read 25 books in 2009

22. The Strange World Of Quantum Mechanics – Daniel F. Styer

For class.
Not a bad, non-technical overview of quantum mechanics. It was annoying non-technical to me, I think, going farther than necessary to make analogies people could understand and repeating things quite often, but if you aren’t someone planning on going into physics or don’t have a strong background in it and are just casually interested then it would be a better fit.
I think the highlight though was when he said we could send him a “computer mail” or visit his “World Wide Web page” in the introduction (this book was first published in 2000).

21. Daniel Deronda – George Eliot

For class again, but something I would’ve read anyway if someone had told me about it. A really phenomenal novel (although incredibly long – I feel like I’ve been reading it forever).

20. The Zionist Idea – Arthur Hertzberg (ed.)

Ugh. I have been reading this anthology for absolutely ever. It’s for class.
If you ever wanted to know what every major Zionist ever wrote or spoke about, then by all means, gives this book a read.

19. The Merchant of Venice – William Shakespeare

This is at least the second and possibly the third time I’ve read this. For class, again.

18. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

I adored this book. Jane is so charming precisely because she isn’t charming or beautiful.

17. Trailer Park Fairy Tales – Matt Dinniman

This is a rare re-read for me. Matt’s one of my favorite contemporary authors though, and these short stories are great. I’d recommend it to everyone, but copies of it are hard to find.

16. Sunquakes – J. B. Zirker

So glad to have finally finished this book.
Okay, it wasn’t that bad. The first few chapters were interesting enough, but it sort of gets bogged down in the middle. It got better at the end (probably because it started discussing stars other than our own sun, which are more interesting to me).
It’s an interesting enough topic for me to read a 15-page article about in a journal, but not interesting enough for a 250-page book. I think I can safely cross helioseismology off the list of possible subfields to go into.

15. Freakonomics – Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

Finished on Thursday.
This was pretty interesting. I liked it.

14. The Planets – Dava Sobel

I liked this a lot. She writes about the planets (and other objects in the solar system) in a simplified way, but it’s not boring. There was a lot about the history of their discovery in there, and about the lives of the people who made the discoveries, which was pretty interesting and not something I read about a lot.

13. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy

I finished this last week on the train, but I’ve been gone since then.
Anyway, it was really good. I’ve just been picking up books that are in my sister’s house and belong to her housemates, which leads to novels that I wouldn’t have picked out for myself, but turn out well anyway.
I really like how this was written. It’s hard to describe, but it jumps around between points in time, without being confusing.