Looking over the list I see some themes--Updike always is interesting, a surprising (to me) interest in Hemingway, lots of books on science and math which I partially understand at best, a couple of books on typography, and a sad interlude rereading the works of Paul Violi, too soon gone.
The first book, OOPS, was about bad ideas in science and culture. Book # 100 I've commented on below. Books with ® are books I reread--again I paraphrase Nabokov, "You cannot read a book; you can only reread it." Especially when you have my memory.
Aside from my inexplicable predilection for keeping lists and databases (cf. all the bird lists in this blog), what I find interesting looking over the titles, is how unpredictable it is what I'll be willing to read. All books are potentially interesting.
5/30: Oops!
6/4: More Than You Know
6/7: An Encounter at St. Elizabeths®
6/8: The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes
6/13: The Roots of Treason®
6/16: My Father’s Tears
6/20: Seek My Face®
6/22: Bech at Bay®
6/25: Duchamp
6/25: I Wanted to Write a Poem®
7/8: A Quiet Flame
7/12: Memories of the Ford Administration
7/15: The Devil in the White City
7/16: The Sages
7/19: The Trillion Dollar Melt Down
7/21: Bech is Back
7/23: Bech: A Book®
7/26: Fortune’s Formula
7/28: Labyrinths of Reason®
7/30: The Name is Archer
7/31: The Lacquer Screen
8/2: Violent Saturday
8/3: Ghosts
8/5: All Fires the Fire and Other Stories.
8/9: Fever
8/11: Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler
8/25: Gaming the Vote
9/12: If the Dead Rise Not
9/16: Problems and Other Stories
9/20: Robert Runcie: Reluctant Archbishop
9/22: Essays by Wallace Shawn
9/27: Bohemian Paris (was only able to read ½ the book before I sold it)
10/1: One Time Fits All (not a very interesting book)
10/3: Howl and Other Poems®
10/6: Bob Dylan in America
10/15: Quantum
10/18: Nemesis
10/26: Cigarettes Are Sublime
10/28: Priceless
11/10: Painted Shadow
11/14: The Laws of Thermodynamics A Very Short Introduction (if I understood 10% of this book it would be a lot)
11/18: The Finkler Question
11/23: Sunset Park
11/26: The Hard Way Around
12/2: Nothing A Very Short Introduction (I understood approximately 50% of this book)
12/27: Snow
12/30: Enormous Changes at the Last Minute®
1/5/11: Ferocious Alphabets
1/6: Trading Options for Dummies
1/7: Beliefs, Attitudes, and Human Affairs® (40 year old college text)
1/9: A Farewell to Arms
1/11: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much (Not a book about me)
1/13: Bunner Sisters
1/20: S. ®
1/21: Nabokov’s Butterfly
2/1: Couples
2/7: The Ballantine House
2/21: In the Beauty of the Lilies
2/26: The Rebel Angels
3/30: A Good Man in Africa
4/5: Roger’s Version
4/7: The Duel
4/13: Lucky Jim®
4/15: A Moveable Feast
4/17: Fracas®
4/17: Likewise®
4/18: Selected Accidents, Pointless Anecdotes Paul Violi 1944-2011
4/18: Splurge®
4/18: Overnight®
4/20: Economics in One Lesson (simple-minded screed against New Deal policies, yet oddly relevant.)
5/16: Moby-Duck
5/18: The Good Priest’s Son
5/24: The Information
5/26: Helvetica and the New York City Subway System
5/29: The Glass Menagerie
6/5: Engineers of Dreams®
6/7: A Shortage of Engineers
6/9: Campaign 1997
6/13: Gödel’s Proof (If I read this book 10 times I might understand 50% of it.)
6/19: An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England
6/24: A Month of Sundays
6/29: Field Grey
7/13: Collected Stories of Saul Bellow
7/18: A Fan’s Notes
7/21: Eureka
7/23: Avian Architecture
7/28: Mrs. Ted Bliss®
7/28: The Pine Barrens®
7/29: Dime Store Alchemy®
8/4: Humboldt’s Gift®
8/4: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
8/9: More Die of Heartbreak
8/13: Even the Browns®
8/14: Poets in Their Youth®
8/14: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead®
8/26: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
9/9: 1493
9/14: Just My Type
9/16: To Have and Have Not
9/22: Dream Song: The Life of John Berryman
And you didn't offer me Bohemian Paris! SM
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