A smattering of books I've read

[jeregenest]

I read way more than I ever remember to post about. Below the cut is a bunch of books I've read so far in 2007. Its not exhaustive as it doesn't have books not obtained from the library. I should really review more.

• Intrigue : espionage and culture / Allan Hepburn.


• The Jennifer morgue / Charles Stross.


• Mathematicians in love / Rudy Rucker.


• The water room / Christopher Fowler.


• The wrestler's cruel study : a novel / Stephen Dobyns.


• Lurker in the lobby : a guide to the cinema of H.P. Lovecraft / by Andrew Migliore and John Strysik.


• Seventy-seven clocks / Christopher Fowler.


• Full dark house / Christopher Fowler.


• The terror : a novel / Dan Simmons.


• Creepers : a novel / David Morrell.


• Sex with the queen : 900 years of vile kings, virile lovers, and passionate politics / Eleanor Herman.


• A life in secrets : Vera Atkins and the missing agents of WWII / Sarah Helm.


• International Spy Museum handbook of practical spying / text by Jack Barth ; introduction by Peter Earnest ; illustrations by Steven Guarnaccia.


• Lost cosmonaut : observations of an anti-tourist / Daniel Kalder.


• Promethean ambitions : alchemy and the quest to perfect nature / William R. Newman.


• Ten second staircase / Christopher Fowler.


• Sodom and Gomorrah / Marcel Proust ; translated with an introduction and notes by John Sturrock ; general editor, Christopher Prendergast.


• Mason & Dixon / Thomas Pynchon.


• Stagger Lee / written by Derek McCulloch ; drawn by Shepherd Hendrix.


• The riddle of the compass : the invention that changed the world / Amir D. Aczel.


• Subterranean worlds : a critical anthology / edited by Peter Fitting


• Dancing in the streets : a history of collective joy / Barbara Ehrenreich.


• Hollow Earth : the long and curious history of imagining strange lands, fantastical creatures, advanced civilizations, and marvelous machines below the Earth's surface / David Standish.


• Fantastic metamorphoses, other worlds : ways of telling the self / Marina Warner.


• Up above and down below / Sue Redding.


• The areas of my expertise : a compendium of complete world knowledge compiled with instructive annotation and arranged in useful order by myself / John Hodgman.


• Conan : book of Thoth / script by Kurt Busiek and Len Wein ; art by Kelley Jones.


• American fascists : the Christian Right and the war on America / Chris Hedges.


• The robot builder's bonanza / Gordon McComb, Myke Predko.


• The stone light / Kai Meyer ; translated by Elizabeth D. Crawford.


• Shadows bend : a novel of the fantastic and unspeakable / David Barbour and Richard Raleigh.


• Thunderstruck / Erik Larson.


• Unknown quantity : a real and imaginary history of algebra / John Derbyshire.


• Ink : the book of all hours / Hal Duncan.


• Teranesia : a novel / by Greg Egan.


• Triumph of the thriller : how cops, crooks, and cannibals captured popular fiction

Comments

[gbsteve.livejournal.com]

How did you enjoy the matchless pair Bryant and May?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed those books by Fowler. Quite fun. I found the mixture of mystery (ala Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie), police procedural, horror, history and suspense more than enough to satisfy me. I also like how the first book deals with their frist and last case and everything else fills in their long and weird career.

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

Hey you lent me a book back a bit about that wierd upstate New York town and pagan gods. That was a really good book. Thank you.

Got any more suggestions?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth Hand's BlackLight. I'd definitely recommend anything by Elizabeth Hand. I have a few books in the getting rid of pile you might enjoy.

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

Save 'em for me and I will take 'em off you hands.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

SDean Russell Perfect Circle comes to mind.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Promethean ambitions : alchemy and the quest to perfect nature / William R. Newman.

How was this? It sounds fascinating, but I haven't been able to turn up much in the way of detailed reviews.

Hollow Earth : the long and curious history of imagining strange lands, fantastical creatures, advanced civilizations, and marvelous machines below the Earth's surface / David Standish.

This one also sounds interesting, what did you think of it?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I liked it. You probably won't learn a lot about the theory or practicve of alchemy, but the whole art vs nature arguement is well done and rewarding to read. I'm drawing on it heavily for my trans-human game I'm working on for solo play with my wife.

I wasn't that impressed with Hollow Earth.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, a book about occultism that informs transhumanism - yes, that's definitely a book I need :)

[mytholder.livejournal.com]

Ink : the book of all hours / Hal Duncan.

Any good? I keep seeing it in bookstores.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it, it really worked nicely with the first book Vellum.