Books I Read in 2015

Extreme: Why Some People Thrive at the Limits - Emma Barrett and Paul Martin (Audio Book)
My reading list always has some bizarre titles on it. I this one was a recommended book on Audible, which is my service for audio books. The author's British accent is delicious and worth the price of admission, smoothly recounting harrowing accounts of explorers freezing to death at the poles or dying at crushing depths. The conclusions are fascinating, although it seems like the analysis is mainly based on anecdotal evidence, rather than clinical trials. Each story seems more like a plausible launching point for more research, rather than the basis for conclusions, but hey, I am no expert here. I think I still haven't quite finished it off, but there is no over-arching narrative here, so I don't think that I missed a surprise ending or anything.

The Rent Collector - Camron Wright
This is the second book I have read about a family that experienced great hardship in Cambodia (the other book was To Destroy You is No Loss about the Khmer Rouge's seizure of Phnom Penh). This book didn't have a harsh Marxist Dictator oppressing everyone, but life in the dump seemed pretty harsh on its own, and it was fascinating to think about how a family could adapt to this situation and have deep and meaningful relationships, despite the backdrop. Good book.

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed - Eric H. Cline
This book discusses the causes of the end of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean, which is a topic I previously knew nothing about. The book is perhaps more scholarly at times than I really required, but it was fascinating to learn how a sophisticated and very interconnected world like that could suddenly collapse in the face of a series of disruptive challenges, including drought, mass migration, and interrupted trade routes. The lesson is that nothing lasts forever, and because there really isn't one factor that causes this sort of collapse, it is hard to say what it might take to have another one.

The Martian - Andy Weir
I hadn't even heard of this book or the Hollywood movie that was based on it until a friend at work mentioned that he had just read it and really enjoyed it. I devoured the book in the course of just a few days and then watched the movie about a week later. My personal preference would be to have less cussing, but I have nothing but good things to say about this story. The bulk of the book, especially at the beginning, is just the protagonist's log entries of his effort to survive, and that is the best stuff. On a literary level, those parts read like a good friend of yours sending you a really long email, but that doesn't mean you can't love it. I wish more of my friends would send me gripping emails like this from Mars.

Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie - Jordan Sonnenblick
My sister Allyson and I share a Kindle account and this popped up from her side of the library. It looked like something targeted at her teenager kids, but I am not above such things. I really enjoyed it. I think the author tried a bit too hard to have a teenager's voice, and I think the resultant word choices were sometimes distracting, but overall the story about being an awkward teenage boy coping with the family strain of a sick younger brother was compelling and heart-wrenching. I learned later that the author is a school teacher and the story is inspired by the experience of one of his students. I recommend it.

The Watch That Ends the Night - Hugh MacLennan
I had ordered a used copy of this book off Amazon and it sat in my bedroom for about a year or more, until I couldn't remember why I had decided to order it. It was published in 1959 and I had an old hardcover library copy that had been signed out only twice. I read the whole thing on our anniversary trip to Mexico and it is the best book I have read in a long time. I particularly appreciated the historical setting in English Montreal during the 1930s - 1950s, which happens to cover the short period when my grandparents lived in Montreal and my mom was born. There are a lot of symbols and parallels and I can't say that I quite grasped the significance of each one but the author spends some time wrapping it up for you at the end. Individual people, married couples, nations and civilizations all show the ability to have growing pains, crises of faith and ultimately a spiritual rebirth, but all this take place within an accessible narrative that was pretty engrossing. No wonder this book was twice honoured: 1) Canadian Governor General's Award for literature in 1959; and 2) A Tragically Hip Song in 1992 called Courage (for Hugh MacLennan). I am pretty sure that I was sparked to buy this book by reading about the lyrics of the Tragically Hip song, which paraphrases this passage: “But that night as I drove back from Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.” This book is not even considered MacLennan's finest. There is more reading here for me to do.

Tunnel in the Sky - Robert A. Heinlein
In the Q&A at the end of The Martian, author Andy Weir said that his favourite book growing up was Tunnel in the Sky (published in 1955). I had never heard of it, but I figured that was a good enough reason to give it a try. Fantastic book. The futuristic setting is explained quickly but with enough detail that the rest story can stand alone without the reader constantly questioning the framework. The beginning reminds me a little bit of reading the book Hatchet when I was a kid, except in a much more menacing environment, with a Lord of The Flies dynamic going on. I learned later that this book was published just one year after Lord of the Flies. Really good. Highly recommend for young readers.

Books I Read in 2014

Warrior of God: Jan Zizka and the Hussite Revolution - Victor Verney
I am no great student of military tactics, nor am I familiar with the history of the Czech people. I found this book mentioned in the footnotes of some Wikipedia article that I stumbled onto and decided to give it a read. If you have no idea about the background, the countless religious and political leaders mentioned in background chapters can be a bit dizzying, but in the end it doesn't really matter that much because once the narrative finally turns to Zizka and his military campaigns, you realize you don't need to understand all the context to appreciate the man's genius. Zizka took on the Holy Roman Empire with relatively small armies of farmers and was successful, based on brilliantly innovative tactics and tight discipline.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain
Changed the way I look at the world. I didn't realize that I am fairly extroverted and that my approach to all activities and situations was based on my assumptions that people all thought the same way as me. The big point here is that introversion isn't really something "to overcome". Introverted people bring depth of feeling and thoughtfulness that extroverts can sometimes lack. Also, while I may get a huge buzz from being the center of a social event, a more introverted person may feel drained by the same experience, and would better "recharge" by spending some quiet time alone. Most youth activities I have been involved in were based in extroversion. Perhaps, more balance would be nice.

Divergent - Veronica Roth
I have read my share of dystopian literature (The Time Machine, When The Sleeper Awakes, We, Brave New World, Animal Farm, 1984, Lord of the Flies, The Chrysalids, Atlas Shrugged, The Giver, Hunger Games, etc), and Divergent is clearly the least thought-provoking, least allegorical of the lot. It seems like one person's answer to the question: "If I were to write my own Hunger-Games-esque trilogy, here is how I would do it." It borrows characteristics from various teen books I've read in recent years and puts them together into a successful new story. There's the bleak, dystopian setting from the Hunger Games, the in-school rivalries and friendships from Harry Potter, and the seemingly-plain-but-somehow-irresistible girl at the center of an intense love triangle from Twilight/Hunger Games. Seriously, the middle third of the story seems agonizingly similar to Twilight's endless procession of tense romantic scenes.

Divergent certainly borrows from those other teen series, but here's what's missing:
1) Wit -- there's little of that, which Harry Potter had in spades (I'm not saying HP was perfect, though);
2) Consistent Scope -- The city-state they live in is large enough to have mass transit and armies and wars and anonymity, but it is also so small that the population of 16-year-olds is less than 100 (ie: 20 or less per faction). Since they all went to the same school leading up to initiation to adulthood, how is it they don't already know everyone their age from the other factions? Also, since everyone seems to be under 50, this caps the total population at about 5,000 people (excluding the factionless minority), or the size of a small town, yet they populate most of the Chicago metro area. Of this small population, a substantial proportion are involved in administrative, scholarly or seemingly-unnecessary paramilitary pursuits, so it is incomprehensible how this economy functions.
3) Relevant Backstory -- The author spends very little time explaining why or how this society came to be. The post-apocalyptic setting is just a convenient backdrop for the story, rather than a part of the story itself, which is a shame. As a result, This is less of a political/social allegory and more of a touchy-feely teen romance. I am sure the later books dig deeper into the history, but I would have gladly traded away a few dozen repetitive romantic scenes or training descriptions for some more exposition.
4) Reasons to be Angry -- You know how Harry Potter often lashes out at his friends in unreasonable ways to serve the needs of the plot? Well, there's plenty of that here. Pretty inconsistent personalities.
R has now read the 2nd book and she says that the story is enjoyable but she predicts that I would HATE all the petty drama that fills the pages. She's probably right.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary
Runaway Ralph - Beverly Cleary
Ralph S. Mouse - Beverly Cleary
When I was young I read pretty much every book Beverly Cleary ever wrote. I read them all multiple times. Now that Scott is graduating from simple picture books, I wanted to open his eyes to the glory of novels, starting with some of the very best. At first I had hoped that he would be able to read them himself, with a little help, but instead he lies on the floor before bedtime and listens while I read. He makes the "pb-b-b-b-b" sound for the motorcycle whenever that comes up, and he leaps to his feet to see the illustrations, which come up about once per chapter. As we have approached the end of each book he has suddenly told me to stop reading for a moment and darted out the room, coming back carrying the next book in the series. It's like he had a fear of finishing a book without having the next one already in view. I love it.

One Day in August - David O'Keefe
For 70 years the story of the Allied landing at Dieppe has been as sad as the D-Day invasion at Normandy has been inspiring. On both beaches hundreds of Canadians lost their lives, but for decades no one could really explain what the Canadians had died for at Dieppe. I have stood at the Canadian cemetery in Beny-sur-Mer while a choir sang "In Flanders Fields" to a group of Canadian WWII veterans, and I have powerful emotions associated with the Allied landings in France. This book was a master-work in historical sleuthing, putting the trickle of declassified documents together to explain the immense value of the code-breaking targets that were the secret goal of Dieppe. I loved everything about this book.

Henry Huggins - Beverly Cleary
The Ralph S. Mouse books were great, but these Henry Huggins books are probably even better! Henry is just a few years older than Scott is, and everything he does completely resonates with Scott. During the chapter about picking worms to earn money for a football, Scott pulled out my worn leather football and held it the whole time, clearly imagining himself on every page.

A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr
Motivated by my review of Divergent, I decided I needed to go back and read a dystopian classic that had always intrigued me. My older brother C read this one in school and I always thought the description on the back about the "blessed blueprint" sounded super-bizarre. It does not disappoint.

The Longest Day: The Classic Epic of D-Day - Cornelius Ryan
On June 6 (D-Day) I watched the film version on Netflix and then I ordered the e-book. It was awesome to get so much more of the background for each of the characters and scenes in this movie which has been a staple in our family. This was probably the first time I had watched the film since our trip to Normandy in 2006. The places and names really came alive to me now that I have walked the streets and the beaches.

Flash Boys - Michael Lewis
I picked it because it was one of the titles in the Kindle Unlimited program. The language was excessive, but I cannot imagine a better book to illustrate the dynamics of the High Frequency Trading and other side effects of our rapidly changing equity markets.

Revolution By Murder - James McGrath Morris
This was a little freebie in the Kindle Unlimited catalogue. I had never heard of the robber baron Henry Clay Frick, let alone the anarchist who came to Pittsburgh to assassinate him in 1892. A great snapshot into a remarkable historical event. Recommend.

Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World - Gillen D'Arcy Wood
I have encountered a few mentions of the "year without a summer" or "eighteen-hundred and froze to death" in connection with other historical events, and I knew that the horrible weather and famines were eventually connected to the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia in 1814. The idea that some mountain on the other side of the world could explode and it could ruin the world's weather for years kind of freaks me out, so I wanted to know more. If you need a historically-based reason to stockpile grain in your basement, this is the book for you. Countless places in Asia and Europe struggled with food shortages and high grain prices because government storage was insufficient or non-existent. If each home had its own storage, fewer families would have needed to give up their children to slavery or death. This is less of a concern for me in today's day and age, but I can see how storage in every home could go a long way to make shortages less acute.

The Marathon Man - William Goldman
Another Kindle Unlimited freebie. I had never heard of this book (or the 1976 movie), but I guess it was kind of a big deal back in the day. I ate it up like candy. It was a bit like reading a James Bond book -- far-fetched plot, but quite entertaining.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century - Thomas Piketty
Described as "the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty".

Book Report - 7 Questions

Grandma W pays $5 per book report. Even with the longer books he has now, he reads a book every day or two, and he understands math well enough to figure out how much money he could make if he wrote a book report for every one of those books. But it is easier said than done. Writing book reports is HARD WORK.

Scott has decent penmanship, so that's not the issue. It's figuring out what to write. Usually, the best results have been when one of us has prompted him with questions about the book, telling him to turn his answer into of the required 7 lines. I decided to take this one step further, and give him a generic set of questions that he could use to write a report about any of his books.



I thought this little list was guaranteed to cost my mom millions, since it was clearly the ultimate formula to create the world's best book reports. Scott immediately went to work, on a report about Bone, a fantasy series which is essentially a comic -- but a long one. When he finished, I realized how literally a child takes all instructions.

Book Report: Bone


I had expected that he would take the questions as a prompt and then answer in paragraph form. Instead, he gave us a numbered list of answers, which seemed like one half of a conversation. We had to ask him to add another phrase to the final sentence, to make it clear that he was describing his favourite part of the book.



Still, it was a wonderful first solo effort, and it was the first time that he wrote a report with smaller script that fit within just one line. He has come a long way in the past year. With the $5 payout he was on his way to buy the much-coveted skateboard, and he still hasn't picked up the pen to write about one of the more intriguing titles that we got from the new Neighbourhood Free Library (he found Bone to be a little scary to read alone in his room at night).

Captain Underpants Series


According to Wikipedia, "the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association reported that Captain Underpants was the most banned book in United States libraries in 2012. Several parents accused the book of having language inappropriate for the book's target audience, children enrolled in elementary schools." However, my English-teacher cousin has lamented that students in her high school English classes have been choosing these books as class material.

I can't wait to see what Scott has to write about this controversial subject.

Books I Read in 2013

Heft - Liz Moore (Audiobook version)
I picked this one because one of the narrators was Kirby Heyborne. I was intrigued and thought it probably was a decent book if Kirby decided to read it. It was totally engrossing, but I was a bit surprised at the language Kirby's character used some of the time.

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (Audiobook version)
It was distressingly sad at times, but it was engrossing throughout. I listened to it on long runs while I trained for a marathon and I would get so wrapped up in the story that the physical exertion of running would seem to bleed together with the emotions of the book. I suppose this book is mainly read by women. I heard about it from my aunt and female cousins. I don't know what it did for them, but it made me want to be a better person.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum (Audiobook version)
How many times have we all seen this film? It seems dishonest to just watch the film and never invest the time to get to know the book as well. It was funnier than I expected. Here is a passage that made me laugh out loud:

The soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets of the Emerald City until they reached the room where the Guardian of the Gates lived. This officer unlocked their spectacles to put them back in his great box, and then he politely opened the gate for our friends.
"Which road leads to the Wicked Witch of the West?" asked Dorothy.
"There is no road," answered the Guardian of the Gates. "No one ever wishes to go that way."
"How, then, are we to find her?" inquired the girl.
"That will be easy," replied the man, "for when she knows you are in the country of the Winkies she will find you, and make you all her slaves."
"Perhaps not," said the Scarecrow, "for we mean to destroy her."
"Oh, that is different," said the Guardian of the Gates. "No one has ever destroyed her before, so I naturally thought she would make slaves of you, as she has of the rest. But take care; for she is wicked and fierce, and may not allow you to destroy her. Keep to the West, where the sun sets, and you cannot fail to find her."

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (Audiobook version)
My younger brother got into F. Scott Fitzgerald a few years ago and I followed his recommendation and read a collection of short stories back in 2010. I had always meant to read the Great Gatsby, but I hadn't gotten around to it. In preparation to watch the new movie, I listened to an unabridged audiobook during our trip to Kalispell. I enjoyed it immensely. I also appreciated how the movie stayed very true to the book.

Across Asia on a Bicycle: The Journey of Two American Students from Constantinople to Peking - William Lewis Sachtleben (Author), Thomas Gaskell, Jr. Allen (Author), Michael W. Perry (Editor)
My brother J gave me this one. It's part of an ongoing tradition of ours of sharing interesting non-fiction books about various travels and exploits. The sheer daring of this pair of explorers is a marvel. Also, they must have had uncanny survival instincts to come through the endless flow of craziness -- or they must have been insanely lucky.

Legends of the Outer Banks and Tar Heel Tidewater - Judge Charles Harry Whedbee
In preparation for our trip to North Carolina I ordered up a few books of Outer Banks folklore. Author Judge Whedbee compiled several volumes of legends and ghost stories that were really entertaining to read. He also wore a killer sweater for the dust jacket photo.

Life Annuities: An Optimal Product for Retirement Income - Moshe A. Milevsky
Every year I have to do at least 20 hours of continuing education credits for my CFA designation. This year I cranked out quite a few hours by reading this 150-page masterpiece on life annuities. It was strangely entertaining, and deserves inclusion in my reading list for the year.

A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II - Adam Makos & Larry Alexander
My brother recommended that I read this and I blasted through it while we were on vacation this summer. Amazing book about an elite German fighter pilot -- a man who had to figure out his own morals while fighting a losing battle for a cause he had never really believed in.

Brave Companions: Portraits in History - David McCullough
This book was on my sister's book club list and since we share a Kindle account, I could read it for free. It turned out to be a great book. I liked the essay format, because you could put it down for a few weeks and come back without really missing a step. I have a new appreciation for things like the Brooklyn Bridge, Teddy Roosevelt and the Panamanian Isthmus.

Bear Child: The Life and Times of Jerry Potts - Rodger D. Touchie
I bumped into the name Jerry Potts when reading an article about the beginnings of the NWMP, which later became the RCMP (Mounties). The article credited Potts as selecting the location of Fort MacLeod and being a key figure in making peace with the local native populations. R went to an elementary school named for Potts, so I was familiar with the name without knowing anything about him. Why not read the whole story? Wow. Honestly, they should have named more than an elementary school after this man. He was a key player in the success of the Mounties and the peaceful evolution of the Canadian West.

The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story - Elliott West
The book about Jerry Potts briefly described the 1877 campaign of the Nez Perce people to escape to Canada, pursued by US Calvary across 1,500 miles of mountainous terrain in harsh conditions. My dad had told about the Nez Perce before, so I asked him what book I should read to find out more. He recommended this one. The first half of the book describes the history of the people leading up to 1877 and the second half describes the 1877 Nez Perce war in detail. The great bravery and resilience of this people is amazing, inspiring, and ultimately saddening.

More Book Reports! Saggy Baggy Elephant

Scott and I found a Lego Ninjago game on clearance at the toy store, but he didn't have the cash to purchase it and there was only one left in stock. We struck a deal that we would buy the game and hold it in our inventory until he could save enough money to buy it. This was motivation for him to sit down at the table and bang out another book report.

Katie still hasn't learned to write letters, although she really likes pracing a few favourites. R held her pen while she wrote the requisite 3 sentences, then Katie rhapsodized in the margins. Katie used the proceeds to purchase a black stuffed dog with a leash at the Stampede.

This is all thanks to their patron, Grandma W, head of Grandma's Book Club. Actually, the club was dubbed "Ready Readers" by my sister. She got a club discount at Disneyland when she and my brother took their kids there, since all the kids happen to be members of Grandma's Book Club. When she was discussing it with Disney she She thought it needed a more official-sounding title, and that's what she came up with on the fly. Membership pays dividends in more ways than one.

Books I Read in 2012

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
The first book was really good. This one was also a gripping read. Sometimes, imperfect main characters can be really irritating. In this case, I appreciated that these characters were all a bit broken, given that they lived in such a terrible system.

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
I didn't like this one as much as the first two, but I didn't hate it as much as some people I've talked to. I thought it was interesting to find the parallels between the revolution and the games themselves, to try to determine whether they were fighting for their freedom, or whether there was just another game and another games master pulling the strings.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen - Christopher McDougall
While it may have been overly sentimental and less than entirely scientific, this book inspired me to actually consider running as something enjoyable, rather than simply a means of transportation that was grossly less efficient than cycling.

Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists - Gideon Defoe (read twice)
Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab - Gideon Defoe
Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists - Gideon Defoe
Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoloeon - Gideon Defoe
Scott and I watched the Aardman animated film and I wanted to check out the source material. Loved these books so much. If I were to ever write a book, I would want it to be like these books. I especially loved the Adventure with Communists. Beards were truly luxuriant, as advertised.

A Study in Scarlett (Sherlock Holmes #1) - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Having enjoyed the BBC series, I decided to read the original story. I was quite surprised to find Mormons at the center of the intrigue. Who knew?

Roughing It - Mark Twain
Something I read about A Study in Scarlett led me to this book by Mark Twain, since it covers a similar time and place in the American West. The book was fantastic, but O My Goodness was it LONG. His description of meeting Brigham Young was a highlight, for sure.

The National Dream - Pierre Berton
I really enjoyed Berton's 2 books about the War of 1812, so I had been thinking about reading this one about the political and surveying efforts that preceded the construction of the Canandian Transcontinental Railroad. It fits nicely with my recent exploration of 1860s-1870s history.

The Gangs of New York: An Informal History Of the Underworld - Herbert Asbury
I think I stumbled across a reference to this book when I was browsing through info about various movies on Wikipedia or IMDB and was curious about it. I have never seen the film, since it is filled with some pretty gory scenes. Well, the book is also chock-full of violent episodes -- although the author doesn't indulge in overly-gruesome descriptions. It blew me away to read how lawlessly violent things could be in New York just 140 years ago. By comparison, we live in some kind of fairyland today.

The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit - J.J. Lee
I came across a mention of this book while checking some info about ordering a suit online. I devoured the whole thing a matter of days and just loved it. You don't have to love suits to love the book, but it helps.

The Sign of the Four (Sherlock Holmes #2) - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Technically, this was an audiobook, which we listed to on our road trip to Brad's wedding. Each of these books has followed a 2-part formula of 1) Sherlock nabbing the culprit; and 2) a lengthy explanation of the culprit's back story in some far-off locale (ie: Utah, India, Andaman Islands). In both cases, Part 1 is the best part, but I can understand the appeal of these far-off places to the original audience.

Pirates! In an Adventure with Romantics - Gideon Defoe
Wow. Just when you think that maybe this author is a bit of a one-trick pony and possibly out of gas (do ponies require gasoline?), he writes a book that is better than any of his previous efforts. Lord Byron is absolutely booming.

Killer Koalas from Outer Space and Lots of Other Very Bad Stuff that Will Make Your Brain Explode! - Andy Griffiths (Author), Terry Denton (Illustrator)
Scott picked this one from the library and it was probably one of the funniest things I've read in a while. I questioned whether it was age-appropriate, but I did not question whether it was funny. Our very favourite page is this one:

Books I Have Read in 2011

JANUARY - JUNE
CFA Level 3 Curriculum Volumes 1-7
(Quite a thrilling series. I am glad to be finished with that.)


JULY - DECEMBER
The Invasion of Canada: 1812-1813; Pierre Berton
(I picked this up on a whim. Who knew the war of 1812 was so interesting? Given that 2012 is a bicentennial year, you should do yourself a favour and read this book.)

Flames Across the Border: 1813-1814; Pierre Berton
(Part II of my war of 1812 experience. We have come a long way in 200 years. Gruesome naval battles, a lot of tomahawking, and an amusing chapter about the attack on Washington DC)

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine; Michael Lewis
(A fun and shocking read)

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers; Lawrence G. McDonald
(I got 2/3 of the way through and got tired of all the ranting and raving from someone who didn't have much of an inside view.)

Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America; Greg Farrell
(I have heard there are even better books about the financial crisis, but it's hard to imagine one better researched than this one. The Lehman book I was reading seems pretty silly compared to this one.)

Chasing Goldman Sachs: How the Masters of the Universe Melted Wall Street Down...And Why They'll Take Us to the Brink Again; Suzanne McGee
(My library loan period ran out before I finished and I didn't really mind. It was just OK.)

Liar's Poker - Rising Through the Wreckage of Wall Street; Michael Lewis
(This book is a classic for good reason. What a bizarre world.)

This Time It's Different - Eight Centuries of Financial Folly; Carmen M. Reinhart
(My library loan period ran out before I got to the best part, but I still loved it. Those Europeans have been defaulting for centuries!)

A Thousand Barrels per Second - The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World ; Peter Tertzakian
(A few years old but still a great discourse on the history of energy and how it changes.)

The Courage of the Early Morning - A Biography of the Great Ace of World War I; William Arthur Bishop
(World War I fighter pilots were insane, and Billy Bishop was their king. Dogfights in the days before ejection seats and parachutes!)

Boomerang - Travels in the New Third World; Michael Lewis
(The chapter with the Greek monastery rags-to-riches story was hilarious.)

The Hunger Games; Suzanne Collins
(I am a big fan of the dystopian genre, so I liked this one. It has a very engrossing plot, but is more emotional and less political than most -- which is fine. It essentially takes Shirley Jackson to the next level.)

Books I Have Read in 2010

Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Invisible Man - H G Wells
War of The Worlds - H G Wells
The Time Machine - H G Wells
Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Live and Let Die - Ian Fleming
The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells
The Great Crash 1929 - John Kenneth Galbraith
The Sleeper Awakes - H G Wells
The Portrait of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Aside from Dracula and the two James Bond books, every book was read on my phone, downloaded for free from the public domain -- thus the heavy weighting towards the turn of the century. I just couldn't get enough of the H G Wells books, obviously.