Books of 2009
In keeping with last year and the year before, this will be a regularly updated list of the books I read this year. It's been awhile since the last one I finished (December 8), because I'd started three before finishing any one of them. But I got a lot of good ones for Christmas, so hopefully I'll get some good reading done.
Print
1) Alan Moore: Watchmen (finished 2009-01-17) Very, very good. Deals with some interesting themes I toyed with a bit in Mexico when I made some short-lived efforts to write stories. In particular, the fact that a true super"hero" (i.e. person with superpowers who wanted to do good things) would likely become pretty dehumanized, because he or she would place big picture concerns above individual people. And as much as it might intellectually make sense to kill, say, a couple million innocent people to save a couple billion, most of us would be completely unwilling to actually go through with something like that, and would see as pretty horrific anyone who did.
2) Steven Pinker: The Stuff of Thought (finished 02-08) I already wrote an entry about this book, which was excellent. There were, however, a few unquestioned conventions (and untrue conventional beliefs) he had about gender and sexuality, which bothered me even more than the couple incorrect etymological stories he gave for words, which a few seconds with the OED were sufficient to contradict.
3) Simon Singh: Fermat's Enigma (finished 02-25) Like his Code Book, this was well-written, accessible by the layperson and at the same time not dumbed down too much. Sure, he doesn't get into the real hardcore mathematics of it, but it's not a graduate-level textbook, after all.
4) Steven Pinker: Words and Rules (finished 03-19) More analytic and dense than Stuff of Thought, but also without some of the annoying problems of that book. If you are interested in how the mind works, particularly with respect to language, it's definitely something I recommend reading at some point.
5) Phil Plait: Death from the Skies! (finished 05-31; in the intervening time I also caught up on about a year and a half's worth of the SGU podcast) Excellent book, which I highly recommend. It's a very humorous and readable account of all the ways the cosmos can kill us.
6) Mike Mignola and John Byrne: Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (finished 06-22) Read this one afternoon on a day off from work. Pretty quick read, but interesting, and my roommate has quite a bit of the series if not all of it, so I'll probably continue at some point.
7) Mike Mignola: Hellboy: Wake the Devil (finished something like 06-30)
8) Terry Pratchett: Soul Music (finished 08-23) Read this one instead of listening, because the audio book had big chunks missing.
9) Steven Pinker: The Language Instinct (finished 09-14) Also excellent, but subject to a couple minor examples of problems I also had with Stuff of Thought. It took me such a long time to finish this one (which I think I started shortly after finishing Phil Plait's), because, as you can see, I proceeded to get distracted by nearly 20 audiobooks...
10) Terry Pratchett: The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (finished 10-11) Some glitchiness in this audiobook as well, so I read it the old fashioned way.
11) Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon: Preacher (finished the 9-volume series on 12-10) Really good and a bit fucked up. This is another series that Jordan has in its entirety, so I figured I'd check it out.
12) Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra: Y: The Last Man (finished 10 volumes 10-12) Also rather excellent. I have always been a fan of the post-apocalypse genre, so of course I liked that aspect of it, but the character development and social commentary and such were also good.
13) Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson: Transmetropolitan (finished the series about 12-17) Yet another series of graphic novels. The artwork in this is a lot denser, which makes it interesting because you can look at the main subject of a panel and just read the dialogue straight through, or take a much longer time to actually notice all the little things going on in the background.
Audio
1) J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (finished 06-13) As good as the book, seeing as they're the same. I liked the audio versions I listened to in Mexico, so after catching up on SGU podcasts (as well as one on the history of the Byzantine Empire), I decided this should be the first audio book I downloaded.
2) Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters (finished 06-18) Good, like other Discworld novels. Unfortunately there were bits missing from the audio version, which didn't include big chunks of plot, but did include presumably humorous dialogue. Plus the sudden shifts were rather jarring, even if I didn't miss much of great importance.
3) Terry Pratchett: Pyramids (finished 06-23) I actually read a bit of this one, because once again there was a part missing, but at least Meaux had the paper version.
4) Terry Pratchett: Guards! Guards! (finished 06-27) This one didn't even have missing bits, which was nice.
5) Terry Pratchett: Eric (finished around 06-30)
6) Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers (finished 07-09) Typical Heinlein, in that the fictional society is an odd mix of some progressive elements and 1950s sensibilities. This one also includes the oft-criticized militaristic social structure, though I don't think that's any worse than a number of other futuristic scenarios. Heinlein himself does seem more in favor of it than other authors are of their fictional governments, however.
7) Terry Pratchett: Moving Pictures (finished 07-10) Probably don't need to say Pratchett is good every book I finish...
8) Terry Pratchett: Reaper Man (finished 07-16)
9) Terry Pratchett: Witches Abroad (finished 07-21)
The audio book I have for Small Gods is abridged, which I don't like, so I decided to skip it until I can read the whole thing.
10) Terry Pratchett: Lords and Ladies (finished 08-05 or so)
11) Terry Pratchett: Men at Arms (finished 08-10)
12) Terry Pratchett: Interesting Times (finished 08-15)
13) Terry Pratchett: Maskerade (finished 08-18 or 19)
14) Terry Pratchett: Feet of Clay (finished 08-22 maybe?)
15) Terry Pratchett: The Hogfather (finished 08-31)
16) Terry Pratchett: Jingo (finished 09-04)
17) Terry Pratchett: The Lost Continent (finished 09-10) I suspect much of this wouldn't have made sense if I hadn't been to Australia before. But since I have, it's possibly one of the funniest one I've listened to lately.
18) Terry Pratchett: Carpe Jugulum (finished 09-16) I'm pretty sure the witches are my favorite set of characters of the whole series, with the possible exception of a few members of the Watch. Granny Weatherwax and Vimes in particular are prone to the sort of introspection that proves Pratchett is really thinking about some deep things, in addition to superficially making fun of just about every trope found in fantasy universes.
19) Terry Pratchett: The Fifth Elephant (finished 09-22)
20) Terry Pratchett: The Truth (finished 09-28)
21) Terry Pratchett: The Last Hero (finished 10-06)
22) Terry Pratchett: Night Watch (finished 10-16)
23) Terry Pratchett: The Wee Free Men (finished 10-20) Listened to this one again in order, and some parts make a lot more sense now. (I did once before in 2007 before knowing anything at all of Discworld.)
24) Terry Pratchett: Monstrous Regiment (finished 10-23)
25) Terry Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky (finished 10-27)
26) Terry Pratchett: Going Postal (finished 11-05)
27) Terry Pratchett: Thud! (finished 11-12)
28) Terry Pratchett: Wintersmith (finished 11-18)
29) Terry Pratchett: Making Money (finished 11-23 or 24) Odd to be done with the Discworld audiobooks now...
30) Terry Pratchett: Truckers (finished 12-18) This is the first of the Bromeliad trilogy, which is quite excellent and actually set on modern-day Earth.
31) Terry Pratchett: Diggers (finished 12-21)
32) Terry Pratchett: Wings (finished 12-30) Last book of the year, I think.
1) Alan Moore: Watchmen (finished 2009-01-17) Very, very good. Deals with some interesting themes I toyed with a bit in Mexico when I made some short-lived efforts to write stories. In particular, the fact that a true super"hero" (i.e. person with superpowers who wanted to do good things) would likely become pretty dehumanized, because he or she would place big picture concerns above individual people. And as much as it might intellectually make sense to kill, say, a couple million innocent people to save a couple billion, most of us would be completely unwilling to actually go through with something like that, and would see as pretty horrific anyone who did.
2) Steven Pinker: The Stuff of Thought (finished 02-08) I already wrote an entry about this book, which was excellent. There were, however, a few unquestioned conventions (and untrue conventional beliefs) he had about gender and sexuality, which bothered me even more than the couple incorrect etymological stories he gave for words, which a few seconds with the OED were sufficient to contradict.
3) Simon Singh: Fermat's Enigma (finished 02-25) Like his Code Book, this was well-written, accessible by the layperson and at the same time not dumbed down too much. Sure, he doesn't get into the real hardcore mathematics of it, but it's not a graduate-level textbook, after all.
4) Steven Pinker: Words and Rules (finished 03-19) More analytic and dense than Stuff of Thought, but also without some of the annoying problems of that book. If you are interested in how the mind works, particularly with respect to language, it's definitely something I recommend reading at some point.
5) Phil Plait: Death from the Skies! (finished 05-31; in the intervening time I also caught up on about a year and a half's worth of the SGU podcast) Excellent book, which I highly recommend. It's a very humorous and readable account of all the ways the cosmos can kill us.
6) Mike Mignola and John Byrne: Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (finished 06-22) Read this one afternoon on a day off from work. Pretty quick read, but interesting, and my roommate has quite a bit of the series if not all of it, so I'll probably continue at some point.
7) Mike Mignola: Hellboy: Wake the Devil (finished something like 06-30)
8) Terry Pratchett: Soul Music (finished 08-23) Read this one instead of listening, because the audio book had big chunks missing.
9) Steven Pinker: The Language Instinct (finished 09-14) Also excellent, but subject to a couple minor examples of problems I also had with Stuff of Thought. It took me such a long time to finish this one (which I think I started shortly after finishing Phil Plait's), because, as you can see, I proceeded to get distracted by nearly 20 audiobooks...
10) Terry Pratchett: The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (finished 10-11) Some glitchiness in this audiobook as well, so I read it the old fashioned way.
11) Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon: Preacher (finished the 9-volume series on 12-10) Really good and a bit fucked up. This is another series that Jordan has in its entirety, so I figured I'd check it out.
12) Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra: Y: The Last Man (finished 10 volumes 10-12) Also rather excellent. I have always been a fan of the post-apocalypse genre, so of course I liked that aspect of it, but the character development and social commentary and such were also good.
13) Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson: Transmetropolitan (finished the series about 12-17) Yet another series of graphic novels. The artwork in this is a lot denser, which makes it interesting because you can look at the main subject of a panel and just read the dialogue straight through, or take a much longer time to actually notice all the little things going on in the background.
Audio
1) J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (finished 06-13) As good as the book, seeing as they're the same. I liked the audio versions I listened to in Mexico, so after catching up on SGU podcasts (as well as one on the history of the Byzantine Empire), I decided this should be the first audio book I downloaded.
2) Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters (finished 06-18) Good, like other Discworld novels. Unfortunately there were bits missing from the audio version, which didn't include big chunks of plot, but did include presumably humorous dialogue. Plus the sudden shifts were rather jarring, even if I didn't miss much of great importance.
3) Terry Pratchett: Pyramids (finished 06-23) I actually read a bit of this one, because once again there was a part missing, but at least Meaux had the paper version.
4) Terry Pratchett: Guards! Guards! (finished 06-27) This one didn't even have missing bits, which was nice.
5) Terry Pratchett: Eric (finished around 06-30)
6) Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers (finished 07-09) Typical Heinlein, in that the fictional society is an odd mix of some progressive elements and 1950s sensibilities. This one also includes the oft-criticized militaristic social structure, though I don't think that's any worse than a number of other futuristic scenarios. Heinlein himself does seem more in favor of it than other authors are of their fictional governments, however.
7) Terry Pratchett: Moving Pictures (finished 07-10) Probably don't need to say Pratchett is good every book I finish...
8) Terry Pratchett: Reaper Man (finished 07-16)
9) Terry Pratchett: Witches Abroad (finished 07-21)
The audio book I have for Small Gods is abridged, which I don't like, so I decided to skip it until I can read the whole thing.
10) Terry Pratchett: Lords and Ladies (finished 08-05 or so)
11) Terry Pratchett: Men at Arms (finished 08-10)
12) Terry Pratchett: Interesting Times (finished 08-15)
13) Terry Pratchett: Maskerade (finished 08-18 or 19)
14) Terry Pratchett: Feet of Clay (finished 08-22 maybe?)
15) Terry Pratchett: The Hogfather (finished 08-31)
16) Terry Pratchett: Jingo (finished 09-04)
17) Terry Pratchett: The Lost Continent (finished 09-10) I suspect much of this wouldn't have made sense if I hadn't been to Australia before. But since I have, it's possibly one of the funniest one I've listened to lately.
18) Terry Pratchett: Carpe Jugulum (finished 09-16) I'm pretty sure the witches are my favorite set of characters of the whole series, with the possible exception of a few members of the Watch. Granny Weatherwax and Vimes in particular are prone to the sort of introspection that proves Pratchett is really thinking about some deep things, in addition to superficially making fun of just about every trope found in fantasy universes.
19) Terry Pratchett: The Fifth Elephant (finished 09-22)
20) Terry Pratchett: The Truth (finished 09-28)
21) Terry Pratchett: The Last Hero (finished 10-06)
22) Terry Pratchett: Night Watch (finished 10-16)
23) Terry Pratchett: The Wee Free Men (finished 10-20) Listened to this one again in order, and some parts make a lot more sense now. (I did once before in 2007 before knowing anything at all of Discworld.)
24) Terry Pratchett: Monstrous Regiment (finished 10-23)
25) Terry Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky (finished 10-27)
26) Terry Pratchett: Going Postal (finished 11-05)
27) Terry Pratchett: Thud! (finished 11-12)
28) Terry Pratchett: Wintersmith (finished 11-18)
29) Terry Pratchett: Making Money (finished 11-23 or 24) Odd to be done with the Discworld audiobooks now...
30) Terry Pratchett: Truckers (finished 12-18) This is the first of the Bromeliad trilogy, which is quite excellent and actually set on modern-day Earth.
31) Terry Pratchett: Diggers (finished 12-21)
32) Terry Pratchett: Wings (finished 12-30) Last book of the year, I think.