sean {e} lavelle.com

From LibraryThing’s Unsuggester:

A couple days ago, I started using LibraryThing.  If you haven’t heard of it, LibraryThing is a website that lets you track your library collection (or any collection of books).  I’ve found it much more useful for keeping track of the books I’ve read then the spreadsheet that I was using (for my 50 books [...]

Bridge of Birds – Barry Hughart
A while back on Whatever, there was a discussion on literary one hit wonders and Barry Hughart was talked about quiet favorably. I’d never heard on Hughart or Bridge of Birds before and I though that I would give it a try. Boy was I glad I did. [...]

Then We Came To The End – Joshua Ferris
Then We Came To The End is a book about work.  It was sold as “Hilarious” “Witty” etc… and it was all those things.  But it also struck me as a very sad book.  A book where jokes go to far and pettiness is the rule.  Which [...]

Blasphemy – Douglas Preston
I have a soft spot for Douglas Preston.  He and Lincoln Child wrote Relic and several other really fun books including Thunderhead.  Thunderhead was the book that got me to visit the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument which is really one of my favorite places.
Blasphemy is the story of a supercollider even [...]

The Name of The Wind – Patrick Rothfuss
First off, let me say the Name of the Wind is a great book. I don’t read a lot of fantasy, but I had heard some good things about this one and I decided to pick it up.
The story is told as a retelling of the main [...]

Rules For the Modern Man – Dylan Jones
Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ Magazine and with the book he set out to write a set of rules that is applicable to style today. To paraphrase one of his fantastic sayings, most fashion advice seems to come from either the nineteenth century, or was [...]

A Study In Emerald – Neil Gaiman (free Audio from Harper Collins)
A Study in Emerald is a short story by Neil Gaiman. It’s available as a free audio download from Harper Collins and read by the author. Most people have described it as Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu and I would have to [...]

Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda by Scott Peterson
Some books have a profound impact on the way you look at the world. Me Against My Brother was one of them for me. I read this book about 5 years ago and just finished rereading it. Although the conflicts described have [...]