Per my 2003 resolutions, I'm slowly whittling down an extensive list of books by reading five a month. While I've yet to post the complete list, here are the books I've completed this year, along with the first line of each:

• The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe
  by Stephen Hawking
  As long ago as 340 B.C. Aristotle, in his book On the Heavens, was able to put forward two good arguments for believing the earth was a round ball rather than a flat plate.
  Finished 01/02/2003
• Pride and Prejudice
  by Jane Austen
  It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in posession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
  Finished 01/16/2003
• Absalom, Absalom!
  by William Faulkner
  From a little after two oclock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that — a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.
  Finished 01/22/2003
• Investing for Dummies
  by Eric Tyson
  If you succeed in accumulating some money to invest, congratulations!
  Finished 01/25/2003
• The Body Sculpting Bible for Men
  by James Villepigue
  Every time we turn on the TV or read the latest muscle magazine we are bombarded with the latest way to lose fat, gain muscle and achieve the body of our dreams in only five minutes a day.
  Finished 01/27/2003
• Fast Food Nation
  by Eric Schlosser
  Cheyenne Mountain sits on the eastern slope of Colorado's Front Range, rising steeply from the prairie and overlooking the city of Colorado Springs.
  Finished 02/11/2003
• Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide, Third Edition
  by Steven Graham
  System administrators are a unique bunch.
  Finished 02/11/2003
• The Waste Land and Other Poems
  by T. S. Eliot
  Let us go then, you and I,
  When the evening is spread out against the sky
  Like a patient etherised upon a table;
  Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
  The muttering retreats
  Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
  And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
  Streets that follow like a tedious argument
  Of insidious intent
  To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
  Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
  Let us go and make our visit.
  Finished 02/18/2003
• Weeknight Survival Cookbook
  by Dena Irwin
  Planning meals for the family is hard work.
  Finished 03/03/2003
• The Theory of the Leisure Class
  by Thorstein Veblen
  The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan.
  Finished 03/11/2003
• Three Lives
  by Gertrude Stein
  The tradesmen of Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of "Miss Mathilda," for with that name the good Anna always conquered.
  Finished 03/27/2003
• Coin Locker Babies
  by Ryu Murakam
  The woman pushed on the baby's stomach and sucked its penis into her mouth; it was thinner than the American menthols she smoked and a bit slimy, like raw fish.
  Finished 05/07/2003
• Designing with Web Standards
  by Jeffrey Zeldman
  There was a time not that long ago when many drivers thought nothing of tossing empty bottles out the windows of their cars.
  Finished 06/10/2003
• The Age of Innocence
  by Edith Wharton
  ON a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.
  Finished 06/10/2003
• God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
  by Kurt Vonnegut
  
  Finished 06/14/2003
• Timequake
  by Kurt Vonnegut
  
  Finished 08/21/2003
• Life of Pi
  by Yann Martel
  My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
  Finished 08/21/2003

Older Entries