According to Kim these are the top 106 most unfinished books according to LibraryThing.

Bold are the ones I've read. Strike-through indicates I started but didn't finish. I've also noted the ones I read for school. Yeah, I'm doing my formatting different.

• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
• Anna Karenina (school)
• Crime and Punishment
• Catch-22 (don't remember it though)
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• Wuthering Heights
• The Silmarillion
• Life of Pi : a novel
• The Name of the Rose
• Don Quixote
• Moby Dick
• Ulysses
• Madame Bovary (school)
• The Odyssey
• Pride and Prejudice
• Jane Eyre
• The Tale of Two Cities
• The Brothers Karamazov (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
• War and Peace
• Vanity Fair
• The Time Traveler’s Wife (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• The Iliad
• Emma
• The Blind Assassin (I'll get back to again some day)
• The Kite Runner
• Mrs. Dalloway
• Great Expectations
• American Gods
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
• Atlas Shrugged (I need to read this so I understand the kooky side of libertarians)
• Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
• Memoirs of a Geisha (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• Middlesex (was thinking about making this my next book)
• Quicksilver
• Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
• The Canterbury Tales
• The Historian : a novel
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• Love in the Time of Cholera
• Brave New World (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• The Fountainhead (same comment as previous Ayn Rand book)
• Foucault’s Pendulum
• Middlemarch (school)
• Frankenstein
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Dracula (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• A Clockwork Orange
• Anansi Boys
• The Once and Future King (might have read this)
• The Grapes of Wrath (school)
• The Poisonwood Bible : a novel (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• 1984
• Angels & Demons
• The Inferno
• The Satanic Verses
• Sense and Sensibility
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Mansfield Park
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• To the Lighthouse (school)
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles
• Oliver Twist
• Gulliver’s Travels
• Les Misérables
• The Corrections
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Dune
• The Prince
• The Sound and the Fury
• Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
• The God of Small Things
• A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
• Cryptonomicon
• Neverwhere (can't remember if I finished this, so it goes here for now)
• A Confederacy of Dunces (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• A Short History of Nearly Everything
• Dubliners
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Beloved
• Slaughterhouse-five
• The Scarlet Letter (school)
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves (currently own, haven't gotten to it yet)
• The Mists of Avalon
• Oryx and Crake : a novel
• Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
• Cloud Atlas
• The Confusion
• Lolita
• Persuasion
• Northanger Abbey
• The Catcher in the Rye
• On the Road
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
• The Aeneid
• Watership Down (school)
• Gravity’s Rainbow
• The Hobbit
• In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
• White Teeth
• Treasure Island
• David Copperfield
• The Three Musketeers

Tags: books

Got a haul of Advance Reading Copies of books today. Normally, when the Random House rep comes by, there's one or two I want. Today he brought a larger stash than usual, and a number seemed interesting.

Acacia / David Anthony Durham tentative on-sale 19 Jun	Send / David Shipley and Will Schwalbe available now
New England White / Stephen L. Carter	Gifted / Nikita Lalwani available Sept
You Don't Love Me Yet / Jonathan Lethem available now	The New World / Michael A. Stackpole available 26 Jun
Walla Walla Suite / Anne Argula available 18 Sept

Tags: books

Yup, I want to do this. First up, a poll. I've poked through the books in the top ten to see what is decently short and what is decently cheap. The following books are nominated to be the first book in the Ten Most Harmful Books Club:

• The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. Editions:
  • Signet paperback, 80 pages, $5.95
  • Charles H. Kerr pamphlet, 60 pages, $5
  • Free on the internet
• Introduction to Positive Philosophy, Auguste Comte. Editions:
  • Hackett paperback, 84 pages, $6.95
  • Free on the internet
• Beyond Good And Evil, Friedrich Neitzsche. Editions:
  • Penguin paperback, 250 pages, $9.60
  • Digiread paperback, 108 pages, $6.95
  • Free on the internet

The other books on the list were over 300 pages (my arbitrary cut-off) and a bit more pricy (though several do have free versions on the internet). If this is successful, longer ones can be used for subsequent books.

Voting closes Friday morning when I wake up. Approval voting is used. That means vote for whichever of these books are acceptable to get you to participate. You don't have to pick only one.

Approximate schedule will be: 1 week to purchase book. After that, I'll post questions and discussion topics approximately weekly, free-wheeling flaming to occur in comment threads. Last week in April I'll host an in person 10 Most Harmful Book Club discussion, with food and drink. Those who participate will get, in addition to food and drink, double votes on the next selection.

Edited to Add: Please just hit submit if you don't plan to participate but want to see what wins the poll. I'd rather only people who plan to participate choose the book. (If your plans to participate fall through, we'll revoke your vote later, then hunt you down.)

Poll #940327 Harmful Books the First
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which of the following books would you be most interested in reading first?

Also, I know I typo'd Nietzsche. Deal. Can't fix a poll once it's posted.

Tags: books, harmful books

Looking over the Hugo award winners for the last few years, I notice that Lois McMaster Bujold has won a few times for best novel. I haven't read anything by her yet. Am I missing out? Should I pick something up (and what)? Or are her wins a product of the fact that the Hugos are a popularity contest?

Tags: books

10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries according to a conservative group.

Anyone wanna join me?

Tags: books, harmful books

Since I started putting my book reviews on Rat's Reading a year or so ago, I've stopped plugging the books here. However, I just finished reading Bruce Schneier's Beyond Fear, which I highly suggest folks go read. If you don't want to spend the $25 cover price (or whatever it's discounted to at major retailers), at least read his blog regularly. If the sorts of things the Bush administration is doing in the name of security tend to incense you like they do me, this book will give you a framework to understand how these things actually impact security (if at all), and give you ammunition against the emotional arguments the right wing uses.

Anyway, the review of Beyond Fear is up at Rat's Reading now. Go read it to get an idea.

Tags: books

In no particular order:

My Life / Bill Clinton	State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration / James Risen	What Jesus Meant / Garry Wills	War Trash / Ha Jin
Uncivil Seasons: A Novel / Michael Malone	The Truth (with jokes) / Al Franken	Overcoming Law / Richard Posner	Limitations / Scott Turow
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It / Michael E. Gerber	Armchair Economist: Economics And Everyday Experience / Steven E. Landsburg	Lying Awake / Mark Salzman	Micromotives and Macrobehavior / Thomas C. Schelling
When We Were Orphans: A Novel / Kazuo Ishiguro	Sun of Suns: Virga, Book 1 (Virga) / Karl Schroeder	Cherry / Mary Karr	Beyond Fear / Bruce Schneier
Nature Girl / Carl Hiaasen	Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East? / Ted Rall	The Articles of Confederation	Ultimate Soup Bible / Anne Sheasby
Louisa May Alcott: Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys / Louisa May Alcott	Never Let Me Go / Kazuo Ishiguro	Essays on the Great Depression / Ben S. Bernanke	Gorky Park / Martin Cruz Smith
Starship: Pirate / Mike Resnick	The Physics of Superheroes / James Kakalios	A Case of Two Cities / Qiu Xiaolong	Hyperion / Dan Simmons

Tags: books

This is a list of the 50 most significant speculative fiction/fantasy works, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and underline the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien long, over-written and over-wrought
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley I haven't read this, nor is it likely I ever will
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury one of the best books ever
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card though I'm not as high on this book as I used to be
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams some people will really like this if they are into humor
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien based on my opinion of the Lord of the Rings, I will likely never read this
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Last Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip José Farmer

Tags: books, meme

This book I picked up for 75¢ at the Friends of the Seattle Public Library book sale last year. Stuart Scheingold wrote this treatise in 1974. The Politics of Rights is a look at the means and theoretical effectiveness of cause lawyering. Scheingold is a political scientist. This is an academic book. It's dry. It's boring. I skimmed some parts. Most of it was uninteresting, except for where he identifies why simply winning a rights case isn't very effective, and but that having a judicial decision can be used as a base to energize and mobilize a constituency. Part three of the book examines the movers of shakers of activist lawyer (though not really by name). He breaks them down into three groups and then analyzes whether or not those groups will be effective in the long run. He concludes that a severe lack of excitement, numbers and funding will keep activist lawyers to a severe minority on the side of American politics. I mention this because I wonder what Sheingold thinks of this prediction 30 years later. Not sure I want to read any of his later books to find out if he changed his mind though. As I said, dry dry dry. Like the footnotes though. May go look up some of the book used in footnotes.

Scheingold, Stuart A.
The politics of rights : lawyers, public policy, and political change / Stuart A. Scheingold.
xiv, 224 p. ; 21 cm.
ISBN 0-300-01811-8
1. Law—United States.
2. Law and politics.
3. Civil rights—United States.
4. Lawyers—United States.
KF380 .S3
74-079972

Tags: books