Books Read, By Year

Nonfiction, 2009

Loren Graham & Jean-Michel Kantor Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity
Piergiorgio Odifreddi The Mathematical Century: The 30 Greatest Problems of the Last 100 Years
Richard E. Bellman Eye of the Hurricane: An Autobiography
Paul R. Halmos I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography
Kevin Roose The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University
Tom Siegfried A Beautiful Math: John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for the Code of Nature
Bruce Rosenblum & Fred Kuttner Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness
Rolf Potts Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer
Barry Strauss The Spartacus War
Stan W. Wallace, editor Does God Exist? The Craig-Flew Debate
Cunxin Li Mao's Last Dancer
Diana Preston The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900
John Pomfret Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China
Michael Meyer The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed
Kang Zhengguo Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China
Brian Schofield Selling Your Father's Bones: America's 140-Year War Against the Nez Perce Tribe
William Lane Craig & Walter Sinnott-Armstrong God? A debate between a Christian and an atheist
Robert Clark Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces
Maurice A. Finocchiaro Retrying Galileo, 1633-1992
Steven Johnson The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America
Steven Johnson The Ghost Map: London's Most Terrifying Epidemic & How It Changed Science, Cities, & the Modern World
Daniel Meyerson The Linguist and the Emperor: Napoleon and Champollion's Quest to Decipher the Rosetta Stone
Bob Brier & Jean-Pierre Houdin The Secret of the Great Pyramid: The Solution of Ancient Egypt's Greatest Mystery
Jonathan Harr The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece
Ursula King Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin

Fiction, 2009

Sadie Jones Small Wars
Sadie Jones The Outcast
Andrew Miller The Optimists
Murray Bail The Pages
Kahlil Gibran The Prophet
Manfred Jurgensen The American Brother
Christos Tsiolkas The Slap
Christos Tsiolkas The Jesus Man
Nikita Lalwani Gifted
Susan Varga Headlong
Susan Barker The Orientalist and the Ghost
Joan London Gilgamesh
Ivo Stourton The Night Climbers
Markus Zusak The Book Thief
Helen Garner The Spare Room
Janice Y.K. Lee The Piano Teacher
John Griesemer No One Thinks of Greenland
Jo Nesbø The Redbreast
Paul Melko The Walls of the Universe
Chris Cleave The Other Hand (Little Bee)
Dan Brown Angels & Demons
James Morrow The Philosopher's Apprentice
Andre Schwarz-Bart The Last of the Just
Yoko Ogawa The Housekeeper and the Professor
Bernard Beckett Genesis
Xiaolu Guo Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
Shamim Sarif Despite the Falling Snow
Arthur Koestler Darkness at Noon

Nonfiction, 2008

Asne Seierstad The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War
Tim Tzouliadis The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia
Steven Waldman Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World
R. J. Crampton A Concise History of Bulgaria, 2nd Edition
Mark Bowen Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth about Global Warming
Barry Rubin The Truth about Syria
Zachary Karabell Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence
James A. Connor Pascal's Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God
Jack Repcheck Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began
Jared Cohen Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East
Nina Burleigh Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt
John Ray The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt
Rob Gifford China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
Fan Shen Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard
Peter Hessler Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present
Ian Johnson Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China
Robyn Meredith The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us
John Elder Robison Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
Dawn Prince-Hughes Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism
Maryanne Wolf Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain
Kenneth R. Miller Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution
Marcus J. Borg The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith
Lee Strobel The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity
Frank Schaeffer Crazy for God: How I Grew Up One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Almost All of It Back
Gregory J. Chaitin Conversations with a Mathematician: Math, Art, Science and the Limits of Reason
Ian Ayres Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart
Amir D. Aczel The Artist and the Mathematician: The Story of Nicolas Bourbaki
Lars Anderson Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner and Football's Greatest Battle

Fiction, 2008

Tan Twan Eng The Gift of Rain
Tom Rob Smith Child 44
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger
Mohammed Hanif The Case of Exploding Mangoes
Sherman Alexie The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Arturo Perez-Reverte The Painter of Battles
Janette Turner Hospital Orpheus Lost
Shusaku Endo Deep River
Hal Gold Neutral War
Matthew Jarpe Radio Freefall
Paul Melko Singularity's Ring
Robert J. Sawyer Rollback
Mike Brotherton Spider Star
Lloyd Jones Mister Pip
Joanne Proulx Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet
Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Yousef Al-Mohaimeed Wolves of the Crescent Moon
Richard Sherbaniuk The Fifth Horseman
Peter Ackroyd The Fall of Troy

Nonfiction, 2007

Hanna Rosin God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America
Francis S. Collins The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
Mario Beauregard & Denyse O'Leary The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul
Gordy Slack The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: evolution, intelligent design, and the school board in Dover, PA
John Dominic Crossan God and Empire: Jesus against Rome, then and now
Rodney Stark Cities of God: the real story of how Christianity became an urban movement and conquered Rome
David Bodanis Passionate Minds: the great love affair of the Enlightenment, Emilie du Chatelet, and Voltaire
John F. Haught God After Darwin: A theology of evolution, 2nd edition
Sharon Daloz Parks Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, faith
David M. Oshinsky Polio, An American Story
John Brockman, editor What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Today's leading thinkers on the unthinkable
Christopher Hitchens God is not Great: how religion poisons everything
Stuart Clark The Sun Kings: the unexpected tragedy of Richard Carrington and how modern astronomy began
Chalmers Johnson Nemesis: the last days of the American republic
John Brockman, editor What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today's leading thinkers on science in the age of uncertainty
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Infidel
Ian Buruma Murder in Amsterdam: the Death of Theo Van Gogh & the Limits of Tolerance
Bernard-Henri Levy American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville
Richard Dawkins The God Delusion
Matthew Chapman 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin…
Matthew Chapman Trials of the Monkey, an Accidental Memoir
Geneive Abdo Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America after 9/11
Anthony Arthur Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair
Ioan James Remarkable Mathematicians: Euler to von Neumann
William J. Broad The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Secrets
Ross King The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism
Paul Johnson Napoleon
Richard Clogg A Concise History of Greece
Da Chen Sounds of the River
Hal Hellman Great Feuds in Mathematics

Fiction, 2007

AUTHOR TITLE
Kiara Brinkman Up High in the Trees
Travis Holland The Archivist's Story
James Robertson The Testament of Gideon Mack
Dalia Sofer The Septembers of Shiraz
Gaurav Suri & Hartosh Singh Bal A Certain Ambiguity: a mathematical novel
Dominic Smith The Beautiful Miscellaneous
Ian McEwan On Chesil Beach
Peter Ho Davies The Welsh Girl
Andrew O'Hagan Be Near Me
Damon Galgut The Good Doctor
Mohsin Hamid The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Paul Auster Oracle Night
Yasmina Khadra The Sirens of Baghdad
Yasmina Khadra The Swallows of Kabul
Hisham Matar In the Country of Men
Vendela Vida Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name
M. J. Hyland How the Light Gets in
Ronan Bennett Havoc, in its Third Year
Margaret Lazarus Dean The Time It Takes to Fall
Emma Darwin The Mathematics of Love
Javier Sierra The Secret Supper
Rebecca Goldstein The Mind-Body Probem
Michael Collins Death of a Writer
Gore Vidal Julian
Vernor Vinge Rainbows End

Nonfiction, 2006

Da Chen Colors of the Mountain
Asne Seierstad The Bookseller of Kabul
Masuda Sultan My War at Home
G. H. Hardy A Mathematician's Apology
Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-State
Flo Conway & Jim Siegelman Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener The Father of Cybernetics
Raymond G. Ayoub, editor Musings of the Masters: An Anthology of Miscellaneous Reflections
William Poundstone Prisoner's Dilemma
James Gleick Isaac Newton
Joseph Mazur Euclid in the Rainforest
Kelly Monroe Kullberg Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas
Amir D. Aczel Descartes' Secret Notebook
John Neafsey A Sacred Voice is Calling
John Parker R. L. Moore: Mathematician & Teacher
Michael D'Antonio Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
Richard Zacks The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805
Matthew Stewart The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World
Stephen Kinzer Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change
David Darling Teleportation: the Impossible Leap
David Lindley Boltzmann's Atom
Sam Harris The End of Faith: Religion, terror, future of reason
Jon Krakauer Into the Wild
David Leavitt The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing
Rebecca Goldstein Incompleteness: Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel
Norman Macrae John von Neumann: Scientific Genius

Fiction, 2006

Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Philip Roth The Plot Against America
Henry Porter Brandenburg
Michel Houellebecq The Elementary Particles
Ha Jin War Trash
Nicole Krauss Man Walks into a Room
Nicole Krauss The History of Love
Ian McEwan Saturday
Panos Karnezis The Maze
James Meek The People's Act of Love
Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner
Banana Yoshimoto NP
M. J. Hyland Carry Me Down
David Mitchell Black Swan Green
Peter Carey Theft: A Love Story
Da Chen Brothers
James Lasdun Seven Lies
Angela Davis-Gardner Plum Wine
Robert A. Heinlein Job: a Comedy of Justice
Thomas Legendre The Burning
Thomas Mullen The Last Town on Earth
Philip Pullman The Subtle Knife
Philip Pullman The Amber Spyglass
James Morrow Towing Jehovah
Dan Simmons The Hollow Man
Apostolos Doxiadis Uncle Petros & Goldbach's Conjecture
Robert Charles Wilson Spin
Carl Hiaasen Skinny Dip
Robert J. Sawyer Mindscan

Nonfiction, 2005

Andy Marino A Quiet American: the secret war of Varian Fry
Tom Reiss The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life
David Bodanis E=mc^2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation
Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit Occidentalism: the West in the Eyes of its Enemies
Peter Goodchild Edward Teller: the real Dr. Strangelove
Steven Johnson Everything Bad is Good for You
Garrison Keillor Homegrown Democrat
Ross King Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling
Nicole & Hugh Pope Turkey Unveiled: A Modern History of Turkey
Stephen Kinzer Crescent & Star: Turkey: Between Two Worlds
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen Dubner Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Michael Lewis Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Priscilla J. McMillan The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Arthur I. Miller Empire of the Stars
Simon Mitton Conflict in the Cosmos: Fred Hoyle's life in science
Ashutosh Sheshabalaya Rising Elephant: The Growing Clash With India Over White-Collar Jobs and its Challenge to America and the World
Nancy Pearcey Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
Niall Shanks God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory
Victor Reppert C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason
Daniel H. Pink A Whole New Mind
George MacDonald Ross Leibniz
David Salsburg The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
William R. Shea & Mariano Artigas Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius
George F. Simmons Calculus Gems: brief lives memorable math
Maurizio Viroli Niccolo's Smile: a Biography of Machiavelli
Alan Watts The Book: on the taboo against who you are
Dave Lindorff This Can't Be Happening
Gerald L. Schroeder The Science of God


  • Douglas Anderson's home page.
  • Mathematics and Computer Science home page.
  • Concordia College home page.