Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Books: The Updated 2008 Book List

Well, since I actually went through almost ninety books last year, perhaps I can set the bar a little higher this year.

Here's the updated list. Some items have been moved to 2009. I figure it's more important to track and enjoy and read with purpose than to worry about how many of these damn books I can move out of boxes and piles on the floor. It's looking encouraging! By 2020, I might just be able to walk around the house again!

So here's the list (and stop lending me books, goddammit, you KNOW I can't say No).
  1. A Cloistered War - Maisie Duncan
  2. A History of Malaysia - Barbara Watson Andaya & Leonard Andaya
  3. A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
  4. A History of Selangor - J. M. Gullick
  5. A House in Gross Disorder - Herrup
  6. A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
  7. A Spy's Revenge - Richard V. Hall
  8. A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
  9. Abraham's Promise - Philip Jeyaretnam
  10. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
  11. Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Kratosha, Ed.
  12. Baba Nonnie Goes To War - Ron Mitchell
  13. Bang Bang in Ampang - Norman Cleaveland
  14. Beating the Blues - Thase & Lang
  15. Believer Book of Writers Talking To Writers - Vendela Vida
  16. Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
  17. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
  18. Captains of Consciousness - Stuart Ewen
  19. Captives of Shanghai - David H. & Gretchen G. Grover
  20. Chandranath - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  21. Chinese Blue & White - Ann Frank
  22. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
  23. Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
  24. Colonial Masculinity - Mrinalini Sinha
  25. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
  26. Dena-Paona - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  27. Devdas - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  28. Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Mackay
  29. Folklore of Tamil Nadu - S.M.L. Lakshman Chettiar
  30. Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
  31. From Pacific War to Merdeka -
  32. Gaijin - James Clavell
  33. Glory - Vladimir Nabokov
  34. Heart Politics - Fran Peavey
  35. How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
  36. How To Write A Damn Good Novel - James N. Frey
  37. In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
  38. In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
  39. Kempeitai - Raymond Lamont Brown
  40. Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
  41. Kranji - Romen Bose
  42. Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
  43. Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
  44. Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
  45. Living Hell -
  46. Modern Japan -
  47. Niskriti - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  48. Nonsense - Robert J. Gula
  49. Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
  50. Palli Samaj (The Homecoming) - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  51. Pandit Moshai - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  52. Power Politics - Arundhati Roy
  53. Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
  54. Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
  55. Rehearsal for War -
  56. Robert van Gulik - van de Wetering
  57. Rosie - Anne Lamott
  58. Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
  59. Singapore The Pregnable Fortress -
  60. Soldiers Alive -
  61. That Fellow Kanda - AUPE
  62. The Age of Diminished Expectations - Krugman
  63. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
  64. The Book of Tea -
  65. The Devil Finds Work - James Baldwin
  66. The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Sillein, Eds.
  67. The End of the War - Romen Bose
  68. The Family:They Fuck You Up - Granta
  69. The Jungle is Neutral -
  70. The Literature & The Story - Vivian Gornick
  71. The Marquis - A Tale of Syonan-To - S.J.H. Conner
  72. The Mind's I - Hofstadter & Dennett
  73. The Pacific War -
  74. The Physics of Star Trek - Lawrence Krauss
  75. The Plague - Albert Camus
  76. The Rise & Fall of the Knights Templar - Gordon Napier
  77. The Ugly Chinaman - Bo Yang
  78. The Sabahan - P.J. Granville-Edge, Rajen Devadason
  79. The Singapore Grip - J.G. Farrell
  80. The Unabomber Manifesto - Ted Kaczynski
  81. Travels in Siam - Henri Mouhot
  82. Virtual Reality - Howard Rheingold
  83. War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore -
  84. Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Bardhan
  85. Writing Past Dark - Bonnie Friedman
  86. You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
  87. Your Memory:A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley
  88. I wish this were all I had to read, but I'm looking for work, and in the interest of making myself somewhat more marketable, I have a boatload of books to read on managing and writing software requirements, C, C++, Java, programming in general, various tools and applications, database management systems, Oracle in particular, XML, HTML, website creation and maintenance, Web 2.0 (love those buzzwords), interviewing, systems management, Linux, UNIX, performance tuning, and how to deal with assholes you hate. That's work, I guess.

    So, who's taking my bet that I will finish reading the lot, or an equivalent amount, at least? And what's in it for me when I do?

    I'm working on three books right now - Bonnie Friedman's book, "Writing after Dark," Vendela Vida's "Writers Talking To Writers," and J.G. Farrell's "The Singapore Grip."

    I think I need to read more fiction. Yargh.

2 comments:

Ms. Manitoba said...

I have much faith in you.

ThePoliticalCat said...

GF - You so embarrass me.

Listening to Ry Cooder and V.M. Bhatt. My geez.