Books I'd like to read:
- The White Man's Burden by William Easterly
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
- Expecting Adam by Martha Beck
- Dicing With Death: Chance, Risk and Health by Stephen Senn
- The Mighty and the Almighty by Madeleine Albright
- The Mark of Shame: Stigma of Mental Illness and an Agenda for Change by Stephen P. Hinshaw
- The Averaged American by Sarah Igo
- Primary Care Sleep Medicine: A Practical Guide Edited by James F. Pagel and S. R. Pandi-Perumal.
- Blind Faith: the Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine by Richard P Sloan
- How to Read a Church: A Guide to Symbols and Images in Churches and Cathedrals by Richard Taylor
- Into the Silent Land by Paul Broks
- Waterlemon: Husband in Coma and Other Setbacks by Ruth Ritchie
- Complications by Atul Gawande -- very good account of a medical resident's experience
- Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner -- I only thought this was OK. I am a little skeptical of some of the analyses, but did not go to the source to check them out more closely.
- Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball's Lunatic Fringe by Sam Walker -- This was a great lighthearted look at the world of fantasy sports for the first 2/3 of it. The end dragged a bit. I also imagine that anyone actually involved in fantasy sports would not find the content novel at all, and would not enjoy it.
- A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger -- This was a good quick read (I read it on the plane to Atlanta and back) that is basically a commentary on the limitations of our justice system to find the truth, especially when race is involved, especially in the 50s. This commentary is couched in the attempt to discover the "truth" about whether or not the man convicted for a murder was actuall innocent, and whether or not this murder should have been tied to the "Boston Strangler"
- Digging to America by Anne Tyler -- This was an enjoyable "beach read". I'm not sure if I'm just getting old, but this wasn't as good as some of Anne Tyler's previous works.
- Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card -- This is a great book. Of course, not as good as Ender's Game, but Card is very good at weaving together interesting plot lines and logical science fiction. The use of Portuguese was a little annoying for me as a non-spanish speaker, mostly because I had a hard time keeping track of who was who. I was constantly going back to the "glossary" of people, which is unfortunate since it is a bit of a spoiler.
- First Meetings by Orson Scott Card -- This is a collection of short stories that wasn't all that good. This format doesn't give Card the space he needs to develop the complexity of character and plot that make his works good.
- DaVinci Code by Dan Brown -- This was a fine book, but I don't understand what all the fuss was about.
- Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen -- This is one of my favorite fiction authors. This was not his best, but it was full of the outrageous irony and over-the-top characters that characterize his works. All of his books are primarily about the destruction of Florida via the influx of people. This theme is starting to get a little old, and he tends to use Skink to wrap up too many of his loose ends. If you ever have the chance to see Hiaasen speak, take it. He is fabulous.
