From Foreword to Afterword

Melvin Jules Bukiet, on books:

And there you have several miracles, first among them the wonder of a three-dimensional volume where black squiggles on white paper create worlds.

(from Glenn Vanderburg's Quotes Collection.)

The following are mini-reviews of books I read in 1996, 1997,
1998, 1999, and 2000. Also see some of the interesting articles I read.

Adams, Douglas The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

Aldridge, Susan The Thread of Life: The Story of Genes and Genetic Engineering

Alighieri, Dante The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation

Armstrong, Karen A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Armstrong, Karen In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis

Armstrong, Karen Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths

Baer, Lee Getting Control: Overcoming Your Obsessions and Compulsions

Beeching, Paul Q. Awkward Reverence: Reading the New Testament Today

Bishop, Martin J., ed. Guide to Human Genome Computing (Second Edition)

Borg, Marcus J. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith

Boyer, Robert H., and Zahorski, Kenneth H., eds. Dark Imaginings: A Collection of Gothic Fantasy

Brontë, Charlotte Jane Eyre

Brontë, Emily Wuthering Heights

Brown, William; Malveau, Raphael; McCormick III, Hays; and Mowbray, Thomas AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis

Casti, John L. Would-Be Worlds: How Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science

Chadwick, Henry The Early Church

Christie, Agatha Endless Night

Claiborne, Robert Saying What You Mean: A Commonsense Guide to American Usage

Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer

Coles, Robert The Moral Intelligence of Children

Coote, John O., ed. The Norton Book of the Sea

Crichton, Michael The Lost World

Crossan, John Dominic The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images

Danby, Mary, ed. 65 Great Murder Mysteries

Davis, Michael and Clark, Hunter R. Thurgood Marshall: Warrior at the Bar, Rebel on the Bench

Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

Dennett, Daniel C. Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness

Dewdney, A. K. 200% of Nothing: An Eye-Opening Tour Through the Twists and Turns of Math Abuse and Innumeracy

Dolnick, Edward Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis

Donald, David Herbert Lincoln

Dutta, Krishna and Robinson, Andrew Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man

Eliot, George Adam Bede

Eliot, George Daniel Deronda

Eliot, George Felix Holt, The Radical

Eliot, George The Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Eliot, George Middlemarch

Eliot, George The Mill on the Floss

Eliot, George Scenes of Clerical Life

Eliot, George Silas Marner

Ellis, John M. Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities

Ellis, Joseph J. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

Eusebius Church History

Fagan, Brian Time Detectives: How Archeologists Use Technology to Recapture the Past

Gabriel, Richard P. Patterns of Software: Tales from the Software Community

Gomes, Peter J. The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart

Gould, Stephen Jay Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin

Gould, Stephen Jay Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

Gould, Stephen Jay Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown

Greene, Hugh, ed. The American Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

Hall, Stephen S. Mapping the Next Millennium: How Computer-Driven Cartography is Revolutionizing the Face of Science

Hardy, Thomas Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Hillerman, Tony and Herbert, Rosemary, eds. The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories

Hugo, Victor The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Innes, Hammond The Wreck of the Mary Deare

Kernighan, Brian W. and Pike, Rob The Practice of Programming

Kinsley, Michael Big Babies: On Presidents, Politics, and National Crazes

MacDonald, George The Gifts of the Child Christ: Fairy Tales and Stories for the Childlike, Volume I

MacDonald, George The Gifts of the Child Christ: Fairy Tales and Stories for the Childlike, Volume II

McNamara, Robert In Retrospect

Malamud, Bernard A Malamud Reader

Meyers, Scott Effective C++: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs (Second Edition)

Mortimer, John The Trials of Rumpole

Nuland, Sherwin B. How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter

Nuland, Sherwin B. The Wisdom of the Body

Oberman, Heiko A. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil

Osborn, Ian Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals: The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Penrose, Roger The Emperor's New Mind

Pipher, Mary The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families

Postgate, John Microbes and Man

Powell, Colin An American Journey

Redinger, Ruby V. George Eliot: The Emergent Self

Rowen, Hobart Self-Inflicted Wounds: From LBJ's Guns and Butter to Reagan's Voodoo Economics

Sagan, Carl The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Sanders, E. P. The Historical Figure of Jesus

Schwartz, Jeffrey M. Brain Lock

Sheehan, Thomas The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity

Shryock, Richard H. Medicine and Society in America: 1660-1860

Singer, Isaac Bashevis The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer

Sobel, Dava Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

Spong, John Shelby Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible With Jewish Eyes

Taylor, Ina A Woman of Contradictions: The Life of George Eliot

Trott, Peter "Programming Languages: Past, Present, and Future"

Updike, John The Music School

Urban, Linwood A Short History of Christian Thought

Vermeij, Geerat J. Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life

Wilde, Oscar The Picture of Dorian Gray

Wilson, A. N. God's Funeral

Wodehouse, P. G. P. G. Wodehouse: Five Complete Novels