List-o-Books: 2010

As 2009 came to a screeching halt, I was in high-gear with my reading list, trying to out-strip my 2008 score of forty books in a year.  I didn’t make it, but I roared off to a good start for 2010.

In September 2012, I updated this list to include affiliate links to IndieBound.  If you are interested in buying one of the books on this list, buy it from an independent bookstore.  You might get it cheaper elsewhere, but, come on, do you really want to be known as a penny-pinching cheap skate?

indiebound

  1. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
    by Simon Winchester
  2. Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains
    by Jon Krakauer
  3. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006
    by Briane Greene and Tim Folger (Editors)
  4. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
    by Jon Krakauer
  5. Salt: A World History
    by Mark Kurlansky
  6. The Forever War
    by Joe Haldeman
  7. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
    by Greg Grandin
  8. 1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
    by Charles C. Mann
  9. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003
    by Richard Dawkins and Tim Folger (Editors)
  10. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
    by Tim Egan
  11. What Would Google Do?
    by Jeff Jarvis
  12. Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences
    by Kitty Burns Florey
  13. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004
    by Steven Pinker and Tim Folger (Editors)
  14. The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
    by Graham Farmelo
  15. The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
    by Daniel J. Levitin
  16. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007
    by Richard Preston and Tim Folger (Editors)
  17. Best Music Writing 2009
    by Marcus Griel
  18. The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban
    by Sarah Chayes
  19. The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
    by Steven Johnson
  20. High Wire Act: Ted Rogers and the Empire that Debt Built
    by Caroline van Hasselt
    A book review of High wire Act
  21. LEGO: A Love Story
    by Jonathan Bender
  22. The Wordy Shipmates
    by Sarah Vowell
  23. Decoding the Heavens: A 2,000-Year-Old Computer–and the Century-long Search to Discover Its Secrets
    by Jo Marchant
  24. The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and the Minimum Wage
    by Kirstin Downey
  25. Assassination Vacation
    by Sarah Vowell
  26. The Ecology of Place: Planning for Environment, Economy, and Community
    by Kristi Manning and Timothy Beatley
  27. Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things
    by Randy O. Frost
  28. Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man
    by Norah Vincent
  29. The Beats: A Graphic History
    by Harvey Pekar, Paul Buhle, and Ed Piskor
  30. On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work
    by Scott Huler
  31. Busting Vegas: A True Story of Monumental Excess, Sex, Love, Violence, and Beating the Odds
    by Ben Mezrich
  32. Under the Tuscan Sun
    by Frances Mayes
  33. The Partly Cloudy Patriot
    by Sarah Vowell
  34. Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
    by Ben Mezrich
  35. Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries
    by Suad Amiry
  36. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
    by Nicholas D. Kristof
  37. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
    by Azar Nafisi
  38. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
    by Simon Winchester
  39. O Jerusalem!
    by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
  40. My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm
    by Manny Howard
  41. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
    by Mary Roach
  42. Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
    by Dan Koeppel
  43. The Best Technology Writing 2010
    by Julian Dibbell
  44. Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
    by Amy Dockser Marcus
  45. Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption
    by Scott Simon
  46. Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi
    by Timothy R. Pauketat
  47. Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal
    by Ben Macintyre
  48. Parallel Play
    by Tim Page
  49. Smoot's Ear: The Measure of Humanity
    by Robert Tavernor
  50. The Best American Science Writing 2010
    by Jerome Groopman and Jesse Cohen (Editors)
  51. At Home: A Short History of Private Life
    by Bill Bryson
  52. The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time
    by Jeff Deck
  53. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
    by Erik Larson
    A book review of The Devil in the White City
  54. Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
    by Alfie Kohn
  55. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2010
    by Freeman Dyson and Tim Folger (Editors)
  56. God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter
    by Stephen Prothero
  57. The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
    by Timothy Egan
  58. 1421: The Year China Discovered America
    by Gavin Menzies
  59. Playful Parenting
    by Lawrence J. Cohen
  60. Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
    by Erik Larson
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