More Books from the Library

Books I've gotten from the San Francisco Public Library (Mission Bay Branch) since my last books post in August:

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs
Beijing Coma: A Novel by Ma Jian
Our Inner Ape by Frans De Waal
The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Wireless by Charles Stross
Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age by Andrew F. Jones
The City & The City by China Miéville
A Thousand Days of Wonder: A Scientist's Chronicle of His Daughter's Developing Mind by Charles Fernyhough
The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ascher
The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard
Quantico by Greg Bear
Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress by Candacy A. Taylor

And I'm currently reading John Adams by David McCullough

The best fiction was a tie between "Beijing Coma" and "We Need to Talk About Kevin", both of which are extraordinary. "A Thousand Days of Wonder" was the best non-fiction, but I'll call out "The Works: Anatomy of a City" if you're an infrastructure nerd. And if the title of "The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down" sounds really interesting to you, it's worth reading.

My Google Listen Soundtrack

I use Google Listen on my Android-powered phone to listen to podcasts. It's quite nice, and I've basically time-shifted all my NPR and other radio listening to it.

Here's what I'm currently listening to, in no particular order:
* Planet Money - Straightforward, non-polemical discussion of financial stories.
* Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! - A weekly news quiz/humor show.
* The Moth - Stories told in front of a live audience with no notes.
* Onion Radio News - One minute humor pieces from the genius that is the mighty Onion empire.
* This American Life - Observational stories or long-view reporting on a theme.
* Radio Lab - A science show? A psychology show? With some some pretty daring editing (for NPR).

Reading the above, I see why I don't write promotional blurbs for a living, but all of them are worth listening to.