BOOKSHELF
A lady with a book! Now there's a pretty sight!
- Arcadia, Tom Stoppard
It is the way our sympathy flows that determines our lives. And here
lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform
and lead into new places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness,
and it can lead our sympathy away in recoil from things gone
dead. Therefore, the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most
secret places of life: for it is in the passional secret places of
life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and
flow, cleansing and freshening.
- Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence
Reading a good book can encompass my days in delightful imaginary and
intellectual wanderings. My life becomes the backdrop to the story,
ideas, and knowledge unfolding beneath my fingertips. I love it so!
Reviews
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Occasionally I'll review a book I've finished reading.
DIR Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
DIR The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
DIR Clean Code, Robert C. Martin
DIR In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado
DIR The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
DIR The Future of Television
2024
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- Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates
- A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
- Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
- White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
- Hours by Michael Cunningham
- Ways of Seeing by John Berger
2023
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A bit of a slow reading year for me. I had a good lineup of books to
read in the winter and spring. My reading habit lessened during the
summer and fall months. I fell back into my love of reading graphic
novels, but yearned for a good bit of words where I could lose
myself. I closed out the year mid-way through a D.H. Lawrence
novel--my first of his--happy to have eventually found again the
secret world.
- Panther, Brecht Evens
- Are you listening? Tilly Walden
- Roaming, Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
- Tegan and Sarah: Junior High, Tegan and Sarah
- A Home at the End of the World, Michael Cunningham
- Beasts, Joyce Carol Oates
- Dune: Livre Une, Frank Herbert
- Ed Mastery: The Standard Unix Text Editor
- Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
- Station Eleven, Emily St. Vincent
- My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
- The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Who was Changed and Who Was Dead, Barbara Comyns
- Land of Lisp, Conrad Barski
- ANSI Common Lisp, Paul Graham
- O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
2022
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- The Lying Life of Adults, Elena Ferrante
- Little Women, Louisa Mary Alcott
- Trust Exercise, Susan Choi
- The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
- Drop City, T.C. Boyle
- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley
- UBIK, Philip K. Dick
- The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
- Clean Code, Robert C. Martin
- In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado)
- The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
- The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, Andrew Hunt and
David Thomas
- The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald
2021
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2021 was a great book year for me. Owing to the good influence of my
partner I read more fiction then I've probably ever read in my life. I
also expanded my horizons and introduced a new genre - software
methodology - onto my shelf.
- My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
- The Lost Daughter, Elena Ferrante
- Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Elena Ferrante
- The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
- Hangsaman, Shirley Jackson
- The Vet's Daughter, Barbara Comyns
- The Juniper Tree, Barbara Comyns
- Come Closer, Sara Gran
- Joel on Software, Joel Spolsky
- More Joel on Software, Joel Spolsky
- The Best Software Writing 1, Joel Spolsky
- Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munro
- 101 Easy Asian Recipes, Peter Meehan
- Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible, Richard Blum and
Christine Bresnahan
- The Art of Unix Programming, Eric S. Raymond
- Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, Barbara Comyns
- The Sundial, Shirley Jackson
- The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares
- 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, Nick Montfort et. al
2020
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I am certain I read more than two books this year. But I don't
remember which books! 2020 was the year I received the gift of an
e-reader. The device has helped me track my reading habits, which
eventually lead me to want to compile these lists. Eventually I may
add some books to 2020 that I have a hunch I may have read.
- Programming in Lua, Roberto Ierusalimschy (50%)
- Learn You a Haskell for Great Good, Miran Lipovaca (50%)
Pre-2020 favorites
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I don't know when I read these books. But they are among my
favourites, so I've added them here out of happiness.
- Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
- The C Programming Language, Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie
- The Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munroe
- Tempest Tost, Robertson Davies
- Arcadia, Tom Stoppard