Books: By Rating

And here’s my book list arranged by rating: best to worst.

The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture by David Mamet

7/10
Mamet’s political coming out book doesn’t offer much new insight into conservatism. Instead it cribs a lot from Thomas... more

The Shroud of the Twacker by Chris Elliott

7/10
Loses steam about 150 pages into the book.

The Silent Wall by Peter Rabe

7/10
This is the story of an American GI who returns to Sicily years after the war to find the... more

The Stranger by Albert Camus

7/10
A short, quick read that goes by even faster because of the blunt writing (or blunt translation as the... more

The Substance of Style by Virginia Postrel

7/10
Does look and feel matter? That’s one of the questions posed in this book about the ever increasing emphasis... more

The Thirteen Gun Salute by Patrick O'Brian

7/10
A hu-hum offering in the series. I accidently skipped a book… didn’t seem to matter.

The Utopia by Thomas More

7/10
This is the first book I’ve read that was written by a saint. It’s the description of an ideal... more

The White Mountains by John Christopher

7/10
Young adult fiction about giant three legged machines that transform children into mindless teenagers when they turn thirteen. So... more

The White Pill by Michael Malice

7/10
The title of this book would suggest that it is purely about having a hopeful outlook about world events.... more

Theft of Swords (Riyria Revelations) by Michael J. Sullivan

7/10
This was a fairly by-the-numbers fantasy story with the usual characters: a wizard, a prince, a dwarf, a thief... more

Time for the Stars by Robert A. Heinlein

7/10
A fairly good sci-fi novel about a pair of telepathic twins separated when one goes off to survey new... more

To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter by Vladimir Bukovsky

7/10
A memoir of what living in The Soviet Union was like in the 60s and 70s. Bukovsky spent most... more

Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher Masoch

7/10
After seeing Jess Franco’s movie of the same name, I noticed that this ebook was available for free at... more

Warm Voices Rearranged by Brandon Kearney & Gregg Turkington

7/10
The subtitle of the book is “Anagram Record Reviews” and that pretty much sums it up. Take a record... more

Where Keynes Went Wrong: And Why World Governments Keep Creating Inflation, Bubbles, and Busts by Hunter Lewis

7/10
That title is quite a mouthful, ain’t it? I am continuing my recent excursion into econ-type books that are... more

A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

6/10
After the first three rousing volumes of the Song of Fire and Ice series, this book is a huge disappointment. I... more

A History Of Wood Engraving by Albert Garrett

6/10
The title of this one is a bit deceptive. The book is actually a history of British wood engraving. It starts... more

A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell

6/10
The premise here is that the outsiders and the misfits, by rejecting puritanism and pushing the limits of what is... more

Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies by C. S. Forrester

6/10
I was disappointed when I came to the realization that this was more of a collection of short stories... more

Barefoot Aivnesi by Landon Knepp

6/10
The was a companion book to the The Tower and the Tree series which at the moment (I’m about... more

Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell

6/10
Not bad, but I was expecting a more basic econ textbook rather than, what more often than not, feels... more

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

6/10
I never wrote a review for this one.

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

6/10
More of a character study of a completely unappealing character than a plot-driven novel. Not my thing.

Cibola Burn by James S. A. Corey

6/10
The Expanse keeps expansing! The story takes a break from galactic politics and focuses on the first group of... more

Commodore Hornblower by C. S. Forrester

6/10
A disappointing follow-up to the last Hornblower novel. This one has Hornblower in Russia helping out during the siege... more

Coolidge by Amity Shlaes

6/10
This was a fawning look at Coolidge’s life and tenure as the 30th President. It was okay up to a... more

Gods of Risk by James S. A. Corey

6/10
Looks like The Expanse TV show will not be returning so now I have to read a dozen novels... more

H.M.S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian

6/10
Weakest of the first 3 Aubry Maturin books.

Happy Endings by Jim Norton

6/10
Norton is usually a very entertaining guest on whatever chat show on which he appears. However, I’ve watched his... more

Heirs of the Fallen Kingdoms by Landon Knepp

6/10
Along with Barefoot Aivnesi this is backstory for the Tower and Tree fantasy novels. I’m not quite invested enough... more

How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything In It by Arthur Herman

6/10
Quite frankly I was bored by this litany of Scottish people and their ancestors and all their accomplishments. I... more

Liberalism by Ludwig von Mises

6/10
Short overview of the basics of classical liberalism with nary a reference to praxeology.

No Holds Barred by Barry Devlin

6/10
The ridiculous plot of this pulp trash novel is as follows: disgraced big city reporter winds up in small... more

Remainder by Tom McCarthy

6/10
Mildly amusing tale of a guy who choses to recreate memories down to exacting detail. Reminded me of how... more

Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs

6/10
I went into this book knowing nothing of the many Mrs. Peregrine books/movies/after-dinner mints. Unless Shirley Temple is the main character,... more

The Anarchist Handbook by Michael Malice

6/10
A collection of essays about anarchism from 1800s to the present. The older essays were quite tedious and repetitive.... more

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

6/10
Once again, I am off in search of fantasy books to match the greatness of the A Song of Fire... more

The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power by Gene Healy

6/10
This book analyzes America’s proclivity towards an ever expansive and powerful executive branch—admittedly not the most exciting read. As... more

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

6/10
Amazon recently gave this ebook away for free as a promotion for the sequel Inferno. It was my beach read... more

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

6/10
I primarily have this book because I am interested in the spectacular Gustave Doré wood engravings. The text is... more

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

6/10
Well, it’s no Crime and Punishment. The plot revolves mostly around relationships and character interactions within the rules of... more

The Lone Wolf #1: Night Raider by Mike Barry

6/10
This is essentially a Death Wish style vigilante story about a cop who really, really doesn’t like the drug trade. There is absolutely... more

The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold

6/10
Interesting with a nice ending, but lacks any real plot complications to hook me in.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

6/10
Catching up on a classic I missed in high school. I thought it was okay, but not the sort... more

The Screwball King Murder by Kin Platt

6/10
A pretty straightforward detective mystery which, despite the cover of the book, has very little to do with baseball.... more

The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost

6/10
I listened to the audiobook version which features many of the original cast members reprising their roles. The book... more

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss

6/10
Well, this isn’t the next Kingkiller book, but, fortunately, I wasn’t expecting that. The author himself goes to great... more

The Surgeon’s Mate by Patrick O'Brian

6/10
I gave it a 6 and I don’t remember why.

The Truelove by Patrick O'Brian

6/10
Sorry, no review.

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie

6/10
A mostly Poirot-free Poirot novel. It was okay, I guess, but pretty forgettable. What was I talking about?

Titan by Robert Kroese

6/10
Libertarian disaster porn that moves along nicely until the actual disaster hits (figuratively) about two-thirds into the book. At... more

We the Living by Ayn Rand

6/10
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m one of those nuts who actually likes The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. It has been years since... more

Weekend by Kim Savage

6/10
A fairly blah read from Vixen Press. This one is pretty short on plot and lacks the hardboiled edge... more

Anthem by Ayn Rand

5/10
Having read her other books, I felt obliged to read this novella. It’s a fairly literal take on individualism... more

Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

5/10
The story sets the puzzle up in an interesting way. Eight guests are invited to a dinner party. Four... more

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay

5/10
What a mouthful of a title. Anyhow, this book is a case against post-modernism and its application within the... more

Groucho And Me by Groucho Marx

5/10
This autobiography was pretty uninformative. Reads more like a compilation of unrelated essays about with a little bit of... more

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

5/10
I read this mostly because I am an admirer of Apocalypse Now. It sorta lost me by the end so... more

I Am Jackie Chan by Jackie Chan

5/10
Mildly amusing but poorly written memoir.

Lives of the Artists: Volume I by Giorgio Vasari

5/10
I started reading this thinking it would cover the techniques and materials of the Renaissance masters. Apparently, that’s another... more

Mysterious Stranger by David Blaine

5/10
Some interesting magic history, a few neat tricks and lots of David Blaine’s self-hating magic style-endurance artist crap.

Orphans of the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

5/10
Another old sci-fi novel by Heinlein that cares more about the concept than the story. Even at 120 some... more

Ringworld by Larry Niven

5/10
Rather boring and pointless.

Shirley Temple and the Screaming Specter by Kathryn Heisenfelt

5/10
This is a strange old book. It’s a Nancy Drew style mystery but the main character is a teen-aged Shirley... more

The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov

5/10
A murder mystery on a sparsely populated planet where each person lives isolated from everyone else and all the... more

The Wave by Todd Strasser

5/10
This short novel tries to show how it was possible for normal German’s to just sit back and let... more

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

5/10
This book started off okay enough and was pretty interesting for the first hundred pages or so. The premise... more

Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

5/10
This is a memoir of life aboard a merchant vessel in the early 1800’s. It is also noteworthy as... more

When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish by Martin Gardner

5/10
Martin Gardner died around the time this book was released. Like many of his books, it compiles articles and... more

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

4/10
Apparently everything is going to kill us. There are a handful of insights among the doom and gloom, but mostly... more

Aliens Omnibus by Various Authors

4/10
This is a collection of the Aliens comics that were released by Dark Horse in the late eighties. These came out... more

Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans by Ben Shapiro

4/10
I generally like the various Ben Shapiro “Destroys” videos I come across on the webs. He is an excellent... more

Eight keys to Eden by Mark Clifton

4/10
Mid-century sci-fi novel about a planetary colony that goes dark. When the rescue mission arrives they find the colonists... more

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

4/10
I was bored silly by this classic sci-fi book. I wanted to like it. It’s voted as the greatest... more

Friday by Robert A. Heinlein

4/10
Even as an audio book, this was a chore to get through. It’s a tale of a future with... more

King Jesus: A Novel by Robert Graves

4/10
I loved I, Claudius but was utterly bored by this. Maybe I would have appreciated more if I had... more

Marxism by Thomas Sowell

4/10
I got this as an audiobook, hoping to get a decent overview of what Marxism is without having to... more

Mysteries of the Unknown: Phantom Encounters by Time Life Books

4/10
This book is a collection of anecdotal tales of various people from the olden days being visited by spirits.... more

Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie

4/10
The first third is intriguing then it just jumps ship.

Piranesi: The Complete Etchings by Luigi Ficacci

4/10
I bought this on a whim when I saw the price dropped to $20. Kudos for the completeness and,... more

Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann

4/10
I agreed with many of his main points on stereotyping, democracy, propaganda, and the inability for a potential voter... more

The City and the Stars/The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke

4/10
Why do I do this to myself? I am always disappointed with classic science fiction. This stuff is so... more

The De-Definition of Art by Harold Rosenberg

4/10
This one is a collection of art criticism essays from the early 70s. They mostly grapple with the perceived... more

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

4/10
Starts out pretty good, but decends into the idiotic by the end.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

4/10
A dystopian novel that predates Orwell’s 1984 by a decade or two and was banned in Russia until the... more

Zardoz by John Boorman

4/10
Yeah that’s right, a novelization of Zardoz. It’s just as inexplicable as the movie.

Cosmic Connections by Time-Life Books

3/10
So far, this is my least favorite book in this series. Astrology is just not a very interesting topic... more

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

3/10
Starts out with some amusing short stories but never amounts to much. The main plot line is barely existent... more

The Galaxy Primes by E.E. Doc Smith

3/10
I don’t think I really like science fiction. Sure there have been a few stories I liked, Dune, The Ender... more

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

2/10
This sci-fi classic starts off interestingly enough: in an authoritarian society on the Moon, an engineer befriends a self-aware... more