Books Read in 2008
The following list represents an honest and truthful account of every book that I read in 2008. When you keep such a list, you occasionally worry that you are being a little slack and read super short books to keep up the numbers (the portable Dickon Edwards was very short but no less entertaining and there are some Marvel comic books listed that were read in a bathtime). I don’t know why, I would much rather see here a list of worthy books. Perhaps that can be a motto for next year — read less, read better.
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick
- The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
- The Children of Men by P.D. James
- Small is the New Big by Seth Godin
- Psychogeography by Merlin Coverley
- V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
- Why is yawning contagious? by Francesca Gould
- Killing Floor by Lee Child
- Terrorist by John Updike
- Watchmen by Alan Moore
- Miracles of Life by J.G. Ballard
- Why Girls Can’t Throw by Mitchell Symons
- Learning jQuery by Jonathan Chaffer and Karl Swedberg
- The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett
- The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond
- Dada – Art and Anti-Art by Hans Richter
- The Portable Dickon Edwards by Dickon Edwards
- Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
- Everyman by Philip Roth
- Reach for Tomorrow by Arthur C. Clarke
- Estates by Lynsey Hanley
- JLA: Earth 2 by Grant Morrison
- My Booky Wook by Russell Brand
- Civil War by Mark Millar
- Friction by Joe Stretch
- Confidential by Alison Jackson
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- On the Corinthian Spirit: The Decline of Amateurism in Sport by D.J. Taylor
- The Butt by Will Self
- A bit of a blur by Alex James
- The Three Incestuous Sisters by Audrey Niffenegger
- The Second Plane by Martin Amis
- Earth Abides by George Stewart
- The Survival Guide by Dr Angelo Acquista
- Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski
- Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick
- The Road to Civil War by Various (Marvel Comics)
- The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
- The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick
- Screen Burn by Charlie Brooker
- Everything bad is good for you by Steven Johnson
- Panicology by Simon Briscoe
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
- The Ice People by Maggie Gee
- How to Live Off-Grid by Nick Rosen
- The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock
- It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden
- Happyslapped by a Jellyfish by Karl Pilkington
- To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson
- The Economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank
- Choosing shares by Sarah Pennells
- What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
- Boost Your Word Power by Brendan Hennessy
- America by Jean Baudrillard
- Icons of Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic
- Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird
- Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockman
- Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
- Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline by Theodore Dalrymple
- The End of the World by John Leslie
- The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke
- Winning with Shares by Alvin Hall
- How to be a complete and utter failure in Life, work and Everything by Steve McDermott
- The Duck That Won the Lottery: And 99 Other Bad Arguments by Julian Baggini
- The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil
- Brilliant NLP by David Molden and Pay Hutchinson
- Dress your family in corduroy and denim by David Sedaris
- Dr. Johnson’s London by Liza Picard
- Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by R. Buckminster Fuller
- Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade by Guy Browning
- El Lissitzky – Beyond the Abstract Cabinet by Maragarita Tupitsyn
- Letters from the Avant Garde by Ellen Lupton and Elaine Lustig Cohen
- Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
- Bye Bye Balham by Richard Herring
Best Books Read
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
I started reading it this time last year on the recommendation of David Barnett and spent the whole of Christmas recommending that everyone should read the classics. I notice from my list that this was something that I singularly failed to do.
Dada – Art and Anti-Art by Hans Richter
I let Richter’s definitive history of Dada characters molder on the shelf for a whole year before reading it during my lunchbreaks at work. I found within it the seeds for my own aesthetic renewal — typographical nihilism, photographical playfulness, arch insidious interventions, it was an inspiration.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Pirsig’s celebration of mindfulness and flow is a must read for anyone who hopes to inhabit both the mechanical and philosophical worlds. Whether you’re fixing your bicycle or planning to reform society, it demonstrates how simplicity and taking care of things keeps you balanced and in tune with the universe.
The Ice People by Maggie Gee
Of all the post-apocalyptic novels I read in 2008, Maggie Gee’s was by far the most charming. It lacked the stark mischievousness of Oryx and Crake, the burnt out realism of The Road, the heartwarming perspectives of Earth Abides, but more than made up for it by being English and odd. It showed the world ending with a whimper, not a bang, which seems far more likely but is also far more difficult to show. Rather than go to tecnhological extremes like Atwood, Gee introduces scientific ideas subtly, making them all the more prescient.
The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil
After reading so many books on the end of the world, I was ripe for redemption. This came in the form of Raymond Kurzweil, whose simple extrapolation of Moore’s law formed majestic vistas of creating a universe teeming with intelligence.
Worst Books Read
Friction by Joe Stretch
I quite enjoyed sexy pseudo-robots Performance and was intrigued when the singer’s novel was compared to Houellebecq. The result was a tedious heavyhanded satire of sex toys and Mancunian nihilism. What next, Brummie existentialism?
The Butt by Will Self
All of Self’s full-length novels are a bit ropey, but this one was the worst. Stick to novellas, Will. The first long short story in Liver, in particular, was great.
A bit of a blur by Alex James
A bit of a twat.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Pointless musings on taking part in a triathlon written up for running magazines and repackaged for the gullible.
Bye Bye Balham by Richard Herring
Not a bad book, quite funny actually, but blighted with the worst typographical errors I’ve seen. Really, gentlemen, when you’re charging £10+(p&p) for a paperback you have to put a bit of care into making sure you understand what an apostrophe does.