Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland
82 pp., 4-Jan-98
Fanciful story of A. Square, whose comfortable existence in two dimensions is interrupted by his encounter with a sphere.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
159 pp., 6-Jan-98
The classic. Look for the book-on-tape version, recorded by the author. It is pure delight.

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
250 pp., 13-Jan-98
Part Two of the so-called trilogy. My attempt to read through all my books in order was foiled when I accidently returned my copy of Life, the Universe, and Everything to the library.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi, Car Talk
206 pp., 17-Jan-98
Paper version of the radio program. Just as enjoyable, and with plenty of helpful information about buying and keeping a car. "The cheapskate pays the most!"

Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls
417 pp., 24-Jan-98
Fragmented, but a classic. Jointly read with some school friends, I couldn't find a copy and had to download, print, and bind the text from the Online Books page.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
124 pp., 28-Jan-98
Short but insightful autobiography.

John and Mary Gribbin, Richard Feynman: A Life in Science
284 pp., 14-Feb-98
The least worthy of all the Feynman material. They pad out the same information found in the better written Genius (by James Gleick) with tabloid revelations from personal letters.

Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol
162 pp., 20-Feb-98
Somehow you feel you learn more about Nabokov than his subject.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
504 pp., 9-Mar-98
Great book. A short-lived attempt to continue my goal of eliminating unread books from my shelf, bogged down by Northanger Abbey.

Frederick Barthelme, Painted Desert
243 pp., 6-Apr-98
Hilarious story with great cover art.

Rolling Stone editors, U2: The Rolling Stone Files
323 pp., 9-May-98
Informative, includes lots of primary material.

Piers Paul Read, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
318 pp., 10-May-98
Unbelievable true story of a soccer team whose plane crashed in the Andes. Find out all the frightful details the movie left out.

Douglas R. Hofstadter, Le Ton beau de Marot
598 pp., 21-May-98
Another giant, sprawling masterpiece by the author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, this one focusing on the subtlties of translation.

William Gibson, Idoru
383 pp., 23-May-98
The inventor of cyberpunk finally goes to Japan.

Colin Fletcher, The Man Who Walked Through Time
239 pp., 29-May-98
He was the first person to walk the length of the Grand Canyon nonstop. A stirring and reflective story.

Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
292 pp., 20-Jun-98
Required reading for anyone who read All the Pretty Horses, part one of the Border Trilogy.

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
507 pp., 30-Jun-98

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
418 pp., 6-Jul-98
Hard to summarize; definitely worth a look.

Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream
435 pp., 25-Jul-98
A favorite, left unpublished by the author.

Regina Janes, One Hundred Years of Solitude: Modes of Reading
132 pp., 27-Jul-98
Very accessable lit-crit on my favorite novel.

Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos
295 pp., 30-Jul-98
After hearing about him for so long, I was not so impressed by my first exposure to this author. Have to try again later.

Richard B. Lee, The Dobe !Kung
157 pp., 30-Aug-98
Guess what: the hunter-gatherer people of the Kalahari desert have more free time than we do in the 'developed' world. This fascinating anthropology study is an easy read, and a good temporary escape from industrialized life. Plus, you can learn how to say 'The beer is good' in click language.

John Gardner, Grendel
154 pp., 5-Sep-98
Very clever and memorable.

Ralph Leighton, Tuva Or Bust
245 pp., 20-Sep-98
The saga of Richard Feynman and friends trying to visit a remote Soviet territory, basically because they have cool postage stamps and a capital named Kyzyl.

various authors, Nobel Prize Reader
576 pp., 12-Nov-98

Daniel J. Boorstin, The Seekers
259 pp., 18-Nov-98
Much shorter than The Discoverers or The Creators, this reads more like a survey, but very informative nonetheless.

Nicholas Baker, The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber
255 pp., 25-Nov-98
Highly original and entertaining collection of essays on such diverse topics as movie projectors, nail clips, and an exhaustive search for arcane uses of the word 'lumber.' Really, it's much better than it sounds.

Irving Stone, Lust For Life
453 pp., 29-Nov-98
Fictionalized biography of van Gogh. Hard to tell what's made up; I think I would prefer Dear Theo, the letters of the artist to his brother, collected by this author.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
532 pp., 9-Dec-98

Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
203 pp., 12-Dec-98

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
304 pp., 22-Dec-98
I was surprised to find that I didn't like this any better than when we read it in high school.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
209 pp., 25-Dec-98
Unhappy, but memorable and well-crafted story set in a Nigeria struggling with modern influences.

Milan Kundera, Slowness
156 pp., 25-Dec-98

Bertrand Imbert, North Pole, South Pole
175 pp., 30-Dec-98