Here's a quick survey of my favorite books that I read in 2006. This accounts for maybe a sixth of the books that I read. That may be a high percentage, but I try not to read very many bad books. Life is much too short for that. This is in no particular order.
Practical Common Lisp by Peter Siebel
I
think I prefer Siebel's writing to Paul Graham's. I hope he keeps
writing, about Lisp or anything else. (Should you see this, Peter, I
beg of you to start a blog.) This book is a much easier read than
Graham's
ANSI Common Lisp, although that is also worth a look.
By the way, this one is available for free online
here. I also recommend checking out
this lecture by Siebel on Google Video.
The Complete Essays of Mark Twain
Twain's genius was simply staggering. I find his modernity shocking--one can't believe reading this that it was written (mostly) in the 19th century. I particularly enjoyed the essays written to or by Satan.
The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney
This is in the category of "books that now have scars from being thrown across the room in fits of rage." Mooney details a top-down assault on the scientific enterprise, and not just in
matters related to the origin of species. I don't think I would have appreciated the apparent lurch in the opposite direction back in November quite as much had I not read this book. The writing is not spectacular, but this is an important book.
CLR via C# by Jeff Richter
This is the definitive CLR book. If you think you know everything about the CLR... you don't know everything about the CLR. Read this book if you haven't yet quit your day job to found a Haskell startup.
Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer
This is a story about a Hungarian basketball player set against the (failed) revolution of 1956. It has a certain Catch-22 quality to it. Dark comedy done very well.
Step Across This Line by Salman Rushdie
This is a collection of nonfiction essays. The title essay--an adapted lecture--is breathtaking. In general (although it applies much less to this work than it does to
Midnight's Children, for example), Rushdie's ability to hold his reader's attention for a page-length sentence never ceases to amaze me. Read this if you were wondering what Rushdie thinks about the
Spurs.
Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man:" A Biography by Christopher Hitchens
(This doesn't seem to be out in the United States yet, so I'm a little puzzled as to how I got a copy.)
Read this by flashlight on the roof of my building on a particularly sweltering summer night spent without power. To have had a hand in two of history's great revolutions is to have truly lived.
Down and Out In Paris and London by George Orwell
I am a strong believer that schools should teach more of Orwell's nonfiction (this is a novel, but it is almost entirely autobiographical) and not just those of his books that can segue into anti-communist rants by public school teachers. High school in the U.S. can leave one with a somewhat distorted view of Eric Blair.
Homage to Catalonia remains my favorite of his books, but his first is quite vivid and gives the reader a renewed appreciation for labor laws. The French isn't very difficult French.
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
I know that I said these were in "no particular order," but ok, I admit that this one was my favorite. I am not sure how likely this is to inspire mass apostasy by its own merits. Few true believers seem to be able to make it through what they consider the most important book ever written, so struggling through a few hundred pages of Dawkins seems unlikely. Nevertheless, The God Delusion does a great service in motivating nonbelievers and getting the issue into the foreground. Read it twice if you have to.