 329 pages 3.0 4/12/03 FPL
Call Each River Jordan Call Each River Jordan
by: Parry, Owen Better than book two but still not as good as book one. Major Jones solves the mystery of the Negro murder behind enemy lines. 321 pages 6.5 4/18/03 FPL
Children Of Dune Children Of Dune
by: Herbert, Frank This is the second time I've read the series. (It seems to be in two trilogies- I've only read the first, although I think I read book four.) This book was better than "Dune Messiah" but still not as good as Brian Herbert's Dune series. Frank seems to be undoing everything from "Dune" in DM and reworking the myth in CoD. This doesn't read very well. Rather than investigate the 'Dune' universe these sequels ramble on while Frank makes his point about government and religion. 408 pages 4.0 5/3/03 FPL
Da Vinci Code Da Vinci Code
by: Brown, Dan Great book, easy to read and interesting. When the action slowed down Brown would throw in some interesting tidbit which would roll around in my mind until the action picked up. The ending was weak- which I'm beginning to think is the Achilles' heel of all good/great books. As the book progressed I found myself strongly on the side of the Priory of Sion until about 2/3rds of the way into the book; when 'Robert Langdon' threatened to smash the vial holding the Holy Grail secret. I started thinking. In real life I would not care. (It's all a load of crap- either way. ha ha.) I was curious how much of the story was true so I did some looking and checked a few things. It seems to check out. 1. The Fibonacci Sequence and Phi (1.6180339887498948482) http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.golden.ratio.html 2. Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" featuring Jesus's wife Mary (see attached) 3. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (Also most of the 80+ gospels) http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm 4. Mithras (This 'god' has a club on Yahoo!) also the name of a Death Metal group ha ha. http://www.well.com/user/davidu/mithras.html 454 pages 8.0 5/7/03 Suzanne
Deception Point Deception Point
by: Brown, Dan A good book, not as good as "Da Vinci Code" but still a nice read. In the end I found myself on the 'bad guy's side' against NASA. The 'pro' side's arguements just don't cut it. 373 pages 6.0 5/18/03 FPL
Last Full Measure Last Full Measure
The
by: Shaara, Jeff The end of the civil war told through the eyes of the generals who fought it. In the book you can feel the fight leaving Lee. As Stuart gets killed and Longstreet, Hill and even Lee himself are wounded or sick. Grant on the other hand benefits from a strengthing army, a free hand from Lincoln and his 'bad' generals are replace either through early retirement or death. One point which comes across is the change of tactics from old mass concentrations of Neapolian to the trench warfare of WWI. (The musket is replaced by the shovel.) 560 pages 7.5 5/26/03 FPL
Grand Chessboard, The Grand Chessboard, The
by: Brzenzinski, Zbigniew It read like a textbook, although Z probably cut some detail to make it more readable. It wasn't easy reading but it was interesting. I don't think Chess is a good metaphor- other than each nation seems to carry a certain amount of weight like a chess piece. It seems no major country is worth much unless it's has (at least) a triangular relationship with two other major countries. This point wasn't in the book but I got it between the lines. It was interesting reading about the Turkemanstan region. 215 pages 6.5 5/29/03 FPL
When I Was A Kid, This Was Free Country When I Was A Kid, This Was Free Country
by: Liddy, G. Gordon Besides the usual rant about the errosion of freedom and liberty in America, Liddy also has some advice for love and relationships which I found amusing if not helpful. What really caught my eye was the Appendix "The Key To Watergate"- this theory of the Watergate break-in to retrieve photos of Dean's girlfriend from Maxine Well's desk and the DNC call girl tie-in is very interesting and sounds plausable. 222 pages 7.0 5/30/03 FPL
Beach House, The Beach House, The
by: Patterson, James and DeJonge, Peter It wasn't a great book but it was a fun read. The story was a little flaky but the charactors were sympathetic. Nice touch swapping point of view during various chapters. 358 pages 7.0 6/2/03 Victor
Troubleshooting Microsoft Windows Troubleshooting Microsoft Windows
by: Sagman, Stephen W It's written well, but doesn't seem to cover anything of importance, certainly not the kind of problems that hard to figure out. I did learn some additional info about the 'Start Up Folder' - that I did know, but I didn't know about Run: Msconfig: Startup and Wini.ini 335 pages 2.0 6/6/03 FPL
Digital Fortress Digital Fortress
by: Brown, Dan I think this is his first book and it's pretty good. I don't think the NSA is that advanced nor that exciting but it still made for a good story. 372 pages 7.0 6/8/03 FPL
Four Blind Mice Four Blind Mice
by: Patterson, James A good story. There were a few rocky spots including the underlining plot, but it is fiction. I don't know why the publisher makes the book so long: the text is large, with lots of spacing around the page and between the lines. Is this a post customer statisfaction thing. When done the average boob says to himself, "I finished a 400 book and it only took me two months!" Satisified, he's more inclined to buy the next $28 Patterson novel. 387 pages 6.2 6/14/03 FPL
Inside The Publishing Revolution Inside The Publishing Revolution
The Adobe Story
by: Pfiffner, Pamela The story behind the Company (Adobe) and some great programs: Postscript, Illustrator, Photoshop, Pagemaker, PDF. A nice looking book. I think it would have been better as a parallel story of Adobe and Macromedia particularly in the later years. 245 pages 6.0 6/15/03 FPL
Jester, The Jester, The
by: Patterson, James and Gross, Andrew A good story, easy to read- light summer fiction. Something makes me think he was impressed with the "DiVinci Code" so decided to quickly cash in. This one all takes place in the past, so it is different. The bad guy goes to a lot of trouble to gain a 'Christian' relic- the spear which peirced Jesus' side. Somehow I don't think committing wholesale murder is conguent with aquiring christian relics- but maybe the Duke could sell it to the King or Pope- even then how would any of them know whether it was a fake or not. 388 pages 5.5 6/17/03 Suzanne
Ending The Vietnam War Ending The Vietnam War
A History Of America's Involvement In And Extrication From The Vietnam War
by: Kissinger, Henry No matter what you think of the Vietnam War or Henry Kissinger, he writes well, marshalls his arguements well, and makes a strong case for the Nixon/Kissinger plan to end the Vietnam. I would like to see the other side. Actually I have, but they anti-war people (in my opinion) confuse 'how the war was fought' vs 'why the war was fought' - even the why is valid after 1960. This books was taken from his publish memoirs, and "Diplomacy" (which was very good). I don't think it was self serving. He only real scorn is for the US Senate. Just like in "The Bright Shining Lie" you get the feeling the US screwed how they handled Indochina from Truman to Ford. 581 pages 7.0 6/20/03 FPL
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
by: Dahl, Roald The book is a little different from the movie, but on the whole the makers of the movie stayed pretty close to the plot of the book. I got the book to see if Mike Teevee and 'Wonkavision' pre-dated the Transporter in Star Trek. Once I had the book I read it outloud to Tim and Sean. Tim lost interest imediately. Sean gradually. The best part was the interview with Dahl at the end of the book. He said Hemingway told him to alway quit writing for the day in the middle of a scene- it gives you a place to start the next day. 162 pages 6.0 6/24/03 FPL
Tricky Business Tricky Business
by: Barry, Dave This was a fun easy read; perfect for summer, outside on the swing. I like the fact he built up Lou Tarant, only to have him crash his boat before getting to the cruise ship. 320 pages 6.2 7/3/03 FPL
Map or Rediscovering Rock And Roll Map or Rediscovering Rock And Roll
A Journey, The
by: Williams, Paul This book was a kick- so much to talk about. Hornby's book was good too- so much we agree on, but Williams' book brought back 1985 into focus. It's interesting that Paul got back into Rock at that time. I would suggest that Rock peaked in 1984. The Album Charts for 1984 are incredible. It's little wonder he found himself drawn back to Rock. He makes a point about Top 40 radio. (p40) Radio was going down hill, but then came MTV and suddenly there were all these new groups: good, bad and ugly. I remember how important radio and Rolling Stone magazine were to my 'Rock Journey' p123. The Cult vs The Door, and now the ex-lead singer of the Cult is touring with "The Door's" playing Jim Morrison. p176. Some of the bands Williams talks about are interesting. Prince of course because I'm listening to a stack of Prince CDs. But Elvis Costello too. Besides being Suzanne's favorite artist of all time, "Costello is God". Elvis is also in the race for most productive artist in Rock. Although Prince has won for most songs over a career, I think Elvis won in 1979(?) when he released 3 1/2 albums worth of material- close to 100 songs- but what was most stunning is the material itself. Every song was a pop masterpiece. REM and U2 are obvious. They are both great bands who have had long successful careers. Williams talks about Translator and Tears For Fears. Translator is interesting because they went nowhere and sold no records. It kind of makes me laugh because even though they had no hit songs, I still managed to get one of their LPs. I wasn't impressed (I may have to dig it out and take a second listen.) On the other hand there were two groups who made music the equal of U2 and REM: Big Country and Tears For Fears. TFF had some measure of success and so did Big Country (in Europe). I love both of these groups. It's nice to have a couple bands that no one else knows about although it's hard on the groups. (Stuart Anderson: lead guitarist, vocalist and song writer for Big Country committed suicide after their last CD failed yet again.) p288, Williams talks about "The Hurting"; he loves it. It's a horrible sythn band whinny first LP. Roland Orbanzal quickly ditched this for a strong guitar sound that became quite popular for two LPs in TFF. p208. A great paragraph, "The audience thinks, here comes another band. The band thinks, here comes another city. And then they meet in the night and dance." p224. The Minneapolis sound: Dylan, Prince, The Replacements, Husker Du. I’ve never been a big Dylan fan. I think he's over rated. He's good, hell he might be great but he's not that great. I'm with Springsteen- it's just those LPs from 1966 that are great. Prince is great. No one else was mining the Hendrix- Sly Stone funk mine in the 80s. The 90s found him lost in the hip hop wilderness. Hanging out with Larry Graham (Sly Stone's bass player) I hope Prince finds his way home soon. The Replacements were the garage rock equivalent. They kept the flame alive in the 80s when everyone else was getting their hair styled and making videos. In the 90s Westerberg became the new James Taylor or at least leaned more and more in that direction. (Nothing wrong with Taylor he fits right into the the 70s pop/ singer/songwriter category I love.) Husker Du is the best thing to ever come out of the Twin Cities. Following Dylan's path- taking folk and adding rock and roll. Bob Mould and Grant Hart took folk and added punk's raw energy and speed. 261 pages 6.3 7/6/03 Craig
New Kind Of Science, A New Kind Of Science, A
by: Wolfram, Stephen This was a difficult book to go through. The writing was clear but the topic is difficult, which is ironic, because is subject is simple. Wolfram, who created 'Mathematica' show how the simplist computer programs can create complex output. Then he show how complexity in the 'world' could be modeled by those same simple programs; finally that he believes the solutions to most vexing problems in science my have very simple solution, but will be hart if not impossible to see from the complexity. This fits in well with what I know about Chaos Theory. 846 pages 5.7 7/7/03 FPL
Hour Before Daylight, An Hour Before Daylight, An
Memories Of A Rural Boyhood
by: Carter, Jimmy Very well written and interesting even though he did not have a very interesting boyhood. This would be a great model for anyone whating to write about their childhood. It seemed effortless, but it took seven years to write. p266 When one of the reporters remarked that Billy was a little strange, he replied, "Look: my Mama was a seventy-year old Peace Corps volunteer in India, one of my sisters goes all over the world as a holy-roller preacher, my oldest sister spends half her time on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and my bother thinks he'g going to be president of the United States. Which one of your family do you think is normal?" 273 pages 8.0 7/14/03 FPL
Fresh Styles For Web Designers Fresh Styles For Web Designers
Eye Candy From The Underground
by: Cloninger, Curt I came into the book poo-pooing this type of web page design, but as I read the book I got excited about trying some of these techniques. But when I was finished and thought about applying them to my website I realized they wouldn't work. These 'Fresh Styles' work best for websites with nothing to say or for designers. 197 pages 7.0 7/18/03 FPL
Warrior Class Warrior Class
by: Brown, Dale Something to read. The story wasn't that interesting. It doesn't help that it takes place in the near future which is now the recent past. I don't think the military works like that; they certainly don't have any buck roger weapons. 449 pages 3.0 7/23/03 FPL
Prelude To Foundation Prelude To Foundation
by: Asimov, Issac Good book. I was in the mood for some SF, I check my list of Asimov books I haven't read yet. After reading this I can see it wouldn't be bad to re-read his work again. Doing some further research, I found Issac died of AIDs, due to bad blood he recieved for his heart bypass surgery. 403 pages 7.0 7/29/03 FPL
Ugly Little Boy, The Ugly Little Boy, The
by: Asimov, Issac and Silverberg, Robert This was a short story that has been expanded. I don't see the point. I also think Asimov was dead for much of the writing. The subject of bringing back a Neaderthal boy through a time portal wasn't very interesting although the technology was almost believable. 290 pages 5.0 8/4/03 FPL
Johnny Schmidt Johnny Schmidt
Son Of A Dakota Pioneer
by: Bose, B.A. A collections of stories: farm life at the turn of the century in South Dakota. The author was writing about his life but using 'Johnny Schmidt' as a stand in for himself. It was a little distracting. I think it gives me a good feel for my Greatgrandparents and their parents. Some of the stories seem a little out of order. I wish an editor had worked this collection over a bit. It's published by the "Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, NDSU" so I supose they looked at it as untouchable. 228 pages 5.0 8/7/03 FPL
Guitar World Presents Pink Floyd Guitar World Presents Pink Floyd
by: Guitar World Magazine This book was a short collection of interviews and an overview of Pink Floyd's career. It was that good or informative, but as I'm doing some Pink Floyd recording I thought it would be a good time to read it. 122 pages 2.5 8/16/03 FPL
Foundation And Earth Foundation And Earth
by: Asimov, Isaac The last book of the Foundation series but not the last book Isaac wrote in the Foundation series. After a long dangerous search the heroes find Earth, but it's radioactive. The realize the answer is hidden on the Moon, where they find Daneel Olivaw, still alive after 20,000 years. (He's a robot)- And it seems everything Asimov ever wrote (as far as Empires, Robots, and the Foundation) is all tied together. 356 pages 6.0 8/17/03 FPL
How To Do Everything With Macromedia Flash MX How To Do Everything With Macromedia Flash MX
by: Blake, Bonnie This book assumes a lot, and yet doesn't walk you through the steps need to accomplish a given task- a least not as it's name suggests. (I don't care for those books anyway.) It was weak on the reference section and short on those hints and tips which make a how-to book great. Flash MX (which would be version 6; I have version 4) doesn't seem like that much of an improvement. Better text controls, more features, and a new script systems. (Which Bonnie says is much more complicated, but more powerful, than before- so a mixed bag.) 492 pages 5.0 8/20/03 FPL
TechTV Guide To Home Networking, Broadband, And Wireless TechTV Guide To Home Networking, Broadband, And Wireless
by: Ford, Jerry Lee This book didn't explain much. It went step by step through setting up a wireless TCP/IP network using WindowsXP and it still seemed overly complicated. I thought the security chapters were weak- but then they all were. 294 pages 2.8 8/25/03 FPL
Forward The Foundation Forward The Foundation
by: Asimov, Issac The last Foundation Book Issac wrote and the last book of the prequel to the earlier series. All that remains is the trilogy of books written by others of the Foundation series. This story was okay but then I've always prefered the Robot series to the Foundation series. 417 pages 6.0 8/29/03 FPL
Mary Called Magdalene Mary Called Magdalene
by: George, Margaret Nice story. Mary was nice. Jesus was nice. The Disciples were nice. The ending was nice. Even the Romans were nice. Judas and the Jewish elders were naughty. 630 pages 5.0 9/4/03 Suzanne
Matter Of Interpretation, A Matter Of Interpretation, A
Federal Courts And The Law
by: Scalia, Antonin I thought Scalia's writing was clear and understandable. The critics who wrote in response were all vague and sounded like they didn't understand what Scalia wrote or didn't read it at all. They were all Harvard Law professors- which explains a lot. The historian was the only good one of the bunch, at least he added something to the debate by review the role of the Judiciary vs the Legislature. 152 pages 3.2 9/6/03 FPL
Angels & Demons Angels & Demons
by: Brown, Dan I really enjoyed reading this book. I was on the reserve list for three months, as they only had one copy of the book. A prequel to "Di Vinci Code" (The best selling book this summer). The story was good, fun, exciting; even the ending was pretty good. My only complaint was flying to Switzerland in an X-33 space plane. 430 pages 8.8 9/8/03 FPL
Mississippi And The Making Of A Nation, A Mississippi And The Making Of A Nation, A
From The Louisiana Purchase To Today
by: Ambrose, Stephen and Brinkley, Douglas Not a very good history or tabletop book. The photos weren't that good, and a history written from New Orleans to Itasca doesn't make much sense. It's not very deep nor terribly interesting. It was an Official Publication of the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial which explains all: a government publication. p254: We learned the most unusual American factoids by talking to members of the St. Paul Riverfront Corporation. For example, "I cotton to you" became the 19th-century phrase that meant "I like you" because the raw cotton that was the chief cargo on the riverboats stuck to your clothes. Around such river ports as Red Wing and St. Paul, troubadours would wander around with their fiddles, playing " Shenandoah, " 'Yankee Doodle , or the like for coins. Therefore, if you didn't work, you were accused of "fiddlin' around." The "outland" was considered to be anything west of the Mississippi, and pioneers who traveled there were called " outlanders. " Their rough demeanor and buckskin clothing were thought to be "outlandish." And because steamboats used coal and wood to fire their boilers, they had tall fluted smokestacks to throw the fiery cinders behind their wooden superstructure. As the fanciest quarters on a steamboat were located on the upper deck above the malodorous animals below, the well-to-do were closest to the flutes or smokestacks and were said to be "high-falutin." 265 pages 3.0 9/11/03 FPL
How The Scots Invented The Modern World How The Scots Invented The Modern World
by: Herman, Arthur "The true story of how western Europe's poorest nation created our world and everything in it." How true. I really enjoyed reading this book and found myself agreeing with the premise. I think there are parallels with Iraq. It just takes time. p63. Politeness p276. John Hunter, dentistry Ernest Mossner: "The Life of David Hume", "Forgotten Hume" 575 pages 7.3 9/26/03 FPL
Dune- The Machine Crusade Dune- The Machine Crusade
by: Herbert, Brian and Anderson, Kevin J It took a couple chapters before I caught up with the charters from the book before. (This is book 2/3 of the second Trilogy) It was quite as good as the first book but it's still a great read and I can't wait for next years book. Like Hemingway, most of the main charactors end up dead by the final chapter. 701 pages 8.0 10/17/03 FPL
Behind Deep Blue Behind Deep Blue
Building The Computer That Defeated The World Chess Champion
by: Hsu, Feng-Hsiung I was surprised how Deep Blue came about and how little funding and support this computer got. It wasn't a big project by IBM- they mostly just sponsered the match and provided the Workstation which ran the motherboard and custom chip set Hsu build for his Thesis project. It wasn't even the primary chess computer project at Carnegie Mellon. 291 pages 7.1 10/25/03 FPL
Lazy B Lazy B
Growing Up On A Cattle Ranch In The American Southwest
by: Day O'Connor, Sandra and Day, H. Alan The stories were interesting. I enjoyed reading the book. I did think it was not written very well. It wasn't difficult. It was a tad dry. The main problem was it should have been written as a first person narrative. Sandra's editor should have helpped smooth this book out. It's almost as if you were reading a story about a television show. Still it's a good book on an interesting topic. I just expected more from a Supreme Court Justice. 318 pages 5.2 10/28/03 FPL
Hunt For Bin Laden, The Hunt For Bin Laden, The
Task Force Dagger: On The Ground With The Special Forces In Afghanistan
by: Moore, Robin Another Example of why Special Forces are better than conventional forces. More bang for the buck. This was a good read although a little red in the tooth- but that's okay. Dad grabbed it off the table and is now reading it. 334 pages 7.4 11/1/03 FPL
Prey Prey
by: Crichton, Michael It's good that people bring up problems with technology. Even my pet favorites like nanotechnology. I thought Michael would bring up grey goo, but instead comes up with a ghost like swarm of particles. This would make for a cool horror/ sci-fi movie. 363 pages 8.0 11/3/03 FPL
Designing With Web Standards Designing With Web Standards
by: Zeldman, Jeffrey A well written book about actually using CSS. Jeff is pragmatic about the standards and current browsers. He pushes using a hybrid approach. It was interesting how many of those hybrid techniques I was already using. The book could have used a 'practical' reference guide in the back, but he did say it was outside the scope of the book; he did suggest were to look 415 pages 6.4 11/7/03 FPL
Wry Martinis Wry Martinis
by: Buckley, Christopher A Collection of his magazine pieces. Some were pretty good, some were rather plain. The humor was good but a little dry like the Martinis of his title. 291 pages 6.4 12/1/03 FPL
Masterpieces Masterpieces
The Best Science Fiction Of The Century
by: Card, Orson Scott I like the newer pieces which is good, because I've read most of the authors of the golden age and am looking for new author's to tackle. 422 pages 6.0 12/3/03 FPL
Mighty Johns, The Mighty Johns, The
by: Baldacci, David This was a collection of 'Orginal Football Mysteries' featuring a Novella by Baldacci. The Mighty Johns was a fair story at best. Hardly worth building a book around. Rest of the stories were pretty good. They were by the 'best' mystery writers. However there wasn't anything mysterious about the stories. Mostly they were crime stories. Football was the key piece but it was pretty loose. Ranging from Rugby to betting pools. 316 pages 5.2 12/17/03 FPL
Strange Devices Of The Sun And Moon Strange Devices Of The Sun And Moon
by: Goldstein, Lisa A nice little tale. It takes place in Queen Elizabeth I England. Christopher Marlowe is one of the charactors. There are fairies and dragons, yet the magic dies when the white queen and red king fight a war between their people and then slip away from our plain of reality- of mere mortals. I still can't take the magic in my Sci Fi. 301 pages 4.8 12/27/03 FPL
Counting Up Counting Down Counting Up Counting Down
A Visionary Collection Of Science Fiction, Fantasy, And Alternative History Tales
by: Turtledove, Harry A surprisingly good collection of stories. I liked the title stories best. 407 pages 7.5 12/31/03 FPL
  66 Books / 24,167 Total Pages