My Books Read in the Last Year

Another year, another book list.  I read less book this year than last, but over two thousand more pages!  Here’s the list:

January

1.) Jesus Through Middle-Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels – Kenneth E. Bailey

2.) Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

3.) Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy – Colin S. Gray

4.) Debt: The First 5000 Years – Peter Graeber

5.) Warmth Disperses and Time Passes: The History of Heat – Hans Christian von Baeyer

6.) What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras? A Math Adventure – Julie Ellis

7.) Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography – Hew Strachan

8.) Tanks in the Cities: Breaking the Mold – Kendall D. Gott

February

9.) The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World – David Berlinski

10.) The New Science of Strong Materials: or Why You Don’t Fall Through the Floor – J. E. Gordon
11.) Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy – Daniel Altman

12.) Nature’s Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos – Peter M. Hoffmann

March

13.) Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality – Eliezer Yudkowsky

14.) The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters – Rose George

15.) A Magic Broken – Vox Day (Novella)

16.) What Language Is (And What It Isn’t and What It Could Be) – John McWhorter

17.) Shadow of the Hegemon (Ender Wiggin Saga) – Orson Scott Card

18.) Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology – Rosemary Radford Ruether

19.) Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale – Ian Morgan Cron

20.) Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation – Elaine Pagels

21.) The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas that Make Computers Work – W. Daniel Hillis

April

22.) The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses – C. S. Lewis

23.) Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English – John McWhorter

24.) The Last Stand of Fox Company – Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

25.) The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate – Robert D. Kaplan

26.) The Faith and the Power: The Inspiring Story of the First Christians and How They Survived the Madness of Rome – James D. Snyder

27.) Liberation Theologies: The Global Pursuit of Justice – Alfred T. Hennelly, S.J.

28.) Human Security in a Borderless World – Derek S. Reveron and Kathleen A. Mahoney-Norris

29.) Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos – M. Mitchell Waldrop

30.) The Lessons of St. Francis: How to Bring Simplicity and Spirituality into Your Daily Life – John Michael Talbot

31.) The Mathematics of Life – Ian Stewart

May

32.) The Artist and the Mathematician: The story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician who never existed – Amir D. Aczel

33.) Blue Remembered Earth (Poseidon’s Children #1) – Alastair Reynolds

34.) The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines & Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy – Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

35.) Beyond Geometry: A New Mathematics of Space and Form – John Tabak

36.) The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood – James Gleick

37.) Da Vinci’s Ghost: Genius, Obession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image – Toby Lester

38.) The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, The Making of a Navy SEAL – Eric Greitens

39.) Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives – Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler

40.) Worm: The First Digital World War – Mark Bowden

June

41.) African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design – Ron Eglash

42.) Schaum’s Easy Outlines Differential Equations – Richard Bronson

43.) Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation: An Introduction to Theory and History (8th Edn) – Joseph S. Nye, jr and David A. Welch

44.) Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

45.) Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War – Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss

46.) How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth – Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart

47.) It’s a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City Life for the (Not So) Simple Life) – Keith Stewart

July

48.) Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World – Christopher Steiner

49.) The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? – Jared Diamond

50.) Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence – Joseph J. Ellis

51.) Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty – Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

52.) Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers (Revised and Expanded Edition) – Michael J. Gorman

53.) What the Numbers Say: A Field Guide to Mastering Our Numerical World – Derrick Niederman and David Boyum

August

54.) Beginning Programming – Adrian and Kathie Kingsley-Hughes

55.) Sure Fire (Rich & Jade #1) – Jack Higgins with Justin Richards

56.) Just My Type: A Book About Fonts – Simon Garfield

57.) HTML: Your visual Blueprint(tm) for designing Web pages with HTML, CSS, and XHTML – Paul Whitehead, James H. Russell

58.) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information – Edward R. Tufte

59.) Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency – Col. Gian Gentile

60.) Head First HTML and CSS – Elisabeth Robson and Eric Freeman

61.) Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation – Parker J. Palmer

62.) The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right – Atul Gawande

September

63.) Star Wars: Scoundrels – Timothy Zahn

64.) Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation – Michael Pollan

65.) The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity – Steven Strogatz

66.) Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think – Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier

October

67.) The Tao of Programming – Geoffrey James

November

68.) The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 – R. M. Meluch

69.) Caliphate – Tom Kratman

70.) Kris Longknife: Mutineer (Kris Longknife #1) – Mike Shepherd

71.) Shadow Puppets (Ender’s Shadow series) – Orson Scott Card

72.) Starting Out With Visual Basic 2012 – Tony Gaddis and Kip Irvine

December

73.) Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things – Ken Wytsma with D. R. Jacobsen

74.) The City: A Global History – Joel Kotkin

75.) Starting Out with Java: From Control Structures through Data Structures – Tony Gaddis and Godfrey Muganda

76.) The Hunted: Tom Clancy’s Endwar #2 – David Michaels

77.) The Humanity of God – Karl Barth

78.) Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla – David Kilcullen

79.) Theology: A Very Short Introduction – David F. Ford

Books I Read in 2012

It’s that time of year again.  My reading was down a little this year due to the fact that I was working full time and reading some longer books.

January

 

1.) Christ Empowered Living: Celebrating Your Significance in God – Selwyn Hughes

2.) Regeneration (Species Imperative #3) – Julie Czerneda

3.) Chaos: A Graphic Guide (Introducing Series) – Zaiuddin Sardar and Iwona Abrams

4.) Catching Fire (The Hunger Games#2) – Suzanne Collins

5.) Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction – Kevin W. Plaxco and Michael Gross

6.) Thinking in Systems: A Primer – Donella H. Meadows

7.) Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) – Suzanne Collins

8.) Life in Space: Astrobiology for Everyone – Lucas John Mix

9.) War – Sebastian Junger

 

February

 

10.) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C. S. Lewis

11.) The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy – Sasha Issenberg

12.) Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics – John Derbyshire

 

March

 

13.) Stuff: The Materials the World is Made Of – Ivan Amato

14.) Success through Failure: The Paradox of Design – Henry Petroski

15.) One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way – by Robert Maurer, Ph. D.

16.) Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration – Paul Gilster

17.) The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade – Pietra Rivoli

 

April

 

18.) Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking – Charles Siefe

19.) Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis – Lauren F. Winner

 

 

May

 

20.) The Silver Chair (Narnia) – C. S. Lewis

21) Caesar’s Legion:  The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar’s Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome – Stephen Dando-Collins

22) Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think – Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler

23) The Detachment (A John Rain novel) – Barry Eisler

24) Fifty Shades of Grey – E. L. James

25) Fifty Shades Darker – E. L. James

26) Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next – Greg Lindsay and John D. Kasarda

 

June

 

27) Private Dancer – Stephen Leather

28) Fifty Shades Freed – E. L. James

29) Dubai Dreams: Inside the Kingdom of Bling – Raymond Barrett

30) A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy – Miyamoto Musashi

31) Dubai: Gilded Cage – Syed Ali

32) Amped – Daniel H. Wilson

 

July

 

33) China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa – Serge Michel, Michel Beuret, Paolo Woods

34) All Fall Down – Vern McGeorge

35) City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism – Jim Krane

36) Looking for trouble: Adventures in a Broken World – Ralph Peters

37) When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne 1405-33 – Louise Levathes

38) Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration – Clint Willis, ed.

39) Night Without End – Alistair Maclean

 

August

 

40) Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil – John Ghazvinian

41) Birds of Prey: The Battle Within – Gail Simone et al (Comic Book Graphic Novel)

42) Filters Against Folly: How to Survive Despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent – Garrett Hardin

43) The Twelfth Imam – Joel C. Rosenberg

44) Batman: Battle for the Cowl – Tony S. Daniel et al (Comic Book Graphic Novel)

45) Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul –  Grant Morrison et al (Comic Book Graphic Novel)

46) Birds of Prey: Metropolis or Dust – Sean McKeever et al (Comic Book Graphic Novel)

47) Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil – Nicholas Shaxson

48) Implosion: Can America Recover From Its Economic & Spiritual Challenges in Time? – Joel C. Rosenberg

49) Knocking on Heaven’s Door:  How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World – Lisa Randall

 

 September

 

50) Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West – Tom Holland

51) The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love – Kristin Kimball

52) Grow the Good Life: Why a Vegetable Garden Will Make You Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise – Michele Owens

53) Inch and Miles: The Journey to Success – By John R. Wooden et al.

54) Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Life – Joel C. Rosenberg

55) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food – by Barbara Kingsolver

 

October

 

56) Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future – Ian Morris

57) Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus – Robert D. Kaplan

58) Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens – Nicholas Shaxson

59) Fractions and Decimals Made Easy (Making Math Easy) (with Jacob) – Rebecca Wingard-Nelson

60) Isaac Asimov’s Robot City: Prodigy (Robot City #4) – Arthur Byron Cover

61) Fraction Fun – (with Jacob) David A. Adler

62) The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization – Jonathan Lyons

63) Working With Fractions – (with Jacob) David A. Adler

64) Hopping On the Number Line (Little World Math Concepts) (with Jacob) – Nancy Allen

65) Estimation (A Young Math Book) (with Jacob) – Charles F. Linn

66) Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam – John A. Nagl

67) What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East – Bernard Lewis

 

November

 

68) Pump Six and Other Stories – Paolo Bacigalupi

69) The Great Divorce – C.S. LewiS

70) Philosophical Tales: Being an Alternative History Revealing the Characters, the Plots, and the Hidden Scenes That Make Up the True Story of Philosophy – Martin Cohen

71) Contemporary Security Studies, 2nd Edition – Allan Collins, editor

72) What Do Muslims Believe: The Roots and Realities of Modern Islam – Ziauddin Sardar

73) Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church – James K. A. Smith

74) Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books – Azar Nafisi

75) Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World – Olivier L. de Weck, Daniel Roos, and Christopher L. Magee

76) Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order – Steven Strogatz

77) Red Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson

78) Celtic Vision: Prayers, Blessings, Songs, and Invocations from the Gaelic Tradition – Esther de Waal (editor)

79) Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of 20th-Century Mathematics and Why They Matter – John L. Casti

 

December

 

80) Constantinople: The Forgotten Empire – Isaac Asimov

81) Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone: Sex, Security and Post-Conflict Development – Megan H. MacKenzie

82) Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes – Charles Hartshorne

83) The Teeth of the Tiger – Tom Clancy

84) Exit Plan – Larry Bond

85) e: The Story of a Number – Eli Maor

86) Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic – Tom Holland

My Books Read in the Last Year

I read quite a bit last year, with an emphasis on linguistics, Counterinsurgency, complexity, and mathematics.  Fiction, as always was scattered throughout the year.  Lots of good links below; I encourage you to check them out, along with the reviews I did of several of them…

January
1) Your Child’s Growing Mind: A Guide to Learning and Brain Development from Birth to Adolescence – Jane M. Healey, Ph.D
2) Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple) – Jeffrey Kluger
3) The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
4) A New Kind of Science – Stephen Wolfram
5) Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power – Robert D. Kaplan
6) The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity – Richard Florida (My review here)
7) Language: The Big Picture – Peter Sharpe (my review here)
8) Understanding Physics: Volume 1: Motion, Sound, and Heat (Understanding Physics) – Isaac Asimov
9) Seven Firefights in Vietnam – John A. Cash, et al.  (My review here)

February
10) Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages – Guy Deutscher (My review here)
11) Chaos Theory Tamed – Garnett P. Williams
12) Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity – John Gribbin (My review here)
13) The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa: With E. D. Swinton’s “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift” – Michael Burgoyne and Albert Marckwardt (My review here)
14) The Age of the Unthinkable , Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It – Joshua Cooper Ramo
15) The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) – Graham Greene
16) Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq – Patrick Cockburn
17) Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life – Len Fisher
18) Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language – Seth Lerer (My review here)
19) Migration: Species Imperative #2 – Julie Czerneda
20) Euler’s Gem: The Polyhedron Formula and the Birth of Topology – David S. Richeson
21) Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means – Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (My review here)
22) Chicago Blues – Edited by Libby Fischer Hellmann

March
23) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – Dan Pink
24) The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why – Richard E. Nisbett
25) Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey From NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer – Mireya Mayor (My review here)
26) A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines – Anthony Bourdain
27) Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World – Liaquat Ahamed (My review here)
28) Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions – Lisa Randall
29) The Mother Tongue – English And How It Got That Way – Bill Bryson
30) Raising Musical Kids: A Guide for Parents – Robert A. Cutietta

April
31) Thought Contagion – Aaron Lynch (My review here)
32) Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia 2) – C.S. Lewis
33) Memories of My Melancholy Whores – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
34) Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (Open Market Edition) – Duncan J. Watts
35) The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention – Guy Deutscher
36) Hardwired – Walter Jon Williams
37) The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been . . . and Where We’re Going – George Friedman

May
38) Almost Human: Making Robots Think – Lee Gutkind
39) Understanding Physics: Volume 2: Light, Magnetism and Electricity – Isaac Asimov
40) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) – Robert B. Cialdini
41) Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do – Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
42) The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon) – Daniel Silva
43) Pittsburgh Noir (Akashic Noir) – Edited by Kathleen George
44) Freedom (TM) – Daniel Suarez
45) Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots – Gareth Branwyn
46) The Traveler (Fourth Realm Trilogy, Book 1) – John Twelve Hawks
47) Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back – Douglas Rushkoff
48) Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource – Peter Rogers and Susan Leal
49) Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants – Dennis Okholm

June
50) Counterinsurgency – David Kilcullen
51) Hunter’s Run – George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham
52) The Killing Ground (Sean Dillon) – Jack Higgins
53) One Shot (Jack Reacher, No. 9) – Lee Child
54) The Hard Way (Jack Reacher, No. 10) – Lee Child
55) Why Things Break: Understanding the World By the Way It Comes Apart – Mark E. Eberhart

July
56) Earth Strike: Star Carrier: Book One – Ian Douglas
57) Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and the Peloponnese – Robert D. Kaplan
58) The Post-American World: Release 2.0 – Fareed Zakaria
59) Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer – Novella Carpenter
60) The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization – Bryan Ward-Perkins
61) The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century – Thomas X. Hammes
62) Four Colors Suffice: How the Map Problem Was Solved – Robin Wilson
63) How to Build Your Own Spaceship: The Science of Personal Space Travel – Piers Bizony
64) The X in Sex: How the X Chromosome Controls Our Lives – David Bainbridge
65) The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World – Peter Schwartz

August
66) The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine – Francis S. Collins
67) The Scar – China Mieville
68) The Profession: A Thriller – Steven Pressfield (My review here)
69) Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature – Marcus du Sautoy
70) The Five Chinese Brothers (Paperstar) – Claire Hutchet Bishop and Kurt Wiese
71) Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America – Matt Taibbi
72) How to Talk to Your Child About Sex: It’s Best to Start Early, but It’s Never Too Late — A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents – Linda and Richard Eyre
73) The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris – David McCullough
74) Havoc – Jack DuBrul
75) Sundiver (The Uplift Saga, Book 1) – David Brin
76) Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy – Steven Metz

September
77) The Rest of the Robots – Isaac Asimov
78) Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things – William McDonough and Michael Braungart
79) 7th Sigma – Steven Gould
80) 50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need to Know – Tony Crilly
81) The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life – Thomas W. Malone
82) Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier – Edward Glaeser
83) Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself – Dan Pink

October
84) The Future of Management – Gary Hamel with Bill Breen
85) 100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith – Sonia Arrison
86) The Riemann Hypothesis: The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics – Karl Sabbagh
87) Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity (Great Discoveries) – David Foster Wallace
88) The Final Warning (Maximum Ride, Book 4) – James Patterson
89) Re-read Where Eagles Dare – Alistair MacLean
90) The Caryatids – Bruce Sterling

November
91) Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality – Jonathan Weiner
92) Mathematical Mysteries: The Beauty and Magic of Numbers (Helix Books) – Calvin C. Clawson
93) The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity – Amir D. Aczel
94) Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes – Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson
95) Reamde: A Novel – Neal Stephenson
96) The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe – Donal O’Shea

December
97) Euclid’s Window : The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace – Leonard Mlodinow
98) Millennium Problems – Keith Devlin
99) The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
100) Godel’s Proof (Revised Edition) – Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman
101) Moscow Rules (Gabriel Allon #8) – Daniel Silva
102) The Bourne Legacy – Eric van Lustbader
103) Beautiful Outlaw: Experiencing the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus – John Eldredge
104) Count Down: The Race for Beautiful Solutions at the International Mathematical Olympiad – Steve Olson
105) The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets – Alan Boss