75 Books...More or Less! discussion

2008 edition
2009 edition
2010 edition

2012 edition
2013 edition
2014 edition
2015 edition
2016 edition
2017 edition

Paper books/ebooks:
1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, finished January 2 for 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.
2. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, finished January 13.
3. I Am America by Stephen Colbert, finished January 14.
4. Continia by Junior Wilson, finished January 16.
5. House to House: An Epic Memoir of War by David Bellavia, finished January 17.
6. The Fall of Reach by Eric S. Nylund, finished January 25.
7. The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan, finished January 26.
8. WAR by Sebastian Junger, finished January 28.
9. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, finished February 2.
10. Beer Is Proof God Loves Us by Charles Bamforth, finished February 5.
11. SAS Survival Handbook, Revised Edition: For Any Climate, in Any Situation by John "Lofty" Wiseman, finished February 10.
12. The Joy of Chemistry: The Amazing Science of Familiar Things by Cathy Cobb, finished February 16.
13. Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, finished February 21.
14. When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life by David Burns, finished February 22.
15. Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, finished February 23.
16. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris, finished February 24.
17. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow, finished February 25.
18. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris, finished March 1.
19. Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris, finished March 1.
20. The Hacker's Diet: How to Lose Weight and Hair Through Stress and Poor Nutrition by John Walker, finished March 2.
21. Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris, finished March 6.
22. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson, finished March 7.
23. Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris, finished March 8.
24. Switched by Amanda Hocking, finished March 11.
25. All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris, finished March 18.
26. Breakthrough! by Jon Queijo, finished March 20.
27. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford, finished March 25.
28. The Dark Fields aka Limitless by Alan Glynn, finished March 26.
29. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain, finished April 8.
30. The Grendel's Shadow by Andrew Mayne, finished April 8.
31. Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, finished April 13.
32. Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know, ed. Hamilton Wright Mabie, finished June 1.
33. Nim's Island by Wendy Orr, finished June 2.
34. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, finished June 13.
35. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, finished June 21.
36. Alice In Wonderland: German Learning Edition with Paragraph-By-Paragraph Translation by Lewis Carroll, finished July 10.
37. Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey From NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer by Mireya Mayor, finished July 15.
38. Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo by Beth Whitman, finished July 29.
39. Das Graveyard Buch by Neil Gaiman, finished August 2.
40. Cheats, Cons, Swindles, and Tricks by Brian Brushwood, finished August 3.
41. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery, finished August 9.
42. The n00b Warriors by Scott Douglas, finished August 24.
43. The Adventurous Boy's Handbook: For Ages 9 to 99 by Stephen Brennan and Finn Brennan, finished August 29.
44. United Moon Colonies by Tom Merritt, finished August 31.
45. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, finished September 3.
46. Run of the Red Queen: Government, Innovation, Globalization, and Economic Growth in China by Dan Breznitz and Michael Murphree, finished September 17.
47. Halting State by Charles Stross, finished September 21.
48. Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed--and What to Do About It by Josh Lerner, finished September 22.
49. Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold, finished September 30.
50. Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal, finished October 9.
51. Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis by Rowan Jacobsen, finished October 11.
52. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston, finished October 12.
53. Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow, finished October 15.
54. Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham, finished October 21.
55. Roo'd by Joshua Klein, finished October 22.
56. Income Inequality in Capitalist Democracies: The Interplay of Values and Institutions by Vicki Birchfield, finished November 13.
57. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy, finished November 28.

Audio books:
1. Generation Kill by Evan Wright, finished January 6.
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, finished January 9 for 75 Books.
3. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson, finished January 17.
4. The Help by Kathryn Stockett, finished January 22 for College Students.
5. Public Enemy Zero by Andrew Mayne, finished July 25.
-. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, finished August 2.
6. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean, finished September 26.
7. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, finished October 2.
8. A Microsoft Life by Stephen Toulouse, finished November 4.
9. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens, finished December 31.

Best fiction book: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Best nonfiction book: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
Best audio book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, finished January 2 for 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

2. Generation Kill by Evan Wright, finished January 6.

3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, finished January 9 for 75 Books.

4. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, finished January 13.

5. I Am America by Stephen Colbert, finished January 14.

Everyone I know has seen the Cold Mountain movie, but very few people have read the book, so I'd love to hear what you thought!

People keep asking me this, but I actually haven't seen the movie!

I loved the book. I gave it a rare five stars.

Part of me really wants to see the movie, but another part of me worries that it will ruin the book. The book is very visual and descriptive, and watching the movie might replace those visuals.

6. Empire of Continia (working title) by Junior Wilson, finished January 16.

Wow Mollie, you are moving right along!

I know! Yesterday I was wondering if I should have been more ambitious and gone for 100. On the other hand, I know there will be down months. Like last year there was a month where I got netflix and watched lots of TV shows and only read one book :D

The number of hours I have to work also varies a lot throughout the year. It'll be nice to start ahead for once.

Actually I think I will change my goal to 84 books (7/month). I hope it's okay if I stay in this group? There is no 84 books group, and I really think this group is better than the other books/year groups anyway :)

Mollie, we have lots of members with goals from under 75 to well over! It doesn't matter to us, we just stay together because we have some type of goal and enjoy the company!

Great!

7. House to House: An Epic Memoir of War by David Bellavia, finished January 17.

8. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson, finished January 17.

9. The Help by Kathryn Stockett, finished January 22 for College Students.

Mollie, I love your graphs! I noticed that these are available to the poeple who signed up for the 2011 GR reading challenge.

I don't think there's a way to embed the GR challenge widget into a thread. I do have it on my website, though, and it looks great. The graphs above are from google docs, and are really easy to make. The image auto-updates whenever you update the data, so it's not a lot of work. :)

Here's a tutorial if anybody wants to make their own:

1) Make a google doc spreadsheet.
2) Put year (or month) in column A and books read in column B.
3) Click and drag to select the data.
4) Insert -> Chart.
5) Check "Use row 1 as headers" if you put headers in row one.
6) Check "Use column A as headers".
7) Charts -> Column or Charts -> Line.
8) Click "Insert".
9) Save the doc.
10) Click the graph, then click "Chart 1" in graph header.
11) Click "publish chart".
12) In drop box select "Image".
13) Copy code and paste in thread.

As I said, it will update the image automatically when you update the doc. No need to copy the code each time. :)

Cool! Thanks for the tutorial... I would never have figured it out on my own ;p

That's awesome Mollie, thanks for sharing!

10. The Fall of Reach by Eric S. Nylund, finished January 25.

11. The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan, finished January 26.

12. WAR by Sebastian Junger, finished January 28.

13. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, finished February 2.

14. Beer Is Proof God Loves Us by Charles Bamforth, finished February 5.

15. SAS Survival Handbook, Revised Edition: For Any Climate, in Any Situation by John "Lofty" Wiseman, finished February 10.

16. The Joy of Chemistry: The Amazing Science of Familiar Things by Cathy Cobb, finished February 16.

17. Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, finished February 21.

18. When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life by David Burns, finished February 22.

Review:

I'm not much for self-help books, but a psychologist recommended it to me, and I finally moved past my biases and started it. The subtitle isn't kidding when it says it can change your life! The book is basically a bunch of cognitive therapy techniques that you can do by yourself or with a friend. I got so much out of it--and yet there's so much left to learn--that I'm planning to immediately start reading it again.

Oddly, while I think this book will do a lot to help a variety of problems I occasionally suffer from (social anxiety, depression, shyness, procrastination), I don't think it's going to help very much with my panic attacks. I do think it can help with some types of panic attacks, I just haven't found a way it can help mine yet. But this book definitely has improved my life and certainly deserves five stars.

Mollie wrote: "14. Beer Is Proof God Loves Us by Charles Bamforth, finished February 5."

Love the title! How was the book?

Meh. It's okay if you're interested in the beer industry. Some fun facts in it, but pretty short.

The kindle version was free when I picked it up, so it was pretty good for free!

19. Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, finished February 23.

Review:

I wish this book were more popular. It's just as well-written and interesting as any of a number of popular social science books (think Jared Diamond or Malcolm Gladwell).

The premise is the authors' search to find an alternative to the "red state/blue state" language to describe different sections of the U.S. They opted to create ten to fifteen sections, based on a huge variety of county-level data. Based on the data, they decided on twelve. Each county is statistically assigned into one of the twelve communities: boom towns, campus and careers, emptying nests, evangelical epicenters, immigration nation, industrial metropolis, military bastions, minority central, monied burbs, Mormon outposts, service worker centers, and tractor country. Each of these types is described with a combination of quantitative and qualitative data: detailed maps, graphs, and interview quotes and analysis from one representative town from each type. Following those twelve chapters are overviews of the economy, politics, and culture, looking at the similarities and differences of each community with regard to these topics.

It's impressive as an analysis, but also an impressive read.

Mollie, you are reading some heavy books!

20. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris, finished February 24.

Thanks for the graph tutorial!

You're welcome :)

21. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow, finished February 25.

Thoughts: Good premise, but the story was lacking. Didn't feel like I could identify with or understand the actions of the main character. Doctorow's other works I've read are much better.

Just noticed that means I'm 25% done. Wow...

Wow Mollie! I saw where you were a and was thinking how amazing that is and I think I'm 1 book away from being right with you :)

22. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris, finished March 1.

Guess I ruined the run of "heavy books" with those last three, huh? ;)

Nothing wrong with going light after so many heavy books in a row!

23. Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris, finished March 1.

24. The Hacker's Diet: How to Lose Weight and Hair Through Stress and Poor Nutrition by John Walker, finished March 2.

Thoughts: Good no-nonsense book about diet basics. Simple... but the good kind of simple. Available free online http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/...

25. Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris, finished March 6.

26. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson, finished March 7.