Books that I read this year, (mostly) in the order I read them
... and commentary written about them. (In the spirit of wynand.) See also books I read in January.
Saussure, Course in General Linguistics. A classic of the field, I'm glad to have read it, and can easily recommend it (despite its age) to anyone with an interest in either linguistics or semiotics. It's frustrating how he seems to be on the right track when he says "The system united as a whole is the starting point, from which it becomes possible to identify its constituent elements" but then insists that grammatical rules are like chess, leading to years and years of generative grammar.
Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America. Bought this on harvey's distantly remembered recommendation and loved it, especially the first section, Trout Fishing in America proper. (Didn't care much for the poetry, it really just seemed like his verse except with line breaks thrown in.) Vivid, spins off into imaginary worlds in a seamless way that I admire.
Nabokov, Short Stories. Started this last year, actually, only to finish it in February. The later stories were generally less enjoyable than the earlier ones, subverting my expectations. It's interesting to see Nabokov develop the techniques that allow him to so breezily discard time and space in his novels, and to see the Pnin character, embodied in various portly, bald, ineffectual fellows, pop up again and again.
Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. Enjoyed this immensely, especially the bits about Bokononism and the invented language/country/politics. I kind of wish it had lasted longer, though.
Nabokov, Pale Fire. My new favorite book.
Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins may be a blowhard, but it is hard to argue with this book's clarity and style. All my notes are about what this book can tell us about language development, which isn't much, unfortunately. But I can understand how this book plus "Ishmael" can underlie the solid philosophical foundation that belongs to my good friend Josh.
Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea. Not sure if I like this one better than the first, but Sabrina says number three is the best (I'll be getting to that one soon). I find these books enjoyable but for some reason not as "light" as Sabrina would have me believe.
Culler, Literary Theory (A Very Short Introduction). Yet more evidence of my deep regret at not having majored in English. This book confirmed that a lot of what I need to know I already learned from linguistics (specifically R. Lakoff). Worked up my desire to read more Bakhtin and Foucault, a desire which may one day actually be fulfilled! Watch this space.
Chopin, The Awakening. One of those books that doesn't immediately open itself to me. Foolishly forgot to write any notes about it. I do recall recognizing the similarities to Flaubert and Maupassant, which made me feel okay about spending all that time minoring in French.
Lakoff, Moral Politics. A poorly organized, densely written book that convinces you of its thesis in spite of itself. Feels like most of the book was written merely as an effort to fill in an outline, and it's the only academic book I've read in recent memory that had conversations with its section titles - "Can You Be A Born Again Christian And Not A Conservative? Of course you can." (p. 254). Lakoff never convinces me that his "adequacy conditions" for a cognitive theory of politics actually model reality, nor that his particular theory is cognitively accurate. Explains things with bulleted lists. Thinks that "you silly christians, you're not actually SHEEP of an actual SHEPHERD!" is an adequate refutation of the literal truth of the Bible. Maybe Don't Think of an Elephant is better than this?
Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Everything Is Illuminated. I read the latter twice, back-to-back. Foer is so doggedly ambitious that it's hard not to root for him, even when you sort of vaguely feel that maybe he should leave all this magical realism stuff to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Oskar and Alex are such charismatic characters that it is impossible to not love the books they're in. I was disappointed that Extremely Loud... was less aggressive with typography/non-textual elements than Everything Is Illuminated. Foer does that stuff well, I'd like to see him more confident with it, not less.
Mitchell, Cloud Atlas. My new second-favorite book?
Galápagos, Vonnegut. Didn't realize it when I was reading it, but this is now my favorite Vonnegut. I especially admire the way that he tells all the threads of the story sort of simultaneously until it all spills over. Love the asterisks. Keep on truckin', Kurt.
Austin, How to Do Things with Words. Great to get back to the source on this one, although a lot of it went over my head, as I am no philosopher of language. Austin is irreverent, charismatic, imprecise - not hard to see why he has such a following. I could have just read this book and saved myself a whole semester listening to John Searle.
Meloy, Let It Be; Griffiths, OK Computer. These are both part of the 33 1/3 series, which you've probably seen arranged in a neat, colorful little row in the music section of your local bookshop. Both underwhelmed me. Griffiths gves a passable history of the Album As Genre, but mistakes an elaborate chart of OK Computer's time signatures for an analysis of the music. I'm sympathetic to Meloy's situation of Let It Be (Replacements, not Beatles) in his own social context (coming, as I do, from a cultural background similarly disconnected). But what happened, Colin? Your songwriting is so evocative that I expected your prose to knock me over. You say that it's "not an unconsiderable challenge to stay in the realm of the non-fictive" - so why take up the challenge? Where are the Pirates, Colin?
Wong, Shambhala Guide to Taoism. I learned from this book that there is a difference between religious Taoism and philosophical Taoism. This book is a fine introduction to the history of the former and its various beliefs and practices. Caused me to write up a Taoism-based magic system for my never-to-be-finished or -forthcoming roguelike written in Python.
Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the Order of the Phoenix, the Half-Blood Prince. Goblet is Rowling's most accomplished, I think, the essence of the Harry Potter Novel. Phoenix just bothered me. I went through both of these mighty fast so I could get to Prince, which I enjoyed but only half remember owing to the speed at which I consumed it. Will probably have to read all six again, if only to keep up with my girlfriend who has read the series about four hundred times.
Gaiman, American Gods. I didn't like this book. Does that make me a dick? All I could think while I was reading it is, "Yes, but Neil, other people have taken introductory folklore classes too." Also, least satisfying denouement of any book ever written. ("Hey guys, you've all been duped!" "Well, what do you know. Guess we have been. Better go home!") Are there better Gaiman books than this? Please say yes, I need you to say yes.
Vonnegut, Player Piano. Clunky compared to his other novels - you get the feeling that he could have written this novel in half as many words later in his career.
Anonymous, Njal's Saga. Josh gave this to me for my birthday while we were in the Baltics. I have to cop to a certain envy of these Icelanders' ethics - an eye for an eye or for a certain amount of gold, no hard feelings! Certainly clears up questions about capital punishment. Josh was right to recommend this delightfully Engrishy translation (thanks, Magnus and Hermann!). (I need to find examples of this to post, there is some funny shit in here.)
Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep. I've caught the Cthulhu bug, ain't no stoppin' me now, I even bought the movie (which I recommend wholeheartedly to all Lovecraft fans, it's nerdy as hell but true to the story and has some cool stop-motion animation). This collection isn't as good as Call of Cthulhu, which had some stories that actually succeeded in inducing a chill. Lovecraft's always fun but the scary is kind of hit or miss. The descriptions of the city in At the Mountains of Madness almost begin to resemble those web pages of schizophrenic folks that people so love to mock nowadays.
Spolsky (ed.), Best Software Writing I. Good stuff in here.
Jackson, the Haunting (of Hill House). All the Lovecraft put me in the mood for some horror. I liked this book but was unable to shake visions of Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta-Jones from my head while reading it. Didn't get the chills, though, so it was disappointing in that regard. The last book that scared me was The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs. This is when I was 11. Someday I would like to be scared by a book again.
Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Devoured this in an afternoon. Do you need to drug yourself this heavily to write prose with such abandon? If so, sign me up.
Tomasello, Constructing a Language. My new favorite Linguistics book? I bought it on a whim from Borders (the title caught my eye), read it and was transformed. Tomasello, over the course of three hundred pages, pretty much shitcans generative grammar in his account of usage-, construction-, and cognitively-based language acquisition. I wish I'd read this book five years ago; I don't understand how I could get a B.A. in Linguistics from a school and never be told about construction grammar. It was like a revelation and it now controls the destiny of my life.
Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness. Just a damn fine piece of sci-fi. I wonder, though, how the book would be different if it were written today - Genly Ai is so charismatic a narrator, so easy to identify with, that I find it hard to believe the book when it tells me he subscribes to prehistoric notions of gender and sexuality. Why would the Ekumen send a troglodyte like that to Gethen, of all places? If Le Guin had written the book today, Ai and Estraven would have made sweet, sweet love in that tent, over and over. Hell, Ai'd probably have been getting serious booty every day since he first landed.
Capote, In Cold Blood. Sabrina recommended I read this after we saw Capote last month. Capote isn't just fair to the killers and the victims, he's passionate about them - he advocates not forgiveness but love and a recognition of the moral complexity in any crime. I admire the clear prose which invisibly inhabits the minds of all involved. I've never read a more heartbreaking book.
Saussure, Course in General Linguistics. A classic of the field, I'm glad to have read it, and can easily recommend it (despite its age) to anyone with an interest in either linguistics or semiotics. It's frustrating how he seems to be on the right track when he says "The system united as a whole is the starting point, from which it becomes possible to identify its constituent elements" but then insists that grammatical rules are like chess, leading to years and years of generative grammar.
Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America. Bought this on harvey's distantly remembered recommendation and loved it, especially the first section, Trout Fishing in America proper. (Didn't care much for the poetry, it really just seemed like his verse except with line breaks thrown in.) Vivid, spins off into imaginary worlds in a seamless way that I admire.
Nabokov, Short Stories. Started this last year, actually, only to finish it in February. The later stories were generally less enjoyable than the earlier ones, subverting my expectations. It's interesting to see Nabokov develop the techniques that allow him to so breezily discard time and space in his novels, and to see the Pnin character, embodied in various portly, bald, ineffectual fellows, pop up again and again.
Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. Enjoyed this immensely, especially the bits about Bokononism and the invented language/country/politics. I kind of wish it had lasted longer, though.
Nabokov, Pale Fire. My new favorite book.
Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins may be a blowhard, but it is hard to argue with this book's clarity and style. All my notes are about what this book can tell us about language development, which isn't much, unfortunately. But I can understand how this book plus "Ishmael" can underlie the solid philosophical foundation that belongs to my good friend Josh.
Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea. Not sure if I like this one better than the first, but Sabrina says number three is the best (I'll be getting to that one soon). I find these books enjoyable but for some reason not as "light" as Sabrina would have me believe.
Culler, Literary Theory (A Very Short Introduction). Yet more evidence of my deep regret at not having majored in English. This book confirmed that a lot of what I need to know I already learned from linguistics (specifically R. Lakoff). Worked up my desire to read more Bakhtin and Foucault, a desire which may one day actually be fulfilled! Watch this space.
Chopin, The Awakening. One of those books that doesn't immediately open itself to me. Foolishly forgot to write any notes about it. I do recall recognizing the similarities to Flaubert and Maupassant, which made me feel okay about spending all that time minoring in French.
Lakoff, Moral Politics. A poorly organized, densely written book that convinces you of its thesis in spite of itself. Feels like most of the book was written merely as an effort to fill in an outline, and it's the only academic book I've read in recent memory that had conversations with its section titles - "Can You Be A Born Again Christian And Not A Conservative? Of course you can." (p. 254). Lakoff never convinces me that his "adequacy conditions" for a cognitive theory of politics actually model reality, nor that his particular theory is cognitively accurate. Explains things with bulleted lists. Thinks that "you silly christians, you're not actually SHEEP of an actual SHEPHERD!" is an adequate refutation of the literal truth of the Bible. Maybe Don't Think of an Elephant is better than this?
Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Everything Is Illuminated. I read the latter twice, back-to-back. Foer is so doggedly ambitious that it's hard not to root for him, even when you sort of vaguely feel that maybe he should leave all this magical realism stuff to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Oskar and Alex are such charismatic characters that it is impossible to not love the books they're in. I was disappointed that Extremely Loud... was less aggressive with typography/non-textual elements than Everything Is Illuminated. Foer does that stuff well, I'd like to see him more confident with it, not less.
Mitchell, Cloud Atlas. My new second-favorite book?
Galápagos, Vonnegut. Didn't realize it when I was reading it, but this is now my favorite Vonnegut. I especially admire the way that he tells all the threads of the story sort of simultaneously until it all spills over. Love the asterisks. Keep on truckin', Kurt.
Austin, How to Do Things with Words. Great to get back to the source on this one, although a lot of it went over my head, as I am no philosopher of language. Austin is irreverent, charismatic, imprecise - not hard to see why he has such a following. I could have just read this book and saved myself a whole semester listening to John Searle.
Meloy, Let It Be; Griffiths, OK Computer. These are both part of the 33 1/3 series, which you've probably seen arranged in a neat, colorful little row in the music section of your local bookshop. Both underwhelmed me. Griffiths gves a passable history of the Album As Genre, but mistakes an elaborate chart of OK Computer's time signatures for an analysis of the music. I'm sympathetic to Meloy's situation of Let It Be (Replacements, not Beatles) in his own social context (coming, as I do, from a cultural background similarly disconnected). But what happened, Colin? Your songwriting is so evocative that I expected your prose to knock me over. You say that it's "not an unconsiderable challenge to stay in the realm of the non-fictive" - so why take up the challenge? Where are the Pirates, Colin?
Wong, Shambhala Guide to Taoism. I learned from this book that there is a difference between religious Taoism and philosophical Taoism. This book is a fine introduction to the history of the former and its various beliefs and practices. Caused me to write up a Taoism-based magic system for my never-to-be-finished or -forthcoming roguelike written in Python.
Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the Order of the Phoenix, the Half-Blood Prince. Goblet is Rowling's most accomplished, I think, the essence of the Harry Potter Novel. Phoenix just bothered me. I went through both of these mighty fast so I could get to Prince, which I enjoyed but only half remember owing to the speed at which I consumed it. Will probably have to read all six again, if only to keep up with my girlfriend who has read the series about four hundred times.
Gaiman, American Gods. I didn't like this book. Does that make me a dick? All I could think while I was reading it is, "Yes, but Neil, other people have taken introductory folklore classes too." Also, least satisfying denouement of any book ever written. ("Hey guys, you've all been duped!" "Well, what do you know. Guess we have been. Better go home!") Are there better Gaiman books than this? Please say yes, I need you to say yes.
Vonnegut, Player Piano. Clunky compared to his other novels - you get the feeling that he could have written this novel in half as many words later in his career.
Anonymous, Njal's Saga. Josh gave this to me for my birthday while we were in the Baltics. I have to cop to a certain envy of these Icelanders' ethics - an eye for an eye or for a certain amount of gold, no hard feelings! Certainly clears up questions about capital punishment. Josh was right to recommend this delightfully Engrishy translation (thanks, Magnus and Hermann!). (I need to find examples of this to post, there is some funny shit in here.)
Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep. I've caught the Cthulhu bug, ain't no stoppin' me now, I even bought the movie (which I recommend wholeheartedly to all Lovecraft fans, it's nerdy as hell but true to the story and has some cool stop-motion animation). This collection isn't as good as Call of Cthulhu, which had some stories that actually succeeded in inducing a chill. Lovecraft's always fun but the scary is kind of hit or miss. The descriptions of the city in At the Mountains of Madness almost begin to resemble those web pages of schizophrenic folks that people so love to mock nowadays.
Spolsky (ed.), Best Software Writing I. Good stuff in here.
Jackson, the Haunting (of Hill House). All the Lovecraft put me in the mood for some horror. I liked this book but was unable to shake visions of Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta-Jones from my head while reading it. Didn't get the chills, though, so it was disappointing in that regard. The last book that scared me was The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs. This is when I was 11. Someday I would like to be scared by a book again.
Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Devoured this in an afternoon. Do you need to drug yourself this heavily to write prose with such abandon? If so, sign me up.
Tomasello, Constructing a Language. My new favorite Linguistics book? I bought it on a whim from Borders (the title caught my eye), read it and was transformed. Tomasello, over the course of three hundred pages, pretty much shitcans generative grammar in his account of usage-, construction-, and cognitively-based language acquisition. I wish I'd read this book five years ago; I don't understand how I could get a B.A. in Linguistics from a school and never be told about construction grammar. It was like a revelation and it now controls the destiny of my life.
Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness. Just a damn fine piece of sci-fi. I wonder, though, how the book would be different if it were written today - Genly Ai is so charismatic a narrator, so easy to identify with, that I find it hard to believe the book when it tells me he subscribes to prehistoric notions of gender and sexuality. Why would the Ekumen send a troglodyte like that to Gethen, of all places? If Le Guin had written the book today, Ai and Estraven would have made sweet, sweet love in that tent, over and over. Hell, Ai'd probably have been getting serious booty every day since he first landed.
Capote, In Cold Blood. Sabrina recommended I read this after we saw Capote last month. Capote isn't just fair to the killers and the victims, he's passionate about them - he advocates not forgiveness but love and a recognition of the moral complexity in any crime. I admire the clear prose which invisibly inhabits the minds of all involved. I've never read a more heartbreaking book.