Books

 
 

14/02/00    A Brief History of Everything , Ken Wilbur (1996)
                I read this book
21/01/00     A Midsummer Night's Dream , William Shakespeare
                Story is a little weak, but the fantastic charachter of the play is a real pleasure.

29/02/00     The Chaos Balance , L. E. Modesitt (1998)

14/03/00     Soul of Fire , Terry Goodkind (2000)

20/03/00     Passions D'Amour , Anne-Marie Villefranche (2000)

22/03/00     The Netrinium Alchimist: Confilt (Part II)   , Peter Hamilton (1998)

28/03/00     A Dark and Hungry God Arises: The Gap into Power , Stephen Donaldson (1993)

29/03/00     Dune:House Atreides , Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson (1999)

02/04/00       The Human Factor , Graham Greene (1978)

08/04/00       Dubia , Robin Moore (1976)

21/04/00      Spring Snow   , Yukio Mishima    (1965)

22/04/00      Bluebeard   , Kurt Vonnegutt (1987)

06/05/00       Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy , Mantak Chia and Micheal Winn (1984)

20/05/00     This Day All Gods Die: The Gap into Ruin ,  Stephen Donaldson (1997)

29/05/00     The Naked God , Peter Hamilton (2000)

30/07/00     The Eyes of Light and Darkness , Ivan Cat (1996)

10/08/00     The Best American Erotica 1993    ed. Sussie Bright (1993)

09/08/00     Foundation's Triumph , David Brin (2000)

22/08/00     Swallowing Clouds ,  Lillian Ng (1999)

26/08/00     Beowulf's Children , Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Larry Niven (1999)

05/09/00        Game of Thrones , George Martin (1997)

02/11/00      A Clash of Kings ,  George Martin (1999)

18/11/00     On the Basis of Morality   Arthur Schopenhauer (1839)

01/12/00      The Arabian Nights'    translated by Richard Burton

07/01/01   Rhapsody: Child of Blood   Elizabeth Haydon (2000)

11/01/01   Ender's Shadow Orson Scott Card

20/01/01    The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language    John Mayard Smith and  Eors Szathmary (1999)

26/01/01    Singular Rebellion   Saiichi Maryua (1990)

12/02/01    The Diarly of Anais Nin 1931-1934 , Anias Nin (1969)

13/03/01    The Republic , Plato (~380 B.C.E.)

02/04/01    Lords of the Seventh Swarm , Dave Wolverton (1997)

08/04/01   The Gilded Chain : A Tale of the King's Blades ,  Dave Duncan (1999)

10/04/01    Children of the Mind , Orson Scott Card (1997)

20/04/01  Legacy ,Greg Bear (1999)

27/04/01  Origins of Life  Freeman Dyson (1985)

04/05/01  The Siege of Arrandin  Marcus Herniman (1999)

30/04/01  Philosophy of Sex and Love  Alan Soble (1998)

24/06/01 Herodotus: The Histories  Herodotus ( 500 B.C.)

26/06/01 Glory Season  David Brin (1996)

28/06/01 King's Dragon (Crown of Stars Vol 1)  Kate Elliot (1998)

03/06/01 The Runelords: The Sum of All Men (Book 1)  David Farland (1999)

07/08/01 Destiny: Child of Earth  Elizabeth Haydon (2000)

13/08/01 Cosmic Trigger II Down to Earth  Robert Anton Wilson (1996)

05/09/01 Brotherhood of the Wolf (The Rune Lords Book 2)  David Farland (2000)

30/09/01 Dune: House Harkonnen  Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson (2000)

15/10/01 Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars, Vol 2)  Kate Elliot (1999)

19/10/01 Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Socities  Jared Diamond (1999)

28/10/01 The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)  Kate Elliot (2000)

02/11/01 Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)  Kate Elliot (2001)

07/11/01 Black Hawk Down  Mark Bowden (1999)

15/11/01 A Storm of Swords  George Martin (2000)

20/11/01 Fellowship of the Ring  J. R. R. R> Tolkien (1954)

23/11/01 Lord of the Fire Lands : A Tale of the King's Blades  Dave Duncan (2000)

25/11/01 Sky of Swords : A Tale of the King's Blades  Dave Duncan (2001)

15/12/01 Shadow of the Hegemon  Orson Scott Card (2001)

20/12/01 Destiny: Child of Sky  Elizabeth Haydon (2001)

16/01/02 Dune: House Corrino  Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson (2001)
After finishing this book, the last prequel to Dune I went on to read Dune again. I was slightly dissapointed by the inconsistencies I found in Dune these begin: Jessica claims to have known the Suk doctor for six years, but he is on Caladan before Paul is born so it would be more like 16 years (maybe he was gone for 10 years?), In her conversation with Reverend Mother Monhiam, Jessica says she had a boy thinking he could be the Kwisatz Haderach, yet in House Corrino we find that she didn't even know about the breeding program when she had Paul. Finally it is made clear that the Duke bought her from the Sisterhood yet in the prequels she is given as a gift. Otherwise the book was pretty good with tieing up the stories in the previous two books, and setting the stage for why the Emperor would work with the Harkonens against the Atredias.

19/01/02 Tractatus Logico Philosophicus  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922)

16/01/02 Dune  Frank Herbert (1965)

02/02/02 Dune Messiah   Frank Herbert (1969)

04/02/02 Children of Dune   Frank Herbert (1976)

05/02/02 Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists  Benjamin Netanyahu (1995)

08/02/02 The Universal Computer  Martin Davis (2000)
Leibniz, Boole, Frege, Cantor, Hilbert, Godel, and Turing the story of the development that led to the Universal Turing machine. The book combines the mathatmatics with biographical information about the individuals who basically created the mathamatical foundation of logic. I learned about Frege who Wittingstien refers to but who I was basically unfamilliar with. An interesting is how Boole, Frege and Cantor worked on problems that most people thought were uninteresting at the time.

17/02/02 God Emperor of Dune   Frank Herbert (1981)

18/02/02 Heritics of Dune   Frank Herbert (1984)

22/02/02 Chapterhouse Dune   Frank Herbert (1984)

25/02/02 Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time book 9)  Robert Jordan (2002)
Well at least I can say that this book is better then the last few in the series. There seems to be a little bit of plot development, and the eternally repeating dialogue between the main charachters is kept far below the painful levels of previous books. It is hard to feel satisfied with reading parts of 4 or 5 almost unrelated stories, but this book differs from the past few by making it seem that possibly in another book or two the plot lines will finally converge. I couldn't help thinking that the series would have come accross much better, if the interweaving plot lines had been left as seperate stories. The key to pulling off this kind of effort is for the reader to get one whole story in the book and then bits and pieces of other ones can be acceptable (The Crown of Thornes series is doing an excellent job with this). Jordan's attempt to progress an equal amount in each plotline just leaves the reader flustered.

26/02/02 Saturn's Race   Larry Niven and Steven Barnes (2001)

30/03/02 Timeline   Michael Crichton (2000)

05/04/02 Garden of Rama   Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee (1984)

08/05/02 The Nano Flower Peter F. Hamilton (1998)

20/05/02 The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins (1976)

26/05/02 A Quantum Murder Peter F. Hamilton (1998)

02/06/02 The Two Towers J. R. R. Tolkien (1954)

25/06/02 Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History Stephen J. Gould (1989)
11/07/02 Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson (2000)
22/07/02 Mindstar Rising Peter F. Hamilton (1993)
15/08/02 The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins (1987)
02/10/02 Macho Sluts Pat Califia (1989)
22/10/02 A History of the Arab Peoples Albert Hourani (1992)
15/11/02 Requiem for the Sun Elizabeth Haydon (2002)
19/11/02 Shadow Puppets Orson Scott Card (2002)
04/12/02 Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad Gordan Thomas (1999)
06/12/02 Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers David Edmonds, John Eidinow (2001)
08/12/02 Kiln People David Brin (2002)
15/01/03 The Return of the King J. R. R. Tolkien (1963)
02/02/03 Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History Walter Pitman and William Ryan (2000)

26/02/03 Crossroads of Twilight Robert Jordan (2003)
Not expecting much from a new book in this series I actually thought on a chapter by chapter basis this book wasn't bad and the story line seemed to make a little progress. However, each subplot is only dealt with for a few chapters so that at the end of the book there has still been little motion. It may be possible that when the series is finally finished one can rip out the few chapters of each subplot and combine them in 12 new books that may actually be decent stories. Why Robert Jordan can't see this as a more reasonable way to write the series is beyond me.

08/03/03 War Without End: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land Anton La Guardia (2003)
This is a fairly good overview of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that presents a decent summary of the differing views without trying to include every possible detail. It's coverage of Israelies however is much more thorough then the coverage of Palestinians, which if fine but the book should be thought of as a history of the Israelies which includes sections on Palestinians as they are an integral part of the situation in Israel. However, I did notice a certain subtle racism which often is evident in coverage of Isreali-Palestinian issues where Isrealies are held to a certain western moral standard while Palestinians are not. An example of this is the authors rightful criticism of the general Isreali populations inability to come to terms with their responsibility for creating the Palestinian refugee problem yet no similar standard of self-reflection is even concieved of for the Palestinians. My interpurtation of this is that this standard of accountability is only held up to Western peoples.

14/03/03 Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson (2002)
25/03/03 Cuba : A Travelers Literary Companion (#8) Ann Bardach (Editor) (2002)
07/04/03 The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars book 5) Kate Elliot (2003)
24/04/03 Fallen Dragon Peter Hamilton (2002)
27/04/03 The Fifth Sorceress Robert Newcomb (2002)
21/05/03 On Secret Service John Jakes (2001) CD
29/05/03 Dragon's Fallen Sun (Dragonlance: The War of Souls, Book 1) Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (2001)
04/06/03 A Kiss of Shadows Laurell K. Hamilton (2003)
23/06/03 Picoverse Robert A. Metzger (2003)
25/06/03 Beyond the Pale (The Last Rune, Book 1) Mark Anthony (1999)
03/07/03 The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli Defense Force Martin Van Creveld (2002)
06/07/03 Idoru William Gibson (1997)
06/07/03 Sappho's Leap Erica Jong (2003)
05/08/03 Dragons of a Vanished Moon (Dragonlance: War of Souls, Book 3) Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (2003)
15/08/03 The Sexual Life of Catherine M. Catherine Millet (2003)
23/08/03 The Dante Club Matthew Pearl (2003)
08/09/03 Ilium Dan Simmons (2003)
06/11/03 The Keep of Fire Mark Anthony (2000)
10/11/03 The Dark Remains Mark Anthony (2001)
13/11/03 Naked Empire Terry Goodkind (2003)
23/11/03 The Pillars of Creation Terry Goodkind (2003)
28/11/03 Isle Witch  Terry Brooks (2001)
04/12/03 Antrax  Terry Brooks (2002)
08/12/03 The Machine Crusade  Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson (2003)
02/01/04 Morgawr  Terry Brooks (2003)
01/02/04 The Arab Mind  Rapheal Patai (1983)
26/02/04 The Illuminatus Trilogy  Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (2003)
28/02/04 Bitten  Kelly Armstrong (2003)
25/03/04 Junky  William S. Burroughs (1953)
08/04/04 New Spring (A Wheel of Time Prequel Novel) Robert Jordan (2004)
11/04/04 For Love and Glory Poul Anderson (2004)
20/04/04 All The King's Men  Robert Warren (1946)
26/04/04 Fool's Errand (The Tawny Man, Book 1) Robin Hobb (2002)
27/04/04 The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad Fareed Zakaria  (2004)
29/04/04 Golden Fool (The Tawny Man, Book 2) Robin Hobb (2003)
31/04/04 AJarka Ruus (High Druid of Shannara, Book 1) Terry Brooks (2003)
15/05/04 Fool's Fate  (The Tawny Man, Book 3) Robin Hobb (2004)
20/06/04 The Future of Life  Edward Wilson (2004)
In truth I wasn't very impressed by this book.  I thought the arguments were old and unorginal.  I disliked the attempts to write as if the author was a differnt charachter and the story telling aspects of the book.  There were some interesting numbers quoted, particular for the value of natural habitats, but not enough of these.  Also the argument for saving every type of every creature amounted to the authors interest, which is not going to convince the skeptic.  The unexpected consequences of and causes of the loss of certain species was interesting.
29/06/04 The Curse of Chalion Lois McMaster Bujoki  (2002)
30/06/04 Palladin of Souls  Lois McMaster Bujoki (2003)
07/07/04 Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages Book 2)  S. L. Farrell (2004)
13/07/04 Lords of Snow and Shadow  (Tears of Artamon Book 1) Sarah Ash (2004)
05/08/04 Holder of Lightning (The Cloudmages Book 1)  S. L. Farrell (2004)
17/08/04 Beyond Infinity Gregory Benford (2004)
19/08/04 The Darkness that Comes Before (Prince of Nothing Bk 1) R. Scott Bakker (2004)
23/08/04 Adventures of the Artificial Woman Thomas Berger (2004)
28/08/04 Smoke and Shadows Tanya Huff (2004)
12/09/04 Narcissus in Chains (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 10)  Laurell K. Hamilton (2002)
21/09/04 Pattern Recognition William Gibson (2003)
29/10/04 Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 1)  Laurell K. Hamilton (1995)
31/10/04 Circus of the Damned (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 3)  Laurell K. Hamilton (1995)
01/11/04 The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 2)  Laurell K. Hamilton (1994)
03/11/04 The Lunatic Cafe (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 4)  Laurell K. Hamilton (1996)
07/11/04 Seduced by Moonlight Laurell K. Hamilton (2004)
09/11/04 The Battle of Corrin Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson (2004)
13/11/04 Elegy for a Lost Star Elizabeth Haydon (2004)
16/11/04 Impossible Odds: A Chronicle of the King's Blades Dave Duncan (2004)
18/11/04 Burnt Offerings (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 7)  Laurell K. Hamilton (1998)
28/11/04 Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right Al Franken (2003)
20/12/04 The Jaguar Knights: A Chronicle of the King's Blades Dave Duncan (2004)
29/12/04 The Runes of the Earth (The Last Chronicle of Thomas Covenant, Book 1) Stephen R. Donaldson (2004)
29/01/05 Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 11)  Laurell K. Hamilton (2003)
31/01/05 Fire Logic   Laurie J. Marks (2002)
01/02/05 Earth Logic   Laurie J. Marks (2004)
03/02/05 The Killing Dance (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 6)   Laurell K. Hamilton (1997)
05/02/05 Obsedian Butterfly (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 9)   Laurell K. Hamilton (2000)
16/02/05 Bloody Bones (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 5)   Laurell K. Hamilton (1997)
??/02/05 Blue Moon (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 8)   Laurell K. Hamilton (1999)
25/03/05 Soul Mountian   Gao Xingjian (2000)
08/04/05 Gai-jin   James Clavell (1994)
01/05/05 Waiting for the Barbarians   J. M. Coetzee (1982)
10/05/05 Pride of Kings   Judith Tarr (1994)
25/05/05 The Lair of Bones (Rune Lords book 4)   David Farland (2005)