To read

slaniel | Books | Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

Science Fiction

  • Atwood, Margaret. Handmaid's Tale, The.
  • Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake.
  • Blish, James. Case of Conscience, A (recommended by Cosma Shalizi as an alternative to Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow).
  • Brunner, John. Stand on Zanzibar.
  • Gibson, William. Neuromancer.
  • Le Guin, Ursula. Birthday of the World, The, And Other Stories.
  • Le Guin, Ursula. Dispossessed, The.
  • Le Guin, Ursula. Four Ways To Forgiveness.
  • Le Guin, Ursula. Left Hand of Darkness, The.
  • Le Guin, Ursula. Three Hainish Novels.
  • Le Guin, Ursula. Wind's Twelve Quarters, The.
  • Lem, Stanislaw. A Perfect Vacuum.
  • Lem, Stanislaw. Cyberiad, The.
  • Lem, Stanislaw. Futurological Congress, The: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy.
  • Lem, Stanislaw. His Master's Voice.
  • Lem, Stanislaw. Imaginary Magnitude.
  • Lem, Stanislaw. Peace on Earth.
  • Lem, Stanislaw. Star Diaries: Further Reminiscences Of Ijon Tichy.
  • Miéville, China. Iron Council.
  • Miéville, China. Perdido Street Station.
  • Stross, Charles. Atrocity Archives.
  • Stross, Charles. Jennifer Morgue. (The word is that if I dislike Atrocity Archives, I will dislike this as well.)

Fiction

  • Alighieri, Dante. Paradiso.
  • Alighieri, Dante. Purgatorio.
  • Armstrong, Kelley. Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, Book 1)
  • Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice or Mansfield Park or somesuch, just because everyone tells me that she’s great (where “everyone” means “everyone who didn’t tell me that she’s incredibly boring”).
  • Banks, Russell. Sweet Hereafter, The.
  • Banville, John. The Sea.
  • Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron, The.
  • Coetzee, J.M. Disgrace.
  • Conrad, Joseph. Under Western Eyes.
  • Danielewski, Mark Z. House of Leaves (recommended by Chris Rugen)
  • Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations.
  • Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers, The.
  • Dickens, Charles. Tale Of Two Cities, A.
  • Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground.
  • Druon, Maurice. Accursed Kings, The.
  • Dubus III, Andre. House of Sand and Fog.
  • Ellis, Bret Easton. Glamorama.
  • Eugenides, Jeffrey. Virgin Suicides, The.
  • French, Tana. In The Woods. (Recommended by Rebecca Kraut.)
  • French, Tana. Likeness, The. (Recommended by Rebecca Kraut.)
  • Gogol, Nikolai. Nose, The. (I lost my friend Britta’s copy just after the part where one of the characters finds a nose in his morning muffin. Sorry, Britta.).
  • Gogol, Nikolai. Overcoat, The, etc. .
  • Hustvedt, Siri. What I Loved.
  • Ishiguro, Kazuo. Pale View of Hills, A.
  • James, Henry of some sort.
  • Karinthy, Ferenc. Metropole (via The Bookslut).
  • Kinsella, W.P. Shoeless Joe.
  • Kosinski, Jerzy. The Painted Bird.
  • Lewis, C.S. Great Divorce, The.
  • Lewis, C.S. Out Of The Silent Planet.
  • Lewis, C.S. Screwtape Letters, The.
  • Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick or The Whale. To reread. And for that matter, to re-buy: I used to own a great edition that I misplaced.
  • Mitchell, David. Number9Dream.
  • Murakami, Haruki. South of the Border, West of the Sun.
  • Murakami, Haruki. Wild Sheep Chase, A.
  • Murakami, Ryu. Almost Transparent Blue.
  • Murakami, Ryu. Coin Locker Babies.
  • Murakami, Ryu. In The Miso Soup.
  • Murakami, Ryu. Piercing.
  • Nabokov, Vladimir. Ada, or Ardor.
  • Ondaatje, Michael. Anil's Ghost (recommended to me by J. Random T rider)
  • Ondaatje, Michael. English Patient, The.
  • Pushkin, Alexander. Eugene Onegin.
  • Saramago, José. Blindness.
  • Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace.
  • Twain, Mark. Basically all of it. I can’t even believe that I’ve basically read no Twain at all.
  • Vergil, The Aeneid.
  • Vidal, Gore. Creation (recommended by Cosma Shalizi).
  • Vidal, Gore. Julian (recommended by Cosma Shalizi).
  • Vidal, Gore. Lincoln: A Novel.
  • Vidal, Gore. Myra Breckinridge/Myron.
  • Wodehouse, P.G.: not sure which, but everyone tells me he’s a genius.

Biography

  • Adams, Henry. Education of Henry Adams, The.
  • Atlas, James. Bellow: A Biography.
  • Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov: The American years.
  • Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian years.
  • Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin. Volume 1: Voyaging.
  • Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin. Volume 2: The Power of Place.
  • Buñuel, Luis. My Last Sigh.
  • Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
  • Ellman, Richard. James Joyce.
  • Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky (4 vols.)
  • Franklin, Benjamin. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The.
  • Mingus, Charles. Beneath The Underdog.
  • Morris, Edmund. Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, The.
  • Roberts, Siobhan. King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry.
  • Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey.

Creationism/Intelligent Design

  • Eldredge, Niles. Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, The.
  • Pennock, Robert T. (ed.) Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics.
  • Ruse, Michael. The Evolution-Creation Struggle.

Biology/Psychology

  • Atkins, Peter. Creation, The.
  • Ball, Philip. The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature.
  • Blaffer Hrdy, Sarah. Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection.
  • Braitenberg, Valentino. Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology.
  • Burnett, D. Graham. Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature.
  • Buss, Leo W. Evolution of Individuality.
  • Caudill, Maureen and Butler, Charles. Naturally Intelligent Systems.
  • Churchland, Patricia and Sejnowski, Terrence J. Computational Brain, The.
  • Damasio, Antonio. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.
  • Darwin, Charles. Descent of Man, The.
  • Darwin, Charles. Voyage of the Beagle.
  • Dawkins, Richard. The Extended Phenotype.
  • Dawkins, Richard. Selfish Gene, The.
  • Dobzhansky, Theodosius. Genetics and the Origin of Species.
  • Dobzhansky, Theodosius. Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.
  • Ewald, Paul W. Evolution of Infectious Disease.
  • Fisher, R.A. Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, The.
  • Gillespie, John H. Population Genetics: A Concise Guide.
  • Gould, Stephen Jay. Bully for Brontosaurus.
  • Gould, Stephen Jay. Full House.
  • Gould, Stephen Jay. Ontogeny and Phylogeny.
  • Gould, Stephen Jay. The Panda's Thumb.
  • Griffin, Donald R. Listening In The Dark; The Acoustic Orientation Of Bats And Men.
  • Holland, John H. Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems.
  • Jackendoff, Ray. Consciousness and the Computational Mind.
  • Jackendoff, Ray. Patterns in the Mind: Language and Human Nature.
  • James, William. Principles of Psychology.
  • Johnson-Laird, Philip N. The Computer and the Mind: An Introduction to Cognitive Science.
  • Kimura, Motoo. Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution, The.
  • Kitcher, Philip. Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature.
  • Lewontin, Richard. Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, The.
  • Margulis, Lynn. Symbiosis in Cell Evolution.
  • Maynard Smith, John. Evolution Now: A Century After Darwin.
  • Maynard Smith, John. Evolution of Sex, The.
  • Mayr, Ernst. Growth of Biological Thought.
  • Mayr, Ernst. One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought.
  • Mayr, Ernst. Populations, Species and Evolution.
  • Mayr, Ernst. This Is Biology.
  • Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is.
  • McCulloch, Warren S. Embodiments of Mind.
  • Miller, Kenneth R. Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.
  • Pollan, Michael. Botany of Desire, The.
  • Ruse, Michael. Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?.
  • Ruse, Michael. Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose?.
  • Sigmund, Karl. Games of Life: Explorations in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour (to reread).
  • Sperber, Dan, and Wilson, Deirdre. Relevance: Communication and Cognition.
  • Watson, James D. Molecular Biology of the Gene.
  • Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.
  • Williams, George. Adaptation and Natural Selection.
  • Williams, George. Sex and Evolution.
  • Williams, George C. Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges.
  • Wilson, Edward O. Sociobiology.
  • Winfree, Arthur T. Geometry of Biological Time, The.

Physics/Math/Etc.

  • Capasso, Vincenzo and Bakstein, David. Introduction to Continuous-Time Stochastic Processes, An.
  • Cover, Thomas M. and Thomas, Joy A. Elements of Information Theory.
  • Gershenfeld, Neil. Physics of Information Technology, The.
  • Graham, Ronald L.; Knuth, Donald E.; Patashnik, Oren. Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science.
  • Griffith, David. Introduction to Electrodynamics.
  • Grimmett, Geoffrey R. and Stirzaker, David R. Probability and Random Processes.
  • Hofbauer, Josef and Sigmund, Karl. Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics.
  • Kac, Mark. Statistical Independence in Probability, Analysis and Number Theory.
  • Kallenberg, Olav. Foundations of Modern Probability.
  • Kantz, Holger and Schreiber, Thomas. Nonlinear Time Series Analysis.
  • Kolmogorov, Andrey Nikolaevich and Fomin, S.V. Introductory Real Analysis.
  • Manzano, María. Model Theory.
  • Pollard, David et al.. User's Guide To Measure-Theoretic Probability.
  • Shumway, Robert H. and Stoffer, David S. Time Series Analysis and Its Applications with R Examples, Second Edition.
  • von Neumann, John; Burks, Arthur W. (ed.). Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata.
  • Yeoman, Julia. Statistical Mechanics of Phase Transitions, The;

History of Science

  • Ferris, Timothy. Coming of Age in the Milky Way.

Libraries

  • Battles, Matthew. Library: An Unquiet History.
  • Battles, Matthew. Widener: Biography of a Library.
  • Shera, Jesse Hauk. Foundations of the Public Library: The Origins of the Public Library Movement in New England, 1629-1855.

Misc. science

Philosophy

  • Arnhart, Larry. Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature.
  • Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations.
  • Austin, J.L. Sense and Sensibilia.
  • Barnes, Jonathan. Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction.
  • Barnes, Jonathan. Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, The.
  • DeLanda, Manuel. New Philosophy of Society, A: Assemblage Theory And Social Complexity (recommended by Cosma as preface to War in the Age of Intelligent Machines)
  • DeLanda, Manuel. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (Cosma recommends New Philosophy of Society, A: Assemblage Theory And Social Complexity as preface)
  • Dennett, Daniel. Brainchildren.
  • Elster, Jon. Making Sense of Marx.
  • Gellner, Ernest. Words and Things.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. Postnational Constellation, The: Political Essays.
  • Hacking, Ian. Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science.
  • Harrington, James. Commonwealth of Oceana, The.
  • Hintikka, Jaako. Principles of Mathematics Revisited, The.
  • Hipolite, Jean. Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.
  • James, William. Varieties of Religious Experience, The.
  • Kolakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism.
  • Machiavelli, Niccolò. Art of War, The.
  • MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory.
  • Nussbaum, Martha C. Fragility of Goodness, The: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy.
  • Pinkard, Terry. Hegel's Phenomenology: The Sociality Of Reason.
  • Quine, W.v.O. Ontological Relativity and Other Essays.
  • Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars.
  • Walzer, Michael. Spheres of Justice.
  • Waterlow, Sarah. Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle's Physics: A Philosophical Study.

Computers/electronics/programming/software engineering

  • Aho, Alfred V.; Sethi, Ravi; and Ullman, Jeffrey D. Compilers.
  • Brooks, Fred. Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering.
  • Buxton, Bill. Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design. (Recommended by Mike Jeffers.)
  • Cederholm, Dan. Bulletproof Web Design.
  • Cooper, Keith and Torczon, Linda. Engineering a Compiler.
  • Dominus, Mark Jason. Higher-Order Perl.
  • Gamma, Erich; Helm, Richard; Johnson, Ralph; Vlissides, John. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.
  • Horowitz & Hill, Art Of Electronics, The.
  • Hudak, Paul. Haskell School of Expression, The: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia.
  • Mitchell, Melanie. Introduction to Genetic Algorithms.
  • Neumann, John von. Computer and the Brain, The.
  • Randal, Allison; Sugalski, Dan; Tötsch, Leopold. Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials.
  • Schmitt, Christopher. CSS Cookbook.
  • Shea, Dave. Zen of CSS Design, The.
  • Stroustrup, Bjarne. Design and Evolution of C++, The.

Law

  • Balkin, Jack. Cultural Software.
  • Boyle, James. Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information society.
  • Dworkin, Ronald. Life's Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom.
  • Dworkin, Ronald. Taking Rights Seriously.
  • Granfield, Robert. Making Elite Lawyers: Visions of Law at Harvard and Beyond.
  • Posner, Richard. Cardozo: A Study in Reputation.
  • Posner, Richard. Economic Analysis of Law, The.
  • Solove, Daniel J. and Rotenberg, Marc. Information Privacy Law.
  • Tribe, Lawrence. Abortion: A Clash of Absolutes.

Afghanistan

  • Dupree, Louis. Afghanistan.
  • Hafvenstein, Joel. Opium Season: a Year on the Afghan Frontier.

History of Ireland

  • O’Brien, Conor Cruise. Parnell and his Party, 1880-1890 (out of print? Oxford Univ. Press., ISBN maybe 0198212372). Cited in A.N. Wilson’s The Victorians.

History of the Middle East

  • Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Venture of Islam, The, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam.
  • Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Venture of Islam, The, Volume 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods.
  • Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Venture of Islam, The, Volume 3: The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times.
  • Finkel, Caroline. Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire.
  • Kennedy, Hugh N. Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, The: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century.

Florentine History

  • Brucker, Gene. Renaissance Florence.
  • Garin, Eugenio. Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance.
  • Machiavelli, Niccolò. Florentine Histories.
  • Martines, Lauro. April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici.
  • McCarthy, Mary. Stones of Florence, The.
  • Najemy, John. History of Florence, A, 1200-1575.
  • Holmes, George. Florentine Enlightenment, The.
  • Gilbert, Felix. Machiavelli and Gucciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence.
  • Weinstein, Donald. Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance.

Western/European history

  • Acton, Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg. Essays on Freedom and Power.
  • Ariès, Philippe. Hour of Our Death, The.
  • Ariès, Philippe. Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History).
  • Ascham, Anthony. Of the confusions and revolutions of governments.
  • Barzun, Jacques. From Dawn to Decadence.
  • Brinton, Crane. English political thought in the nineteenth century.
  • Bryson, Gladys. Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry of the Eighteenth Century.
  • Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France.
  • Cobbett, William. Parliamentary history of England, The, from the earliest period to the year 1803: From which last-mentioned epoch it is continued downwards in the work entitled Hansard's Parliamentary debates.
  • DeLanda, Manuel. Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, A.
  • Dickinson, H.T. Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain.
  • Dickson, P.G.M. Financial Revolution in England, The: A Study In The Development Of Public Credit, 1688-1756.
  • Goldsworthy, Adrian. Caesar: Life of a Colossus (recommended by James Grimmelmann).
  • Hibbert, Christopher. House of Medici, The: Its Rise and Fall.
  • Hobsbawm, Eric J.B. Age of Extremes: the Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991.
  • Holt, Frank L. Thundering Zeus: The Making of Hellenistic Bactria.
  • Hume, David. History of England.
  • Kantorowicz, Ernst Hartwig. King Frederick II (via J. Random Blog Commenter).
  • Kantorowicz, Ernst Hartwig. King's Two Bodies, The (via J. Random Blog Commenter).
  • Kelly, George Armstrong. Idealism, Politics, And History: Sources of Hegelian Thought.
  • Klein, Lawrence E. Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness.
  • Kramnick, Isaac. Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole.
  • Lefebvre, Georges. Coming of the French Revolution, The.
  • Macmillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World.
  • Martines, Lauro. Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy.
  • Najemy, John M. Italy in the Age of the Renaissance: 1300-1550.
  • Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man, The.
  • Plumb, J.H. Growth of Political Stability in England, The, 1675-1725.
  • Rawson, Elizabeth. Spartan Tradition in European Thought, The.
  • Skinner, Quentin. Foundations of Modern Political Thought, The.
  • Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism.
  • Swift, Jonathan. History of the Four Last Years of the Queen.
  • Tritle, Lawrence. Greek World in the Fourth Century, The: From the Fall of the Athenian Empire to the Successors of Alexander.
  • Underdown, David. Pride's Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution.
  • Wilson, A.N. After the Victorians: The Decline of Britain in the World (recommended by Dan Weinreb, upon my finishing The Victorians).
  • Young, B.W. Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate From Locke To Burke.

Economic history

  • Robbins, Lionel. Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy, The.
  • Taylor, Arthur. Laissez-faire and State Intervention in Nineteenth-century Britain.

History, general/other

  • Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (recommended by Joe Scheier-Dolberg? Matt Flynn?).
  • Cohn, Norman. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages.
  • Fisk, Robert. Great War for Civilization, The.
  • Fisk, Robert. Pity The Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon.
  • Gandhi, Mohandas K. Satyagraha in South Africa.
  • Goldman, Emma. Living My Life.
  • Johnson, Ian. Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China (via Joe Scheier-Dolberg? Matt Flynn?)
  • Khan, Yasmin. Great Partition, The: The Making of India and Pakistan.
  • Malkin, Peter-Zvi. Eichmann In My Hands.
  • Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China.
  • Nehru, Jawaharlal. Discovery of India, The.
  • Ross, Charles. Wars of the Roses, The: A Concise History.
  • Stille, Alexander. Future Of The Past, The.
  • Tuchman, Barbara. Guns of August.
  • Van de Mieroop, Marc. Ancient Mesopotamian City, The.

Russian history

  • Carr, Edward Hallett. Bolshevik Revolution, The (3 vols.)
  • Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. and Steinberg, Mark. History of Russia, A (combined volume).
  • Stites, Richard. Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (cited in Seeing Like A State).

American history

  • Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department.
  • Adams, Henry. History of the United States of America During the Administrations of James Madison.
  • Adams, Henry. History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson.
  • Agee, James. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families.
  • Alsop, Joseph. 168 Days.
  • Anderson, Oscar E. Jr., Health of a Nation, The: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food.
  • Bailyn, Bernard (ed.). Debate on the Constitution, The: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification: Part One, September 1787-February 1788.
  • Bailyn, Bernard (ed.). Debate on the Constitution, The: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification, Part Two: January to August 1788.
  • Bancroft, Frederic. Calhoun and the South Carolina Nullification Movement.
  • Beard, Charles A. Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of The United States, An.
  • Bell, Daniel (ed.), New American Right, The.
  • Blight, David W. Race and Reunion: The Civil War In American Memory.
  • Byrd, Robert C. Senate, The, 1789-1989: Addresses on the History of the U.S. Senate.
  • Callow, Alexander B. Tweed Ring, The.
  • Dauer, Manning Julian. Adams Federalists, The.
  • Delbanco, Andrew. Death of Satan, The: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil.
  • Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War.
  • Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man.
  • Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln's Herndon.
  • Elkins, Stanley and McKitrick, Eric. The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800 (to reread).
  • Elkin, Stephen L. Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Design after Madison.
  • Ellis, Joseph. American Sphinx.
  • English, T.J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster.
  • Fitzgerald, Deborah. Yeoman No More: The Industrialization of Agriculture in America, 1920-1940.
  • Halberstam, David. Best and the Brightest, The (to reread).
  • Haynes, George H. Senate of the United States, The: Its History and Practice.
  • Herndon, William Henry. Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life.
  • Hersh, Seymour M. Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.
  • Hofstadter, Richard. American Political Tradition, The: And the Men Who Made it.
  • Hofstadter, Richard. Idea of a Party System, The: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840.
  • Hofstadter, Richard. Paranoid Style in American Politics, The, and Other Essays.
  • Honey, Michael. Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, King's Last Campaign.
  • Hoogenboom, Ari. Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865-1883.
  • Johanssen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas.
  • Kyvig, David E. Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776–1995.
  • Lasch, Christopher. The New Radicalism in America 1889-1963: The Intellectual As a Social Type.
  • Lemann, Nicholas. Promised Land, The: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America.
  • Markoff, John. What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer.
  • McLoughlin, W.G., Jr. Billy Sunday Was His Real Name.
  • McWhorter, Diane. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.
  • Middlekauff, Robert. Mathers, The: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals.
  • Miller, William Lee. Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography. (Recommended by Hendrik Hertzberg.)
  • Milton, George Fort. Eve of Conflict, The: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War.
  • Nevins, Allan. Emergence of Lincoln, The.
  • Nevins, Allan. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage.
  • Nevins, Allan. Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration.
  • Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union.
  • Nichols, Roy F. Disruption of American Democracy, The.
  • Nicolay, John G. and Hay, John. Abraham Lincoln: A History.
  • Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America, 1860-1920.
  • Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: The Colonial Mind, 1620-1800.
  • Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: The Romantic Revolution in America, 1800-1860.
  • Peterson, Merrill D. Great Triumvirate, The: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun.
  • Riis, Jacob. How The Other Half Lives.
  • Rutland, Robert Allen. Ordeal of the Constitution: The Antifederalists and the Ratification Struggle of 1787-1788.
  • Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Age of Jackson, The.
  • Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Age of Roosevelt, Volume II: Coming of the New Deal: 1933-1935.
  • Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Age of Roosevelt, Volume III: The Politics of Upheaval: 1935-1936.
  • Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Cycles of American History, The.
  • Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Thousand Days, The.
  • Schrag, Zachary M. Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro.
  • Smith, James Morton. Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties.
  • Sperber, A.M. Murrow: His Life and Times.
  • Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States; With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution.
  • van Deusen, Glyndon G. Thurlow Weed: Wizard of the Lobby.
  • van Deusen, Glyndon G. William Henry Seward.
  • Van Doren, Carl. Benjamin Franklin (recommended in a terrific Jill Lepore piece about Franklin).
  • van Riper, Paul P. History of the United States Civil Service.
  • White Jr., Ronald C. Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural.
  • White, Leonard D. Federalists, The.
  • White, Leonard D. Jacksonians, The.
  • White, Leonard D. Jeffersonians, The.
  • White, Leonard D. Republican Era 1869-1901, The.
  • Wills, Gary. Lincoln at Gettysburg.
  • Woodward, Comer Vann. Origins of the New South, The.
  • Woodward, Comer Vann. Strange Career of Jim Crow, The.
  • Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s.

Language

  • Charniak, Eugene. Statistical Language Learning.
  • Skinner, B.F. Verbal Behavior.

Economics

  • Angell, Norman. Story of Money, The.
  • Aoki, Masanao. Modeling Aggregate Behavior and Fluctuations in Economics: Stochastic Views of Interacting Agents (via Cosma Shalizi? At least indirectly?)
  • Arrow, Kenneth. Limits of Organization, The.
  • Bhagwati, Jagdish. Protectionism.
  • Bowles, Samuel; Durlauf, S.N.; Hoff, K. (eds.). Poverty Traps.
  • Bowles, Samuel; Edwards, Richard; Roosevelt, Frank. Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change.
  • Braudel, Fernand. Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800.
  • Braybrooke, David and Lindblom, Charles E. Strategy of Decision, A: Policy Evaluation as a Social Process. (Recommended by Cosma Shalizi.)
  • Burnham, James. Managerial Revolution, The: What Is Happening In The World.
  • Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. Visible Hand, The: The Managerial Revolution in American Business.
  • Dahl, Robert A. Preface to Economic Democracy.
  • Davidson, Paul. Financial Markets, Money and the Real World.
  • De Soto, Hernando. Mystery of Capital, The: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else.
  • Debreu, Gerard. Theory of Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium
  • Dixit, Avinash K. Lawlessness and Economics: Alternative Modes of Governance.
  • Dorman, Peter. Markets and Mortality: Economics, Dangerous Work, and the Value of Human Life.
  • Easterly, William. White Man's Burden, The: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.
  • Elster, Jon. Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints.
  • Elster, Jon. Ulysses and the Sirens.
  • Feenstra, Robert C. Advanced International Trade: Theory and Evidence (recommended by Dani Rodrik).
  • Friedman, Milton and Schwartz, Anna Jacobson. Monetary History of the United States, A, 1867-1960.
  • Greif, Avner. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade.
  • Griffiths, Peter. Economist's Tale, The: A Consultant Encounters Hunger and the World Bank.
  • Hill, Christopher. World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution.
  • Houthakker, Hendrik S. and Williamson, Peter J. Economics of Financial Markets, The.
  • Ilinski, Kirill, Physics of Finance: Gauge Modelling in Non-Equilibrium Pricing (via Cosma Shalizi)
  • Irwin, Douglas A. Free Trade Under Fire (via “Deconstructing Free Trade”, in turn via Dani Rodrik).
  • Keynes, John Maynard. Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.
  • Keynes, John Maynard. Essays in Persuasian.
  • Keynes, John Maynard. How To Pay For The War.
  • Keynes, John Maynard. Treatise on Money, A.
  • Kindleberger, Charles P. World in Depression, The, 1929-1939.
  • Lösch, August. Economics of Location, The: A Pioneer Book in the Relations between Economic Goods and Geography.
  • Manning, Alan. Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets.
  • Nelson, Richard R. and Winter, Sidney G. Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, An.
  • Polanyi, Karl. Great Transformation, The.
  • Roberts, Russell. Choice, The: A Fable of Free Trade and Protection (via “Deconstructing Free Trade”, in turn via Dani Rodrik)
  • Sachs, Jeffrey D. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time.
  • Sahlins, Marshall. Stone Age Economics.
  • Schelling, Thomas Crombie. Choice and Consequence.
  • Schelling, Thomas Crombie. Strategy of Conflict, The.
  • Schumpeter, Joseph Alois. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
  • Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom.
  • Shiryaev, A.N. Essentials of Stochastic Finance: Facts, Models, Theory (via Cosma Shalizi)
  • Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations, The.
  • Sutton, John. Sunk Costs and Market Structure.
  • Sutton, John. Technology and Market Structure.
  • Ubel, Peter. Pricing Life: Why It's Time for Health Care Rationing.
  • Williamson, Oliver E. Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications.

Religion

  • Augustine of Hippo. Answer to the Pelagians.
  • Augustine of Hippo. Confessions (translated by Henry Chadwick — I’ve read other translations, but somewhere I read that this one was special; possibly I read this in Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo?).
  • Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A Life Of Martin Luther.
  • Bellarmine, Controversies.
  • Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation 1483-1521.
  • Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation 1521-1532.
  • Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church, 1532-1546.
  • Chadwick, Henry. Augustine (Past Masters).
  • Chapp, Rebecca. Praxis of Suffering, The: An Interpretation of Liberation and Political Theologies (cited in Paul Farmer’s Pathologies of Power).
  • Claiborne, Shane. Irresistible Revolution, The: Living as an Ordinary Radical.
  • Cohn, Norman. Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages.
  • Dirks, Jerald F. Cross & the Crescent, The.
  • Feiler, Bruce. Walking the Bible (recommended by Laura Boyden, probably)
  • Gilson, Etienne. Christian Philosophy Of St Thomas Aquinas, The.
  • Kreeft, Peter. Summa of the Summa, A.
  • Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism.
  • Nederman, Cary J. Worlds of Difference: European Discourses of Toleration, C. 1100-1550.
  • Niebuhr, Reinhold. Does Civilization Need Religion? A Study in the Social Resources and Limitations of Religion in Modern Life.
  • Popkin, Richard H. History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, The (recommended by Cosma Shalizi)
  • Tolstoy, Leo. Kingdom of God is Within You, The.
  • Warfield, Benjamin B. Calvin and Augustine.
  • Wilson, A.N. Jesus: A Life.
  • Wilson, A.N. Paul: The Mind of the Apostle.
  • Wolfson, Harry Austryn. Philosophy of Spinoza, The: Unfolding the Latent Process of His Reasoning (recommended by Cosma Shalizi)

Jung/Freud/etc

Film

  • Perez, Gilberto. Material Ghost, The: Films and Their Medium (recommended by Bijoyini Chatterjee, I believe).
  • Welles, Orson; Bogdanovich, Peter; Rosenbaum, Jonathan. This Is Orson Welles.

Politics/Political Theory

  • Ackerman, Bruce and Ayres, Ian. Voting With Dollars: A New Paradigm for Campaign Finance.
  • Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution.
  • Brinton, Crane. Anatomy of Revolution, The.
  • Carter, Dan T. From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994.
  • Fulbright, J. William. Arrogance of Power, The.
  • Hacker, Jacob S. and Pierson, Paul. Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy.
  • Haltom, William and McCann. Michael, Distorting the law: politics, media, and the litigation crisis.
  • Heard, Alexander. Costs of Democracy, The.
  • Hersh, Seymour M. Price of Power, The: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.
  • Mayer, Jane and Abramson, Jill. Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas
  • Mooney, Chris. Republican War on Science, The.
  • Namier, Sir Lewis. 1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals.
  • Perlstein, Rick. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.
  • Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus.
  • Phillips, Kevin P. Emerging Republican Majority, The.
  • Raymond, Allen. How To Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative.
  • Redman, Eric. Dance of Legislation.
  • Ricks, Thomas E. Making The Corps.
  • Scheuerman, William E. Carl Schmitt: The End Of Law. (Recommended by Sandy Levinson, by email. See also the book by Carl Schmitt.)
  • Schmitt, Carl. Political Theology. (Schmitt generally recommended by Sandy Levinson; this book in particular recommended over email by Prof. Levinson.)

Food

  • Bittman, Mark. Cooking at Home with a Four Star Chef.
  • Bittman, Mark. Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking.
  • Bittman, Mark. From Simple to Spectacular: How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication.
  • Bittman, Mark. How To Cook Everything.
  • McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking.
  • Nestle, Marion. Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine.
  • Steingarten, Jeffrey. Man Who Ate Everything, The.

Health care, health insurance, public health

  • Duffy, John. Sanitarians, The: A History of American Public Health (recommended by Jason Smith)
  • Falkson, Joseph L. HMOs and the Politics of Health System Reform.
  • Hacker, Jacob S. Road To Nowhere, The (recommended by Ezra Klein).
  • Johnson, Haynes. System, The: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point (recommended by Ezra Klein).
  • Porter, Dorothy. Health, Civilization and the State (recommended by Jason Smith)
  • Skocpol, Theda. Boomerang: Health Care Reform and the Turn Against Government (recommended by Ezra Klein).
  • Starr, Paul. Social Transformation of American Medicine, The: the Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry.

War

  • Hammes, Thomas X. Sling and the Stone, The: On War in the 21st Century.

Bush administration

  • Goldsmith, Jack L. Terror Presidency, The: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration.

Unfiled

  • Abbey, Edward. Monkey Wrench Gang, The.
  • Alexander, Christopher. Pattern Language, A: Towns, Buildings, Construction.
  • Bearman, Peter. Doormen.
  • Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.
  • Cravens, Gwyneth. Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy.
  • Crews, Frederick. Memory Wars.
  • Crews, Frederick. Skeptical Engagements.
  • Diderot, Denis. D'Alembert's Dream.
  • Didion, Joan. Book of Common Prayer, A.
  • Didion, Joan. Democracy.
  • Didion, Joan. Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11.
  • Didion, Joan. Miami.
  • Didion, Joan. Play It As It Lays.
  • Didion, Joan. Run River.
  • Didion, Joan. Salvador.
  • Didion, Joan. Where I Was From.
  • Earl, D.C. Moral and Political Tradition of Rome, The.
  • Fatsis, Stefan. Word Freak.
  • Ferguson, John. Religions of the Roman Empire, The.
  • Fortescue, John. In Praise of the Laws of England.
  • Fowler, Robert (ed.). Cambridge Companion to Homer, The.
  • Frank, Jeffrey. Columnist, The.
  • Galloway, George B. Legislative Process in Congress, The.
  • Gardner, Martin. Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery.
  • Gross, Paul R. and Levitt, Norman. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science.
  • Hamilton, Richard F. Social Misconstruction of Reality, The: Validity and Verification in the Scholarly Community.
  • Harrington, Anne. Reenchanted Science.
  • Hayward, Frank. Professionalism and Originality.
  • Hexter, J.H. Vision of Politics on the Eve of the Reformation, The: More, Machiavelli, and Seyssel.
  • Johnson-Laird, Philip. How We Reason.
  • Kohák, Erazim V. Embers and the Stars, The. (Recommended in The Age of Missing Information.)
  • Lamont, William M. Godly Rule: Politics and Religion, 1603-1660.
  • Lewis, Martin W. The Myth of Continents.
  • Lord, Albert. Singer of Tales, The.
  • Loury, Glenn C. Anatomy of Racial Inequality, The.
  • Mackay, Charles. Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds.
  • McKibben, Bill. Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.
  • McKibben, Bill. End of Nature, The.
  • McKibben, Bill. Hope, Human and Wild.
  • Pollan, Michael. Place Of My Own, A.
  • Pollan, Michael. Second Nature.
  • Riddick, Floyd M. Senate Procedure.
  • Sacks, Oliver. Migraine.
  • Sadowski, Yahya. Myth of Global Chaos, The.
  • Simon, David and Burns, Edward. Corner, The: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (recommended by Patrick Fitzsimmons).
  • Tuveson, Ernest. Millennium and Utopia.
  • Venkatesh, Sudhir. Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets (via Chris Blattman).
  • Weiss, Florence; Weiss, Sydney; and Craven, Thomas (eds.). Cartoon Cavalcade.
  • Whitfield, J.H. Discourses on Machiavelli.
  • Williams, George Huntston. Radical Reformation, The.
  • Wilson, Woodrow. Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics.

Baseball

  • Baseball Prospectus. Baseball Between The Numbers.
  • Deford, Frank. Old Ball Game, The.
  • Olney, Buster. Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, The.

Literature

  • Kenner, Hugh. Ulysses.

Memoir

  • Alighieri, Dante. Vita Nuova, La.
  • Burroughs, Augusten. Running with Scissors.

Urban planning, and cities generally

  • Duany, Andres; Plater-Zyberk-Elizabeth; and Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream.
  • Flint, Anthony. This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America.
  • Henderson, J. Vernon. Urban Development: Theory, Fact, and Illusion.
  • Kunstler, James Howard. Geography of Nowhere, The: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape.
  • Mumford, Lewis. City In History, The.
  • Mumford, Lewis. Highway and the City, The.

Organizational design

  • Axelrod, Robert and Cohen, Michael D. Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier.

9 Comments

  1. Will you get the lunch box along with Remains of the Day?

    Comment by j wreezy — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

  2. I heartily reccommend The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis — also the Chronicles of Narnia. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was a fabulous fantasy read at age 8, and a fascinating read at 26. My favorite of the series is Prince Caspian. Also, my dear and darling friend, you need to read MORE Madeleine L’Engle — read the rest of the Wrinkle In Time trilogy…… Also, Sense and Sensibility is waaaaaaay better than Mansfield Park…..

    Comment by boyden — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

  3. i heartily recommend The Handmaid’s Tale. i’ve read it several times, and it is one of my favorite books. it was written 20 years ago, so some of the tech terminology can feel a little dorky or clunky. but it is a book that i will pick up, open to a random page, and immediately get sucked into.

    Comment by #7buslady — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

  4. Jerzy Kosinski – Painted Bird and others

    Comment by Seth — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

  5. Jason likes doormen

    Comment by Anonymous — April 10, 2006 @ 9:10 am

  6. If you haven’t read “The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russell, you should. It would go in your Sci Fi section, although it’s only half that.

    Comment by Seth — April 10, 2006 @ 9:10 am

  7. I noticed that you’ve read some Oliver Sacks. Have you ever read, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat?

    Comment by Kate — April 10, 2006 @ 9:10 am

  8. Habermas’s Postnational Constellation was actually edited and translated by a professor here at Binghamton. Highly recommend. Habermas is a smart man.

    Comment by j wreezy — April 10, 2006 @ 9:10 am

  9. [...] (Internal citation omitted, but it’s a pointer to Georges Lefebvre’s The Coming of the French Revolution, which goes on the list.) [...]

    Pingback by Stephen Laniel’s Unspecified Bunker » Best opening line of the week — November 8, 2007 @ 8:04 pm

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