The Handplane Book, by Garrett Hack

I wanted to know more about how to tune up my handplanes. For those of you wondering, these are fundamental to woodworking: they take a small shave of wood, enabling boards to meet each other tightly for jointing them together in a variety of ways. It is important to working with wood.

About a quarter of the book was interesting. The remainder was more about planes than I ever wanted to know. The target audience seems to be collectors of old planes and those who are unnaturally obsessed with this topic.

The Table Saw Book, by Kelly Mehler

This book will tell you more about table saws than you knew you wanted to know. But it is more of an entry level, beginner's guide than a long-term useful reference for a hobbyist woodworker. And the author's fascination with European saws is annoying: most folks in the target demographic for this book are not eager to spend $5,000 on a European saw.

One good takeaway though: a saw with a riving blade is better than one without, all things considered.

The Charlemagne Pursuit, by Steve Berry

Berry's latest Cotton Malone spy adventure follows his usual formula. That is to say, the personal involvement of a US President is unconvincing, the extent of the bad guy's evil deeds is convincing, it all ends up just swell but with an open door to the inevitable next book.

I really can't complain as it mostly held my interest.

The Complete Guide to Sharpening, by Leonard Lee

This is the definitive guide to sharpening almost anything. The high magnification shots - a razor blade at 4 microns, and a chisel blade just as sharp - are great. A guide to how to sharpen almost anything, and more about metallurgy than I ever wanted to know.

Bones, by Jonathan Kellerman

Kellerman's crime novels feature psychologist Alex Delaware and police detective Milo Sturgis. This one is by the book: interesting but unexceptional.

A Fighter's Heart, by Sam Sheridan

This auto-biographical look at fighting (MMA or mixed martial arts, muay thai, and jui-jitsu) is almost great. Two chapters are noticeably weak: chapter 3, in which Sheridan reports rather than lives the events, and chapter 9, in which he tries for a book summary. A better writer might have gotten through these more effectively. But the book is worth reading for anyone curious about this sort of stuff.

2008 Best Of Lists

Best fiction of the year:

* City of Thieves, by David Benioff
* A Woman in Jerusalem, by A. B. Yehoslua
* Lamb, by Christopher Moore

Best non-fiction of the year:

* Step by Step, by Bertie Bowman
* Inside the Jihad, by Omar Nasiri
* A Complaint Free World, by Will Bowen
* Dear Mr. President, by Pink (not a book, but still the best)

The year-end numbers are in, and a bit higher than prior years: 151 books read, of which 39 were non-fiction and 112 fiction. Based on the queue of 48 books in my "to-be-read" stack, (compared to only 28 on the stack entering 2008), it would be good for me to keep up the pace.

The sacred book of the werewolf, by Victor Pelevin

I've read some strange books and I've read many books I've not liked very much. But this may be the strangest disliked book I've read in a long time.

Why would I make such a negative statement? The book is about A Hu-li, a 2000+ year old were-fox / human female prostitute. She bedazzles clients with her magical tail (as in a fox's tail, not as in ... well, never mind). She meets a were-wolf. Or dog. But perhaps this is all really a metaphor for life in Russia today. There's lots of ponderous prose.

At this point I was going to quote from the book to make my point about the prose. But it was so distasteful, so painful, that I just can't do it. I'd tell you to find the book at a library and see for yourself, but that recommendation seems needlessly cruel.

Exit Music, by Ian Rankin

It turns out that this is the terminal novel in a series featuring the character of Scottish detective Inspector Rebus. I'd not read any prior. I found the dialog and plot lines to be very interesting. The ending was a bit open ended, which is apparently precisely the effect the author sought, but isn't the neat and tidy closure one usually finds in a mystery novel. Still, it was quite good. But I'm not motivated to read the earlier books in the series.

Angel's Tip, by Alafair Burke

I really enjoyed this mystery. You could tell there was a prior novel featuring the same main character, but Ms. Burke wasn't annoying about the links, so it didn't bug me too much. The dialog, plot line and action were all very good.