My Reading Log
Here's where I keep track of all the books I have been reading lately. This is mostly for my own personal benefit so that I don't forget what I have read.
Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Lessons for the 21st Century | 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 this is a... more |
| A History Of Wood Engraving | 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 out at... more |
| Anthem | Ayn Rand | 5/10 | Having read her other books, I felt obliged to read this novella. It's a fairly literal take on individualism that would have... more |
| Dance of Death: A Graphic Commentary on the Danse Macabre Through the Centuries | Fritz Eichenberg | 8/10 | Filled with art featuring death (for the most part that means a skeleton... spooky, no?) taunting the living. The reproductions... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Clash of Kings | George R. R. Martin | 9/10 | Not quite as gripping as the first book in the series, but Martin maintains much of the same level of quality throughout this... more |
| A Feast for Crows | 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 get... more |
| A Game of Thrones | George R. R. Martin | 10/10 | After finishing The Name of the Wind, I wanted to continue my fantasy novel kick. A Game of Thrones is a... more |
| A Storm of Swords | George R. R. Martin | 10/10 | I had thought that this was the conclusion of the entire Song of Fire and Ice series, but aparently this is book three... more |
| Aliens Omnibus | 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 before... more |
| Barbarella | Jean-Claude Forest | 7/10 | The French comic upon which the movie was based. Stunning 60's stylized artwork, but the story is just a series of bland sci-fi... more |
| Devil Born Without Horns | Michael A. Lucas | 9/10 | Michael Lucas is best known as the schtick-loving bassist of The Phantom Surfers. This book was self-published under his own... more |
| Financial Fiasco | Johan Norberg | 7/10 | This book presents a history of the current financial crisis thingy in a way that tries to be as plain-spoken as possible. Some... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Dance with Dragons | George R. R. Martin | 9/10 | I was late to the whole A Game of Thrones thang (but, for the record, I was like totally in to this waaayy before the... more |
| Before They Are Hanged | Joe Abercrombie | 8/10 | Although I was disappointed by The Blade Itself, I decided to continue on with the series to see if all that plodding... more |
| Empire of Lies | Andrew Klaven | 7/10 | I like Andrew Klaven. His Klaven on the Culture videos are good natured and entertaining little bits of political... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Renegade History of the United States | Thaddeus Russell | 6/10 | The premise here is that the outsiders and the misfits, by rejecting puritanism and pushing the limits of what is acceptable,... more |
| Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion | Paul Bloom | 7/10 | I think it's telling that throughout this book the author in constantly having to backtrack and clarify what he means by ... more |
| Based on a True Story | Norm MacDonald | 8/10 | He starts off with a typical comedian's memoir and, after about three pages, Norm gives up and go total autofiction. There's a... more |
| Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans | Ben Shapiro | 4/10 | I generally like the various Ben Shapiro "Destroys" videos I come across on the webs. He is an excellent debater and can take... more |
| Caliban's War | James S. A. Corey | 7/10 | This the second book in The Expanse series. It felt like a bit of a retread but with less interesting characters. The... more |
| Discrimination and Disparities | Thomas Sowell | 7/10 | Sowell is always an interesting read. However, I find that he can be a bit repetitive in his points from book to book—I get it... more |
| Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs | John Bloom & Jim Atkinson | 8/10 | Outside of Helter Skelter, I have not read much true crime literature. I picked this one mainly because is was co-... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies | C. S. Forrester | 6/10 | I was disappointed when I came to the realization that this was more of a collection of short stories rather than a full novel... more |
| Blue at the Mizzen | Patrick O'Brian | 7/10 | Not the strongest book in the series. It doesn't help that many of the regular characters are gone in this book. |
| Commodore Hornblower | 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 of Riga... more |
| Flying Colours | C.S. Forester | 9/10 | Another great Hornblower tale. The action picks up right at the end of the previous book and keeps going all the way to the... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| And Then There Were None | Agatha Christie | 10/10 | Great page turner. |
| Black Hole | Charles Burns | 7/10 | Decent and weird graphic novel. Lots on indy comic cliche. |
| Catcher in the Rye | J.D. Salinger | 6/10 | More of a character study of a completely unappealing character than a plot-driven novel. Not my thing. |
| Desolation Island | Patrick O'Brian | 9/10 | The books keep getting better. |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | 8/10 | Another big book about risk from Taleb filled with math, anecdotes, history and Fat Tony. This time it's all in service of his... more |
| Black Rednecks & White Liberals | Thomas Sowell | 8/10 | A collection of six lengthy essays on race, history and misconceptions. The "Black Rednecks" essay is probably the most... more |
| Connecticut Privateer Samuel Smedley | Jackson Kuhl | 7/10 | A short book about a lesser known hero of the American revolution. As the captain of a Connecticut privateer vessel, Smedley... more |
| Coolidge | 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 point, but there's something... more |
| Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story | John Bloom | 9/10 | Eccentric Orbits is the history of the rise, fall, and eventual rebirth of the world's first (and only) global... more |
|
Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baby Shark | Robert Fate | 10/10 | I really liked this noir-ish crime novel set in the dingy pool halls of rural Texas. Lots of great characters and a Kill... more |
| Baby Shark's Beaumont Blue's | Robert Fate | 10/10 | The second Baby Shark story is just as brutal and action packed as the first with great characters and writing. |
| Don't Cry For Me | William Campbell Gault | 8/10 | I recently discovered Prologue Books—a publisher devoted to re-releasing old pulp novels in ebook form. This is a company that... more |
| Equal Rites | Terry Pratchett | 9/10 | The third Discworld novel starts a completely new storyline with no crossover with the first two books. I actually liked this... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baby Shark's Grass Widow Legacy | Robert Fate | 10/10 | Another thoroughly enjoyable book in this series. This time Kristen is told to take some time off from all the revenge killing... more |
| Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption | Robert Fate | 10/10 | I love these Baby Shark books. They are just great, action packed reads. I burned through this book in a few days and... more |
| Baby Shark's Jugglers at the Border | Robert Fate | 9/10 | Although I don't think it's hardly the best book in this series, I burned through this one in just a few days. These Baby... more |
| Baby Shark's Showdown at Chigger Flats | Robert Fate | 9/10 | Another enjoyable story filled with shooting, kicking and revenge. This story is much more straightforward than others in the... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bad Penny | John D. Brown | 7/10 | I enjoyed his fantasy series, so I thought I'd try out Brown's crime thriller series. This is the story of an ex-military/ex-... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy | Thomas Sowell | 6/10 | Not bad, but I was expecting a more basic econ textbook rather than, what more often than not, feels like a purely political... more |
| Cat Among the Pigeons | Agatha Christie | 6/10 | |
| Economics in One Lesson | Henry Hazlitt | 9/10 | A straightforward and methodical look at the economic principal of accounting for both the seen, and unseen effects of a given... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curse: The Dark God Book 2 | John D. Brown | 7/10 | Despite an exciting opening, the second book in this series is not as good as the first. The stakes aren't as high and it feels... more |
| Falling Up the Stairs | James Lileks | 7/10 | I know Lileks mostly as a humorous conservative commentator and a connoisseur of cheesy 50's pop culture. I wasn't sure what to... more |
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Title |
Author | Rating | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il | Michael Malice | 9/10 | I have read quite a few books that give an account of what it is like to live under the control of a totalitarian regime, from... more |