2015 Books Read

End of the year, so time for my annual accounting of books consumed for 2015!

The 2015 Book List

1. Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines (reread)
2. The Martian by Andy Weir
3. Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell
4. Codex Born by Jim C. Hines (reread)
5. How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens by Benedict Carey
6. America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System by Steven Brill
7. Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words by Albert Einstein
8. Unbound by Jim C. Hines
9. Abraham Lincoln: A Presidential Life by James McPherson
10. The Just City by Jo Walton
11. The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi
12. The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind by Michio Kaku
13. Does Santa Exist?: A Philosophical Investigation by Eric Kaplan
14. Thinking About Cybersecurity: From Cyber Crime to Cyber Warfare by Prof. Paul Rosensweig (The Great Courses)
15. On the Plurality of Worlds by David Lewis
16. Terrorists in Love by Ken Ballen
17. Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
18. Beyond the God Particle by Leon Lederman & Christopher Hill
19. The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
20. Lock In by John Scalzi
21. Less Doing, More Living: Make Everything In Life Easier by Ari Meisel
22. Death of a King by Tavis Smiley
23. How to Win an Election: An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians by Quintus Tullius Cicero & Philip Freeman
24. The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson
25. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
26. The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick
27. The Quantum Moment: How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg Taught Us to Love Uncertainty by Robert P. Crease and Alfred Goldhaber
28. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (reread)
29. The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life - Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process by Thomas M. Sterner
30. Animal Farm [audio dramatization] by George Orwell
31. The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature by Timothy Ferris
32. Gemini Cell by Myke Cole
33. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
34. Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova
35. Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica
36. Behavioral Economics: When Psychology and Economics Collide by Prof. Scott Heuttel (The Great Courses)
37. Scientific Secrets of Self-Control by Prof. C. Nathan DeWall (The Great Courses)
38. Writing Monsters: How to Craft Believably Terrifying Creatures to Enhance Your Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction by Philip Athans
39. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nassar
40. Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: A Novel by Judd Trichter
41. The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy
42. Monster by A. Lee Martinez
43. Heroes and Legends (The Great Courses) by Prof. Thomas Shippey
44. Forged: Writing in the Name of God - Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are by Bart D. Ehrman
45. The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton
46. Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries: The Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment by Tom Shachtman
47. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
48. Leviathan Wakes by James A. Corey
49. The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Allen Gillespie
50. A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
51. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
52. Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick
53. The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder
54. The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark
55. Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer
56. Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer
57. Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue by Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz
58. The Scorch Trials by James Dashner
59. An Unwelcome Quest by Scott Meyer
60. Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain by A. Lee Martinez
61. Fable: Blood of Heroes by Jim C. Hines
62. How Ideas Spread (The Great Courses) by Jonah Berger

Breakdown

Format:

• Audiobooks: 45
• Kindle: 10
• Dead tree books: 10

Subjects:

• Total Fiction: 25
• Classics: 4
• Science Fiction: 12
• Fantasy: 14
• Urban/Modern Fantasy: 9
• Young Adult: 
• Steampunk: 1
• Non-Fiction: 37
• Science: 17
• Physics: 7
• Psychology: 8
• Biology: 1
• Technology: 2
• Math/Statistics: 1
• Religion: 12
• History: 15
• Politics: 11
• Education: 4
• Economics: 6
• Business: 2
• Philosophy: 11
• Humor: 1
• Writing: 2

These numbers don't quite match up, because some books cover multiple areas, and so I've included them in all relevant categories. So, for example, a book on free will would fall in both Psychology and Philosophy (and possibly even Religion) categories.

Similarly, some books I read using Whispersynch-for-Voice to jump between the Amazon Kindle and Audible audiobook versions of the books, so they got double-counted in the format section. I've also included The Great Courses audios that I listen to through Audible.com. Though not actually books, I figure that a 10+ hour course on a subject contains about the same informational content, if not presented structurally in quite the same way as it would take in a written book.

The History

And for anyone who is interested in looking into the past to see some of my previous book lists...

• 2014 books read
• 2013 books read
• 2012 books read
• 2011 books read
• 2010 books read
• 2009 books read
• 2008 books read

Prior to 2008, I didn't keep a precise running record of the books that I read.

Two Great YA Trilogies Continue: Goliath and Crossed released

Over the last couple of years, I've found myself reading a lot of young adult fiction ... and you know what, it's pretty darn good stuff. This is odd, because since the 6th grade I've really been reading mostly adult fiction. As a kid, I focused on things like Asimov, Niven, Clarke, Bova, Heinlein (not the kid's stuff), and so on, and it was only later that I went back to read some of the classic young adult literature.

This fall there'll be the release of two new books which continue established series that I've quite enjoyed. Here they are!

Steampunk World War

The third book of Scott Westerfeld's fascinating steampunk/biopunk alternate World War I young adult trilogy (that's a mouthful) is now out. I discussed the first and second books, Leviathan and Behemoth, back at the beginning of the year, so I'm definitely looking forward to how things come to a resolution in Goliath.

 

Can't Dictate Love

I'm also looking forward to Crossed, the second book in Ally Condie's Matched trilogy (which began, understandably enough, with Matched). This book is set in a dystopian future where marriages are arranged by the state, focusing on Cassia, who falls in love with someone that she's not "supposed" to. (As revealed in the first book, things are a bit more complex than that, but you get the idea.) The book ended with her separated from her love and in this sequel we get to see what happens. The first book was very low on action, but I think there's a good chance that this book will have more action, because the first book left off with Cassia leaving the safety of the city. What was great about the first book is that it could have been a very simplistic romance triangle and it quickly became clear that the author wasn't going that simple route, but was instead going to delve into some real worldbuilding and social analysis. I can't wait to see what happens!

Crossed will be released on Nov. 1.

Film Review: Alice in Wonderland

I really had no desire to watch the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland. His films are, of course, always visually stunning, but I am just not nearly as impressed with them as I'm supposed to be. While I love Johnny Depp's acting, Burton's need to put him in film after film is a bit grating, especially because it causes Depp to play on the same facets of his acting toolbox. The Mad Hatter certainly looked like a re-hash of his Willy Wonka persona to me.

Fortunately, this time, Mr. Burton pleasantly surprised me.

About the Books
I read both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass last year, and was unimpressed with them, as well. I was aware, from various adaptations over the years, of all of the various characters and events, but reading them as they were originally laid out just did not resonate with me. They were nonsensical, and the books had no theme, moral, or even plotline as such. That's fine, of course, given the period in which the books were written ... but it just doesn't work for me.

And the fact that there are two books is also puzzling, because they're similar on so many levels but also have dramatic differences. Alice from one book doesn't seem to remember the events of the other, and the worlds are just different enough to be distracting. It was like Lewis Carroll thought of his premise - a young girl named Alice is magically transported to a fantasy world - but then came up with two different ways of writing the story. Instead of picking one, he instead just wrote both of them. It's a curious way of going about storytelling (although I can think of a few times in the Bible where a similar narrative strategy seems at work - like the multiple tales of Abraham & Isaac trying to pass their wives off as their sister).

Back to the Film
So we had a film by a director I was unimpressed with based upon source material that I was unimpressed with. The result: I really was not expecting to like the film. I put off renting it, but finally, when it was the only even remotely-desirable option at our nearby Redbox (and I had a promo code that would run out in a week if I didn't use it), I opted to rent Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

And, overall, I am quite pleased that I did. Burton seems to have realized all of the same flaws that I had with the original material (which is surprising, since the nonsense of the original source material is somewhat similar to the nonsense that Burton spewed out in his "masterpiece" Big Fish) and sought to "remedy" it ... which is needed, because a film that was a faithful re-telling of Alice in Wonderland would have been a failure with any audience that was not using mood altering chemicals.

Of course, for people who loved the source material, changing it can be a serious point of contention. (See this Orson Scott Card review, for example, though he did ultimately enjoy the film.) For me, though, this worked wonders, because it made a bit of sense of things. He did take the story and make it more relevant (though Card is right that Burton added more than his fair share of failures to the venture, as well).

First of all, Alice has been to Wonderland before. It's not really explained how often, but this provides a means to explain the two books if the film is viewed as the third story in the series. First comes Alice in Wonderland (the book), then Through the Looking Glass, and then Tim Burton's film, which should honestly have been named Alice's Return to Wonderland or Alice's War for Wonderland or something like that.

This meant that Burton was free to use all of the characters, events, or themes from either of the books freely, but could also tell an actual story. Not only that, but he actually had a theme, and a good one, about belief in oneself.  In both of Lewis Carroll's books, the character of Alice is merely an observer who goes through no changes from beginning to end. It's a random series of entertaining encounters ... end of story.


Burton took the story from one of pure whimsy to one of growth, by introducing a character arc that was wholly absent from the original source material.

I won't discuss the specifics of the plotline, other than to say that it provides the characters that do show up much larger roles. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter (one of the few characters other than Alice to appear in both of the Lewis Caroll books, but only for one scene per book) is given a major role, and he gets nearly as much screen time as Alice. (Card's review gives away more details of the storyline, for those who are interested.)

The fact is that this is still an Alice in Wonderland story, and the storyline doesn't (and shouldn't) completely eclipse the wonder of discovering this mystical realm. Still, there does need to be a storyline, because modern audiences are not yet so immune to storytelling that they will sit through a series of random events and feel satisfied.

So, in my take, Burton's film succeeds on almost all levels. Yes, there are some serious problems with his portrayal of Victorian society in the "real world" parts of the book, and there were also some problems with the interpretation (misquotes of poetry lines and such) which made it seem that Tim Burton himself may have been screaming "Off with their heads" to any English Literature consultants working on the film. But as someone who didn't particularly care for the books, or enjoyed them only as amusing little pieces of drivel, I thought it was great.


It was a fun film, visually stunning, and it actually had a good character arc. That's better than you get with a lot of films today.

Time in Wonderland
One personal disappointment was that I'd hoped for there to be some discussion of the curious behavior of time in the film. In Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen actually experiences time backward, which appears to have been completely ignored by Burton, though it could have provided some interesting material in the film.

Note: When a call went out for Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy, I proposed an article on the nature of time in Lewis Carroll's stories, but the editor passed on the idea. I still think it's an idea I might get back to sometime.

Modern Kid Lit: The Looking Glass War
The film made me think of a series of books that I'd stumbled upon a while back, but haven't yet read, called The Looking Glass War by Frank Beddor. It's a three-volume series which goes on the premise that Alice (called Alyss in the series) actually traveled to Wonderland, and that her stories were the basis of the classic books. The Mad Hatter plays prominently in the series, as some kind of agent who can travel between the worlds. Hatter has now come back to bring Alyss to Wonderland to stop a war that threatens both realities. (There also appears to be a Hatter M series of graphic novels, which looks as if it's something of a prequel to the novel trilogy.)

As I've said, I haven't actually read these books yet, so I cannot honestly recommend them. They did catch my eye, though, and I'm looking forward to having the time to get to them. If you've watched the film, or read the original books, and are interested in seeing more about how this subject matter is being adapted for modern audiences, these books may well be something you'd be interested in reading.

And if you have read them, please leave a comment letting me (and other readers) know whether they're worth our valuable time and money!

Looking Glass War trilogy

Hatter M graphic novels