Read in 2003

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January

History of Macau - A Student's Manual by Rosmarie Wank-Nolasco Lamas.  Institute of Tourism Education, Macau, SAR, China, 1999.  ISBN 972-97314-2-X.

A complete historic overview, from first exploration to the present day, of the Portugese colony on the Pearl River Delta.

Battle of Wits - Steven Budiansky.  Penguin Books, London, 2001.  ISBN 0-14-028105-3.

The story of English and American code breaking efforts during World War II.

February

Linked - The New Science of Networks by Albert-László Barabási.  Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA, 2002.  ISBN 0-7382-0667-9.

How everything is connected to everything else and what it means for science, business and everyday life.

March

The Perfect House by Witold Rybczynski.  Scribner, New York, NY, 2002.  ISBN -7432-05686-3.

 A charming personal tour and informal history of the villas and other works of Venetian architect Andrea Palladio.

April

The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester.  Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2001.  ISBN 0-06-019361-1.

How William Smith, an English canal digger, mapped the geological layers of England and invented modern geology.

May

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.  G.P. Putnam & Sons, New York, NY, 2003.  ISBN 0-399-14986-4.

Another view of William Gibson's dense, terse, enigmatic brand of technological fiction; this time set in the present.

June

Mutations by Rem Koolhaas & The Harvard Project on the City, Sanford Kwinter, Stefano Boeri & Multiplicity, Nadia Tazi and Daniela Fabricius.  ACTAR,  Barcelona,   2002.  ISBN 84-95273-51-9.

A collection of polemical essays dealing with urbanism and the many-dimensional relationship between the city and the world.

July

In the Wake of Madness by Joan Druitt.  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 2003.  ISBN 1-56512-347-6.

A true story of of the event and aftermath of a ruthless sea captain's murder by his own crew in the Pacific Islands in 1842.

Michaelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King.  Walker & Company, New York, NY, 2003.  ISBN 0-8027-1395-5.

An historical account of the political, religious and artistic events surrounding the creation of the incomparable Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco from 1508 through 1512.

August

A Mapmaker's Dream by James Cowan.  Shambhala, Boston, MA, 1996.  ISBN 1-57062-196-9.

The Meditations of Fra Mauro, Cartographer to the Court of Venice, on the means by which we construct our philosophical view of the world.

Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville by Steven Jay Gould.  W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 2003.  ISBN 0-393-05755-0.

Essays that look analytically at the phenomenon of our national pastime through the lens of a popular scientist.

September

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer.  Doubleday, New York, 2003.  ISBN 0-385-50951-0.

A history of Mormon Fundamentalism as told through the story of the violent murder of Brenda and Erica Lafferty by two of Erica Lafferty's uncles.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel.  Canongate Books Ltd., Edinburgh, 2002.  ISBN 1-84195-425-X.

A fictional (or is it?) first person account of a boy who survives the sinking of a cargo ship and 227 subsequent days on a life raft.

October

The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin.  Hyperion, New York, 2003.  ISBN 0-7868-6921-6.

A novel (yes, by that Steve Martin) about a man trying, and learning, to live with obsessive compulsive disorder.

The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy.  G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 2003.  ISBN 0-399-15136-2. 

A trashy, but satisfying, tale of vigilante justice against terrorists by a select group of American assassins.

November

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis V. Gerstner.  Harper Collins Publishers, London, 2003.  ISBN 0-00-717087-4.

The story of IBM's makeover during the nineties, told by the man who was in charge of managing it.

December

Absolute Friends by John LeCarre.  Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2004.  ISBN 0-340-83287-8.

A taut, dense, rich and complex fictional account of two friends whose acquaintance parallels and mirrors the tragedies of modern conflict.