A Complaint Free World, by Will Bowen

Read this book.

This is Norman Vincent Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking" restated in a very pragmatic and operational way.

Order your bracelets now, at acomplaintfreeworld.org

Influence, by Robert Cialdini

A must read. Explains why certain sales approaches work.

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This was an exhausting book to read. I didn't realize this until I was about 7/8th's through it and wondered, but what's the point?

It is one of those novels without the kind of explicit plot direction one finds in a murder mystery or simple thriller.

And in spite of this, it was ... well, interesting, throughout.

Hitman, by William Dietz

$1.40 -- that's why I read this book. I had a $5 coupon about to expire, plus a 10% off coupon, similarly about to expire. I was about to leave on a business trip and the nearest bookstore that would take my coupons was a Borders Express with extremely limited selection.

For this price, I thought it would be a good throwaway airplane book.

It ended up being only an okay throwaway airplane book.

Rickles' Book, by Don Rickles

This memoir brought back fond memories of laughing at Don Rickles during one of his TV appearances when I was a child.

The Spectrum, by Dean Ornish

Eat mostly vegetarian (with some fish), exercise regularly, meditate, have fun with folks you like. Seems like simple enough advice; according to Dr. Ornish it is also a cost-effective means to long-term good health.

Dr. Ornish pokes fun at his reputation for severity and extremism and comes across very pleasantly and credible.

Playing for Pizza, by John Grisham

I really don't know where this came from - apparently I had requested it from the local library as a reserve book. It wasn't the legal thriller I'd anticipated from this author. Far from it. But a surprisingly enjoyable light read.

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, by Cory Doctorow

It kept my interest right up to the end. But weird, with a capital W.

Snakehead, by Anthony Horowitz

Don't make fun: it is a very quick read, a spy thriller, and so what if it turns out to be a "youth market" book at that. Go figure. I'm in the middle of a few other books and just needed the break.

Besides, it was fast and enjoyable.

2007 Best Of Lists

Best fiction of the year:

• Lord Vishnu's Love Handles, by Will Clarke
• G33k Mafia, by Rick Dakan
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid
• The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon
• Induction, by RW Riuglio (not yet available in print; I read an early proof)
  

Best non-fiction of the year:

• The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin
• The Greatest Story Ever Sold, by Frank Rich (also most depressing)
• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins

The year-end numbers are in, and are right in line with prior years: 116 books read, of which 28 were non-fiction and 88 fiction. I expect to pick up the pace a bit in 2008 but that may be because I've just glanced at the queue of 28 books in my "to-be-read" stack.