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Books read in 2007
 | God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens
- Finished Dec.12/07 Audiobook
- Recommended by Justin N.
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 | On Writing by Stephen King
- Finished Nov.21/07
- A tight and enjoyable description of how King performs his craft. Most valuable for the general description of the writing process in the context of a person's real life. He makes some technical recommendations (which I took seriously to heart) but they are available in many other forms (notably Strunk and White).
- An accessible book that readers will be enjoy whether or not they read King's fiction and whether or not they are (or wish they were) writers.
- Recommended by Pourang I.
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 | Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
- Finished Nov.19/07
- Reread this book after several years and it is still amazing. I don't think I could write anything here to do it justice. As the front cover says, it is "one of the most profoundly important bestsellers of our time".
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 | The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Finished Nov.12/07
- I love read this well-read, articulate, sarcastic and at times scathing author. His last book Fooled by Randomness took me by complete surprise and I patiently waited for another book. I was not disappointed.
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 | I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert
- Finished Nov. 5/07 Abridged Audiobook
- Not sure I could have read a whole book of this (extremely funny) garbage. There was nothing interesting, just jokes -- which turned out to be fine with me.
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 | Pick-up by Charles Willeford
- Finished Oct.23/07
- A good novel describing the lives of two down and out alcoholics in San Francisco that is not without faults. The first part is a wonderful narrative of life on the streets but the second part describing the main character's time in jail wasn't great. What made this forgivable, and caused me to think of this story for weeks, was the seemingly insignificant last sentence that reveals the main character was black.
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 | Emotional Design by Donald A. Norman
- Finished Oct.16/07
- I'm a bit disappointed with this book. Some interesting ideas that made clear the emotional connection we have with the designs we enjoy. However, the ending chapters regarding robots were out of place. I realize it is important to end a book with forward looking ideas but robots, come on. You can't get more cliche than that.
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 | The Sea Wolf by Jack London
- Finished Sep.24/07
- I do not understand why Jack London's novels are thought of as children's stories. This book is full of dense philosophical discussions and very dark themes - making it a very enjoyable read for me.
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 | Big Sur by Jack Kerouac
- Finished Jul.30/07
- Purchased at the Jack Kerouac Museum in San Francisco.
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 | The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
- Finished Feb.19/07
- This book is a classic in HCI (and I expect most design disciplines) and is rightly considered so. However, much of the discussion is tedious and out-of-date. The tedious parts were the repeated analysis of the failings of normal things (doors, etc) -- for the most part I got the point after the first example. There was no need for such lengthy repetition.
- I thought the ending chapter about the coming horrors of hypertext was very funny. He is very true and insightful (in foresight none the less) but it was entertaining to read predictions of the impact of hypertext.
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 | An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics by Mary Warnock
- Finished Feb.18/07
- Read as background for project on Machine Ethics. I'm not sure how useful it was towards understanding that area.
- I liked the discussion of ethical issues near the start, disliked the discussion of why ethics actually exists (it never occurred to me that one would think otherwise, and still think that it did not warrant such extensive discussion), and finally liked the last chapter about teaching ethics to children.
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 | The Creation by E.O. Wilson
- Finished Jan.22/07
- This guy is brilliant. The Creation is an eloquent description of the science of biodiversity and how it is essential that we preserve biodiversity.
- It is written as a letter to a Southern Baptist pastor but that really doesn't matter. The arguments are as applicable to an apathetic city dweller as they are to a pastor who does not believe in evolution.
- Recommended by Jen G.
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 | The Pearl by John Steinbeck
- Finished Jan.08/07
- A tiny book about the relationship of man to evil.
- I enjoyed it.
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