Irene's Weblog

I read A History of God by Karen Armstrong back in the mid 90s, so much of this I know. It’s still brilliant.

Over the past year, I’ve found some time to read quite a few books. When I actually sat down and made a list, I discovered that I had read more than I thought I did. I’m not sure if I can repeat the task next year, but we’ll see.

NONFICTION

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, This book is very boring, but if you want to read it, ask me.  I’ll give it to you for free.
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
The myth of invasion: The inconvenient realities of migration from Africa to the European Union [pdf] by Hein de Haas of Oxford’s International Migration Unit

FICTION

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

SHORT STORIES

“The Dragon in my Garage,” by Carl Sagan
“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut.

Both are great and I should read more short stories.  I used to love short stories as a kid.  Some of my favorites were “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant.  All of the short stories are legally online for you to read.

Though I read a lot more non-fiction than fiction, my favorite book over the past year, however, was We.  It’s an absolutely brilliant book and it’s one I’ll probably read again.