Alex Jones: Web Technologist, Barbecue Acolyte, Information Junkie, Austinite

 

Reading List

In late May of 2004 I started tracking the books that I was reading, which are presented below. There are likely a few gaps here and there, but it’s pretty close to complete. The list is in descending order, so the first couple of books listed are currently being read, while those at the end were the first that I tracked.

• Farthing

  
  Author: Jo Walton

• The 106 Mortgage Secrets All Homebuyers Must Learn--But Lenders Don't Tell

  
  Author: Gary W. Eldred

• The Geek's Guide to Home Buying: Don't Be a Dummy! Get Twice as Smart for Half the Price! (The Geek's Guides series)

  
  Author: Karen James

• Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone

  
  Author: Larry Devlin

• The Arabian Nights (Everyman's Library)

  
  Author: Muhsin Mahdi

• Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

  
  Author: Cormac McCarthy
  My Rating: 2 out of 5

• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

  
  Author: Dan Heath

• A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire)

  
  Author: George R.R. Martin

• Watchmen

  
  Author: Dave Gibbons

• The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

  
  Author: Neil Gaiman
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives

  
  Author: Frank Warren

• A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3)

  
  Author: George R.R. Martin

• The Dangerous Book for Boys

  
  Author: Hal Iggulden
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2)

  
  Author: George R.R. Martin

• The Golden Age (The Golden Age, Book 1)

  
  Author: John C. Wright
  My Rating: 1 out of 5

• The Plot Against America

  
  Author: Philip Roth
  My Rating: 2 out of 5

• Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism

  
  Author: Geoffrey R. Stone

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)

  
  Author: J. K. Rowling
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)

  
  Author: J. K. Rowling
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)

  
  Author: J. K. Rowling
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Spook Country

  
  Author: William Gibson
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, Book 7)

  
  Author: Stephen King
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data

  
  Author: Stephen Few
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, Book 6)

  
  Author: Stephen King

• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

  
  Author: Ishmael Beah
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)

  
  Author: George R.R. Martin
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

  
  Author: Timothy Ferriss

• ppk on JavaScript, 1/e (VOICES)

  
  Author: Peter-Paul Koch

• Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, Book 5)

  
  Author: Stephen King

• Slaughterhouse-Five

  
  Author: Kurt Vonnegut
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Analog In, Digital Out: Brendan Dawes on Interaction Design (VOICES)

  
  Author: Brendan Dawes

• As Simple as Snow

  
  Author: Gregory Galloway

• The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus

  
  Author: John Emsley
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design

  
  Author: Robert Hoekman Jr.
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Shadow of the Hegemon (Ender, Book 6)

  
  Author: Orson Scott Card

• Anvil of Stars

  
  Author: Greg Bear

• The Forge of God

  
  Author: Greg Bear

• The Power of Place

  
  Author: Winifred Gallagher

• Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit

  
  Author: Garry Wills

• Epiphany of the Long Sun: Calde of the Long Sun and Exodus from the Long Sun (Book of the Long Sun, Books 3 and 4)

  
  Author: Gene Wolfe

• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

  
  Author: Stephen J. Dubner

• Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4)

  
  Author: Stephen King

• Litany of the Long Sun: Nightside the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun (Book of the Long Sun, Books 1 and 2)

  
  Author: Gene Wolfe

• The Meaning Of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

  
  Author: Richard Phillips Feynman
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3)

  
  Author: Stephen King

• Stumbling on Happiness

  
  Author: Daniel Gilbert

• The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, Book 2)

  
  Author: Stephen King

• The Fall of Hyperion

  
  Author: Dan Simmons
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Hyperion

  
  Author: Dan Simmons

• Agile Web Development with Rails : A Pragmatic Guide (The Facets of Ruby Series)

  
  Author: Andrea Schwarz

• Democracy in America

  
  Author: Alexis de Tocqueville

• The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1)

  
  Author: Stephen King
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• One Hundred Years of Solitude

  
  Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• Woken Furies

  
  Author: Richard K. Morgan
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

  
  Author: Jon Stewart
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• 1066: The Year of the Conquest

  
  Author: David Armine Howarth
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Defensive Design for the Web : How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points (Voices That Matter)

  
  Author: Jason Fried

• Idea Index: Graphic Effects and Typographic Treatments

  
  Author: Jim Krause

• Layout Index: Brochure, Web Design, Poster, Flyer, Advertising, Page Layout, Newsletter, Stationery Index

  
  Author: Jim Krause

• Bulletproof Web Design : Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS

  
  Author: Dan Cederholm

• Taking Your Talent to the Web: Making the Transition from Graphic Design to Web Design

  
  Author: Jeffrey Zeldman

• Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook (Pioneering Series)

  
  Author: Dan Cederholm

• Designing with Web Standards

  
  Author: Jeffrey Zeldman

• More Eric Meyer on CSS (Voices That Matter) (Voices That Matter)

  
  Author: Eric A. Meyer

• Color Index: Over 1100 Color Combinations, CMYK and RGB Formulas, for Print and Web Media

  
  Author: Jim Krause
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design

  
  Author: Eric A. Meyer
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color

  
  Author: Leatrice Eiseman
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Market Forces

  
  Author: Richard K. Morgan
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• If I Die in a Combat Zone : Box Me Up and Ship Me Home

  
  Author: Tim O\'Brien
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• 1776

  
  Author: David McCullough
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• The Berets (Brotherhood of War Book V)

  
  Author: W. E. B. Griffin
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• The Colonels (Brotherhood of War)

  
  Author: W. E. B. Griffin
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Anansi Boys : A Novel

  
  Author: Neil Gaiman
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think

  
  Author: George Lakoff

• E = mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation

  
  Author: David Bodanis
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• The Da Vinci Code

  
  Author: Dan Brown
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Strip Tease

  
  Author: Carl Hiaasen
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Meditations (Penguin Classics)

  
  Author: Marcus Aurelius
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Sayings of Mohammed: Illustrated with wood engravings by Boyd Hanna

  
  Author: Mohammed

• Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies)

  
  Author: Scott D. Wood

• The Essential Guide to User Interface Design

  
  Author: Wilbert O. Galitz

• About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design

  
  Author: Alan Cooper

• The Zen of CSS Design : Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)

  
  Author: Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag

• Don't Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)

  
  Author: Steve Krug

• The Histories (Oxford World's Classics)

  
  Author: Herodotus
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Olympos

  
  Author: Dan Simmons
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw

  
  Author: Witold Rybczynski
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About the American Legal System

  
  Author: Jay M. Feinman
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

  
  Author: Cory Doctorow
  My Rating: 3 out of 5

• Sin and Syntax : How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose

  
  Author: Constance Hale
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Beowulf: A New Verse Translation

  
  Author: Seamus Heaney
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker

  
  Author: James McManus
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies

  
  Author: George Friedman
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Pompeii: A Novel

  
  Author: Robert Harris
  My Rating: 3 out of 5

• Practical Demonkeeping

  
  Author: Christopher Moore
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

  
  Author: David Allen

• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

  
  Author: Christopher Moore
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel

  
  Author: Susanna Clarke
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Fast-Growth Firm

  
  Author: Verne Harnish
  My Rating: 3 out of 5

• Steel Bolt Hacking

  
  Author: Douglas Chick

• The Deluxe Transitive Vampire : A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed

  
  Author: Karen Elizabeth Gordon
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Foucault's Pendulum

  
  Author: Umberto Eco
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• The Grammar of Ornament: Illustrated by Examples from Various Styles of Ornament

  
  Author: Owen Jones
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Native Tongue

  
  Author: Carl Hiaasen
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Memoirs (George F. Kennan Memoirs)

  
  Author: George F. Kennan
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• How to Run for Local Office : A Complete, Step-By-Step Guide that Will Take You Through the Entire Process of Running and Winning a Local Election

  
  Author: Robert J. Thomas
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age

  
  Author: Adam D. Thierer, Wayne Crews
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

  
  Author: Jon Meacham
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Sick Puppy

  
  Author: Carl Hiaasen
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3)

  
  Author: Neal Stephenson
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Broken Angels

  
  Author: Richard K. Morgan
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• Nothing Like It In The World : The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869

  
  Author: Stephen E. Ambrose
  My Rating: 3 out of 5

• Ender's Shadow

  
  Author: Orson Scott Card
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny

  
  Author: Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko
  My Rating: 3 out of 5

• The March of Folly : From Troy to Vietnam

  
  Author: Barbara W. Tuchman
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Learning eZ publish 3: Building Content Management Solutions

  
  Author: Paul Borgermans, Tony Wood, Paul Forsyth
  My Rating: 4 out of 5

• Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in A Noisy World

  
  Author: Linda Kaplan Thaler, Robin Koval, Delia Marshall
  My Rating: 3 out of 5

• Doyle Brunson's Super System

  
  Author: Doyle Brunson
  My Rating: 5 out of 5

• The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2)

  
  Author: Neal Stephenson
  My Rating: 5 out of 5