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science fiction

The Book of Strange New Things

Posted on July 17, 2015July 17, 2015 by albrooke

41QBMlpffKL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_

Honestly?

A decidedly odd book which reminds me more of The Sparrow than anything else, in that it is about a minister to alien people who finds that his understanding of God is stirred.  A different, more dystopian vision, but beautifully written.

Posted in Bible, books, LiteratureTagged Books, missions, science fictionLeave a comment

The Martian

Posted on July 7, 2015July 7, 2015 by albrooke

What an amusing, goofy book.  What better review than:

the_martian

http://xkcd.com/1536/

Posted in books, engineering, LiteratureTagged Books, science fiction, the martian, xkcd1 Comment

seveneves

Posted on May 20, 2015 by albrooke

We’ve been looking forward to this, Mr. Stephenson:113

Posted in booksTagged Books, science fictionLeave a comment

Reading, always reading

FAVORITE NOVELS
1. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
2. C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
3. Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

(4-11, alpha)
Stephen Carter, The Emperor of Ocean Park
William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Chaim Potok, The Chosen
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Charles Williams, War in Heaven
Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny

CURRENT + RECENT READING
Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War
Alberto Cairo, The Truthful Art
Tracy Kidder, Old Friends
Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus
Ben Bova, ed., The Best of the Nebulas
John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy
—William Myers, An Engineered Injustice
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
—Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars (#40)
—Brandi Reeds, Trespassing
—Frederic Backman, A Man Called Ove
—Ellen Ullman, Close to the Machine
—Ellen Ullman, The Bug
—Ellen Ullman, Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology
—Christopher Yates, Black Chalk
—Chang-Rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea
—Peter Bowen, Coyote Wind
—Irving Belateche, Einstein’s Secret
—Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow
—Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures
—Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus
—Russ Rymer, American Beach
—Francois Mauriac, Letters of Art and Literature
—Robertson Davies, What’s Bred in the Bone
—Kate Moore, Radium Girls
—P.D. James, The Children of Men
—Walter Sullivan, The Long, Long Love [post]
—Robertson Davies, The Merry Heart
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War (#20)
—Thom Rooke, Gene Basset’s Vietnam Sketchbook
—Robertson Davies, World of Wonders
—Doug Stanton, Horse Soldiers
—Robertson Davies, Fifth Business
—Barry Eisler, The Night Trade
—Mary Karr, The Liar’s Club
—Dean Koontz, Ricochet Joe
—Matthew Hefti, A Hard and Heavy Thing [post]
—Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
—Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation (#10)
—Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire
—Isaac Asimov, Foundation
—Dennis Taylor, We are Legion
—Walker Percy, Lancelot
—Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew
—Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels
—Camille Perri, The Assistants
—Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven [post]
—Lew Jennings, 19 Minutes to Live
01/01/2018——————————
i China Mieville, Kraken
—Philip Allen Green, Trauma Room Two (#95)
—Elan Mastai, All Our Wrong Tomorrows
—Peter Heller, Hell or High Water
—Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology
—C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
—Alan Jacobs, How to Think
—C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
—Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
i Ben Bova, Titan
—Jonathan R. Miller, Gravity Breaker
—Stephen Breyer, The Court and the World
—George Orwell, Animal Farm
—Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats
—Richard Russo, Empire Falls
—Dean Koontz, Breathless
i  David Halberstam, The Next Century
—Andrew Mayne, The Naturalist
—Gary Byrnes, 9/11 Trilogy
i  R.E. Stearns, Barbary Station
—Stephen King, The Green Mile
—Michael Korda, With Wings Like Eagles
—William Golding, The Spire
—Andy Weir, Artemis [post]
—Matthew Fitzsimmons, The Short Drop
—Cary Elwes, As You Wish
—Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
—Robertson Davies, The Manticore [post]
i  John Marrs, The Good Samaritan
—Michael Connelly, The Overlook
—Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice
—Christopher Brown, Tropic of Kansas
—Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
—Kevin Davis, The Brain Defense
—Rob Reid, After On
—Douglas Preston, The Lost City of the Monkey God
i  Kate Atkinson, Life After Life
i  Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
i  Makoto Fujimura, Silence and Beauty
i  Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
—Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
—Warren Cole Smith, Print the Legend
—David Boyle, Dunkirk
—Rhys Bowen, In Farleigh Field
—Scott Parazynski, The Sky Below
—Mark Sullivan, Beneath a Scarlet Sky
—Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders
—Adam Roberts, Bethany
—Philip Allen Green, “Sutures: A Short Story”
—Adam Roberts, The Real-Town Murders
—Tracy Kidder, Strength in What Remains
i  Yuval Harari, Homo Deus
—John Green, Paper Towns
—Craig Alanson, Columbus Day
—Junot Díaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
—Allen Eskens, The Heavens May Fall (#50)
—Neal Stephenson, seveneves
—C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
—Michael Lewis, Boomerang
—Peter Heller, Celine
—Elizbeth Wein, Code Named Verity
—Amy Gentry, Good as Gone
i  Stephen Moss, Fear the Sky
—Sean Gandert, Lost in Arcadia
—Brian Goldman, The Night Shift
—Emily St. John Mandel, The Singer’s Gun
i  Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
—William Gibson, All Tomorrow’s Parties
07/01/2017——————————–
—Jack London, The Call of the Wild
—N. Stephenson and N. Galland, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O
—Dava Sobel, The Planets
—William Gibson, Idoru
—William Gibson, Virtual Light
—Stephen King, The Gunslinger
—Norman Maclean, A River Runs through It
—William Gibson, The Peripheral
—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, The Nest
—Eliot Peper, Cumulus
—Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project
—Michael Grumley, Breakthrough
—Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others
—Emily Fridlund, History of Wolves
—Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All
Completely Beside Ourselves

—Stephen Carter, The Emperor of Ocean Park
—Meg Howrey, The Wanderers
—Daniel Silva, The Kill Artist
—William Myers, A Criminal Defense
—M.R. Carey, The Girl with All the Gifts
—Mary Roach, Packing for Mars
—Peter Heller, The Dog Stars
—Ross King, Brunelleschi’s Dome
—China Mieville, Embassytown
—Martin Luther King, The Autobiography
of Martin Luther King
[post]
—Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem [post]
—Graham Greene, Loser Takes All
—Bruce Sterling, Heavy Weather
—Dexter Palmer, Version Control
—Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing:
The Enigma

—Adam Roberts, Jack Glass
—Olen Steinhauer, The Nearest Exit
—Nick Dubin, et al., The Autism Spectrum, . . .
—Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove
—Gerald Kilby, Colony One Mars
—Jonathan Lethem, A Gambler’s
Anatomy

—Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
—Mark Henshaw, The Fall of Moscow Station
—Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological
Aspects of the Life of Christ

01/01/2017——————————
—Bill Bryson, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid [#91]
—Andrei Gelasimov, Into the Thickening Fog
—Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale [post]
—Adam Roberts, AntiCopernicus
—George Orwell, 1984
—John Nance, Lockout
—Julie McElwain, A Murder in Time
—E.C. Diskin, Broken Grace
—Mike McHargue, Finding God in the Waves [post]
—Gentry Lee and Arthur Clarke, Rama II
—Chris Cleave, Everyone Brave is Forgiven [post]
i  Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem
—Alistair Reynolds,Revenger
—Arthur Clarke, Rendevous with Rama
—Daniel Polansky, A City Dreaming
—James Glieck, Time Travel
—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
—Christian Cantrell, Containment
—Malcolm Gladwell, David & Goliath
—Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me [post]
—Annie Lamont, Bird by Bird
—Elizabeth Greenwood, Playing Dead
—Lawrence Wright, The Terror Years
—Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am
—Ben MacIntryre, Double Cross
i  Jo Baker, Longbourne
—Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars
—Blake Crouch, Dark Matter
—William Goldman, The Princess Bride
—Shusako Endo, Silence
i  Thomas Mann, Dr. Faustus
i  Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk
i  J.C. Scott, Two Cheers for Anarchism
—Stephen King, The Body
—Silvain Neuvel, Sleeping Giants
—Matthew Hefti, A Hard and Heavy Thing [post]
—Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
—Graham Greene, Brighton Rock [post]
—S. Harrison, Infinity Rising
—S. Harrison, Infinity Lost
—Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
—Dominic Smith, The Beautiful
Miscellaneous

—Lisa Unger, Ink and Bone
—Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew
—Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
07/01/2016——————————–
—John McPhee, The Survival of the Bark Canoe
—Kevin Wignal, The Hunter’s Prayer
—Michel Houellebecq, Submission
—Larry Taunton, The Faith of
Christopher Hitchens

—Val McDermid, Forensics
—Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master’s Son
—Primo Levi, The Tranquil Star
—John McPhee, Pieces of the Frame
—Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
—Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
—Joby Warrick, Black Flags
—Iain M. Banks, Player of Games
—Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk:
Tesla, SpaceX, and the
Quest for a Fantastic Future

—Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas
—Andrew Klaven, MindWar,
—Matthew Lyon & Katie Hafner, Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet
—Katherine Neville, The Eight
—Virgil, The Aeneid, (Robert Fagles tr.)
—Lois McMaster Bujold, Gentlemen Jole and the Red Queen
—Michael Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
—Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
—John McPhee, The Control of Nature
—Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky
—Gautam Shroff, The Intelligent Web
—David Feintuch, Fisherman’s Hope
—Patrick Modiano, After the Circus
—David Feintuch, Prisoner’s Hope
—David Feintuch, Challenger’s Hope
—David Feintuch, Midshipman’s Hope
—Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me [post]
—C.P. Snow, Various Men
—Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
—Jack McDevitt, Odyssey
—Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies
—Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
—Andrew Klavan, Werewolf Cop
—E.I. Wong, Poet Robot
—David Downing, Zoo Station
—C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm:
Chiefly on Prayer

—David Weber, On Basilisk Station
—C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
—Lisa Randall, Dark Matter and
the Dinosaurs

—Kevin Wignal, A Death in Sweden
—David Mitchell, Ghostwritten
—Adam Roberts, The Thing Itself
—J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer’s Stone

—Ruth Rendell, Dark Corners [post]
—Sarah Hepola, Blackout: Remembering
the Things I Drank to Forget

—David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
—Erik Larson, Dead Wake [post]
—W.H. Auden, For the Time Being:
A Christmas Oratorio

—Ben Bova, Powersat
01/01/2016——————————–
—David Mitchell, Slade House [#89]
—James Hawkins, A Common Virtue
—Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
—Sui Ishida, Tokyo Ghoul
—China Mieville, The City & the City
—John Sanford & Ctein, Saturn Run
—Hugh Howey, Wool
—Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
—Matthew Mather, CyberStorm
—Emma Newman, Planetfall
—Connie Willis, All Clear
—C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
—Connie Willis, Blackout
—Connie Willis, The Doomsday Book
—Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning [post]
10/25/2015——————————–
—John Gardner, The Art of Fiction [post]
—Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, 102 Minutes
—David Hansson and Jason Fried, Rework: Change the Way You Work Forever
—Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air
—Jeff Smith, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison
—Eva Figes, Light
—Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
—David Hansson and Jason Fried, Remote: Office not Required
—James Hynes, The Lecturer’s Tale
—James Hynes, Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and TechniquesAC
—Stephen Mansfield, God and Guinness
—Cheryl Strayed, Wild
i  John Updike, Rabbit, Run
—Olen Steinhauer, The Tourist
—George R. Stewart, Earth Abides
—Vendela Vida, And Now You Can Go
—Emily St. John Mandel, The Lola Quartet
—Louis Auchincloss, The Headmaster’s Dilemma
—Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities
—Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
—Robert Wallace, The World of Rembrandt
—Hugh Howey, Beacon 23 (1-5)
—Emily St. John Mandel, Last Night in Montreal
—Peter Clines, The Fold
—C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
—Paolo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife
i  Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth
—David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks
—C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
—Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat
—Margaret Lazarus Dean, Leaving Orbit
—C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet
—Michael Faber, Under the Skin
—Wesley Chu, The Lives of Tao
—Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation [post] [post]
—Michael Faber, The Book of Strange New Things [post]
—Andy Weir, The Martian [post]
—Henry Marsh, Do No Harm
—Richard Preston, The Hot Zone
—Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife
—Alan Jacobs, Reverting to Type
07/01/2015——————————–
—Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train
—William Gibson, Zero History
—Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods
—William Gibson, Spook Country
—William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
—Roger Kahn, Rickey & Robinson [post] [post]
—Evelyn Waugh, Unconditional Surrender [post]
—Neal Stephenson, seveneves
—Evelyn Waugh, Officers & Gentlemen [post]
—Chris Kyle, American Sniper
—John Banville, The Book of Evidence
—Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms [post]
—Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
—Olen Steinhauer, All the Old Knives
—C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
—Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus [post]
—D.M. Pulley, The Dead Key
—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
—Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
—T. Keller, Every Good Endeavor
—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
—M. Pitre, Fives and Twenty-fives
—C. Beha, Arts & Entertainments
—Paul Johnson, Churchill
—Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel
 i  J. Wright, Count to a Trillion
—H. Schultz & R. Chandrasekaran, For Love of Country
—Martin Rowson, The Waste Land
—H. Wouk, The Hope
—T. Stevens, The Informationist
—Victoria Blake, ed., Cyberpunk
i  J. Jones, From Here to Eternity
—Billy Waugh, Hunting the Jackal
—C. Potok, The Chosen
—P. Cornell, London Falling
i  Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française
—Thomas Cahill, Heretics and Heroes—
01/01/2015——————————–
—D. O’Malley, The Rook
i  C. Nuttall, Ark Royal
—Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
—Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken
—David Ignatius, The Director
—Micah
—John Muirhead, Those Who Fall
—John Scalzi, Lock In
—Eric Metaxas, Miracles
—W. Williams, This is not a Game
i  W. Ochse, Velvet Dogma
—Marcus Sakey, A Better World
—W.T. Levy, Affectionately, T.S. Eliot
i  A. McGrath, If I Had Lunch with C.S. Lewis
—Tracy Kidder, Strength in What Remains
—William Gibson, The Peripheral
—Shakespeare, “Richard III”
—Marcus Sakey, Brilliance
—Justin Go, The Steady Running of the Hour
—Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
—A. Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
—Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
10/25/2014——————————–

AC = Audio course
i  = abandoned
Old favorite
New favorite

TEACHING
—Acts
—Matthew
—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
—Revelation
—Mark
—Psalms
—Genesis
—C. Potok, The Chosen
—Annie Dillard, Selected Prose & Poems
—W. H. Auden, Selected Poems
—Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
—T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems
—Gerard Manley Hopkins, Selected Poems
—Richard Adams, Watership Down
—Nehemiah
—E. Tufte, Visual and Statistical Thinking:
Displays of Evidence for Making Decisions
—T. Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization
—Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer
—Cornelia Funke, The Thief Lord
—Ezra
—Malcolm Gladwell, Blink
—C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy[post]

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