Monday, March 30, 2009

Book List 2009 - Preliminary



Finally!

Here we are at the end of the first quarter and we've finally completed our 2009 list of books to read.
Book List 2009

  1. 20th Century Chinese Stories - C.T. Hsia, Ed.
  2. A Dictionary of Common Trinidad Hindi - Kumar Mahabir
  3. A History of Cambodia - David Chandler
  4. A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
  5. A House in Gross Disorder - Cynthia B. Herrup
  6. A Mercy - Toni Morrison
  7. A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in America - Ed: Shamita Das Dasgupta
  8. A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
  9. A Spy's Revenge - Richard V. Hall
  10. A Tiger In Red Weather - John Wyllie
  11. A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
  12. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
  13. Anathem - Neal Stephenson
  14. Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia - Lim Joo Jock, Vani S., Eds.
  15. Arms and The Women - Reginald Hill
  16. Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Paul Kratosha, Ed.
  17. Baumgartner's Bombay - Anita Desai
  18. Beating the Blues - Thase & Lang
  19. Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
  20. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
  21. Bitter Lemons - Lawrence Durrell
  22. Blanche Among The Talented Tenth - Barbara Neely
  23. Blanche Cleans Up - Barbara Neely
  24. Blanche On The Lam - Barbara Neely
  25. Blanche Passes Go - Barbara Neely
  26. Blood On The Golden Sands - Lim Kean Siew
  27. Eye Over The Golden Sands - Lim Kean Siew
  28. Captains of Consciousness - Stuart Ewen
  29. Chandranath - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  30. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
  31. Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
  32. Colonial Masculinity - Mrinalini Sinha
  33. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
  34. Death and The Dogwalker - (A.J. Orde) Sherri S. Tepper
  35. Death Comes For The Fat Man - Reginald Hill
  36. Death's Jest-Book - Reginald Hill
  37. Dena-Paona - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  38. Devdas - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  39. Dialogues of the Dead - Reginald Hill
  40. Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
  41. Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Charles Mackay
  42. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
  43. First Person Singular - Joyce Carol Oates
  44. Folklore of Tamil Nadu - S.M.L. Lakshman Chettiar
  45. Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
  46. From Pacific War to Merdeka - James Wong Wing On
  47. Gaijin - James Clavell
  48. Gandhi's Truth — On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence - Erik H. Erikson
  49. Heart Politics - Fran Peavey
  50. How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
  51. In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
  52. In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
  53. Kempeitai:The Japanese Secret Service Then And Now - Richard Deacon
  54. Kempeitai - Raymond Lamont Brown
  55. Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
  56. Kranji - Romen Bose
  57. Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
  58. Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
  59. Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
  60. Living Hell - Goh Chor Boon
  61. Malay Folk Beliefs - Mohd Taib Osman
  62. Malaya and Singapore During the Japanese Occupation - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
  63. Marianne, The Madame, and The Momentary Gods - Sherri S. Tepper
  64. Marianne, The Magus, and The Manticore - Sherri S. Tepper
  65. Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan - Melody Ermachild Chavis
  66. Memory in Mind and Brain - Morton F. Reiser
  67. Modern Japan, A Historical Survey - Hane Mikiso
  68. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
  69. Murder on the Verandah - Eric Lawlor
  70. My Island in the Sun - Khor Cheang Kee
  71. Niels Lyhne - Jens Peter Jacobsen
  72. Niskriti - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  73. Nonsense - Robert J. Gula
  74. No Cowardly Past - James Puthucheary
  75. Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
  76. Orientalism - Edward W. Said
  77. Orlando - Virginia Woolf
  78. Outwitting the Gestapo - Lucie Aubrac
  79. Over Tumbled Graves - Jess Walter
  80. Padma River Boatman - Manik Bandhopadhyay
  81. Palli Samaj (The Homecoming) - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  82. Pandit Moshai - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
  83. Pearl S. Buck, A Cultural Biography - Peter Conn
  84. People's War, People's Army - Vo Nguyen Giap
  85. Power Politics - Arundhati Roy
  86. Primitive Art - Frank Boas
  87. Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
  88. Purple Cane Road - James Lee Burke
  89. Raffles - Maurice Collins
  90. Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
  91. Recalled To Life - Reginald Hill
  92. Red Star Over Malaya - Cheah Boon Kheng
  93. Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon & Yap Hong Kuan
  94. Rethinking Raffles - Syed Muhd. Khairudin Aljunied
  95. Revolt in Paradise - K'tut Tantri
  96. Rosie - Anne Lamott
  97. Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye (The Biography Of A Master Film-Maker - Andrew Robinson
  98. Screenwriting 434 - Lew Hunter
  99. Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
  100. Sherpas Through Their Rituals - Sherry B. Ortner
  101. Shut Up, I'm Talking - Gregory Levey
  102. Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
  103. Singapore The Air-Conditioned Nation - Cherian George
  104. Singapore The Pregnable Fortress - Peter Elphick
  105. Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
  106. Skull Still Bone - John Wyllie
  107. Soldiers Alive - Ishikawa Tatsuzo
  108. Soon I Will be Invincible - Austin Grossman
  109. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce Vol. I - Anthony Reid
  110. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce Vol. II - Anthony Reid
  111. Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
  112. Stress and Mental Health in Malaysian Society - Tan Chee Khuan
  113. Sunset Limited - James Lee Burke
  114. Taming the Wind of Desire - Carol Laderman
  115. The Art of Detection - Laurie R. King
  116. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
  117. The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhary
  118. The Bengal Muslims 1871 - 1906 - Ahmed
  119. The Birth of Vietnam - Keith Weller Taylor
  120. The British Humiliation of Burma - Terence R. Blackburn
  121. The Bones - Sherri S. Tepper
  122. The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan
  123. The Devil Finds Work - James Baldwin
  124. The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Sillein, Eds.
  125. The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600 - 1800 - C.R. Boxer
  126. The Emergence of Modern Turkey - Bernard Lewis
  127. The End of the War - Romen Bose
  128. The Eye Over The Golden Sands - Lim Kean Siew
  129. The Gift - Lewis Hyde
  130. The Gravedigger's Daughter - Joyce Carol Oates
  131. The Jungle is Neutral - F. Spencer Chapman
  132. The Killer Breath - John Wyllie
  133. The Lincoln Lawyer - Michael Conolly
  134. The Lives of Agnes Smedley - Ruth Price
  135. The Long, Dark Night of Baron Samedi - John Wyllie
  136. The Malayan Union Controversy 1942-1948 - Albert Lau
  137. The Mak Nyahs Malaysian Male to Female Transexuals - Teh Yik Koon
  138. The March of Folly From Troy To Vietnam - Barbara W. Tuchman
  139. The Companions - Sherri S. Tepper
  140. The Margarets - Sherri S. Tepper
  141. The Mind's I - Hofstadter & Dennett
  142. The Nanjing Massacre - Honda Katsuichi
  143. The Origins of The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific - Iriye Akira
  144. The Pacific War - Ienaga Saburo
  145. The Phor Tor Festival In Penang:Deities, Ghosts, and Chinese Ethnicity - Tan Sooi Beng
  146. The Physics of Star Trek - Lawrence Krauss
  147. The Plague - Albert Camus
  148. The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore - Christopher Tremewan
  149. The Price of Peace - Foong Choon Hon, Ed.
  150. The Prince and The Discourses - Niccolo Machiavelli
  151. The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang
  152. The Remembered Village - M.N. Srinivasan
  153. The Right To Die - Humphry-Wickett
  154. The Rise & Fall of the Knights Templar - Gordon Napier
  155. The Scents of Eden, A History of the Spice Trade - Charles Corn
  156. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
  157. The Tin Roof Blowdown - James Lee Burke
  158. The Ugly Chinaman - Bo Yang
  159. The Vintage Book of Indian Writing - Salman Rushdie, Elizabeth West, Eds.
  160. The War in Malaya - A.E. Percival
  161. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
  162. Three Came Home - Agnes Newton Keith
  163. To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
  164. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
  165. Till Morning Comes - Han Suyin
  166. Time Bombs in Malaysia - Lim Kit Siang
  167. To Catch A Viper - John Wyllie
  168. Tokyo Rose - Masayo Duus
  169. Tumbuna Stories 1, The Creation of Animal Life/As Bilong Animal - Thomas H. Slone and Jada Wilson
  170. Tumbuna Stories 2,The Origin of People and Society/As Bilong Manmeri Na Sosaiti - Thomas H. Slone and Peter Leo Ella
  171. Virtual Reality - Howard Rheingold
  172. War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore - P. Lim Pui Huen, Diana Wong, Eds.
  173. Who Won The Malayan Emergency - Herbert Andrew
  174. Witness to an Era - Frank Moraes
  175. Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
  176. Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Kalpana Bardhan
  177. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
  178. You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
  179. You'll Never Get Off This Island - Keith Wilson
  180. Your Memory: A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley
And before y'awl start yawping about how ambitious I'm being, two things:

1. I already read some of these. After all, this list has been in prep since January, fer cryin' out.

2. It's all the fault of those people who shall remain, as my Primary Three teacher, Mr. Robert Tan, used to say, "nameless and shameless." You know who you are who keep lending/buying/giving me books!

3. Oh, yeah, thanks for the books.

4. I can't count worth shit.

Ms. Manitoba's right. Read the fiction first, it's easier than all those skull-thumpers.

For you, my interested audience (all three of you, c'mon now!) - some of these books have been on the list a mighty long time and still haven't been read. Should I hang on to them, or just let go?

Examples: A Spy's Revenge, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Heart Politics, Virginia Woolf's work.

Most of these books are about WWII - is this good, for someone still recovering from major surgery? Vote, you get a chance to actually say what I'm gonna kick off my list.

Many of these books have been read and are being reread. Some of them (e.g., Robert Gula's Nonsense) are well worth rereading, repeatedly. Others? I ask you.

Examples: Revolt in Paradise, The Jungle is Neutral, The Mind's Eye (Hofstader, really boring), Howard Rheingold's Virtual Reality (dated), Machiavelli's Prince, The Physics of Star Trek (nerdy nerd nerd!) - really, why reread these? I can understand Camus, I've reread the Plague at least twice in this life AFAICR, but Hofstader? OK, vote already. I'll take your comments into account.

FYI, if you're interested in getting any of these books, they're linked to Amazon, so click and throw a few coins into my wallet, won'tcha? First review coming right up.

4 comments:

McBlogget said...

Wow, TPC you're an amazingly voracious reader! I'm envious.

sgtg said...

the physics of star trek caught my eye - but then again, i am kinna nerdy. don't reread something you thought was boring. why bother?? personally i wouldn't read any non-fiction about wwii - but that doesn't imply that you shouldn't. if it thrills ya, go for it! think i'll check out those tepper books - i haven't read those. and i haven't read any tepper in quite a few years. thx for the list, it's fascinating to read through. my list is a LOT shorter and easier on the brain cells!!

ThePoliticalCat said...

McBlogget - you're only saying that because you're lucky to read two books a year, fella. Keep lending/giving me books. Your name's already down on the "naughty" side of Santa's list, fella.

ThePoliticalCat said...

sgtg - Hey, it's my favourite terrorist nun! Thank you so much for checking out the list and I am dumping that book right now.

Tepper just keeps getting better. Didja read "The Family Tree"? I'm seriously thinking I should get copies for everybody for Xmas. (Yeah, right.) The WWII books are because I'm writing a novel on the topic, but maybe I should put that off till the old gam improves and I stop having bloody nightmares about people chasing me around with saws and knives ...