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A list of books recently-read that I have discussed here.

For many years, Phoebe-Lou Adams wrote wonderful short reviews for The Atlantic. The short reviews were part of the month and part of the landscape; only when they were gone did I think about them. Short notes are tricky, but they make a nice sort of postmodern commonplace book, and way to share impressions and small joys.

This page is also an experiment in information architecture with Tinderbox. Tinderbox lets me gather and maintain this list automatically, so it's easy to build and easier to keep current.

Amir D Aczel, Pendulum

Andrei Alexandrescu, Modern C++ Design

David Allen, Getting Things Done

David Allen, Ready for Anything

Ted Allen et al., Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

Jonathan Ames, Wake Up, Sir!

Catherine Asaro, The Moon's Shadow

Diana Athill, Stet: An Editor's Life

Rick Atkinson, Army At Dawn

Cliff Atkinson, Beyond Bullet Points

Rick Atkinson, Day of Battle

Douglas Atwill, Why I won't Be Going To Lunch Anymore

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Ed Ayers, In The Presence of Mine Enemies

L. A. Banks, Minion

Richard Barre, Echo Bay

Kent Beck and Martin Fowler, Planning Extreme Programming

Kent Beck, Test-Driven Development

Kent Beck, Implementation Patterns

H. G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights

Cara Black, Murder in the Sentier

Rebecca Blood, The Weblog Handbook

Amy Bloom, Love Invents Us

Amy Bloom, Away

Roy Blount, Jr., About Three Bricks Shy Of A Load

Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Richard J. A. Talber, The Romans: From Village To Empire

Steven Bochco, Death by Hollywood

James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour

Anthony Bourdain, Les Halles Cookbook

Clare Boylan, Emma Brown

H. W. Brands, Franklin

David Brin, Kiln People

Geraldine Brooks, March

Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code

Robert Brustein, Siege of the Arts

Robert Brustein, Letters to a Young Actor

Bill Bryson, Notes From A Small Island

Bill Bryson, In A Sunburned Country

Michael Buckland, Emanuel Goldberg and his Knowledge Machine

Bill Buford, Heat

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game

Emma Bull, War for the Oaks

Chan Lwok Bun and Claire Chang See Ngoh, Stepping Out

Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History

A. S. Byatt, On Histories and Stories

A. S. Byatt, The Little Black Book of Stories

A. S. Byatt, Possession

Michael Bywater, Lost Worlds

Michael Bywater, Big Babies

Peter Carey, Jack Maggs

John Carey, What Good Are The Arts?

Peter Carey, His Illegal Self

Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate

Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Susan Cheever, Notes Found in a Bottle

Susan Cheever, American Bloomsbury

Rudolph Chelminski, The Perfectionist

Alex Prud'homme and Julia Child, My Life In France

Sasanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Curt Cloninger, Fresh Styles for Web Designers: Eye Candy from Underground

Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker

Harlan Coben, Just One Look

Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Triumph

David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Space Opera Renaissance

Michael Cunningham, Specimen Days

Hillman Curtis, MTIV

Carlo D'Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life

Mike Daisey, 21 Dog Years

Caroline H. Dall, Alongside

Val Davis , Thread of the Spider

Joshua Davis, Flash to the Core

Francis Davis, Afterglow

Ton DeMarco and Timothy Lister, Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

R. E. Delderfield, To Serve Them All My Days

Philip K. Dick, The Man In The High Castle

Michael Dirda, Book by Book

Michael Bigelow Dixon and Amy Wegener, eds., Humana Festival 2000

Andrew Dornenburg, Karen Page, Dining Out

Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

Edward Eager, Half Magic

Roger Ebert, The Great Movies

Roger Ebert, Great Movies II

Holly Edwards, Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures

Tom Ehrenfeld, The Startup Garden

Aaron Elkins, Loot

Carol Emswhiller, The Mount

Jason Epstein, Book Business: Publishing Past and Future

Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

Richard Fawkes, History of the Musical

Michael C. Feathers, Working Effectively With Legacy Code

Joshua Ferris, Then We Came To The End

Jasper Fforde, Lost In A Good Book

David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride

M. F. K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me

Peter Fleming, Brazilian Adventure

C. S. Forester, Beat To Quarters

Richard Fortey, Trilobite!

Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman

George MacDonald Fraser, Royal Flash

Marianne Fredriksson, Hanna's Daughters

Marianne Fredriksson, Simon's Family

Marianne Fredriksson, Two Women

Robert Frost, North of Boston

Robert Frost, Robert Frost

Stephen Fry, Revenge

Stephen Frye, The Liar

Alan Furst, Night Soldiers

Alan Furst, The World At Night

Paul Fussell, The Boy's Crusade

Paul Fussell, Abroad

Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

Damon Galgut, The Quarry

Luiz Alfredo Gracia-Roza, Southwesterly Wind

Jesse James Garrett, The Elements of User Experience

Thomas Geoghegan, Which Side Are You On

Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

William Gibson, Count Zero

William Gibson, Spook Country

Robert Gildea, Marianne in Chains

Jessica Abel and Ira Glass, Radio: An Illustrated Guide

Phoebe Gloeckner, Diary of a Teenage Girl

Susan Goin, Sunday Suppers at Lucques

Rich Gold, Plenitude

Steven Goldman, ed., Mind Game

Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, The Goal

Doris Keans Goodwin, Team Of Rivals

Jacob Gordin, Ruth Gay, The Jewish King Lear

Hiromi Goto, The Kappa C hild

Patience Gray, Honey from a Weed

Graham Greene, The Third Man

K. C. Greenlief, Cold Hunter's Moon

Jeff Greenwald, Shopping for Buddhas

W.E. B. Grifiin, Under Fire

W.E.B. Griffin, Special Ops

W.E.B. Griffin, Retreat Hell

W. E. B. Griffin, By Order Of The President

Antony Griffiths, Prints and Printmaking

William Grimes, Straight Up or On The Rocks

John Grisham, Skipping Christmas

Eileeen Gunn, Stable Strategies

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

Barbara Hambly, Fever Season

Lyn Hamilton, The Thai Amulet

Laurell K. Hamilton, A Caress of Twilight

Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

Daniel Handler, Watch Your Mouth

Jonathan Harr, The Lost Painting

Robert Harris, Imperium

Robert Harris, Fatherland

David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer eds, Year's Best SF 10

J. M. Hayes, Prairie Gothic

Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire

Daniel Hecht, Land of Echoes

Gustav Hermansen, Ostia: Aspects of Roman City Life

Stefan Heym, The King David Report

Tony Hillerman, The Wailing Wind

Tony Hillerman, The Sinister Pig

Tony Hillerman, The Shapeshifter

Tony Hillerman, Skeleton Man

John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise

Anne Hollander, Feeding The Eye

Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds, Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd)

Nick Hornby, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt

Georginal Howell, Getrude Bell

Mark Hurst, Bit Literacy

Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Norman Ishkowitz, Ottoman Empire

Pico Iyer, Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home

Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead

Bill James, Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract

Philip Jeyaretnam, Abraham's Promise

Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish

Lloyd Jones, Mr. Pip

Judith Jones, The Tenth Muse

Nicolai M. Josuttis, C++ STL

Cem Kamer, James Bach, Bret Pettichord, Lessons Learned in Software Testing

Edwin B. Kantar, Introduction to Declarer's Play

John Kantner, Ancient Puebloan Southwest

Roz Kaveny, ed., Reading the Vampire Slayer

Guy Kawasaki, Rules for Revolutionaries

Carolyn Keane, By The Light of the Study Lamp

Jonathan Kellerman, The Murder Book

Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, Double Homicide

Joshua Kerievsky, Refactoring To Patterns

Tracy Kidder, Home Town

Laurie King, Folly

Laurie R. King, O Jerusalem

Laurie R. King, Justice Hall

Laurie King, The Game

Laurie King, Locked Rooms

Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, Faithful

Laurie R. King, The Art Of Detection

Stephen King, The Shining

Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

William Kotzwinkle, The Bear Went Over The Mountain

Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think

Thomas Kunkel, ed., Letters from the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross

Tony Kushner, Death and Taxes

Erik Larson, The Devil In The White City

Brenda Laurel, Utopian Entrepreneur

John Le Carre, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics

Russell Lee, Singapore Ghost Stories 8

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Conflict of Honors

Dennis Lehane, Mystic River

Stephen Lekson, The Chaco Meridian

Stephen Lekson, The Architecture of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Ray Lemoine and Jeff Neumann, Babylon By Bus

Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty

Elmore Leonard, Tishomingo Blues

Bo Leuf and Ward Cunningham, The Wiki Way

Michael Lewis, Moneyball

Roy Lewis, Evolution Man

Lucia Leão, O Chip e o Caleidoscópio

Martin Limón, Buddha's Money

Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners

Alvin Liu, ed., The Art of Miyazaki's Spirited Away

David Lodge, Changing Places

David Lodge, Small World

Sidney Lumet, Making Movies

John Lusk and Kyle Harrison, The Mouse Driver Chronicles

Matt Madden, 99 Ways To Tell A Story

Gregory Maguire, Wicked

Gregory Maguire, What The Dickens

Thomas Mallon, A Book of One's Own: people and their diaries

David Mamet, True and False

David Mamet, The Old Neighborhood

David Mamet, Jafsie and John Henry: Essays

David Mamet, Make-Believe Town

David Mamet, The Spanish Prisoner and The Winslow Boy

David Mamet, The Old Neighborhood

David Mamet, The Boston Marriage

David Mamet, On Directing Film

David Mamet, The Wicked Son

David Mamet, Bambi vs. Godzilla

Joseph Moncure March (Art Spiegelman, illus), The Wild Party

Robert C. Martin, ed., C++ Gems

Steve Martin, Shopgirl

Patricia Marx, Him Her Him Again The End of Him

Sujata Massey, The Bride's Kimono

Sujata Massey, Samurai's Daughter

Lia Matera, Havana Twist

Armistead Maupin, Michael Tolliver Lives

Ernest R. May, Strange Victory

Mark Mazower, Dark Continent

Scott McCloud, Making Comics

David McCullough, John Adams

David McCullough, 1776

Ian McEwan, Atonement

Ian McEwan, The Black Dogs

Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach

Michael McGarrity, Under the Color of Law

Michael McGarrity, The Big Gamble

Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking

Robin McKinley, Sunshine

John McPhee, The Crofter and the Laird

Russell Meiggs, Roman Ostia

Louis Menand, American Studies

Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club

Jane Mendelsohn, Innocence

Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World

Scott Meyers, Effective STL

Susan Cummins Miller, Death Assemblage

Steve Miller and Sahron Lee, Agent Of Change

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Miyuki Miyabe, All She Was Worth

Rick Moody, Garden State

Christopher G. Moore, Chairs

Christopher G. Moore , A Killing Smile

Judith and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel: A Biography

Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

Sheldon Morgenstern, No Vivaldi in the Garage

Samuel Eliot Morison, Strategy and Compromise

Stefran Mumaw, Simple: Web Sites

Jim Munro, Everyone in Silico

William Murray, City of the Soul: A Walk In Rome

John J. Nance, Headwind

Jennifer New, Drawing from Life

Charles Nicholl, The Lodger Shakespeare

Patrick O'Brian, The Golden Ocean

Patrick O'Brian, Thirteen Gun Salute

Patrick O'Brian, The Commodore

Patrick O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral

Patrick O'Brian, Far Side of the World

Patrick O'Brian, Letter of Marque

Patrick O'Brian, The Reverse of the Medal

Patrick O'Brian, The Hundred Days

Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island

Patrick O'Brian, Joseph Banks: A Life

Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

John O'Hara, Pal Joey

Julie Orringer, How To Breathe Underwater

Josiah Osgood, Caesar's Legacy

James E. Packer, The Forum of Trajan in Rome

George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate

Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar

Robert B. Parker, Widow's Walk

I. J. Parker, Rashomon Gate

Robert B. Parker, Back Story

Robert Parker, Shrink Rap

Robert B. Parker, Bad Business

Robert B. Parker, Hundred Dollar Baby

Tim Parks, Medici Money

Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club

Ian Pears, The Dream of Scipio

Jacques Pepin, The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen

Anne Perry, Half Moon Street

Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Arthur Phillips, Angelica

Michael Pollan, A Place Of My Own

Derek Powazek, Design for Community

Magdalen Powers, Hand Over Fist

Tim Powers, A Soul In A Bottle

David Poyer, The Med

Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

Terry Pratchett, Mort

Phillip Pullman, Lyra's Oxford

Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

Phillip Pullman, Ruby in the Smoke

Phillip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

David Remnick, ed., Wonderful Town

David Remnick , ed., The Complete New Yorker

Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco

John Ringo, A Hymn Before Battle

John Ringo, Gust Front

Jancis Robinson, How To Taste

John Rodzvilla, ed., We've Got Blog

Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes

Scott Rosenberg, Dreaming In Code

Ross King, Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

C. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

C. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Nicholas Royle, Antwerp

Michael Ruhlman, Making of a Chef

Michaerl Ruhlman, Soul of a Chef

Michael Ruhlman, The Reach of a Chef: Beyond The Kitchen

Michael Ruhlman, The Elements Of Cooking

Michael Ruhlman, Making of a Chef

John Ruskin, Mornings In Florence

Richard Russo, Empire Falls

Joe Sacco, The Fixer

Walter Satterthwait, Masquerade

Leigh Sauerwein, Song for Eloise

Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise

Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

Dorothy R. Sayers, The Nine Tailors

Darothy L. Sayers, Busman’s Honeymoon

Jill Patton Walsh and Dorothy Sayers, A Presumption of Death

Sally Schneider, A New Way To Cook

Barbara Seagram and Marc Smith, Bridge: 25 Ways to Compete In The Bidding

Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

Joann Sfar, The Rabbi's Cat

Bob Shacochis, Swimming in the Volcano

Stephen A. Shaw, Turning The Tables

Nathan Shedroff, Experience Design

T. A. Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

Dan Simmons, Ilium

Eric Sink, Eric Sink of the Business of Software

Curtis Sittenfeld, Prep

Craig Smith, The Whisper of Leaves

Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Sarah Smith, Chasing Shakespeares

Zadie Smith, On Beauty

Ali Smith, The Accidental

J. Percy Smith, ed., Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells

Amy Sohn, My Old Man

Elizabeth Speller, Following Hadrian

Julia Spencer-Fleming, In The Bleak Midwinter

Boris Starling, Vodka

Barbara M. Stecher, Sketchbooking

Peter Steinhart, The Undressed Art

Rory Stewart, Prince of the Marshes

Julian Stockwin, Kydd

Charles Stross, Iron Sunrise

Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

Charles Stross, The Family Trade

Charles Stross, The Hidden Family

Charles Stross, The Clan Corporate

Charles Stross, Accelerando

Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue

William Styron, Set This House On Fire

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

David Thomas, Andrew Hunt, Programming Ruby

Charles Todd, A Test Of Wills

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, This Earth of Mankind

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self

Sarah Turnbull, Almost French

Charles Neider, ed., The Complete Essays of Mark Twain

Mark Twain, Roughing It

Ellen Ullman, The Bug

Janwillem van de Wetering, Hard Rain

John Varley, Red Thunder

David Walder, Nelson

Jo Walton, Farthing

Jo Walton, Tooth and Claw

Jo Walton, Ha'penny

Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall Of Rome

Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles

Sarah Waters, The Night Watch

Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies

David Weinberger, Everything Is Miscellaneous

Miriam Weinstein, Yiddish

H. G. Wells, The World Brain

Tony Wheeler et al., Lonely Planet: Unpacked Again

Andrew White, ed., London Walks

Thornton Wilder, Cabala

Simon Winchester, The Map That Changed The World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

Tobias Wolf, Old School

Gene Wolfe, The Knight

Bob Woodward, State of Denial