Books read in 2008 📚 log(book)

Torvalds tells his (and his project's) life story up to 2000. Nothing special.

The Jungle Books

by Rudyard Kipling · published 1894 · read 2008-11-01

Poems. If you ask me, the only relevant part of the Jungle Books are the poems. Which is enough, because they are a lot. Everything else has not aged very well.

The Golden Compass

by Philip Pullman · published 1995 · read 2008-11-01

Widely liked, but didn't do it for me. Though that's not quite right: I adored the setup: Oxford, the river, the journey. But soon, it became preachy the same way the Narnia books did (only, of course, for an opposed cause). I can't stand p

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

by Rainer Maria Rilke · published 1910 · read 2008-11-01

Rilke's poetry is always better than his other works (and than most other poetry). The life of the sensitive author stand-in protagonist in the big city is anxiety inducing, depressing, just … too much. And Rilke describes it perfectly. Ove

Ptolemy’s Gate

by Jonathan Stroud · published 2005 · read 2008-10-01

Stronger than the second part, if only by a bit. A very decent conclusion, without resorting to the cheapest of cheap endings (boy saves world, gets girl).

Lost in a Good Book

by Jasper Fforde · published 2002 · read 2008-10-01

Fast moving sequel – more book travels! I liked the book travels, and I liked it enough to be a bit indifferent towards the plot.

Twilight

by Stephenie Meyer · published 2005 · read 2008-10-01

★☆☆☆☆

First famous for the bad love story and the sparkling vampire, then famous for the SM fanfic. I dutifully read it right when I was the correct age and hated it.

The Call of the Wild

by Jack London · published 1903 · last read 2008-09-01

Arctic animal adventures! I loved this book to the point that I can't say if it is any good, or if it was just exactly right for me at the time. London's writing is like there's a trick somewhere that gets me to like it. But it's very relia

Witch Week

by Diana Wynne Jones · published 1982 · last read 2022-11-20

Parallel England, where a teacher at a boarding school is accused of witchcraft. The inquisition is called and a terrified pupil has to look for a way out … It gets very dark very fast. Not my favourite Chrestomanci book, but still solid.

Making Money

by Terry Pratchett · published 2007 · read 2008-09-01

As before, I didn't care about the protagonist, and not that much about the innovation commentary, either. I suspect the problem is same disinterest in economics that also makes me bounce of Charlie Stross's more economy-oriented sci-fi.

The Stone Light

by Kai Meyer · published 2002 · read 2008-08-01

The worldbuilding is better, the characters are only slightly worse, and the plot couldn't be worse than the first one, and is possibly slightly better? I don't remember, I was busy being amazed at the worldbuilding.

The Wish List

by Eoin Colfer · published 2000 · read 2008-08-01

Meg Finn, 15, is a troublemaker and also dead. Because her good and bad deeds balanced out perfectly, she has to go back and help her last victim go through his bucket list – all while her last partner sabotages the mission.

Désirée

by Annemarie Selinko · published 1951 · read 2008-08-01

Désirée got me started on serious historical fiction – this, or Klaus Kordon, but it's a close race. Désirée is the true tale of Désirée Clary, told in the form of her fictional diary.

Animal Farm

by George Orwell · published 1945 · read 2008-07-01

Other than 1984, this one goes a bit more into the rise of dictatorships and how coercion and decisionmaking works. Same as 1984, it's flat and punches you in the face repeatedly, lest you miss the point. The point is also written in large

Joseph Fouché

by Stefan Zweig · published 1929 · read 2008-07-01

Stefan Zweig just has a way with words, and his biography of Joseph Fouché taught me more about Napoleon's France (and the France before and afterwards) than my history lessons ever did.

Der Schrecksenmeister

by Walter Moers · published 2007 · read 2008-07-01

I wasn't the biggest fan of this book, possibly because I thought that I had to read the book it was satirising first. I didn't have to do that, and it wasn't a lot of fun. I was impressed with the food porn though – when Moers sets his mi

First Among Sequels

by Jasper Fforde · published 2007 · read 2008-06-01

Book Five: Clones! Undercover operations! Tired plots, but good family drama. I'm not sure what happened, but in this book I prefer the plot and even the characters to the worldbuilding, such as it is.

Doktor Erich Kästners Lyrische Hausapotheke

by Erich Kästner · published 1936 · read 2008-06-01

More Kästner poems, these here designed to help you during your everyday life. And – surprisingly – they do. Well, some of them do, but that's how every collection of poem works.

Im Land des Windes

by Licia Troisi · published 2004 · last read 2021-01-18

Worldbuilding! I forgot about the worldbuilding of this book. For example, there are tower cities where everything is organised by the tower layers.

Something Rotten

by Jasper Fforde · published 2004 · read 2008-05-01

Shakespearean, this time. Hamlet gets to see the real world, Thursday gets to see Landen again (plus her son). The whole childcare thing was a bit of a drag, and the plot was as usually secondary at best. Less worldbuilding meant less fun.

Conrad’s Fate

by Diana Wynne Jones · published 2005 · last read 2022-11-22

Young Chrestomanci, as seen by outside eyes. Fun, but mostly fun if you have read any other book of the series. Gave me Doctor Who vibes, funnily enough.

Feet of Clay

by Terry Pratchett · published 1996 · read 2008-05-01

Introducing and exploring golems, with all the usual free will stuff attached. Not bad, though I think I enjoyed the Watch banter most, and then the monarchy side plot, and only then the main plot.

Waiting for Godot

by Samuel Beckett · published 1952 · last read 2010-04-07

Waiting for Godot showed me how free literature was, and the things a determined author can do with and through (and arguably to) a group of actors. I like it for this learning impact, a lot.

Die Zeit fährt Auto

by Erich Kästner · published 1928 · read 2008-04-01

The first Kästner poems I ever read – overlaps with the others, but reading a Kästner poem twice is good for the soul, anyways.

The Winter Queen

by Boris Akunin · published 1998 · read 2008-04-01

Fandorin was fun – I read more than just the first, but was too lazy to add them. Mysteries in Tsarist Russia. The mystery and plot is lame, but the character is alright and the setting is gorgeous.

The Well of Lost Plots

by Jasper Fforde · published 2003 · read 2008-03-01

More literary gags (jurisfiction meetings waiting for Godot before getting started, you get the drift). There's always more witty worldbuilding, and since that's what I continue to read the series for, I still don't recall much of the plot.

Die Wilden Hühner und das Glück der Erde

by Cornelia Funke · published 2000 · read 2008-03-01

Inevitably, there is a horse book. Because girls. And horses. That seems to be the reasoning, at least as far as I remember it.

The Trial

by Franz Kafka · published 1925 · read 2008-03-01

I don't do well with Kafka, and this one was no exception. I'm not debating the quality or skill of execution, it's just that Kafka makes me feel truly terrible in a way that I don't care to introduce artificially if I can avoid it.

Maria Stuart

by Friedrich Schiller · published 1800 · read 2008-02-01

Honestly, I don't remember much of this one except that I started out interested (Mary, after all, has a quite dramatic story to her name) and ended up bored.

Eldest

by Christopher Paolini · published 2005 · read 2008-02-01

This may be where I discovered my love of training sequences – at least, the training is all I remember of this book. No great loss, I think. Was this my first overhyped generic fantasy book?

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

by Douglas Adams · published 1988 · read 2008-02-01

Fun ride, but not outstanding. I liked the gods, the absurdness, and – for some reason – the protagonist. Slightly annoyed with featureless female sidekicks, but what can you do. I have on occasion had the uncharitable thought that the titl

Rheinsberg: ein Bilderbuch für Verliebte

by Kurt Tucholsky · published 1912 · read 2008-01-01

Tucholsky wasn't much of a novelist – he shines in his newspaper articles, and sometimes, Kästner-esque, in his poems. This is a slightly cheesy (but sweet!) romance. It's cute, and the dialogue is so real it latches onto your brain, but it

Die Tante Jolesch

by Friedrich Torberg · published 1975 · read 2008-01-01

Kaffeehauskultur. Tales of the Austrian in-group.

The Silmarillion

by J.R.R. Tolkien · published 1977 · read 2008-01-01