• 10's: none.
• 9's: Ishmael, Quinn; Norwegian Wood, Murakami; Kafka on the Shore, Murakami; Collapse, Diamond
• Average rating: 6.3

I might be reading a lot this year (uh, or I might not), so I figured I'd keep track of the books I read and rate them. It seems to be the cool thing to do. Reverse chronological. Ratings are from 0 to 10. Things are novels unless otherwise mentioned. See also 2005.

• Masters and Monsters, Victor Mollo (bridge.) I love these stories, so amusing what happens at the table. 9.
• Ishmael, Daniel Quinn. This is very similar to Jared Diamond's Collapse, except that it is written as a pointed novel rather than a history. I loved Collapse, convincing and scary as it was, and I had a similar reaction to this. The novel format worked well, and it was very gripping and powerful. You should really read this book. Some of the arguments were a bit dicey (though most held water to this skeptical logician), so I only give it a 9.
• Othello, William Shakespeare (play.) I found this story rather hard to believe, and I guess with a particularly charismatic actor as Iago it would make more sense. But even so, if at any point any two of the people he was trying to fool had talked to each other, his plan would have come crashing down, and meanwhile he was able to convert Othello so easily. I mean, I know that supposedly he was preying on Othello's inner fears, but the Moor really didn't seem to exhibit those even at all before his intervention. 4.
• A Long Way Down, Nick Hornby. Apparently this book has been getting really terrible reviews, but I really liked it. I continue to be amazed at Hornby's ability to credibly write from a variety of different perspectives; I think he pretty much nails all four of the main characters, even though they are all very different and come from very different cultures. I guess the most appropriate compliment for this book is that it's hard to imagine anyone writing a better version of it. 8.
• The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck (self-help.) I read this pop-psychology best-seller on my mother's recommendation. My review can best be summed up in a quote from Stephen Hawking: "Creationists often try to use the second law [of thermodynamics] to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw. The second law is quite precise about where it applies: only in a closed system must the entropy count rise. The earth's not a closed system; it's powered by the sun. So fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun." I'm tempted to give this a 0 or 1, but there was some vaguely relevant if horoscopic stuff in it about the nature of love, so give it a 2.
• Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami. Another phenomenal book; I guess this was the book which made Murakami famous, and it certainly deserved to. Of all the Murakami I've read, this had the added bonus that I found myself really empathizing with the protagonist; partly this is because it's less surreal than most of his work, with no real traces of the supernatural, and it reads simply like an extremely interesting, poignant, well-written human story. 9.
• Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami (trans. Philip Gabriel.) This is the first Murakami I've read that I found disappointing. Maybe it was the wrecked emotional state I was in when I was reading it, but things just didn't seem to tie together very well; it certainly had his trademark surreality, but there was no hook, I couldn't get involved with the plot, and I didn't think the quality of writing was that good. I mean, relative to his other stuff; it was still worth reading, but not remotely exceptional. 4.
• Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer. I really didn't like the first half of this very much; I found all the jumping between stories to be jarring and interruptive of the narrative. The second half, though, was much, much better, as all the stories converged. I especially liked the Ukranian translator character, who is worth reading for his ingenious neologisms/mistranslations alone. I guess that all adds up to a 5.
• The Life of Pi, Yann Martel. I could never get into this. It's not that it was terribly objectionable in any way; I just found it neither entertaining nor thought-provoking. The plot wasn't terribly interesting, the writing wasn't terribly good, and the protagonist wasn't terribly human or well-developed. 3.
• Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami (trans. Philip Gabriel.) I'm not sure why I like Murakami exactly. Maybe it's his excellent writing style. Maybe it's his general indie hipsterness (?), which I aspire to. Maybe it's the translator. But I always love his books, and this one is no exception. He's not just churning out novels to take advantage of the fact that people will buy them anyway, which is awesomely refreshing. 9.
• How to be Good, Nick Hornby. I must admit, I am always skeptical of these novels where the protagonist and author are of different genders. But it seemed very believable to me (admittedly, I (a) am not a woman, and (b) live pretty much in an atypical world as far as gendering goes), and I thought it was well-written and interesting and, surprisingly, thought-provoking (I usually don't read my novels for thought provocation.) 8.
• Collapse, Jared Diamond. This is an excellent summary of why society is doomed unless we get our shit together, as well as some evidence that we won't get our shit together. I believe it. We're destroying the environment and we're doomed. No, seriously, no sarcasm at all. Fuck. 9.
• The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell. Pretty good; sort of like Freakonomics, with random case studies illustrating Gladwell's fascination with the discontinuous nature of fads and epidemics. I just wasn't particularly gripped by it intellectually, is all. 6.
• The Art of Seduction, Robert Greene (nonfiction.) I didn't like this as much as 48 Laws of Power. It has the same basic idea; he presents themes and then comes up with historical examples to support it. The maxims are all right, but they seem much more suited to the past than to the present-day world. I guess this is inevitable with the format, but I don't think that I today am in a similar starting position to an aristocratic protagonist of yesteryear, which brings me to another problem: too many of the anecdotes are from fiction. 3.
• The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006 (baseball.) This is not so much a preview of the 2006 season as it is a recap of the 2005 season, chock full of interesting articles. If you're interested in sabermetrics, you will probably love it. If you just want projections of players, it's not for you. 8.
• Bridge, Zia ... and Me, Michael Rosenberg (bridge.) The thing that I really took to heart here was Rosenberg's story of how he gained confidence at bridge: "For the first eighteen months I was low on confidence. Then I realized something which turned it around for me. I had been reading about, and watching, the best players in the country, and they all made numerous errors. I could win, not because of how well I played, but because of how badly they played! Even Zia, whom I regarded as the best player, was `hopeless'. I felt much better. I wasn't scared any more." This book also has some anecdotes (though not enough) and ... ridiculously hard play problems (I mean, things that Rosenberg got wrong! Come on.) 7.
• The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene (nonfiction.) This outlines 48 maxims to keep in mind when trying to become ruthless and conquer your foes; most of them seem to apply mainly to politics, war, and seduction. I'm not sure how applicable this is to my life, but it's a curious look into a world foreign to me, and it has a large number of interesting and well-told historical anecdotes. 7.