The Reading List

Shown below is our reading list from the past year:

Date	Book	Author	Overall	Discussion	Comments
9/07	A History of the World in 6 Glasses	T. Standage	TBD	TBD
8/07	To Kill a Mocking Bird	H. Lee	9	9	Did T. Capote really write this novel?
7/07	In Cold Blood	T. Capote	8	8	Non-Fiction--Read like fiction
6/07	Slaughterhouse-Five	Kurt Vonnegut	6	7	Weird Book, Weird humor
5/07	On The Road	J. Kerouac	6	7	Mixed Reviews. I thought the book was over-rated.
3/07	Catch-22	J. Heller	9	8	Great Book!
2/07	The Tender Bar: A Memoir	J.R. Moehringer	7	7	The author could really drink! Wow! A decent dicussion.
1/07	The Things They Carried	Tom O'Brien	6	7	Depressing Read
12/06	The Right Stuff	Tom Wolfe	9	9	Great Book; Great Discussion
12/06	Seeing	Jose Saramago	7	7	First 60 pages were a tough read. Once we got into it improved.
10/06	Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking	Malcolm Gladwell	7	7	Book provided some interesting insights. A quick interesting read.
9/06	The Catcher in the Rye	J. D. Salinger	9	9	Great Discussion--Focused much on the symbolism, ducks, and the orgin of the F-word.
8/06	The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century	Thomas Friedman	8	9	Great discussion. We all agreed, yes--the world is flat.
7/06	The Invisible Man	Ralph Ellison	6.5	6	Not everyone made it through the book--too long. Split opinions--some really liked it, others did not.
6/06	The Politics of Decline: A Chronicle of New York's Descent and What You Can Do To Save Your State	Jay Gallagher	7	8	Great book and discussion. Captured well the decline of NY State. Unfortunately, despite the title, it did not address what "you" can do to save the state.
5/06	The Tortilla Curtain	TC Boyle	7	8	Excellent discussion--very relavant to illegal alien issue. Group enjoyed book.
4/06	What If?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been"	Crowley and Ambrose	7	7	Interesting book. Quality varied depending on author of essay.
3/06	One Hundred Years of Solidute	Gabriel García Márquez	5	6	Arduous Read. Much of the group had trouble getting through it. A book that needs to be read twice to understand fully.
1/06	The Autobiography of Ben Franklin	B. Franklin	7	7	Read in celebration of Ben Franklin's 300th Birthday.
12/05	Confederacy of Dunces	John Kennedy Toole	10	9	Great Group Discussion! Most really enjoyed the book.
11/05	Bias:A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News	Bernard Goldberg	5	7	Bifurcated group discussion, some thought the author rightly exposed an obviously liberal biased media, others vehemently disagreed.
10/05	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	7	7	Discussed--Is our world really turning Huxley's reality?
9/05	Freakonomics	Levitt and Dubner	7	7	Interesting perspective
8/05	The Great Gatsby	F. Scott Fitzgerald	10	10	Probably one of our groups best discussions ever. Most concurred that this was the "Great American Novel."
7/05	Economic Hitman	J. Perkins	1	6	Pure crap, not worth the paper it is printed on.
6/05	Heart of Darkness	J. Conrad	7	6	Short read, but tough to get through.
5/05	The Tipping Point	Malcolm Gladwell	7	7	Interesting insights; Good group discussion
3/05	The Kite Runner	K. Hosseini	8	7	Enjoyed by most members of the group.
2/05	A Short History of Nearly Everything	B. Bryson	6	6	Enjoyable read.
1/05	Skipping Christmas	John Grisham	2	2	"Pulpy" read; not very much to discuss concerning the book.