This week the Broke and Bookish are tackling books they meant to read last year, but didn’t. Well, so am I.
1. India: A History & China: A History, John Keay
These were on the short list for last year’s Asian history review, buuuut I wound up reading about modern China and India instead. Their time will come.
2. Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, Ted Kaczynski
So…early last year Ted Kaczynzki’s publishers asked if I would like a free copy of Ted’s new book in exchange for a review. Once I recovered from the sheer weirdness of being asked to review the Unabomber’s book, I said…well, sure! I figure they used Goodreads readers of Ed Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang to find prospective reviewers, since that novel is about eco-bombers.
And er, for the record, I don’t endorse sending people bombs in the mail. It’s against the nonaggression principle and everything. Also, the postage on bombs is through the roof these days.
3. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies; Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Related: Rise of the Robots, something still on the “Get around to it” list. Not to mention Nicholas’ Carr’s The Glass Cage, and a lot of other tech books..
4. The Gulag Archipelago, Volume III
This is the shortest and least depressing volume, which ostensibly would make it the easiest to read. When its time came around, though, I was trying to make up for falling behind in one of my challenges.
5. Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ
and This is Your Brain on Parasites
Both of these were purchased during a science sale for Kindle books, along with Kingpin, I Contain Multitudes, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, and Survival of the Sickest. I’m not sure why Kingpin (a book on cybercrime) qualified, but a sale is a sale.
6. The Great Famine and The Cultural Revolution, Frank Dikotter
I kept accidentally alternating books about Soviet misery and Chinese misery and decided “Yep, I am not reading any more Frank Dikotter this year. Too many dead people.”
7. The First Family: The Birth of the American Mafia, Mike Dash
I read half of this before the digital loan ended and it went poof. I’ll go after it again.
8. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918, Alexander Watson
I checked this out in October, but there was too much going on, and…well, as with Dikotter I’d just had my share of mass murder for the year.
9. Bikin’ and Brotherhood, David Charles Spurgeon
Bikers are inherently cool, but I’m also interested in gang psychology. The “brotherhood” part of this title keeps me pondering buying this one now or later. So far it keeps getting pushed to “later”.
10. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Sherry Turkle
This one has been on my “to read eventually” list ever since it came out. Maybe this will be the year.
Reading Freely 
An interesting selection of books! I hope that you enjoy these when you get around to them. 🙂
What a bizarre review request… makes for a great story though!Those all sound very interesting. Apart from your challenges, do you typically prioritize books to read or select them at random?
Aside from the yearly challenge and a few seasonal periods (April = English lit/history), I usually just surf, following my moods. For instance, a couple of years ago I decided to read a WW2 book from my home library that was about to be shelved. That kicked off a WW2 binge that lasted a couple of months, and then it faded.
I should add Alone Together on my TBR, it looks like a book I`d love and I`m very interested in the subject. It`s funny how we have this technology to connect with people all over the world, though in some ways we are lonelier than ever. Yup, definitely adding that book to my TBR.Carmen`s Reading Corner
An eclectic mix that does not include much I would miss. However the Second Machine Age and Ring of Steel sound good.
I plan on trying Ring of Steel yet again, probably in October.
She has done a sequel called “Reclaiming Conversation”. First things first, though! I recently saw a statistic about mental health issues rising sharply in teenagers which attributed it to a lack of real socialization: it's like people don't know how to talk to each other anymore. Considering that's nearly as basic as eating or falling asleep, it's incredible to consider.
Interesting list! I hope you have time to read all that you want to. Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.
I haven't heard of any of these but I hope you enjoy all of them when you get to them. Tina @ As Told By Tina
Gut is on my reading list (possibly this year) as is Glass Cage (summer?).
Ah, so many of these just went on my TBR.
Is the “First Family” one of them? I was reading that when you posted your Black Hand review, I think.
Of course, you've read his “The Shallows” fairly recently!