Sunday, August 11, 2013

2013 Books Read

Updated 12/29/14  OK, it took a year, but I finally brought it up to date!

Jan 7 - The Martians (Robinson) OK - now I have to go back and read his first 4 Mars books!
Jan 15 - Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard (Garis) Narrated for LibriVox
Jan 21 - The Wind in the Willows (Grahame) Re-edited and noise-cleaned my original audiobook
Feb 2 - The Martian Race (Benford) I seem to be on a Mars kick!
Feb 5 - The Winds of Dune (Herbert & Anderson)  Filling in the holes in the canon
Feb 23 - Forward Into Battle (Griffith)  A disappointment; he wandered off-target
Mar 4 - American Sniper (Kyle) My brother pressed me to read this after Kyle's murder this year
Mar 29 - Unseen Academicals (Pratchett) With Terry Pratchett as the author, you know this was funny!
Apr 15 - As the Twig Is Bent (Perrone) A police procedural produced for ACX and published on Audible.com.
Apr 18 - Going Postal (Pratchett) Ditto comment on Academicals!
May 2 - Islands in the Sky (ed. Schmidt & Zubrin) Nonfiction; a plan for expanding humanity's habitation beyond Earth
May 14 - High Adventure (Hall)  WWI memoir from an American pilot, produced for Mike Vendetti Audiobooks and published on Audible.com
May 30 - Anathem (Stephenson)  A very entertaining sci-fi book. So complicated, it needed its own dictionary!
May 30 - Cosmos (Sparrow & Sobel)  Literally the largest book I've ever read - its format was something like 17" x 24"! Beautiful printing of astronomical photos, with good text.
Jun 9 - Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Bujold)  So engaging, I knew I was going back to the library to scarf more by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Jun 12 - Gun Machine (Ellis)  The first police procedural I've read outside of audiobook narration, and it was a good one.
Jun 16 - The Wolf (Guilliat & Hohnen)  The story of the WWI German raider, Wolf.
Jun 18 - Diplomatic Immunity (Bujold)  Another good one from the Vorkorsigan saga
Jul 1 - The Curse of Chalion (Bujold)  Switching gears, this is a sword-and-sorcery fable from Bujold. Quite good!
Jul 5 - The Hallowed Hunt (Bujold)  #3 in her Chalion series. Gotta find #2!
Jul 9 - Miles in Love (Bujold)  Back to Vorkorsigan series
Jul 13 - Ysabel (Kay) Very well-written fantasy about lovers & rivals doomed to keep repeating their deeds every couple generations... forever? 
Jul 22 - Swine Not? (Buffett) Jimmy Buffett was apparently a name author before he started recording drinking songs. If this is typical, take a pass!
Jul 22 - Treasure Island (Stevenson) The classic pirate tale, recorded for LV. I had fun with the voices for this!
Jul 31 - 1942 (Conroy)  An alternate history that pretends the Japanese successfully invaded Hawaii after the Pearl Harbor attack sank the Pacific fleet.
 Aug 1 - A Civil Campaign (Bujold) Political ploys in the Vorkorsigan series
Aug 10 - 1945 (Conroy) An alternate history that pretends the warlords captured Hirohito, preventing Japan's surrender. America must launch Operation Olympic and invade the Japanese home islands.
Aug 11 - Winter Fair's Gifts (Bujold) This is a novella-length tale that advances the Vorkorsigan saga, but accomplishes it through the eyes of a minor character.
Sep 07 - The Solo Wargaming Guide (Silvester) Just in case you wanted to develop wargames, as I do!
Sep 17 - The Conquerors (Costain) This is excellent! I like history anyway, but this is good stuff!
Sep 30 - The Red Battle Flyer (von Richthofen) Written by the Red Baron himself, while convalescing from wounds. I narrated this and it's on Audible.
Oct 02 - Napoleon's Russian Campaign (de Segur) It's always valuable to hear from actual participants.
Oct 07 - The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince (Hobbs)
Oct 15 - Hellhole Awakening (Herbert & Anderson) The plot device of special molecules that make a trail in space is rather neat. The authors are branching out from Dune tales.
Oct 27 - The Secrets of Ireland (Eyres) I read this just in time for a 9-day Irish vacation.
Nov 08 - Mistborn (Sanderson) Sanderson has a big fan following. This is partial reason why!
Nov 10 - The Well od Ascension (Sanderson) Second in the trilogy
Nov 27 - The Hero of Ages (Sanderson) Wraps up the trilogy.
Dec 21 - Fortress Ireland (McEnery) The only souvenir I brought back from Ireland was this book. Unfortunately, it's not as good as it looked in the store.

Total: 39   Ah, well, I fell a bit short of my one-a-week target. I'll get there next year!