Monday, December 29, 2014

Once again my goal is to average a book a week. As a retiree, you'd think I have all the time in the world to read! But I have a lot of hobbies!

Jan 15  Life Inside the Bubble (Bongino) Autobio of a former Secret Service agent who ran for the US Senate. Narrated for Bee Audio - my first book for them!
Jan 17  Inside the Third Reich (Speer) The man started as an architect and became an industrialist. If I'd known that, I would have read this decades earlier! Good book!
Jan 21  Auntie Maim (Tish) Narrated at author's request, through ACX. This is a tweens book.
Jan 23  The Last Battle (Harding)
Jan 28  Overdraft: The Orion Offensive (Miller)
Jan 31  Wool (Howey) I can see how this generated so much buzz. A good future dystopia.
Feb 04  Madame Charmaine (Tish) Another of David Tischendorf's Sheldon Beasley series for tweens; narrated though ACX
Feb 06  Leviathan Wakes (Corey) Sci fi thriller
Feb 17  Storm Approaching (Libbey) first of a 4-book series by my old friend, Dr. Brian Libbey, about a mercenary leader in a sword-and-sorcery culture.
Feb 19 Gold and Glory (Libbey) Second in the series
Feb 20 The Path to Hope (Hessell & Morin) Narrated for Bee Audio, this is a liberal tract by two of Europe's most progressive thinkers
Mar 04 Resolution (Libbey) End of the trilogy... which he has expanded since to 4 books!
Mar 13 Chaos Quarter (Welch)
Mar 16 Neptune Crossing (Carver)
Mar 19 Condottiere 1300 - 1500 (Murphy) Libby's Mercenary books got me wondering about his historical models.
Apr 08  Building the Navy's Bases in WWII, Vol. 1 (various) This is a book I read online over a period of months from the Navy's Library. Excellent resource for this information (which is precisely why I read it!)
Apr 11 The Burial of  the Guns (Page) Narrated for LV
Apr 15  The Kill Order (Dashner) This is the pre-quel to The Maze Runner
Apr 18  Naval Shipbuilders of the World (Winklereth) This is a reference book, but I read it cover to cover.
Apr 21 The Maze Runner (Dashner) Soon to be a major motion picture
Apr 24  The Man Who Would Be King (Kipling) Narrated for Audiobooks by Mike Vendetti
May 06 Admiral Arleigh Burke (Potter) My copy is autographed by  the author, so I had to read it, right?
May 13 The Last Praetorian (Smith) DO NOT READ. THIS IS TRASH.
May 31  Spinward Fringe: Origins (LaLonde) Among the better sci fi books I've read lately
Jun 07 Medieval Sieges and Siegcraft (Hindley) Info is poorly organized, but it's all there
Jun 13  German Armored Trains in WWII (Sawodny) Who knew therre were so many?
Jun 15  The Conquest of the Oceans (Lavery)
Jun 16  Mars Inc. - The Billionaires Club (Bova) I wish our billionaires would do exactly this!!
Jun 27  Shadow of Night (Harkness) second in her trilogy; the third comes out in a few days
Jun 29  Shadow of the Alchemist (Westerson) good medieval crime novel in the Cadfael tradition.
Jun 30  A Texas Ranger (Raine) Narrated for Audiobooks by Mike Vendetti. It was about time to do another Western!
Jul 10  The Night Circus (Morgenstern) Recommended by McKenzie, this is a treasure! Best book of the year (so far, anyway!)
Jul 13  Starfire (Dale Brown) Can anyone keep Dale and Dan Brown separate in their heads?
Jul 26  Dreams of Other Worlds (Impey & Henry) keep the scientist author; kick the English prof
Jul 30  US Amphibious Tactics of WWII (Rottman) For the very special subject covered, the best book I've ever read! Great reference.
Aug 12  Outlander (Gabaldon) Just in time for the series launch on TV. But, I don't get the premium service, so I'll make do with the book.
Aug 20  Super Tanks (Haldeman, ed.) A compilation of tank-themed stories.
Aug 24  The Ship That Died of Shame (Montserrat) A set of short stories from a great maritime storyteller
Aug 29  Annihilation (Vandermees)
Sep 01  Cradle (Clarke & Gentry)  this was terrible!
Sep 03 Tank (Wright)  I started this years  ago, only just finished it. It is one of the most odious nonfiction books ever. The writer was nowhere near his topic.
Sep 08  Spectacular Ireland (Hardison)  I really should have read it a year ago, before I went to Ireland! Great photos and really good text.
Sep 15  The Return of the Marines: The Few (Brazee) good!
Sep 24  Sandworms of Dune (Herbert & Anderson) The final book in the series (to date, anyway)
Oct 04  The City at World's End (Hamilton)
Oct 08  The Last Starship (Hueppner) good!
Oct 19  The Day the Martians Came (Pohl)
Oct 21  Three Generations of Shipbuilding (Newport News Shipyard)
Oct 22  The Spy (Cussler)
Nov 03  Blood & Iron (Pournelle, ed.) I read this before, around 1979, I think.
Nov 10  Superluminal (MacIntyre) good!
Nov 22  Castles From the Air (Brown) a crashing bore, from a professor of Norman history
Nov 26  Nimitz Class (Robinson) good!
Dec 01  Kilo Class (Robinson) good!
Dec 07  The Miners (Time-Life) Surprisingly engaging; well-written history
Dec 17 The Metalsmiths (Time-Life)
Dec 22  Eye of the Cat (Zelazny) As a Zelazny fan, I was disappointed in this one


Total: 57 books! I made my target this year!