Eric's Reading List

This page is the result of a chance encounter with John Walker's reading list on his web site.
You may not find this list interesting or useful (or John Walker's either.)   Perhaps my family will find it of use when they are searching for the that gift for any occasion.   To quote Mr. Walker, "A book's appearing on this list does not necessarily mean I recommend you read it, nor even that it's worth reading at all in my opinion; it simply means that I've read it"   Also I have not included any thing would be considered a reference book.
As the list grows you will note that my choice of topics, while varied is somewhat limited.   Many types of books will never appear here.   This is to say that they aren't worthwhile only that I haven't read them for lack of time and/or interest.
Finally, a quote from Groucho Marx, "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."

Prior Readings
Included books read prior to the start of this list. These are included for informational purposes only. The fact that I've remembered them and taken the time to include them here can be considered a recommendation.

Connie Willis, Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing Of The Dog, Firewatch, Passage. One of my favorite authors. I can recommend any of her works, I haven't read them all, but I'm working on it.
Richard P. Feyman, The Meaning Of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist. Although dating from 1963 this is still a great book. It is one that should be read by all thoughtful people. Also The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out, and interesting in itself and as background for the preceding two books, Surly You're Joking, Mr. Feyman!
Thomas Cahill, How The Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts Of The Jews, Desire Of The Everlasting Hills
Nathaniel Philbrick, In The Heart Of The Sea: The Tragedy Of The Whaleship Essex
Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence

Jump to books for: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 2006 2007 2008

2008
Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows, Red Gold and The Spies of Warsaw
Nicholas Hagger, The Secret Founding of America
Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
Robert Littell, The October Circle
Johann Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus
Stephen Baxter, Transcendent
Elmore Leonard, Up In Honey's Room
Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, The Jamestown Project
Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book and The Fourth Bear
Matt Haig, The Dead Fathers Club
Margaret Frazer, The Hunter's Tale
Lee Goldberg, The Man With the Iron-on Badge
Donna Leon, Suffer the Little Children
Duane Swierczynski, Severance Package
Kathleen Flinn, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry
Edward Marston, The Excursion Train, and The Fair Maid of Bohemia
Nell DuVall, Train to Yesterday
John Grisham, Playing for Pizza
José Rodrigues dos Santos, Codex 632
Annie Proulx, Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2
Martin Cruz Smith, Stalin's Ghost
Caitlin Rother, John Hess, Twisted Triangle
Peter Leonard, Quiver
Jo Walton, Ha'penny
Kathy Reichs, Bones to Ashes
Harry Berstein, The Invisible Wall
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled, Before the Frost and Depths
Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World
Hagen Schulze, Germany: A New History
Thomas Cahill, Mysteries of the Middle Ages
S.M. Stirling, Conquistador
Jonathan J. McCullough, A Tale of Two Subs
Tana French, In The Woods
Alan Weisman, The World Without Us
P. D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Alexander McCall Smith, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
J.A. Jance, Justice Denied
Ridley Pearson, Killer View
Håkan Nesser, Mind's Eye
Michael Gruber, The Book of Air and Shadows
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2007
Tony Hillerman, Skeleton Man and The Sinister Pig
David McCullough, John Adams
Ian W. Toll, Six Frigates
Jack Larkin, Where We Lived: Discovering the Places We Once Called Home
Peter Ackroyd, The Clerkenwell Tales
Ellis Peters, The Potter's Field
Michelle Feynman, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations (From the Beaten Track): Richard P. Feyman
Thomas O'Malley, In the Province of Saints
John Scalzi, Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, The Sagan Diary, and The Last Colony
Robert Silverbert, Roma Eterna
Stuart M. Kaminsky, Denial
David Masiel, The Western Limit of the World
John Gribbin, The Fellowship
Ariana Franklin, Mistrees of the Art of Death
Håkan Nesser, Borkmann's Point and The Return
Guillermo Martínez, The Oxford Murders
J.A. Jance, Dead Wrong adn Web of Evil
John Marchese, The Violin Maker
Kati Marton, The Great Escape: Nine Jews who fled Hilter and Changed the World
Erik Larson, Thunderstruck and The Devil in the White City
Donna Leon, Through a Glass, Darkly and A Noble Radiance
Ben Bova, Green Trap
Cara Black, Murder in Montmartre
Phillip Margolin, Lost Lake
P.T. Deutermann, The Cat Dancers
Maddy Hunter, G'Day to Die
Rich Cohen, Sweet and Low
Paul Torday, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Peter Mayle, A Dog's Life
Günter Grass, My Century
James A. Crutchfield, The Way West
Khaled Hosseini, Kite Runner
Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent
Simon Murray, Legionnare
Judith Merkle Riley, The Water Devil
Tucker Malarkey, Resurrection
William Guarnere and Edward Heffron, Brothers in Battle - Best of Friends
Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy
Julia Child, My Life in France
John LeCarré ,The Mission Song
Jacqueline Winspear, Messenger of Truth
Joan Druett, Island of the Lost
John Man, Gutenberg
Emmy E. Werner, Pioneer Children on the Journey West
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2006
Alan Furst, The Foreign Correspondent
Johathan Harr, The Lost Painting
Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
Jared Daimond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
James Shapiro, A year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599
Aaron Elkins, Where There's a Will
Frank Delaney, Ireland
Connie Willis, Uncharted Territory and Inside Job
Diana Gabaldon, Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber
Matthew Hart, The Irish Game
Donna Leon, Uniforn Justice, Death and Judgment and Blood From a Stone
Alan Furst, The World at Night
David Liss, A Spectacle of Corruption
Erin Hart, Lake of Sorrows
John J. Nance, Saving Cascadia
Elmore Leonard, Mr. Paradise, and The Hot Kid
Michael Crichton, State of Fear
Kathy Reichs, Cross Bones
Maurice Ashley, The English Civil War
Marc Aronson, John Winthrop, Oliver Cromwell, and The Land of Promise
Roberta Gellis, Chains of Folly
Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare
Martin Cruz Smith, Wolves Eat Dogs
J.A. Jance, Long Time Gone
S. M. Stirling, Dies the Fire
John Banville, The Sea
Richard Rhodes, John James Audubon: The Making of an American
Andrew Eames, The 8:55 to Bagdad
PD James, The Children of Men
Robin Cook, Marker
David Cordingly, Under the Black Blag
Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers
Wiliam Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire
Elie Wiesel, All Rivers run to the Sea
A.J. Jacobs, The Know-It-All
John Darnton, The Darwin Conspiracy
Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower
Kennwth Sewell, Clint Richmond, Red Star Rogue
Lawrence Thornton, Sailors on the Inward Sea
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2005
Anne Perry, Shoulder the Sky
Rosalind Miles, I, Elizabeth
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
June Burn, Living High
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
Alexander McCall Smith, Portuguese Irregular Verbs
James Ellroy, Brown's Requiem
Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth
Kim Stanley Robinson, Forty Signs of Rain
Donna Leon, Doctored Evidence
Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's terrifying circumnavigation of the globe
Richard Marius, After the War
John Sandford, Hidden Prey
Ursula Hegi, Hotel of the Saints: Stories
Syne Mitchell, End in Fire
Walter Mosley, Little Scarlet
Alan Furst, Dark Voyage
Peter F. Hamilton, Pandora's Star
John Grisham, The Brethren
Mary Lee Settle, I, Roger Williams
Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Bartholomew Gill, The Death of an Irish Sinner
Kathy Reichs, Monday Mourning
Sharon Kay Penman, Dragon's Lair
Andy Rooney, Years of Minutes
John LeCarré, Absolute Friends
Michael Dibbin, Medusa
Anne Garrels, Naked in Baghdad
Donna Leon, Death in a Strange Country
P D James, The Murder Room
Martin Booth, A Very Private Gentleman
Simon Winchester, The Meaning of Everything
Nathaniel Philbrick, Sea of Glory:
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2004
Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress
Simon Winchester, Krakatoa
David Liss, The Coffee Trader and A Conspiracy of Paper
Jack McDevitt, CHINDI
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
Emily Foster, Editor, The Ohio Frontier: An Anthology of Early Writings
Sharon Kay Penman, The Queen's Man
Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable
Alan Furst, Night Soldiers
Milan Kundera, The Unberable Lightness of Being
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Robert Kurson, Shadow Divers
Kathy Reichs, Bare Bones
Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions
Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter   Volume 4 of the series, read them all.
Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea   VERY highly recommended! Go out of your way to read this one.
James Herriot, Cat Stories
John Steele Gordon, A Thread Across the Ocean
Michael McGirr, Things You Get For Free
Linda Greenlaw, The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a very small island and The Hungry Ocean
Michael Dirda, An Open Book: Coming of age in the heartland
Phillip Baruth, The X President
Timothy Watts, Grand Theft
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2003
Richard Friedenthal, Luther: His Life and Times
Greg Bear, Vitals
Rory MacLean, Stalin's Nose: Travels around the bloc
J.A. Jance, Partner In Crime
Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin
Jon Krakauer, Under The Banner of Heaven
Elmore Leonard, When the Women Come Out to Dance
Michael Cricheton, Prey
Richard Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow
Bill James, Naked at the Window
Ken Alder, The Measure of all Things
Ejovi Nuwere, Hacker Cracker
Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things
Robert Park, Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud
Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What happens after they're built
Maeve Binchy, Quentins
Martin Cruz Smith, December 6th
Michael Frayn, headlong
Alan Furst, The Polish Officer, and Blood of Victory
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2002
(This is actually incomplete as I am doing it after the fact.)
Brendan O'Carroll, Agnes Browne, previously published as The Mammy
Nelson George, One Woman Short
Octavia E. Butler, Parable Of The Sower
Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, Lewis & Clark: An Illustrated History
Simon Winchester, The Map That Changed The World
Ted Koppel, Off Camera
Carl Sagen, Billions & Billions
Jard Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee
James Charles Roy, The Fields of Athenry
David Berlinski, Newton's Gift
Ursula Hegi, Stones From The River
H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
Nick Tosches, Cut Numbers
Dava Sobel, Longitude, Galileo's Daughter
Nick Bantock, Alexandria. Yes, I've read most, if not all, of the preceding volumes also.
Alan Furst, Dark Star
Stephen Hawking, The Universe In A Nutshell. Lots of illustrations which helps with the subject matter.
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