All Books Review - 2015

Last years review of every book I read was seen by at least 5 people. I feel compelled by my past success to keep up the tradition.

Fiction

The Martian by Andy Weir - Exciting and funny. It reminds of Nel Stephenson or Michael Crighton in the scientific technical delight of the author.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - How can one book contain so many characters that I care deeply about? Marie-Laure goes blind while every loss seems matched by a discovery of the world around her. Werner escapes poverty but loses himself in the Nazi’s. Frederick stands out unique to his core, and is brutally crushed for it. Etienne overcomes the demons of an older war and finds a reason to live again.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - Early on I struggled to understand the rules of this reincarnation tale. Then I got caught up in it and the nuanced portrait of Ursula’s family as you see them over and over. But in the end it fell flat. Ursala lives her life in a loop of minor (and major) variation, but do any of them make an impact?

Open City - A book of deep and philosophical boredom. Julius goes on long walks and thinks about stuff. About half way though you start hoping for an alien invasion, or maybe Julius could decide to hike Mount Kilimanjaro, or join a fight club, anything really.

Non-Fiction

Inside Box 1663 by Eleanor Jette - I bought this at the Los Alamos bookstore, it's a great little book about life for the families working on the manhattan project. Sometimes locally published books can be amazing.

Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-boat Codes, 1933-1945 - Highly recommended if you like encryption and war books.

Code Breakers: The inside story of bletchley park - Each chapter is written by a different author about their experience cracking German and Japanese codes. It’s a great book, and shows the wide variety of people working on the project and how isolated some of their jobs were.

The Moffat Line: David Moffat’s Railroad Over and Under the Continental Divide - I really wanted this to be good, but sometimes locally published books can lack a coherent story.

River of Doubt - Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard - There was  interesting material in this book, but there are other Roosevelt books to read first.