A list of books I completed reading in 2008. The date in brackets is the date I finished reading the book.
January
1. [7 Jan] Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster – Jon Krackauer. A chilling story of a trek up Mt. Everest that went horribly awry.
2. [10 Jan] Artificial Happiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class – Ronald W. Dworkin. Dworkin, a medical doctor, argues that MDs have done us a great disservice in the last 50 years by treating “sadness” with anti-depressants rather than addressing the whole person and their situation. Good insights.
3. [11 Jan] Andy Catlett: Early Travels – Wendell Berry. A charming short novel about a nine-year-old boy taking a trip to visit his grandparents. Set in the early 1940’s, Berry paints a very picturesque image of a simpler time.
4. [12 Jan] Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man who Dared to See – Robert Kurson. A fascinating real-life story about a man who lost his sight in a chemical explosion at the age of three, lived as a blind man for 40 years, and then was given the opportunity to regain his sight. More amazing the more I think about it. Worth reading.
5. [31 Jan] Capitol Threat – William Bernhardt. I enjoy the Ben Kincaid series, though I’m a bit concerned that Bernhardt is following a similar path with Kincaid that Tom Clancy did with Jack Ryan – a series of job promotions that ultimately dead-ends because you can’t go any higher. Still, a fun read.
February
6. [4 Feb] The Electric Church – Jeff Somers. A dystopian near-future sci-fi-ish novel (almost cyberpunk, but not quite enough cyber) about a “church” that converts you by taking your brain and plugging it into a cyborg. Darn good story.
7. [9 Feb] Strip Search – William Bernhardt. How does this guy crank out so many books so fast? This other series focuses on a police psychologist and her sidekick, an autistic young man who is a mathematical savant. A quick, easy, fun read.
8. [10 Feb] Case Closed – Gerald Posner. This book is probably 15 years old now, but new to me as it was on clearance for $2 at the used bookstore. I’m not up on all the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, but it seems to me like Posner did a pretty good job of documenting a case for Oswald as the single, independent assassin.
9. [12 Feb]The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World – Alexander Roy. This guy drove/raced in a bunch of fairly illegal road rallies, and eventually set a record by driving from New York to San Francisco in 31 hours, 4 minutes. Yowza.
10. [17 Feb] The Gum Thief – Douglas Coupland. This is the first Coupland novel I’ve had the patience with/interest in to make it all the way through. A moderately interesting postmodern tale of shiftless people wrestling with meaningless lives.
11. [22 Feb] The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism – Timothy Keller. I was pretty excited to get my hands on this one. I have very much enjoyed Keller’s teaching, especially as it relates to urban ministry and reaching postmoderns with the gospel. Maybe I was expecting too much from this book, but it left me unimpressed. I wanted something new, insightful; Keller rehashed the stuff we’ve all read already, quoting extensively from C. S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, and a few others. This might be a good book to give to your thinking friend who is wrestling with the ideas of Christianity, but for me, it was only OK.
12. [26 Feb] Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography – David Michaelis. A very good but ultimately very sad biography of Charles M. Schulz, whose life seemed to bear out the aphorism that great art comes from troubled psyches. I didn’t realize how much Peanuts represented Schulz’s life… interesting. Sad that a man who had so much to contribute spent his whole life feeling like no one loved him.
March
13. [3 Mar] Navigator: Time’s Tapestry, Book Three – Stephen Baxter. The continuation of Baxter’s alternate history series. Good stuff.
14. [5 Mar] Blasphemy – Douglas Preston. I do so enjoy Preston’s stuff. In this story, the crew running a new superconducting supercollider appear to be getting a message from God when they run the collider. But it is really God? Maybe not… Good stuff.
15. [6 Mar] Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church – N. T. Wright. Brilliant stuff. The first post of a review series is here.
16. [7 Mar] The Sleeping Doll – Jeffery Deaver. Sometimes you just need a good escapist thriller. This one stars a woman who is a gifted interrogator and is on the hunt for a scary cult leader. Fun stuff.
17. [14 Mar] On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness – Andrew Peterson. See my extended review here.
18. [17 Mar] Cutthroat – Steve Brewer. Nothing fancy here – just a straightforward crime adventure thriller. A good read, though – a likable hero, reasonable plot, good characters. I’d read this guy again.
19. [23 Mar] The Magician’s Nephew – C. S. Lewis. I decided to re-read the Chronicles of Narnia – it’s been years. I had forgotten much of this story, but it was a joy to find so much of it so familiar as I read.
20. [25 Mar] Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager – Michael Lopp. This book was recommended highly by Geof, and the author (who goes by his nom de cyber, Rands) is brilliant at Rands in Repose, so I finally bought it from Amazon and gave it a whirl. While Rands’ high-tech world of internet startups and quick-turn user applications is a long mile from my process-driven avionics development world, he still has good insights on management and nerds. A good read.
21. [30 Mar] All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well – Tod Wodicka. Not sure what prompted me to pick this one up. It’s an odd little story about a guy who is a medieval times reenactor, except that he’s so uncomfortable with modern life that he prefers to stay in character all the time. Of course, this wreaks havoc with his family. Overall a messed-up, depressing story. Very odd.
April
22. [2 Apr] The 6 Sacred Stones – Matthew Reilly. Reilly’s genre is something I’ll call “non-stop action thriller”. His books read like a Jason Statham movie on speed. He uses more italics and exclamation points than even the Hardy Boys did. But his books are entertaining escapist reads, and this one didn’t disappoint. It did mislead a bit, though: they only dealt with the first three stones in this story, and leave you cliffhanging at the end of the book. Now I’ve gotta wait for him to publish the next one…
23. [14 Apr] Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes & Asides from National Review – William F. Buckley. I’m going on a bit of a Buckley kick here this past week (after trying again and failing to get into Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver and this is one of only two non-fiction books of Buckley’s that the library carries. Guaranteed to stretch your vocabulary and make you chuckle at the wit. A fun read.
24. [16 Apr] Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith – William F. Buckley. I think this one may have been a re-read for me – parts of it seemed vaguely familiar. Still, worth the read. The emphasis in this volume is far more on the faith than the autobiography; most of the chapters address how he, as a thinker and intellectual, addresses and comes to grips with his (Roman Catholic) beliefs. Well written, insightful, good stuff.
25. [19 Apr] The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester. Written in 1953, this book won the first-ever Hugo Award for sci-fi. I was impressed with how non-dated the story felt. While not having a very futurist slant toward technology, the remainder of the futurist part of the setting and plot was solid. Fun to get back to the early sci-fi.
26. [22 Apr] Betrayal – John Lescroart. I’ve enjoyed Lescroart’s books starring Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitzky for a while now, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. It’s a did-he-or-didn’t-he plot built around a soldier with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and his friend-turned-rival. A decent read, but not a very fulfilling ending.
27. [30 Apr] Gas City
May
28. [3 May] Korea Strait: A Novel
29. [10 May] The Man in the High Castle
30. [16 May] Vurt
31. [18 May] Shadow Command: A Novel
32. [19 May] The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography 
33. [21 May] Stone Cold
34. [22 May] Dead Heat (Political Thrillers Series #5)
35. [27 May] Majestic Descending
June
36. [1 Jun] Bastard Tongues: A Trail-Blazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World’s Lowliest Languages
37. [8 Jun] Cauldron
38. [20 Jun] Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II
39. [23 Jun] Golden Fox
July
40. [5 Jul] A Case for Amillennialism
41. [7 Jul] Phytosphere
42. [10 Jul] The Redbreast
43. [17 Jul] James Van Allen – The First Eight Billion Miles – Abigail Foerstner. A really interesting biography of an Iowa native who played a big role in America’s early space exploration and discovered the earth’s radiation belts. A very good read.
44. [20 Jul] Rules of Deception
45. [23 Jul] 1787 (Five Star Mystery Series)
46. [27 Jul] A Prisoner of Birth – Jeffrey Archer. Archer gives a modern retelling of Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, and it’s fantastic. I love his characters, and I love the fact that it’s so black and white. In a day where most novels have characters that seem good and you want to trust, who end up being traitors and villains, this novel gives you noble characters that you can trust. I loved it. My favorite novel of the year so far.
August
47. [2 Aug] Death and Honor – W.E.B. Griffin. Griffin remains a wonderful writer and he’s completely in his element with another book in his Honor Bound series, set in Argentina during WWII. An enjoyable read.
48. [6 Aug] The Pleasure of My Company: A Novella – Steve Martin. Yes, that Steve Martin. But what a nice little story. Narrated in first person by a man with enough neuroses to, well, fill a book, it turns out to be a sweet little story with a nice ending. Light, pleasant reading.
49. [8 Aug] Nothing To Lose – Lee Child. I am a big fan of Child’s Jack Reacher series. Reacher is a wandering former military policeman who owns nothing more than the clothes on his back and the stuff in his pockets. There seems to always be another crime to solve or injustice to set right. Fun reading.
50. [11 Aug] The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald. Somehow I’d never read this one before. What a great book. A simple story, but as great authors do, Fitzgerald creates an atmosphere that lets you feel like a part of that world and that time. Excellent book.
51. [14 Aug] Devil May Care – Sebastian Faulks. Faulks was chosen to write a new James Bond novel, and he does a passable job. I haven’t read any of Ian Fleming’s original 007 novels, so it’s hard to compare, but it was an enjoyable read.
52. [17 Aug] The Appeal – John Grisham. With his return to the legal genre and the two-word title, I had hopes that Grisham’s story would be a return to his stories of old, stories where the heroes battle difficult struggles but still prevail. No such luck. Grisham has continued to decide to be preachy rather than tell a good story. Disappointing.
53. [18 Aug] The Blue Parakeet – Scot McKnight. Extended review here.
54. [20 Aug] The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger. I’d heard rumbles about this one, but had never picked it up until now. What a beautiful story, uniquely told. A great book.
55. [22 Aug] City at the End of Time – Greg Bear. A sprawling fantasy epic about time- and reality-travelers nearing the end of the universe. Different, but enjoyable.
56. [27 Aug] Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God – Mark Batterson. Extended review here.
57. [29 Aug] Atonement – Ian McEwen. You know what? I just didn’t get this one. At all. The first half of the story had me set up for something… and the second half fell flat. Meh.
58. [31 Aug] Fidelity – Thomas Perry. A rather basic sort of thriller in which a husband is killed and his wife is piecing together information about the secrets he was keeping… the ones that ultimately led to his killing. Nothing too exciting, but moderately entertaining.
September
Good grief, over 2 weeks without finishing a book? I started slogging through a 600-page history of the Korean War, then finally got bored and gave up.
59. [17 Sep] Spider Star – Mike Brotherton. A futuristic sci-fi about space travel and encountering other species. It took a long time to set up (too long, really), but the last 50 pages or so were a good payoff. Not awesome, not bad.
60. [20 Sep] First Daughter – Eric Von Lustbader. Time for a cheap thriller to liven things up, and this one didn’t disappoint. A moderately interesting bad guy, a more-interesting protagonist. The story, focusing on the kidnapping of the president-elect’s daughter, is just almost implausible, but not quite. All in all, a decent story.
61. [22 Sep] Churched: One Kid’s Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess – Matthew Paul Turner. My official blog review of this one won’t come for a few weeks yet, but this is a funny little memoir from a guy who grew up in an independent fundamental Baptist church. While I didn’t grow up in a church like that, I grew up close enough to that culture to have the book resonate with me. A quick, enjoyable read.
62. [29 Sep] Watership Down – Richard Adams. This is a hard novel to describe, not because it’s nondescript, but because short descriptions would leave out so much. It’s a story about rabbits. Let’s try this on for size: if Tolkien were to have written a story the length of one of the LotR books, and set it in modern day, and narrowed the scope from “save the world” to “find a new place to live” and written it about rabbits instead of hobbits, you might get something like Watership Down. I enjoyed it.
October
63. For Young Men Only: A Guy’s Guide to the Alien Gender – Jeff Feldhahn and Eric Rice. Full blog review posted here.
64. Little Brother – Cory Doctorow. An anti-government-surveillance/pro-liberty (depending on which side of the ledger you’re on, I guess) piece of propaganda, gussied up as an entertaining short novel aimed at the teenage set. Complete with terrorist attacks, jackbooted Homeland Security agents, and waterboarding! Over the top, but still kinda fun. Also: the first book I’ve read as an e-book, on my iPod Touch.
65. [13 Oct] Pirate Sun: Book Three of Virga – Karl Schroeder. The latest installment in the Virga series, which continues to fascinate me.
66. [18 Oct] How Would Jesus Vote? – D. James Kennedy & Jerry Newcombe. Full review coming next week.
67. [19 Oct] The Fourth Hand – John Irving. Irving says that the inspiration for this one came from his wife hearing a news story about a man who got a hand transplant and wondering “what would happen if the donor’s family wanted visitation rights?”. A charming little story in its own way, though Irving is far too sex-obsessed for my tastes.
68. [22 Oct] A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind – Michael Axworthy. Axworthy was a long-time member of the British foreign service and writes a fairly accessible history of Iran. Fascinating stuff.
69. [26 Oct] The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro. I was glad to finally read the book version of a movie that I enjoyed. Ishiguro captures the focused dedication of an English butler in entertaining fashion. I am impressed by how closely the movie stayed to the novel; and the role of Stevens will always be played, in my head, by Sir Anthony Hopkins.
November
70. [8 Nov] Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson. A long story weaving together WWII cryptography and modern-day gold. Interesting stuff.
71. [11 Nov] The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood. A dystopian story of a future in which women have no rights. A bit dated, perhaps, but an interesting story none the less.
72. [14 Nov] Capitol Conspiracy – William Bernhardt. This guy is cranking out stories at a pace that seems to mean each one is a little bit poorer than the one before. Oklahoma lawyer Ben Kincaid, having made his way up from little-guy lawyer to US senator, now finds himself at the heart of a Homeland Security plot to assassinate the First Lady, force through a Constitutional amendment to allow the suspension of the Bill of Rights, and, well, you get the idea. Entertaining, but vapid.
73. [16 Nov] Fools’ Experiments – Edward M. Lerner. A Crichton-esque novel centering on the evolution of artificially intelligent computer software. The beginning is a bit muddled, but by the middle of the book he’s hit his stride and the second half is quite entertaining.
74. [21 Nov] The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth About the Antichrist – Kim Riddlebarger. A companion book to his The Case for Amillenialism, which I read earlier this year, in this book Riddlebarger examines the different perspectives on the Antichrist and argues for a traditional Reformed Presbyterian view. Nothing earthshattering, but good stuff.
75. [27 Nov] The Faith of Barack Obama – Stephen Mansfield. Extended review here.
76. [28 Nov] Fidelity: Five stories – Wendell Berry. Andy O is always praising Berry, so I grabbed another of his books from the library. Berry is a charming, simple writer. A joy to read.
December
77. [12 Dec] The Spanish Game – Charles Cumming. A spy novel set in Spain; the intrigue centers around the Basque separatist group ETA. Just interesting enough to keep me involved – not interesting enough to get me to read it very quickly.
78. [19 Dec] Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing – Ted Conover. A journalist is refused access to Sing Sing and the Correctional Officer’s school to write a story… so he applies to become a Correctional Officer, and works as a guard at New York’s Sing Sing maximum-security prison for a year. Fascinating book.
