The Book Project

In this blog I intend to post extremely half-assed reviews of books of all varieties, with the eventual goal of reviewing every book I’ve ever read. The ordering of these reviews will be based on the whim of the moment. Expect updates to be sporadic and inconsequential. Ratings are out of 10 and are largely based on dim memories or caprice. I do not intend objectivity, consistency, or cogency.

 

Capsule reviews part I
1. Papillon (Henri Charriere, 1969)
2. Five Equations that Changed the World (Michael Guillen, 1995)
3. Altered States (Paddy Chayefsky, 1978)
4. The Grounding of Group Six (Julian F. Thompson, 1983)
5. The House of Stairs (William Sleator, 1974)
6. The Accidental Tourist (Anne Tyler, 1985)
7. Il Postino (Antonio Skarmeta, 1985)
8. King Arthur: His Knights and Their Ladies (Johanna Johnston, 1980)
9. Stuart Little (E.B. White, 1945)
10. Weasel’s Luck (Michael Williams, 1989)
Capsule reviews part II
11. Kaz the Minotaur (Richard A. Knaak, 1990)
12. God’s Equation (Amir Aczel, 2000)
13. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke, 1968)
14. 2010: Odyssey Two (Arthur C. Clarke, 1982)
15. 2061: Odyssey Three (Arthur C. Clarke, 1987)
16. 3001: The Final Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke, 1997)
17. Some Fear Street book (R.L. Stine, a recent decade)
18. Eaters of the Dead (Michael Crichton, 1976)
19. The Problems of Philosophy (Bertrand Russell, 1912)
20. The Legend of Huma (Richard Knaak, 1988)
Capsule reviews part III
21. The Dungeon Master (William Dear, 1984)
22. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison, 1967)
23. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman? (Richard Feynman, 1985)
24. Terminal Man (Michael Crichton, 1972)
25. Farmer Giles of Ham (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937)
26. Knowledge of Meaning (Larson & Segal, 1995)
27. Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1984)
28. Dragons of Winter Night (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1985)
29. Dragons of Spring Dawning (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1985)
30. Dragons of Summer Flame (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1995)
Capsule reviews part IV
31. The Legacy (R.A. Salvatore, 1992)
32. Starless Night (R.A. Salvatore, 1993)
33. Siege of Darkness (R.A. Salvatore, 1994)
34. Passage to Dawn (R.A. Salvatore, 1996)
35. The Silent Blade (R.A. Salvatore, 1998)
36. The Shining (Stephen King, 1977)
37. Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke, 1972)
38. Elegies (Theognis, 6th century B.C.)
39. The Te of Piglet (Benjamin Hoff, 1992)
Capsule reviews part V
40. Time of the Twins (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1986)
41. War of the Twins (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1986)
42. Test of the Twins (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1986)
43. The Count of Monte Cristo, abridged-for-modern-readers version (Alexander Dumas, 1846; translator Lowell Blair)
44. Fifty Famous Fairy Tales (unknown author, 1965)
45. Nothing but the Truth: A Documentary Novel (Avi, 1991)
46. The BFG (Roald Dahl, 1982)
47. Celestial Encounters: the Origins of Chaos and Stability (Diacu and Holmes, 1999)
Capsule reviews part VI
48. Heart of Darkness (Conrad, 1902)
49. Discipline & Punish (Foucault, 1975)
Capsule reviews part VII
50. Moby Dick (Melville, 1851)
Moby Dick again
Capsule reviews part VIII
51. A Brief History of Time (Hawking, 1988)
52. The Conference of the Birds (Farid Ud-Din Attar, 1177)
53. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez, 1985)
54. Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare, 1597)
55. Solaris (Stanislaw Lem, 1961)
Capsule reviews part IX
56. Sculpting in Time (Tarkovsky, 1986)
57. The Blithedale Romance (Hawthorne, 1852)
Capsule reviews part X
58. We (Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1921)
59. Pride & Prejudice (Austen, 1813)
60. Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein, 1961)
Capsule reviews part XI
61. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
62. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neal Hurston, 1937)
63. The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Amos Tutuola, 1952)
Capsule reviews part XII
64. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce, 1915)
65. Sonnets to Orpheus (Rainer Maria Rilke, 1922)
Capsule reviews part XIII
66. Story of the Eye (Bataille, 1928)
67. Moderato Cantabile (Duras, 1958)
68. Nadja (Breton, 1928)
Capsule reviews part XIV
69. Molloy (Beckett, 1951)
70. Malone Dies (Beckett, 1951)
71. The Unnamable (Beckett, 1953)
Capsule reviews part XV
72. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis, 1950)
73. Prince Caspian (C.S. Lewis, 1951)
74. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis, 1952)
75. The Silver Chair (C.S. Lewis, 1953)
76. The Horse and His Boy (C.S. Lewis, 1954)
77. The Magician’s Nephew (C.S. Lewis, 1955)
78. The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis, 1956)
79. The Book of Three (Lloyd Alexander, 1964)
80. The Black Cauldron (Lloyd Alexander, 1965)
81. The Castle of Llyr (Lloyd Alexander, 1966)
82. Taran Wanderer (Lloyd Alexander, 1967)
83. The High King (Lloyd Alexander, 1968)
84. Westmark (Lloyd Alexander, 1981)
85. The Kestrel (Lloyd Alexander, 1982)
86. The Beggar Queen (Lloyd Alexander, 1984)
84. Winnie-the-Pooh (A. A. Milne, 1926)
85. The House at Pooh Corner (A. A. Milne, 1928)
Capsule reviews part XVI
86. Wieland, or the Transformation: An American Tale (Charles Brockden Brown, 1798)
87. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself. With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor (James Hogg, 1824)
Capsule reviews part XVII
88. Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy, 1985)
89. Breakfast of Champions (Vonnegut, 1973)
90. Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh, 1945)
91. Analects (Confucius et al., 5th Century BC)
92. Satyricon (Petronius, 1st century)
93. Le Grand Meaulnes (Alain-Fournier, 1913)
Capsule reviews part XVIII
94. Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace, 1997)
Capsule reviews part XIX
95. Children of Hurin (Tolkien, 2007)
96. Old Peter’s Russian Tales (Arthur Ransome, 1916)
97. The Painted Bird (Jerzy Kosiński, 1965)
98. Billy Bathgate (E.L. Doctorow, 1989)
99. Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss, 1812)
100. Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie, 1911)
101. Beginning Logic (Lemmon, 1978)
102. The Cenci (Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819)
103. The Scarecrow of Oz (L. Frank Baum, 1915)
104. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
105. Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery (Deborah & James Howe, 1979)
Capsule reviews part XX
106. Emily of New Moon (LM Montgomery, 1923)
107. A High Wind in Jamaica (Richard Hughes, 1929)
Capsule reviews part XXI
108. Her (Ferlinghetti, 1960)
109. The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles) (Cocteau, 1929)
110. The Story of O (Pauline Réage, 1954)
Capsule reviews part XXII
111. Strait is the Gate (Andre Gide, 1909)
112. The End of the Affair (Graham Greene, 1951)
113. Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy, 1891)
114. The Heart of the Matter (Graham Greene, 1948)
Capsule reviews part XIII
115. Gossamer Years: The Diary of a Noblewoman of Heian Japan (Mother of Michitsuna, trans. Seidensticker, 974)
116. As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in 11th-Century Japan (Sarashina, trans. Morris, 1059)
117. The Crocodile (Dostoevsky, 1865)
118. The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck, 1939)
119. The Soldier and Death (Arthur Ransome, 1920)
120. Braveheart (Randall Wallace, 1995)
121. Foe (J.M. Coetzee, 1986)
122. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling, 1997)
Capsule reviews part XIV
123. Under the Volcano (Malcolm Lowry, 1947)
124. Nightwood (Djuna Barnes, 1936)
125. Endgame (Beckett, 1957)
126. Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (Sartre, 1939)
127. The Devils (Dostoevsky, 1872)
Capsule reviews part XV
128. Hills Like White Elephants (Hemingway, 1927)
129. Quadraturin (Krzhizhanovsky, 1926)
130. Toilers of the Sea, scandalously abridged version (Victor Hugo, 1866)
131. The Silent Cry (Kenzaburō Ōe, 1967)
132. The Corrections (Franzen, 2001)