Books I Read in 2009
No short reviews this year – just dates, links to the full review posts, and 1 – 10 ratings.
January
1. [5 Jan] Ring – Stephen Baxter. 6 out of 10. Full Review.
2. [10 Jan] The King of Sting – Craig Glazer and Sal Manna. 4 out of 10. Full Review.
3. [24 Jan] The Philosopher’s Apprentice – James Morrow. 7 out of 10. Full review.
4. [24 Jan] Jesus and the Victory of God – N. T. Wright. 9 out of 10. Full review. (No, I didn’t read this book in a day. I just finished it on 24 Jan after taking a year to read it.)
February
5. [2 Feb] The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British – Sarah Lyall. 7 out of 10. Full Review.
6. [7 Feb] Ender In Exile – Orson Scott Card. 5 out of 10. Full review.
7. [10 Feb] The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music by Ben Ratliff. 8 out of 10. Full review.
8. [16 Feb] The Weapon by David Poyer. 4 out of 10. Limited write-up.
9. [22 Feb] Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (re-read). 8 out of 10.
10. [26 Feb] Tribes by Seth Godin. 7 out of 10.
11. [27 Feb] The Echo Within by Robert Benson. 6 out of 10. Full Review.
March
12. [2 Mar] Culture Making by Andy Crouch. 7 out of 10.
13. The Last Patriot – Brad Thor 6 out of 10.
14. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue – John McWhorter. 5 out of 10.
15. [12 Mar] Halting State – Charles Stross 7 out of 10.
16. [13 Mar] The Prodigal God – Timothy Keller 7 out of 10.
17. [15 Mar] Clutter-Free Christianity 4 out of 10.
18. [21 Mar] A Darker Place – Jack Higgins. 8 out of 10.
19. [28 Mar] Echelon – Josh Conviser. 7 out of 10. Good futuristic look at human integration with the internet, and at the possibilities for controlling/influencing the world through data manipulation. Good story.
April
20. Empyre – Josh Conviser. 6 out of 10. Follow-up to Echelon.
21. Inspiration and Incarnation – Peter Enns. 7 out of 10.
22. The Cardinal of the Kremlin (re-read) – Tom Clancy. 7 out of 10.
23. Replay – Ken Grimwood. 8 out of 10. Might be a 9 on further reflection. Full review.
May
24. To Engineer Is Human. Henry Petroski. 6 out of 10. Interesting philosophical look at engineering via failure analyses.
25. TSAR – Ted Bell. 7 out of 10. Decent little thriller.
27. What I Saw At The Revolution – Peggy Noonan. A twenty-year old memoir of Noonan’s time as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House. Mostly I just love Noonan’s writing. So much fun to read.
28. When Sinners Say ‘I Do’ – Dave Harvey.
June
29. Contagious
30. Cold Choices
I missed a few in here…
July
31. Supreme Courtship – Christopher Buckley. Hilarious satire of a president who appoints Judge Judy to the Supreme Court.
32. Failure is Not An Option – Gene Cranz. A memoir by the storied NASA flight controller.
33. Success Through Failure – Henry Petroski. Another look at how we learn things in engineering by learning from our failures. Not as interesting as his other book that I read this year.
August
34. The Second Opinion – Michael Palmer. Basic medical thriller. Only sorta thrilling, if you ask me.
35. North! Or Be Eaten – Andrew Peterson. I need to write up a full review on this one. Very good stuff.
36. Rogue Forces – Dale Brown. The only thing more predictable than the plot of a Dale Brown novel is the likelihood that I will read it anyway.
37. The Partner – John Grisham. Grisham returns to his primary genre here, and turns out an enjoyable little novel. A bit of a departure from his usual in that there isn’t much in the way of a sympathetic character anyplace in the story. Not bad.
38. Weapons of mass instruction : a schoolteacher’s journey through the dark world of compulsory schooling – John Taylor Gatto. A brutal polemic about America’s compulsory education system written by a former NYC schoolteacher. He comes pretty close to coming off like a psycho crank instead of a serious writer – I’d need to do some verification of his sources before I really came to an opinion on his conclusions. Still, brutal.