Hunter Johnson — Reading List 2005
The books I read in 2005. I got more in than the previous two years combined, and more than I'll get again in the near future, so enjoy the long list while it lasts.
The Nibelungenlied, or The Song of the Nibelungs. The mythos underlying Wagner's The Ring opera tetralogy. I read the George Henry Needler translation of the Nibelungenlied, not Ryder's, but it's not listed at Amazon.C# Essentials, by Ben Albahari et al. We toyed with a possible project using the language this year, but nothing came of it.
Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel. We finished off The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings this year in our after-dinner story time, so I started the Robots series. Don't know if I'll do the whole series, or just stick to the 1950s titles.The first in the proposed "Liberation Trilogy", Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn covers the North African theater of WWII. Perhaps overwritten in places (that's a criticism levelled at it at Amazon), but I prefer that to the usual under-written alternative.
The Search, by John Battelle. New acquisition in the company tech library, and I'm a fan of the topic.Tim Bogenn's official guide to Midnight Club II. I played the game to 100% on my PC, mostly with this book, but some of the hints (especially the big circumference-of-Paris race) were way off.
Well-dated humor from Erma Bombeck, "Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!" is still funny, and something of a historical document too.Neal Boortz and the other guy's FairTax book. Some really great ideas, with even more really hard radio-talk-show-host spin. I've got my reservations, but I think the germ of the idea is worth extracting.
AntiPatterns, by William J. Brown et al. Cute idea, mirroring Design Patterns by Gamma et al., but ultimately forgettable.Kindred, by Octavia Butler. Outstanding. I'm encouraging Lori to read it now.
The Chinese in America, by Iris Chang. An illuminating account of American history through a lens that I was mostly ignorant of before. Sometimes downplays or over-emphasizes negative aspects, depending on which race is in focus.Perl Best Practices, by Damian Conway. Really worthwhile reference. I read it through on Safari; I think I'll have to acquire a personal copy. And it goes right along with...
Higher Order Perl, by Mark Jason Dominus. Loved it; not the usual rehash of Perl 101 masquerading as an "advanced" book.I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, by Harlan Ellison. Not the screenplay for the Will Smith movie, but an unfilmed screenplay that sticks to the original stories more closely.
Dealer's Choice, by James Ernest, Phil Foglio, and Mike Selinker. I'm biased, since I booth for James "Cheapass Games" Ernest at the summer gaming cons, but: a lot of fun. The chapters on poker nights in general should be funny enough for even non-poker players (I read several passages aloud to my wife), and the poker variants are actually worthwhile too.John Gardner's Grendel. A book that's been on my to-read list since high school that I finally got around to. Good stuff — as worthy a follow-up as Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (which I loved), but don't infer from that that this is a comedy too.
Word Annoyances by Guy Hart-Davis sports the subtitle "how to fix the most annoying things about your favorite word processor ". A useful source of things I didn't know I wanted to do with Word.Ives is somehow one of my favorite composers, up next to Sibelius. Essays Before a Sonata "goes with" his piano sonata.
Shawshank Redemption is a great movie — I thought it should have won the cinematography Oscar. I hadn't read King's source novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption before now; the movie remained admirably true to it.Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky. Another lens-based history book, and amazingly engaging. Kurlansky has several more books on my to-read list (on salt, the Caribbean, and Basques).
The Matrix Comics by the Wachowski brothers et al. Edited by Spencer Lamm.(see above)
The Future of Ideas, by John Lessig. An eye-opener, and makes me even more opposed to the further cementing of Disney's iconic copyrights.Story time took us through the final four novels of Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle. Just in time for the first movie...
The Glorious Dawn of God's Story, by Anne Graham Lotz. A gift book, with devotionals on the first half or so of Genesis. I had to take exception to a couple of comments on heavy metal music, although I assume Lotz is unfamiliar with the variety of music in that pigeonhole today. Many other sections revealed things I was ignorant of, though.Tigers in the Snow by Peter Matthiessen. A too-short look at tiger conservationism.
1776, by David G. McCullough. A popular history book of the moment. I tend to ignore pre-WWII military history, and I'm trying to break that habit.Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, by Eric A. Meyer. I've used some of this material on some friends' sites, but haven't redone this site under CSS yet.
Faithful, by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King. I'm not a baseball fan, but I started watching the World Series when Curt Schilling was with the Diamondbacks, and I watched the final games of the 2004 season too. This year I watched the series and Curt's team wasn't even in it.Arthur G. Patzia's The Making of the New Testament. Started this one last year and finished it up early this year. I approach Bible study with an eye on translation and canonization issues, so I wanted this info.
Another official game guide, this one edited by Scott Pelland for Advance Wars 2. I love this game, to the point of buying multiple cartridges for link play.Socrates: The Apology of Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett. Working my way into the Great Books of the Western World, at least according to Encyclopædia Britannica.
Song of Cthulhu, edited by Stephen Mark Rainey. Includes "Drums" by one of my favorites, William R. Trotter.Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials, by Allison Randal, et al. Okay, I'm a Perl geek.
Wilson Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows. Lori took most of the reading chores for this one after dinnertime, but I count those anyway.P. Craig Russell's two-volume graphic novel presentation of The Ring of the Nibelung, Wagner's opera cycle. I've been on a Ring kick this year too.
(see above)Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini. Wonderful adventure yarn; I need to find a good film adaptation.
Wild Animals I Have Known, by Ernest Thompson Seton (or Ernest Seton-Thompson). Another after-dinner book, read from a crumbling copy my grandfather read back in the day. Luckily it's still in print, so I can replace it, and I think I'll have to.The Perfect Wagnerite, by George Bernard Shaw. More Wagner's Ring.
Bruce L. Shelley's Church History in Plain Language. Filling more gaps in my education.Web Search, by Amanda Spink & Bernard J. Jansen. The most expensive book on this list and easily the least useful. Ugh. Happy I read a copy from the tech library.
John F. Szwed's Jazz 101. I started my classical collection with Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works by Phil G. Goulding; I'm planning to use this to grow my jazz collection.The Problem of the Ohio Mounds, by Cyrus Thomas. Old enough to be questionable now, but at least I know the questions.
Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Another Great Book.Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.
We finished J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as well as Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia this year. And we watched the movies with the boys after each LotR novel.(see above)
The Darkest Thirst: A Vampire Anthology. No editor listed, so I'm sorting this book under "William R. Trotter", who is the author I bought the set for anyway.Perl 6 Now, by Scott Walters. I read this before the Randal book above. Probably got more out of Randal's, but this was a good primer too.
Elie Wiesel's autobiographical novella Night.Soul Survivor, a collection of biographical essays by Philip Yancey. And, it turns out, a good source of suggestions for next year's reading.
Hunter Johnson (hunter@hunterandlori.com)
