Books I've Read


2003

Miss Wyoming
Douglas Coupland ~ non-genre
{031214} ~ Very good
"Susan Colgate sat with her agent, Adam Norwitz, on the rocky outdoor patio of the Ivy restaurant at the edge of Beverly Hills."
Y: The Last Man
Biran K. Vaughan ~ graphic novel
{031211} ~ Very good
"Something's wrong!"
Generation X
Douglas Coupland ~ non-genre
{031208} ~ Very good
"Back in the late 1970s, when I was fifteen years old, I spent every penny I then had in the bank to fly across the continent in a 747 jet to Brandon, Manitoba, deep in the Canadian prairies, to witness a total eclipse of the sun."
Entropy in the U.K.
Grant Morrison ~ graphic novel
{031125} ~ Excellent
"1: I traded virginity for vice!"
Replacement God, the
Zander Cannon ~ graphic novel
{031120} ~ Gsood
"Creak."
Apocalipstick
Grant Morrison ~ graphic novel
{031117} ~ Good
"Philadelphia -- September, 1992"
Say You Want a Revolution
Grant Morrison ~ graphic novel
{031110} ~ Very good
"And so we return and begin again."
Master & Commander
Patrick O'Brian ~ historical fiction
{031125} ~ Excellent
"The music-room in the Governor's House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli's C major quartet."
Say You Want a Revolution
Grant Morrison ~ graphic novel
{031110} ~ Excellent
"And so we return and begin again."
Quicksilver
Neal Stephenson ~ historical fiction
{031021} ~ Excellent
"Enoch rounds the corner just as the executioner raises the noose above the woman's head."
Dance Dance Dance
Haruki Murakami ~ non-genre
{031021} ~ Excellent
"I often dream about the Dolphin Hotel."
Il Pendolo Di Foucault (Sw: Foucaults Pendel)
Umberto Eco ~ non-genre
{031017} ~ Very good
"Det var då jag fick syn på Pendeln."
A Wild Sheep Chase
Haruki Murakami ~ non-genre
{031014} ~ Very good
"It was a short one-paragraph item in the morning edition."
Elements of Typograpic Style, the
Robert Bringhurst ~ typography
{031011} ~ Excellent ~ The first only bible one needs
"Like oratory, music, dance, calligraphy -- like anything that lends its grace to language -- typography is an art that can be deliberately misused."
Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
Leonard Koren ~ design
{031009} ~ Excellent ~ The second only bible one needs
"Wabi-Sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete."
30 Days of Night
Steve Niles ~ graphic novel
{031009} ~ Excellent
"Barrow, Alaska."
Lord of the Castle Black, the
Steven Brust ~ fantasy
{031009} ~ Very Good
"Two hundred and forty-six years after Adron's Disaster, Zerika succeeded in retrieving the Orb."
Path of the Dead, the
Steven Brust ~ fantasy
{031008} ~ Very Good
"It was on a Homeday in the early summer of the 156th year of the Interregnum that a traveler entered a small village in the East."
Top Ten vol 2
Alan Moore ~ graphic novel
{?} ~ Very Good ~ And people thought the Watchmen ripped the superhero comic apart
"Monday, October 12th, 1999:"
Invisibles: So you want a revolution
Grand Morrison ~ graphic novel
{?} ~ Excellent
"And so we return and begin again."
Slayer Slang
Michael Adams ~ linguistics
{?} ~ Good
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer entered stage left, with a whimper."
Lucifer: A Dalliance with the Damned
Mike Carey ~ graphic novel
{?} ~ Good
"Vae, gaudium fugax!"
Lucifer: Children and Monsters
Mike Carey ~ graphic novel
{?} ~ Good
"Bones."
Lucifer: Devil in the Gateway
Mike Carey ~ graphic novel
{?} ~ Good
"The Bible tells that story in terms of time -- one thing after another."
13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blueheart, the
Walter Moers ~ fantasy humour
{?} ~ Very Good
"People usually start life by being born."
Love and Peace with Melody Paradise
Martin Millar ~ don't know
{?} ~ Very Good
"To anyone who knows me, it would seem a bit strange that I once helped to organise a festival."
Kim
Rudyard Kipling ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Excellent
"He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher -- the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum."
Kafka Americana
Jonathan Lethem & Carter Scholtz ~ short stories
{030314} ~ Good—Excellent
"Blumfield, an elderly bachelor, arrived home from work every weekday at six."
If Chins Could Kill
Bruce Campbell ~ biography
{?} ~ Excellent
"There's an L-shaped scar on the left side of my chin."
Pattern Recognition
William Gibson ~ technothrilleresqe
{?} ~ Excellent
"Five hours' New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythm."
Straw Men, the
Michael Marshall (Smith) ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Good
?
Avram Davidson Treasury, the
Avram Davidson ~ short stories
{?} ~ Excellent
"Fashion, nothing but fashion."

2002

House of Sleep, the
Jonathan Coe ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Really good
"It was their final quarrel, that much was clear."
Cryptonomicon
Neal Stephenson ~ sf
{?} ~ Excellent
"Two tires fly."
Imajica
Clive Barker ~ sf
{?} ~ Really good
"It was the pivotal teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players."
Weaveworld
Clive Barker ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Excellent
"Nothing ever begins."
Radio Free Albemuth
Philip K. Dick ~ sf
{?} ~ Good
"In 1932 in April a small boy and his mother and father waited on an Oakland, California, pier for the San Francisco ferry."
Time Out of Joint
Philip K. Dick ~ sf
{?} ~ Good
"From the cold-storage locker at the rear of the store, Victor Nielson wheeled a cart of winter potatoes to the vegetable section of the produce department."
Web of Angels
John M. Ford ~ sf
{?} ~ Good
"The boy ran for his life, across the City Juvenal on the planet called Brass."
Thief of Always, the
Clive Barker ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Really good
"The great grey beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive."
Viriconium
M. John Harrison ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Excellent
"The aristocratic thugs of the High City whistle as they go about their factional games among the derelict observatories and abandoned fortifications of Lowth."
Deep, the
John Crowley ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Really good
"After the skirmish, two Endwives found him laying in the darkness next to the great silver egg."
Paper Grail, the
James Blaylock ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Excellent
"The skywriting in his dream wasn't a word or a phrase; it was five white clouds drifting in a blue sky."
Gospel
Wilton Barnhardt ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Excellent
"I had lost my faith, Josephus."
Green Shadows, White Whale
Ray Bradbury ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Good
"I looked out from the deck of the Dún Laoghaire ferry and saw Ireland."
Homunculus
James Blaylock ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Really good
"Above the St. Georges Channel clouds thick as shorn wool arched like a bent bow from Cardigan Bay round Strumble head and Milford Haven, and hid the stars from Swansea and Cardiff."
Dinner at Deviant's Palace
Tim Powers ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Excellent
"Crouched way up at the top of the wall in the rusty bed of the Rocking Truck, Modesto tugged his jacket more tightly across his chest, pushed back his hat and squinted around the city."
Remembering Babylon
David Malouf ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Good
"One day in the middle of the nineteenth century, when settlement in Queensland had advanced little more than halfway up the coast, three children were playing at the edge of a paddock when they saw something extraordinary."
Dinner at Deviant's Palace
Tim Powers ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Really good
"Though the evening breeze had chilled his back on the way across, it hadn't yet begun its nightly job of sweeping out from among the island's clustered vines and palm boles the humid air that the day had left behind, and Benjamin Hurwood's face was gleaming with sweat before the black man had led him even a dozen yards into the jungle."
Beloved
Toni Morrison ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Good
"124 was spiteful."
Scar, the
China Miéville ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Excellent
"A mile below the lowest cloud, rock breaches water and the sea begins."
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe ~ non-genre
{?} ~ So-so
"Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond."
Celestial Matters
Richard Garfinkle ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Really good
"I supplicate myself before Apollo of the poets and before the Muses."
Being There
Jerzy Kosinski ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Really good
"It was Sunday."
Eyre Affair, the
Jasper Fforde ~ fantasy
{?} ~ Good
"My father had a face that could stop a clock."
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Jeanette Winterson ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Good
"Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father."
Remains of the Day, the
Kazuo Ishiguro ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Really good
"It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days."
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë ~ non-genre
{?} ~ Really good
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."