What Books Did You Read This Year?

 

At the end of 2016, I joined GoodReads.com so I could keep track of what I read and what books I needed to get to. I tried to read a mix of classics and modern, serious and silly, fiction and non-fiction.

Here are the 19 books I read in 2017:

1984, George Orwell

Alan Partridge: Nomad, Steve Coogan

The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves, James Poulos

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.

The Enchiridion, Epictetus

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Good Fortune Handbook: Developing a Stoic Outlook Day by Day, Matthew Van Natta

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond

I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend, Martin Short

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondo

A Load of Hooey, Bob Odenkirk

Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

The Stranger, Albert Camus

Werewolf Cop, Andrew Klavan

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, William Zinsser

How about you: What did you read in 2017? And what should I add to my list for 2018?

Published in Literature
Tags: ,

Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 85 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Eustace C. Scrubb Member
    Eustace C. Scrubb
    @EustaceCScrubb

    I’m reading Kafka now, The Trial.

    As for books I finished:

    The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe

    Thank You, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

    The Seige of Trencher’s Farm by Gordon Williams

    Nothing More Than Murder by Jim Thompson

    Vampire$ by John Steakley

    The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan

    The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchet

    Riding Rockets by Mike Mullane

    Seven Women by Eric Metaxas

    Lady Parts by Andrea Martin

    The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

    King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis by Shawn Levy

    The Tailor of Panama by John Le Carre

    A Truck Full of Money by Tracy Kidder

    Nobody Move by Denis Johnson

    Sleep No More by P. D. James

    The Lotter and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

    Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

    Camino Island by John Grisham

    Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

    Time Travel: A History by James Gleik

    Good Brother, Bad Brother by James Giblin

    The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife by Earl Stanley Gardner

    Hollywood Monster by Robert Englund

    Five by Endo by Endo

    Eat My Martian Dust by Robert Elmer

    Bleak House by Charles Dickens

    Quick Change by Jay Cronley

    How I Made a Hundred Movies…  by Roger Corman

    No Middle Name by Lee Child

    Out of My Mind by Joseph Bayly

    A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

    Imperfect: An Improbable Life by Jim Abbott

    • #1
  2. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Well . . .

    That is about one-fifth of them, and excludes the books I read researching the books I write (about 20 per book).

    Seawriter

    • #2
  3. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Very few, I’m afraid. My reading has taken a major hit these last few years. I need to correct that.

    • #3
  4. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Here, in reverse order (because that is how I list them in my tracking spreadsheet) and minus the audio books, is my 2017 list:

    In the First Circle, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein

    Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, Ronald Pestritto

    It’s Not About Me, Max Lucado

    Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer, Brian O’Neill

    On Looking into the ABYSS, Gertrude Himmelfarb

    The Rape of the Mind, Joost A.M .Meerloo

    Waterloo, Andrew Roberts

    Pukka’s Promise, Ted Kerasote

    THE IRON HEEL, Jack London

    THE ROAD, Jack London

    THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS, Jack London

    The Great Terror, Robert Conquest

    Angels Don’t Die, Patti Davis

    Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein

    Merle’s Door, Ted Kerasote

    (Bold text indicates those previously read that I felt some need/desire to read again.)

    I would highly recommend the Jack London series listed here for your 2018 list.  And, much like I would recommend reading all of the Orwell books leading up to Nineteen Eighty-Four, I would read the other two before The Iron Heel.

    • #4
  5. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    I started keeping a log this year, after my brothers did last year.

    I read 35 books this year, mostly fiction, with some non-fiction mixed in.  Read the Harry Potter series for the first time, am just finishing up re-reading the Nelson DeMille John Corey series.  Bold are re-reads.  Italics are non-fiction.

    The Fleet at Flood Tide james D Hornfischer
    Duty and Honor Grant Blackwood
    True Faith and Allegiance Mark Greaney
    order to kill Vince Flynn/Kyle Mills
    Devil in the White City Erik Larson
    The Cat Stole My Pants Stephan Pastis
    The Baby Boom PJ O’Rourke
    Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone J K Rowling
    Incredible Victory Walter Lord
    Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets J K Rowling
    Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban J K Rowling
    Harry Potter and the goblet of fire J K Rowling
    Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix J K Rowling
    Harry Potter and te half-blood prince J K Rowling
    Harry Potter and the Deatky Hallows J K Rowling
    Harry Potte & The Cursed Child J K Rowling
    Back Over There Richard Rubin
    The Burial Hour Jeffrey Deaver
    Churchill’s Bunker Richard Holmes
    Master and Commander Patrick O’Brian
    Enemy of the State “Vince Flynn”
    The Last Thing I Remember Andrew Klavin
    Band of Brothers Stephen Ambrose
    Plum Island Nelson DeMille
    The Long Way Home Andrew Klavin
    The Truth of the Matter Andrew Klavin
    The Final Hour Andrew Klavin
    The Lions Game Nelson DeMille
    Point of Contact Mike Maden/Tom Clancy
    Power and Empire Marc Cameron/Tom Clancy
    Nightfall Nelson DeMille
    Wildfire Nelson DeMille
    The Lion  Nelson DeMille
    I Survived:  The American Revolution Lauren Tarshsis
    The Panther Nelson DeMille
    • #5
  6. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    philo (View Comment):
    The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein

    I would love to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers again for the first time (not sure how the grammar in that sentence works, but hopefully you know what I mean).  Those were politically formative books for me, and they’re on my shortlist for reading in 2018.  I re-read most of the Heinlein Juveniles in 2015 and 2016, and just noticed that not a single one of those remaining made it onto my log for 2017.    I’ll have to correct that next month.

    • #6
  7. John H. Member
    John H.
    @JohnH

    When I read a book, I write down, with a pen, what it was; and from that list, I see that almost every book I’ve read this year I have already described on the Member Feed. One book I did not discuss was by Florence King. I’d selected it because it was small – good for taking on a 3-hour flight. It was written well but did not make me want to read more. She tried to humanize herself by mentioning, twice, that she owned a Baltimore Orioles warmup jacket. This just didn’t work.

    • #7
  8. colleenb Member
    colleenb
    @colleenb

    I love comparing reading lists.  2017 saw me finally read Longitude and the Part 1 of the Lord of the Rings (don’t yell at me).  Other fiction was Exit Lady Marsham by L Auchincloss (different from his other NY novels) and Unknown Sigrid Undset (partial), and various mysteries – working through A Christie, Daly’s Gamadge, and just started N Wolfe.  Non-fiction (not as much this year) was Massacre: Life & Death of the Paris Commune; 7 Deadly Virtues; Technopoly; Death of Caesar; First 1000 Years: Global History of Christianity; Impossible State (about N Korea); Arms & Art.  I always recommend Boys in the Boat.  Based on the Bookmonger I read and enjoyed Agents of Empire and This Gulf of Fire within the last years.  Happy 2018 to everyone.

    • #8
  9. WinterMute Coolidge
    WinterMute
    @NartFOpc

    Fiction:

    Stiletto
    On The Shores of Titan’s Farthest Sea
    Devil’s Dictum
    What Angels These
    True Crime
    The Complete Works and Selected Letters of John Keats*
    The Big Sleep
    Count Magnus and other Ghost Stories
    The Name of the Rose
    And Then There Were None
    Dragon’s Egg
    The Mysterious Affair at Styles
    Paradise Lost

    Non-Fiction:

    The Vision of the Anointed*
    Hillbilly Elegy
    The Great Good Thing
    The Quest for Cosmic Justice
    A Conflict of Visions
    The Kingdom of Speech
    Reflections on the Revolution in France
    The Conservatarian Manifesto
    Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription
    The Abolition of Man
    Shattered
    Capitalism and Freedom
    Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
    Up From Liberalism
    The Federalist Papers*
    The Proper Study of Mankind
    The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
    On Human Nature
    Buckley: The Right Word
    Ideas Have Consequences
    The Consolation of Philosophy
    Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus
    Coming Apart
    In Defense of Sanity

    Titles with asterisks were more than half finished at the start of the year. I have about 90 pages of The Second World Wars to go, so I might finish that before the year is out. Highlights for me were The Name of the Rose, A Conflict of Visions, and The Proper Study of Mankind (an Isaiah Berlin anthology).

    • #9
  10. Ekosj Member
    Ekosj
    @Ekosj

    Read This year:

    Tiger Tracks. – Wolfgang Faust

    The Last Panther – Wolfgang Faust

    The Man in the High Castle -Philip K Dick

    The River War – Winston Churchill

    All You Need Is Kill – Hiroshi Sakurazaka

    Is God Happy? – Lezak Kolakowski

    “The American Empire Should Be Destroyed”: Aleksandr Dugin and the Perils of Immanentized Eschatology – James D. Heiser

    An Infamous Army – Georgette Heyer

    The Quiet American – Graham Greene

    Things to get to in 2018…

    The Peripheral – William Gibson

    The Lathe of Heaven -Ursula Le Guin

    The Wind Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami

    Stonewall – Byron Farwell

    • #10
  11. Ekosj Member
    Ekosj
    @Ekosj

    WinterMute (View Comment):
    Highlights for me were The Name of the Rose

    Good choice!!!!    That’s a highlight for sure.

    • #11
  12. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    Henry Fielding, ‘Tom Jones’ and other works.  Very good, can’t believe I haven’t gotten to Fielding before.

    Margaret Ball, the Harmony series…set in a future society which was designed to be utopian, but turned out otherwise.

    Joseph Wurtenbaugh, ‘A Prophet Without Honor,’ an alternate-history story in which Hitler’s Rhineland incursion turns out otherwise.

    Ben Horowitz, ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things,’ advice from a venture capitalist on how to run a startup.

    …plus several more.  I’m doing a ‘2017 Books’ series at Chicago Boyz; the first two entries are here:

    2017 books batch 1

    2017 books batch 2

     

    • #12
  13. C. U. Douglas Coolidge
    C. U. Douglas
    @CUDouglas

    The Draining Lake – Arnaldur Indridason
    How To Be a Mermaid – Erin Hayes
    Ahsoka – E. K Johnston
    The Fifth Element – Jorgen Brekke
    Wake of Vultures – Lila Bowen
    My First Book of Supervillains
    Holy Bible (NASB translation)
    The Mud Fairy – Amy Young
    Where Have All the Unicorns Gone – Jane Yolen
    Queen of the Diamond: The Lizzie Murphy Story – Emily Arnold McCully
    Blueberry Girl – Neil Gaiman
    The Princess and the Pony – Kate Beaton
    Wrestling Demons – Jason Brick
    Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu (trans from Ursual K. Le Quin)
    So Much Blue – Percival Everett
    The City Stained Red – Sam Sykes
    Martians Abroad – Carrie Vaughn
    The Clockwork Dynasty – Daniel H. Wilson
    True Crime – Andrew Klavan
    The Last Policeman – Ben H. Winters
    The Dumb Bunnies’ Easter – Sue Denim
    Operation Napoleon – Arnaldur Indridason
    Pablo Finds a Treasure – Andree Poulin
    The Last Superstition – Edward Feser
    Insane Consequences – DJ Jaffe

    • #13
  14. J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado Coolidge
    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado
    @JulieSnapp

    All 7 Harry Potter Novels – JK Rowling
    American Gods – Neil Gaiman
    The Maze Runner – James Dashner
    Shades of Grey – Jasper Fforde
    The first few chapters of Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.. couldn’t finish it though.
    The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger – Stephen King
    Wild Cards Volume 1 – various
    Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
    The Magician’s Assistant – Ann Patchett
    Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
    1984 – George Orwell
    Reread the Codex Alera series – Jim Butcher

    Currently working on The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and I might have it done by the end of the year.

    • #14
  15. Suspira Member
    Suspira
    @Suspira

    Ekosj (View Comment):

    WinterMute (View Comment):
    Highlights for me were The Name of the Rose

    Good choice!!!! That’s a highlight for sure.

    Interesting. Read it years ago, and it’s always the novel I think of when discussing books with bad endings. I thought the end absolutely negated everything that went before.

    • #15
  16. Michael Brehm Lincoln
    Michael Brehm
    @MichaelBrehm

    Let’s see now…

    How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

    Part of How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big – Scott Adams

    How to Hypnotize Anyone – The Rogue Hypnotist

    Dead Leaves – Kealean Patrick Burke

    Monster Hunter International – Larry Correia

    Un [expletive] Yourself – Gary John Bishop

    A bunch of rulebooks for the Changeling: The Lost RPG

    The Art of Being Free – James Poulos

    Baccano! – Ryohgo Narita

    The Wasteland – T.S. Elliot

    The Atrocity Archives – Charles Stross

    The Fragments – Heraclitus

    Some short stories from The Imago Sequence – Laird Barron

    Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor

    Some short stories from A Good Man is Hard to Find – Flannery O’Connor

    Dangerous – Milo Yiannopoulos

    100 Things Every Homeowner Must Know

    Part of The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett

    Norse Mythology – Neil Gaiman

    and I’m also rereading The Lies of Lock Lamora and Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell as night reading.

     

    • #16
  17. Michael Brehm Lincoln
    Michael Brehm
    @MichaelBrehm

    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado (View Comment):
    The first few chapters of Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.. couldn’t finish it though.

    Same here. I used to like the podcast, but gradually I found it more twee and grating as time wore on.

    • #17
  18. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    @miffedwhitemale and @j.d.snapp, if you liked all the Harry Potter books, you might wish to join Pottermore.  You can get “sorted” into your House, at both schools of magic (Hogwarts and Ilvermorny), find out your Patronus, and participate in some fun activities like quizzes.

    I have been acquiring all the new illustrated books, in the British editions, and they are excellent.  I am currently reading the latest, and my favorite, Prisoner of Azkaban.  I found a great source, Book Depository, which offers free shipping to the US, and no sales tax.

    • #18
  19. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado (View Comment): The first few chapters … …couldn’t finish it though.

    I tend to be the stubborn type. Once I start a book I usually press through if at all possible.  The only one I can recall closing mid-way through and tossing in the trash can is Bowling Alone (Robert Putnam).  One audio book also fits here and if I recall correctly, it was The World Until Yesterday (Jared Diamond).  All was good, and interesting, until some line about “Teddy Kennedy bravely visiting the parents of Mary Jo Kopechne…” and additional such manure.  At that point I pressed eject and drove straight to the library and dropped that junk in the return chute.

    • #19
  20. J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado Coolidge
    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado
    @JulieSnapp

    Michael Brehm (View Comment):

    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado (View Comment):
    The first few chapters of Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.. couldn’t finish it though.

    Same here. I used to like the podcast, but gradually I found it more twee and grating as time wore on.

    The book started getting too much into the gender spectrum crap for me. Turns out, I don’t want a bunch of new-age political messaging in my books. It was the book selected for a book club I’m in, otherwise, I would never have heard of it. I’m a biiiiig fan of the MHI and Locke Lamora books though! :)

    • #20
  21. J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado Coolidge
    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado
    @JulieSnapp

    philo (View Comment):

    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado (View Comment): The first few chapters … …couldn’t finish it though.

    I tend to be the stubborn type. Once I start a book I usually press through if at all possible. The only one I can recall closing mid-way through and tossing in the trash can is Bowling Alone (Robert Putnam). One audio book also fits here and if I recall correctly, it was The World Until Yesterday (Jared Diamond). All was good, and interesting, until some line about “Teddy Kennedy bravely visiting the parents of Mary Jo Kopechne…” and additional such manure. At that point I pressed eject and drove straight to the library and dropped that junk in the return chute.

    This one was an audio book. I went ahead and started it because I thought it might be a nice collection of dystopian short stories. I got in there and it was a bunch of weird for the sake of being weird. Then they started in on that gender spectrum crap and I was done. I made it 2 hours.

    • #21
  22. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    Luckily with Kindle, I can try to reconstruct the list of books I read in 2017.  But I may be taking some credit for 2016 books here.  * means we read it in my book club.  I am the only conservative in my book club, by the way.

    • The Antidote:  Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking:  Oliver Burkeman
    • Beneath a Scarlet Sky:  A Novel:  Mark Sullivan
    • How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big:  kind of the Story of My Life:  Scott Adams
    • The Odyssey (for the hundredth time):  Richard Lattimore translation*
    • Max Perkins:  Editor of Genius:  A. Scott Berg*
    • Richard II:  William Shakespeare*
    • The Prince:  Machiavelli*
    • The Hunger Games Trilogy:  Suzanne Collins
    • Lolita:  Vladimir Nabokov*
    • The Finest Hours:  The True Story of the US Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue;  Michael Tougias and Casey Sherman
    • Grit and Hope:  A Year with Five Latino Students and the Program that Helped Them Aim for College:  Barbara Davenport*
    • Beyond the Hundredth Meridian:  John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West:  Wallace Stegner*
    • Passing Strange:  A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line:  Martha Sandweiss*
    • Anathem:  Neal Stephensen (that one took a good part of the year;  it’s a honker of a book)
    • #22
  23. WinterMute Coolidge
    WinterMute
    @NartFOpc

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):

    • Anathem: Neal Stephensen (that one took a good part of the year; it’s a honker of a book)

    Anathem was great. I’m about halfway through Seveneves right now, which is solid but doesn’t rise to the level of Anathem, Cryptonomicon, or Snow Crash.

    • #23
  24. J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado Coolidge
    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado
    @JulieSnapp

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):
    @miffedwhitemale and @j.d.snapp, if you liked all the Harry Potter books, you might wish to join Pottermore. You can get “sorted” into your House, at both schools of magic (Hogwarts and Ilvermorny), find out your Patronus, and participate in some fun activities like quizzes.

    I have been acquiring all the new illustrated books, in the British editions, and they are excellent. I am currently reading the latest, and my favorite, Prisoner of Azkaban. I found a great source, Book Depository, which offers free shipping to the US, and no sales tax.

    I am in Slytherin 90% of the time, and Ravenclaw the other 10%. I took the Pottermore test and sure enough, Slytherin.

    • #24
  25. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins
    • All of the Brad Thor “Scot Harvath” novels.
    • Most of the Vince Flynn “Mitch Rapp” novels. (I about 2/3’s of the way through them.  Any suggestion for authors like Brad Thor and Vince Flynn?)
    • Many, many John Grisham novels.
    • How the Right Lost Its Mind by Charles J. Sykes.
    • 50 Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy by Tim Hartford. Recommended in Ricochet I think.
    • Conscience of a Conservative by Senator Jeff Flake.
    • Unbelievable: My Front Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in History by Katy Tur.
    • Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. Recommended in Ricochet.
    • Devil’s Bargain – Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green.
    • The Quarterback Whisperer: How to Build an Elite NFL Quarterback by Bruce Arians.
    • The Vanishing Adult: Our Coming of Age Crisis – and How to Build a Culture of Self-Reliance by Senator Ben Sasse.
    • Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World by Robert Kaplan.  Recommended in Ricochet I think.
    • Reagan Rising: The Decisive Years, 1976-1980 by Craig Shirley.
    • The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.  After being criticized in Ricochet for my beliefs as to Trump’s mental health, I sought backup.
    • Apple Watch for Dummies.
    • The Fifty Year Mission (A history of Star Trek in two volumes.)
    • Many, many Sudoku Books. I really like the 16X16 puzzles.
    • 121 First Dates: How to Succeed at Online Dating, Fall in Love, and Live Happily Ever After (Really!) by Wendy Newman.  I haven’t had time to follow up, I am too involved in politics.

     

    • #25
  26. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    WinterMute (View Comment):

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):

    • Anathem: Neal Stephensen (that one took a good part of the year; it’s a honker of a book)

    Anathem was great. I’m about halfway through Seveneves right now, which is solid but doesn’t rise to the level of Anathem, Cryptonomicon, or Snow Crash.

    I have to say I really enjoyed Anathem.  I got a third of the way through Cryptonomicon a few years ago but then got distracted and never finished.  It’s on my reading list for 2018.

    • #26
  27. C. U. Douglas Coolidge
    C. U. Douglas
    @CUDouglas

    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado (View Comment):

    Michael Brehm (View Comment):

    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado (View Comment):
    The first few chapters of Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.. couldn’t finish it though.

    Same here. I used to like the podcast, but gradually I found it more twee and grating as time wore on.

    The book started getting too much into the gender spectrum crap for me. Turns out, I don’t want a bunch of new-age political messaging in my books. It was the book selected for a book club I’m in, otherwise, I would never have heard of it. I’m a biiiiig fan of the MHI and Locke Lamora books though! :)

    Read a book with a similar problem. On my list is Wake of Vultures. It starts as a sort of urban fantasy though set in the American 19th century west. However, the author spends almost all her time delving into the main characters gender spectrum and sexual preferences crap that the interesting stuff: hunting supernatural critters, gets glossed over. Made a boring read, ruined an interesting concept, and I’ve no plan to read any of the rest of the series.

    Sad thing is, some of the spectrum crap could have been integrated into the story more subtlety. The protagonist is an abused and by all intents and purposes enslaved, so a desire to pass herself off as a man makes perfect sense. But the author then grabs her “Gender Spectrum Sledgehammer” and just can’t stop.

    • #27
  28. tigerlily Member
    tigerlily
    @tigerlily

    Let’s see… I don’t keep a written list of when I read a book, so this list might be incomplete;

     

    The False Promise of Big Government – Patrick Garry

    The Lever of Riches – Joel Mokyr

    The Righteous Mind – Jonathan Haidt

    The Cooperstown Casebook – Jay Jaffe

    More Work for Mother – Ruth Schwartz Cowan

    The History of Latin America – Marshall C Eakin

    Savage Continent – Keith Lowe

    How the War Was Won – Phillips Payson O’Brien

    A Nation of Steel – Thomas J Misa

    Grocery – Michael Ruhlman

    A History of Dams – Norman Smith

    America’s Assembly Line – David Nye

    The Strange Career of Jim Crow – C Vann Woodward

    Pursuing Happiness – Stanley Lebergott

    Servants – Lucy Lethbridge

    The Conquering Tide – Ian W Toll

     

    • #28
  29. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    Many, many Sudoku Books. I really like the 16X16 puzzles.

    Have you ever done psycho sudoku?  9×9 grid, no starting numbers, the lines between the squares are all > and < signs to let you know relative values.

    • #29
  30. AlanMacNeil Inactive
    AlanMacNeil
    @AlanMacNeil

    Who I am by Pete Townsend

    Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg

    Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

    Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant

    Dereliction of Duty by H R McMaster

    Fitness Confidential by Vinnie Tortorich

    Based on a True Story: A Memoir by Norm MacDonald

    Left of Boom by Doug Laux

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.