Pete's Reading

References in my notes to books I have read refer to this Reading Reference Page

Recent Readings and Ratings

Updated: 02/25/2006

A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein, Palle Yourgrau
In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas that Changed the World, Paul Kriwaczek
Foundations of Vision, Brian A. Wandell
Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception, Evan Thompson
A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science and Love, Richard Dawkins
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Michael Lewis
Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company, Roy Morris Jr.
Fantastic Fables, Ambrose Bierce
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker
Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture, Paul Hodkinson,
By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion, Terryl Givens
The Flowers of Evil, Charles Baudelaire
Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, Gerald Posner
Gothic Chic: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture, Gavin Baddeley
Secrets of the Wholly Grill, Gavin Lawrence G. Townsend
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph J. Ellis
One True God: Historical Consquences of Monotheism, Rodney Stark
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Edward O. Wilson
By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri,, Charles M. Larson
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, David Brock
A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, John P. Meier
The Origins of Virtue, Matt Ridley
Writings on an Ethical Life, Peter Singer
The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate, Allison, Borg, Crossan, Patterson
A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation, Peter Singer
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Daniel Dennett
The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman's Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond, Deborah Laake
The Rise of Christianity Rodney Stark
Mormon America: The Power and the Promise Richard Ostling & Joan Ostling

Some of my favorites

My home library is dominated by books on religion, baseball, and pseudoscience & odd beliefs. Here are some of the books that I really like:

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Magus - John Fowles
The Mysterious Stranger - Mark Twain
The Oxford History of Christianity - Edited by John McManners
The American Religion - Harold Bloom
Dumas Malone's biography of Jefferson (6 volumes)
The Complete Gospels - edited by Robert J. Miller
Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth - Curtis Peebles
The Churching of America: 1776-1990 - Roger Finke & Rodney Stark
Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion - Rodney Stark, Roger Finke
A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - Karen Armstrong
Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science - Martin Gardner
The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics - Robert P. Crease & Charles C. Mann
Forty Studies that Changed Psychology - Roger R. Hock
Total Baseball - Pete Palmer & John Thorn
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract - Bill James
The Thurber Carnival - James Thurber
The New World Order - Pat Robertson (This book is entertaining enough alone, but even more so if you can read elsewhere about Robertson's anti-semitic sources, which the book itself is careful to conceal.)