Book List

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Every tall room a fiction,
leather bound treasure books
up to the ceiling, gold spine upon spine

--10,000 Maniacs, Arbor Day

I try to read occasionally. Usually, I fail, but I have recently been keeping a list of those few successful attempts. Textbooks are not included, unless I have actually read them through. To each book is assigned a rating, from 0 (I want to stab out my brain with a plastic spork) to 10 (months of stunned silence). These ratings are completely subjective, and are provided with no explanation (yet). Anyway, for the terminally bored (or depraved), here it goes:

Rating Author Title Date
[9] Kurt Vonnegut, Fates Worse than Death (mid-January 1998)
[8] Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (mid-January 1998)
[6] W. Richard Stevens, Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment (late January 1998)
[7] John Lions, Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition with Source Code (early February 1998)
[5] Paul Albitz and Cricket Liu, DNS and BIND (late February 1998)
[7] Spider Robinson, The Callahan Chronicles (early March 1998)
[*] Various, The Year's Best Science Fiction, 1991. Ed. Gardner Dozois (mid-March 1998)
[9] William Gibson, Neuromancer (mid-March 1998)
[7] Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain (mid-March 1998)
[6] Nancy Kress, Beggars and Choosers (mid-March 1998)
[6] Robert Anton Wilson, Reality is What You Can Get Away With (late April 1998)
[8] Robert Anton Wilson et al., Chaos And Beyond: the Best of Trajectories (late April 1998)
[4] Joseph Samuel Bois, The Art of Awareness (late April 1998)
[9] Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (mid-May 1998)
[6] Craig Hunt, TCP/IP Network Administration (late May 1998)
[5] M. Morris Mano, Digital Design (mid-July 1998)
[6] Shwu-Yeng T. Lin and You-Feng Lin, Set Theory With Applications (mid-July 1998)
[6] A. K. Dewdney, 200% of Nothing (mid-August 1998)
[3] A. K. Dewdney, The Armchair Universe (late August 1998)
[7] Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (late August 1998)
[8] Clifford Stoll, Silicon Snake Oil (late August 1998)
[9] Douglas Hofstadter, Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language (late August 1998)
[3] Karla Jennings, The Devouring Fungus: Tales from the Computer Age (early September 1998)
[8] Steven Levy, Hackers (early September 1998)
[4] Jan Brunvand, The Choking Doberman (early October 1998)
[7] Donald L. Stancl and Mildred L. Stancl, Real Analysis with Point-Set Topology (early October 1998)
[6] George Metakides and Anil Nerode, Principles of Logic and Logic Programming (mid-October 1998)
[6] Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late (mid-November 1998)
[8] Douglas Hofstadter et al., Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies (mid-November 1998)
[7] Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine (late November 1998)
[7] Patrick Suppes, Axiomatic Set Theory (late January 1999)
[7] Leslie Lamport, LaTeX: A Document Preparation System (late January 1999)
[5] Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (late February 1999)
[7] Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, eds., The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (early March 1999)
[7] Niccolo Machiavelli (tr. N. H. Thomson), The Prince (late April 1999)
[7] Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
 (early June 1999)
[9] Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
 (late June 1999)
[8] Mark Fabi, Wyrm
 (late August 1999)
[6] Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy
 (early October 1999)
[6] Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
 (early October 1999)
[7] George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
 (mid-October 1999)
[4] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
 (mid-October 1999)
[7] Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained
 (late October 1999)
[5] Epictetus (tr. Nicholas P. White), The Encheiridion
 (late November 1999)
[9] Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
 (mid-December 1999)
[8] William Gibson, Count Zero (late December 1999)
[7] Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (early January 2000)
[6] John Isbister, Promises Not Kept: The Betrayal of Social Change in the Third World (late January 2000)
[8] David Ogg, Europe in the Seventeenth Century (early February 2000)
[6] Noam Chomsky, Language and Responsibility (early February 2000)
[6] Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters (late February 2000)
[8] James A. Henderson, Jr, Richard N. Pearson, and John A. Siliciano, The Torts Process (late March 2000)
[8] Art Spiegelman, Maus I (mid-April 2000)
[8] Art Spiegelman, Maus II (mid-April 2000)
[4] Astro Teller, Exegesis (late June 2000)
[6] Robert M. Pirsig, Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (early July 2000)
[6] Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Language (mid-July 2000)
[7] G.E. Aylmer, Rebellion or Revolution?: England from Civil War to Restoration (mid-July 2000)
[7] John Henry Bridges, France Under Richelieu and Colbert (late July 2000)
[7] Paul Rice Doolin, The Fronde (late July 2000)
[7] Toby Barnard, The English Republic, 1649-1660 (late July 2000)
[8] Immanuel Kant, A Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (late July 2000)
[7] Samuel Beckett (tr. by author), Endgame (late August 2000)
[7] Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle (late August 2000)
[10] David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (early September 2000)
[6] Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey (early September 2000)
[9] Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly (mid-September 2000)
[8] Stanisław Lem (tr. Michael Kandel), A Perfect Vacuum (mid-September 2000)
[6] Karel Čapek (tr. Norma Comrada), Apocryphal Tales (mid-September 2000)
[8] Jorge Luis Borges (tr. various), Everything and Nothing (mid-September 2000)
[9] Jorge Luis Borges (tr. various), Ficciones (mid-September 2000)
[8] William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (late September 2000)
[6] Sîn-Leqi-Unninni (tr. John Gardner and John Maier), Gilgamesh (early October 2000)
[7] T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood and Early Major Essays (early October 2000)
[9] Jorge Luis Borges (tr. various), A Personal Anthology (early October 2000)
[8] Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (mid-October 2000)
[9] David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (mid-October 2000)
[8] T.S. Eliot (ed. Frank Kermode), Selected Prose (late November 2000)
[5] René Descartes (tr. Laurence J. Lafleur), Meditations on First Philosophy (late November 2000)
[7] Edmund Grosse, The Jacobean Poets (late November 2000)
[7] Dante Alighieri (tr. Mark Musa), La Divina Commedia: Inferno (early December 2000)
[8] Dante Alighieri (tr. Mark Musa), La Divina Commedia: Purgatorio (mid-December 2000)
[6] Dante Alighieri (tr. Mark Musa), La Divina Commedia: Paradiso (mid-December 2000)
[8] Immanuel Kant (tr. H.J. Paton), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (mid-December 2000)
[6] George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge (late December 2000)
[7] George Berkeley, Three Dialogues (late December 2000)
[7] Timothy Buck, Concise German Grammar (late December 2000)
[8] John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (abridged) (late December 2000)
[9] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (late December 2000)
[8] David Hume, Principles of Natural Religion (early January 2001)
[9] Jorge Luis Borges (tr. Andrew Hurley), Collected Fictions (early January 2001)
[8] Jorge Luis Borges (ed. Elliott Weinberger, tr. various), Selected Non-Fictions (early January 2001)
[9] Franz Kafka (tr. Breon Mitchell), The Trial (early January 2001)
[8] Jean-Paul Sartre (tr. various), No Exit and three other plays (early January 2001)
[9] Elie Wiesel (tr. Frances Frenaye), Dawn (mid-January 2001)
[7] Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (late January 2001)
[8] Elie Wiesel (tr. Stella Rodway), Night (late January 2001)
[7] William S. Burroughs, The Last Words of Dutch Schultz (late January 2001)
[6] Samuel Beckett (tr. author), Happy Days (late January 2001)
[7] Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot (late January 2001)
[6] René Descartes (tr. John Veitch), Discourse on Method (late January 2001)
[7] Franz Kafka (tr. Mark Harman), The Castle (early February 2001)
[6] Mark Leyner, My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (early February 2001)
[7] Roland Barthes (tr. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith), Writing Degree Zero (mid-February 2001)
[7] Howard Wettstein, Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake? (late February 2001)
[7] Friedrich Nietzsche (tr. R.J. Hollingdale), Twilight of the Idols (late February 2001)
[8] Friedrich Nietzsche (tr. R.J. Hollingdale), The Anti-Christ (early March 2001)
[10] Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves (early March 2001)
[8] Neal Stephenson, The Big U (early March 2001)
[8] Ludwig Wittgenstein (tr. G.E.M. Anscombe), Philisophical Investigations (mid-March 2001)
[6] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol I: Introduction (mid-March 2001)
[9] Jorge Luis Borges, This Craft of Verse (mid-March 2001)
[7] Umberto Eco, Misreadings (mid-March 2001)
[9] Don DeLillo, White Noise (mid-March 2001)
[7] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol I: Preludes and Nocturnes (mid-March 2001)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol II: The Doll's House (mid-March 2001)
[7] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol III: Dream Country (mid-March 2001)
[5] Marie McGinn, Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations (late March 2001)
[8] Gene H. Bell-Villada, Borges and His Fiction (late March 2001)
[9] Walter Benjamin (ed. Hannah Arendt, tr. Harry Zohn), Illuminations (early April 2001)
[7] Ludwig Wittgenstein (tr. C.K. Ogden), Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (early April 2001)
[9] Ludwig Wittgenstein (tr. Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe), On Certainty (early April 2001)
[6] Ludwig Wittgenstein (tr. Peter Winch), Culture and Value (early April 2001)
[7] Various, Four Great Elizabethan Plays (mid-April 2001)
[8] David Mamet, Oleanna (mid-April 2001)
[8] Don DeLillo, Valparaiso (mid-April 2001)
[8] Toni Morrison, Sula (late April 2001)
[5] Sylvia Molloy (tr. Oscar Montero), Signs of Borges (late April 2001)
[9] Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (late April 2001)
[8] Immanuel Kant (ed. and tr. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood), Critique of Pure Reason (mid-May 2001)
[7] Charles Baudelaire (ed. and tr. James McGowan), Les Fleurs du Mal (mid-May 2001)
[9] Фёдор Достоевский (Fyodor Dostoevsky) (tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky), Crime and Punishment (late May 2001)
[8] Martin Heidegger (tr. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt), Introduction to Metaphysics (early June 2001)
[7] T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral (mid-June 2001)
[7] T.S. Eliot, The Family Reunion (mid-June 2001)
[8] T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (mid-June 2001)
[7] T.S. Eliot, The Confidential Clerk (mid-June 2001)
[8] T.S. Eliot, The Elder Statesman (mid-June 2001)
[7] Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Der Richter und sein Henker (late June 2001)
[8] Martin McQuillan, ed., Deconstruction: a Reader (early July 2001)
[8] Roland Barthes, S/Z (early July 2001)
[9] Фёдор Достоевский (Fyodor Dostoevsky) (tr. Michael R. Katz), Notes from Underground (mid-July 2001)
[8] David Mamet, The Cryptogram (mid-July 2001)
[8] Walter Benjamin (ed. Peter Demetz, tr. Edmund Jephcott), Reflections (late July 2001)
[7] Maurice Blanchot/Jacques Derrida, The Instant of My Death/Demeure (late July 2001)
[9] Friedrich Nietzsche (ed. and tr. Walter Kaufmann), The Gay Science (late July 2001)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol IV: Season of Mists (late July 2001)
[8] Gérard Genette (tr. Jane E. Lewin), Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (early August 2001)
[8] Ronald Christ, The Narrow Act: Borges' Art of Allusion (mid-August 2001)
[7] E.M. Cioran (tr. Richard Howard), The Trouble With Being Born (mid-August 2001)
[6] 老子 (Lǎozǐ) (tr. Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo), Tao Te Ching (late August 2001)
[8] William S. Burroughs, Junky (late August 2001)
[7] Plato (tr. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff), Symposium (late August 2001)
[7] Jacques Derrida (tr. Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes), On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (late August 2001)
[7] Ntokzake Shange, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf (early September 2001)
[9] Alain Robbe-Grillet (tr. Richard Howard), Djinn (mid-September 2001)
[7] Alain Robbe-Grillet (tr. Richard Howard), La Maison de Rendez-Vous (late September 2001)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol V: A Game of You (late September 2001)
[5] Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero (mid-November 2001)
[6] Sigmund Freud (tr. Joyce Crick), The Interpretation of Dreams (late November 2001)
[7] Emmanuel Levinas (tr. various, ed. Adriaan T. Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi), Basic Philosophical Writings (late November 2001)
[8] Albert Camus (tr. Matthew Ward), The Stranger (late November 2001)
[7] Фёдор Достоевский (Fyodor Dostoevsky) (tr. Constance Garnett), The Double (late November 2001)
[7] Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler (late February 2002)
[8] Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (early March 2002)
[5] Jamie James, Music of the Spheres: Music, Science, and the Natural Order of the Universe (early March 2002)
[8] Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams, Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (mid-March 2002)
[7] Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter (late March 2002)
[8] Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (late April 2002)
[7] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (early May 2002)
[9] Richard Posner, Economic Analysis of Law (early June? 2002)
[8] Николай Гогол (Nikolai Gogol) (tr. Ronald Wilks), Diary of a Madman and other stories (mid-June 2002)
[7] Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (mid-June 2002)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol VI: Fables and Reflections (late June 2002)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol VII: Brief Lives (early July 2002)
[9] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol IX: The Kindly Ones (mid-July 2002)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol X: The Wake (mid-July 2002)
[7] Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics (mid-July 2002)
[6] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (late July 2002)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Library vol VIII: Worlds' End (late July 2002)
[9] Neil Gaiman, Death: The High Cost of Living (late July 2002)
[7] Neil Gaiman, Death: The Time of Your Life (late July 2002)
[6] David Lapham, The Collected Stray Bullets, Volume 1 (late July 2002)
[5] David Lapham, The Collected Stray Bullets, Volume 2 (late July 2002)
[8] Neal Stephenson, Zodiac (late July 2002)
[7] Friedrich Nietzsche (tr. Marianne Cowan), Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (late July 2002)
[6] William R. Clark, Sex and the Origins of Death (early August 2002)
[10] Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (early August 2002)
[10] Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (mid-August 2002)
[6] Jeremy Bernstein, ed., Hitler's Uranium Club (late August 2002)
[7] Jhonen Vasquez, Johnny the Homocidal Maniac: Director's Cut (late August 2002)
[6] Steven Pinker, Words and Rules (late August 2002)
[8] Scott Turow, One L (late August 2002)
[7] T.S. Eliot, (ed. Valerie Eliot), The Waste Land: Facsimile and Transcript (late August 2002)
[6] Kermit L. Hall, The Magic Mirror: Law in American History (late August 2002)
[7] Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct (early September 2002)
[6] Robert Marion, The Intern Blues (early September 2002)
[8] Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype (late October 2002)
[6] Ram Dass, Be Here Now (mid-November 2002)
[7] Paul Cobley and Litza Jansz, Introducing Semiotics (late November 2002)
[6] Jeff Collins and Howard Selina, Introducing Heidegger (late November 2002)
[7] Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (late December 2002)
[9] Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (late December 2002)
[7] Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garratt, Introducing Postmodernism (late December 2002)
[6] David Papineau and Howard Selina, Introducing Consciousness (late December 2002)
[9] Søren Kierkegaard (tr. Alastair Hannay), The Sickness unto Death (early January 2003)
[6] Chris Horrocks and Zoran Jevtic, Introducing Foucault (early January 2003)
[7] Jeff Collins and Bill Mayblin, Introducing Derrida (early January 2003)
[8] Roland Barthes (tr. Annette Lavers), Mythologies (mid-January 2003)
[7] Fredric Jameson, The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983--1998 (mid-January 2003)
[7] Philip K. Dick, Time Out Of Joint (mid-February 2003)
[6] Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate (early March 2003)
[8] Émile Durkheim (tr. Karen Fields), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (early April 2003)
[9] Thomas Mann (tr. John E Woods), Doctor Faustus (mid-May 2003)
[10] Georges Perec (tr. David Bellos), Life: A User's Manual (early June 2003)
[6] Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (late June 2003)
[8] Slavoj Žižek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real (late July 2003)
[6] Frederick Crews, Postmodern Pooh (late July 2003)
[7] Brian Boyd, Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery (late August 2003)
[7] Lyle Campbell, Historical Linguistics: an Introduction (late September 2003)
[4] Elkhonon Goldberg, The Excecutive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind (late September 2003)
[8] Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Endless Nights (early October 2003)
[7] J. R. Tanner, English Constitutional Conflicts of the Seventeenth Century: 1603--1689 (late October 2003)
[9] Joseph W. Glannon, Civil Procedure: Examples and Explanations (early November 2003)
[8] Albert Camus (tr. Justin O'Brien), The Fall (mid-November 2003)
[6] Kieran Williams, The Prague Spring and its aftermath: Czechoslovak politics 1968--1970 (late September 2004)
[6] Richard Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (late May 2005)
[7] Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos : Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (early June 2005)
[8] Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver (mid-December 2005)
[8] Thomas Babington Macaulay (ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper), The History of England (abridged) (early April 2009)
[6] Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (early April 2009)
[8] David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (early November 2012)
[9] Rodney D. Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2014)
[6] Barbara Cassin, ed., Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon (late January 2017)
[8] Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin (early March 2017)
[10] Фёдор Достоевский (Fyodor Dostoevsky) (tr. David McDuff), The Brothers Karamazov (late June 2017)
[6] Raymond Queneau (tr. Barbara Wright), Exercises in Style (early August 2017)
[7] George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind (early November 2017)
[8] George R. Stewart, Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (late January 2018)
[5] Greg Graffin, Evolution and Religion: Questioning the Beliefs of the World's Eminent Evolutionists (mid-February 2018)
[6] Greg Graffin and Steve Olson, Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (mid-March 2018)
[7] Greg Graffin, Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence (early May 2018)
[8] Karel Čapek (tr. Ewald Osers), War With the Newts (early June 2018)
[8] Neal Stephenson, The Confusion (early June 2018)
[8] Neal Stephenson, System of the World (mid-July 2018)
[9] Михаил Булгаков (Mikhail Bulgakov) (tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky), The Master and Margarita (late July 2018)
[7] Hermann Hesse (tr. Ursule Molinaro), Narcissus and Goldmund (early August 2018)
[8] Николай Гоголь (Nikolai Gogol) (tr. David Magarshack), Dead Souls (late September 2018)
[8] Alan Moore, Promethea Book 1 (late October 2018)
[8] Alan Moore, Promethea Book 2 (early November 2018)
[8] Alan Moore, Promethea Book 3 (early November 2018)
[8] Alan Moore, Promethea Book 4 (early November 2018)
[8] Alan Moore, Promethea Book 5 (mid-November 2018)
[8] Alan Moore, Watchmen (late November 2018)
[6] Richard Feynmann (ed. Ralph Leighton), Classic Feynmann (mid-December 2018)
[9] Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood (mid-December 2018)
[7] Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere (late December 2018)
[8] Thomas Piketty (trans. Arthur Goldhammer), Capital in the Twenty-First Century (mid-February 2019)
[8] Neil Gaiman, American Gods (mid-March 2019)
[7] Grant Morrison, The Invisibles (early May 2019)
[6] Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang, In Real Life (early May 2019)
[7] Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (late May 2019)

* It wouldn't make much sense to provide a single rating for a collection of short stories from various authors.

Neil Moore
Reader, books
neil@s-z.org