Here is a comprehensive list of all the books that I read in 2008. This list does not include Sherman’s Lagoon or Get Fuzzy comic books, and it does not include textbooks.
- "Jonathan Strange" by Susanna Clarke: This is a great magical realism book. It is along the lines of Harry Potter, and it depicts the magical epoch in the 19th century England. The two main characters share opposing extremist philosophies on the purpose knowledge: knowledge for the sake of knowing, or knowledge for application.
- "Like Water for Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel: This is another magical realism book, but based more around the magical culinary properties. The characters are very interesting, and their are pretty good recipes sprinkled in the book.
- "100 Years of Solitude" by García Márquez: Amazing book. The all-prevailing persistent mother is very inspiring.
- Many Terry Prachett novels including The Colour of Magic and #5-32
- The Light Fantastic
- Equal Rites
- Mort
- Sourcery
- Wyrd Sisters
- Pyramids
- Guards! Guards!
- Eric
- Moving Pictures
- Reaper Man
- Witches Abroad
- Small Gods
- Lords and Ladies
- Men at Arms
- Soul Music
- Interesting Times
- Maskerade
- Feet of Clay
- Hogfather
- Jingo
- The Last Continent
- Carpe Jugulum
- The Fifth Elephant
- The Truth
- Thief of Time
- The Last Hero
- Monstrous Regiment
- Going Postal
- "Dear Theo" by Vincent Van Gough: Letters to Van Gough's art dealing brother, Theo. These letters are riddled with inspirational dedication to art and life.
- "The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley 1945-1975": I found about Robert Creeley through references from Robert Hunter after reading lyrics in the "Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics." Robert Creeley is a extremely talented poet, and a lot of his poetry reminds me of the beatnik style of poetry that emerged in the 50's.
- "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig: This is a great book that centrals about the notion of quality.
- "Innumerancy" by John Paulos: Numerous examples of how the general society has trouble with basic numbers. This book is another reason why words for numbers like "billion" and "trillion" should be eliminated and replaced by scientific notation.
- "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins: A great book about how genotype becomes phenotype and why it explains many behaviors of many animals. Written by the most vehement atheist in the world.
- "The Elegant Universe" by Brain Greene: If your interested in String theory, just read the first chapter. The book doesn't delve much farther into one of the leading Unified Theories of Everything than the first chapter and the rest of the book is pretty boring.
- "This is Your Brain on Music" by David Levitin: All about music from a music producer turned neurologist. The definition of music is more precise than many other scientific books I've read. The second half of the book is mostly devoted to how music affects the brain neurologically which is fascinating to no end.
- "Egg and Ego" by J.M. Slack: Life in a laboratory with great anecdotes.