Last book read |
This page contains a list of the last english books I have read.
Most of them were bought at Joseph Gibert, 26/30 Boulevard Saint-Michel 75006 Paris. One of the most complete english book reseller in Paris that I know of.
Some others come from the George Whitman' Shakespeare Company a charming old bookshop located right in front of Notre Dame de Paris on the left bank of the Seine river (dare take a look upstairs).
For the most part, these book were randomly selected from bookshop shelves.
Date |
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
Personal notes |
| September | Eon | Greg Bear | Vista | A very intersting account on many SF subjects (time-space, aliens,...). A single regret: maybe too many subjects and zapping goes even faster during the book. |
| August | The large, the small and the humankind | Roger Penrose | Cambridge U Press | Enthusiastic tour guide to extremes of physics with the provocative idea that Godel' theorem implies that human brain has non-computational features, which discovery requires a new unified physics theory. |
| July | Sundiver | David Brin | Bantam Spectra | Science is reduced to a mere search in a billion years old Library filled by many ET species. Will mankind use this knowledge to deal with a new species encounter: the Sun Ghosts. An Uplifting Novel ! |
| February | Press Send | John McLaren | Pocket Books | The dream of every AI researcher: transfer his soul and mind into a machine. Funny and nicely written. |
Date |
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
Personal notes |
| December | Being Digital | Nicholas Negroponte | Vintage Books | Vision of the futur by the founder of the MIT Media Lab. Very clever, a must-read by anyone interested in "Let's make things better". |
| October | Tips for Time Travellers | Peter Cochrane | Vision of the futur by the head of British Telecom Research. Collection of pages, easy to read, maybe too easily. Quite poor, prefer the much better Negroponte version. | |
| July | Xenocide | Orson Scott Card | Legend | |
| June | Blood Music | Greg Bear | Vista | A biotechnic that goes wild into an incontrollable growth, but then a reflexion on how "dumb" single cells can communicate, act with purposes and create a new era. |
| Blue Rose | Peter Straub | Penguin | A terrifying small novel on how cruel man can be. | |
| May | Speaker for the Dead | Orson Scott Card | Legend | Some interesting ideas on how mankind should deal with itself faced with an alien encounter. |
| Platinum Blues | William Deverell | Mandarin | Legal cases in the record industry. Pleasant light reading. | |
| April | Stalking Fiona | Nigel Williams | Granta | Gripping, but the book is constructed as a sequence of letters and diaries. Original but slow. |
| Ender's Game | Orson Scott Card | Legend | Some parts are very absorbing, but connections are rather slim, without any psychological depth for the characters. I enjoyed it. | |
| March | Animal Farm | George Orwell | Penguin | Wonderful short cut allegory of power-corrupted human society evolution. First published in 1945. |
| The New York Trilogy | Paul Auster | Faber & Faber | Boring. Prefer "Moon Palace" by the same author, see below. | |
| February | The Sparrow | Mary Doria Russell | Black Swan | Exciting, gives you food for thought. Advice: listen to Radiohead "OK Computer" LP while reading. |
| The Neuromancer | William Gibson | Voyager | I got trouble reading it. My poor english showed. | |
| January | Shooters | Terrill Lankford | Forge | Thriller in the pornographic film industry. Easily forgotten. |
Date |
Title |
Author |
Publisher |
Personal notes |
| December | Pop Corn | Ben Elton | Pocket Books | How TV, violence, fame and lawyers rule the american way of life. A must-read by every american citizen. |
| November | Moon Palace | Paul Auster | Penguin | An "exciting" account of the life of an helpless but touching guy. |
| October | Acid House | Irvine Welsh | Novels on the despair associated with drug abuse. By the author of Trainspotting. Hard to read. | |
| September | Spares | Mickael Marshall Smith | Harper Collins | A very good idea: cloning to have spare human parts ready for transplant. Is it still Sci-Fi ? |
| Mental Case | James Neal Harvey | St Martin | ||
| June | The Lost World | Michael Crichton | Arrow | Gripping but not moving, as usual with Crichton. |
| Blood Rights | Mike Philips | Penguin | ||
| May | Mindfield | William Deverell | Mandarin | |
| The Tailor of Panama | John Le Carré | Coronet | Very disapointing. | |
| April | Rush | Kim Wozencraft | Mandarin | A descent into a narcotic undercover police squad. A true story. |
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