Books I read in 2023, on my Kindle, most of them free on Project Gutenberg. Some were frivolous just for the fun of it, and some were fascinating true stories, such as Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (three aboriginal children elude the authorities and walk a thousand miles through the Australian desert back to their native homes).
Woodburn Grange vol. 1 by William Howitt
Tom Swift Circling the Globe by Victor Appleton
Woodburn Grange vol. 2 by William Howitt
Woodburn Grange vol. 3 by William Howitt
The Seeker by Harry Leon Wilson
Sailing Around the World Alone by Joshua Slocum
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
The Frozen Pirate by William Russell
Daring and Suffering by William Pittenger
Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers
The House on the Cliff by Franklin W. Dixon
Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers
Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers
The Hampstead Mystery by Watson & Rees
Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers
The Secret of the Old Mill by Franklin W. Dixon
The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon
Tom Swift and His Flying Boat by Victor Appleton
The Star of India by Edward Ellis
Tom Swift and His Undersea Search by ictor Appleton
Murder Must Exercise by Bruce Hammack
Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders by Victor Appleton
The Garden Mystery by Arthur Gask
Dirty Work for Doughgod by W. C. Tuttle
Excavating for a Husband by Ella Bell Wallis
The Presidential Snapshot by Bertram Lebhar
Prester John by John Buchan
Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr
Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts by Arthur Weigall
The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein
A New Name by Grace Livingston Hill
Be Young Again! By Murray Leinster
Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw
Tarzan and the Lost Empire by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Glory of Clementina Wing by William John Locke
Kenny by Louis Bromfield
The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne by William John Locke
The Treasure of the Bucoleon by Arthur Howden Smith
Beyond the Sunset by Arthur Howden Smith
The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
A Map of Days by Random Riggs
The Earl’s Promise vol. 1 by Charlotte Riddell
The Earl’s Promise vol. 2 by Charlotte Riddell
The Earl’s Promise vol. 3 by Charlotte Riddell
Clubfoot the Avenger by Valentine Williams
Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive by Victor Appleton
Courier to Marrakesh by Valentine Williams
The Pigeon House by Valentine Williams
The Clue of the New Pin by Edgar Wallace
The Clue of the Twisted Candle by Edgar Wallace
The Square Emerald by Edgar Wallace
The Green Archer by Edgar Wallace
Artemis by Andy Wier
The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Through Glacier Park by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Tish by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
More Tish by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Tish Plays the Game by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Hampstead Mystery vol. 3 by Florence Marryat
The Cask by Freeman Wills Crofts
The Starvell Hollow Tragedy by Freeman Wills Crofts
Inspector French’s Greatest Case by Freeman Wills Crofts
Survival Kit by Frederick Pohl
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald
The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Moving Finger by E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Malefactor by E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Kingdom of the Blind by E. Phillips Oppenheim
Typee by Herman Melville
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
The Ways We Hide by Kristina McMorris
Tarzan and the Lion Man by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Jovial Ghosts – Topper by Thorne Smith
Did She Fall? by Thorne Smith
Ruggles of Red Gap by Harry Leon Wilson
The GMan’s Son at Porpoise Island by Warren Robinson
Dialstone Lane by W. W. Jacobs
The Operator by Robert O’Neill
Project Hail Mary by Andy Wier
Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru by Hiram Bingham
The House On The Marsh by Florence Warden
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
A Fire at the Exhibition by T. E. Kinsey
Hunting the Bismark by C. S. Forester
Plain Murder by C. S. Forester
The Master Spy by Arthur Gask
The Ponson Case by Freeman Wills Crofts
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
The Caravaners by Elizabeth Von Arnim
The Crime at Vanderlynden’s by R. H. Mottram
The Rasp by Philip MacDonald
City Primeval by Elmore Leonard
Thanks for sharing, Bruce!
That's alot of reading Bruce. Here's my 2023 list mostly non-fiction-
An Irish Atlantic Rainforest by Eoghan Daltun
Oscar A life by Matthew Sturgis
A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
Where we go from here by Bernie Sanders
Dracula by Bram Stoker
France from Gaul to De Galle by John Julius Norwich
The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes
The Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes
Over our Dead Bodies by Ken McKenzie & Todd Harra
Flourishing by Maureen Gaffney
Israel a concise history by Daniel Gordis
Electrify by Saul Griffith
Tony 10 by Tony O' Reilly
Be More human by Tony Riddle
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Wild New World by Dan Flores
First Peoples in a New World by David J Meltzer
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Various Poirot Mysteries by Agatha Christie
I read a ton of books that I'm pretty sure no one here will be interested in, but because I see a few SF books listed, let me recommend the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.
Set in the future, and off-Earth, corporations control much of the colonies and facilities. Murderbot started life as a SecurityUnit (SecUnit), a cyborg with a mix of cloned/farmed brain and other tissue and metal parts. It's treated as a device by its corporate owner and is rented to mining facilities, planetary surveys, etc. It has a governor module which keeps it in-line...or it did before Murderbot was part of some sort of massacre. It hacked the module but, without knowing what else do, is continuing to do its job while downloading and watching a lot more media. Its latest contract is with a bunch of academics doing a planetary survey to see whether their non-corporate polity should take out a lease on the planet. Weird stuff starts happening and Murderbot has to somehow keep its clients from getting killed. First book is a novella, All Systems Red. Series has won multiple awards--Hugos (voted on by members of sf/f worldcons) and Nebulas (voted on by sf/f writers).
content warnings: lots and lots of swearing and violence, no in-scene sex but various characters are in a variety of relationships, lots of people being sh*tty.
I read too many dusty old tomes coming up with a whole list would take serious headscratching. I actually read quite a few books just on surveying in the last year: first for exam prep and then for general knowledge. Naturally the ones of greatest interest were the ones least relevant to the test- Pincushion Effect and Broadus's book on common law in washington. I started Skelton's and Beardslee's books as well which have been good so far.
A choice quotation from Skelton, chapter 1 paragraph 2: "A description by which the property may be identified by a competent surveyor with reasonable certainty, either with or without the aid of extrinsic evidence, is sufficient, for the office of a description is not to identify but to furnish a means of identification and any description is sufficient by which the identity of the premises can be established."
Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles 7th
The U.S. Public Land Survey System for Missouri
Riparian Boundaries for Missouri
Writing Legal Descriptions 4th by Gurdon H. Wattles (again)
