Lucien's Dewey List

This is a great idea. Most of my reading is in only a few categories and this looks like a fun way to expand a bit. Here's what I've read since I started keeping track in 2002. I'm also going to start including audio books here, but I've only kept track of them since 2007.

001 - Knowledge: How to Fake a Moon Landing
004 - Data processing & computer science: Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices: Accelerated (CCNAX): Volume 1
005 - Computer programming, programs, data: Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World
020 - Library & Information Sciences: This Book is Overdue
031 - General encyclopedic works -- American: The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
069 - Museum Science: Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder
091 - Manuscripts: The Friar and the Cipher

129 - Origin and Destiny of Human Souls: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
133 - Specific topics in parapsychology and occultism: In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
146 - Naturalism: Darwin's Dangerous Idea
153 - Mental Processes and Intelligence: How We Know What Isn't So
192 - Modern British Philosophy: Unpopular Essays

220 - Bible: God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
222 - Historical Books of the Old Testament: The Book of Genesis
248 - Christian experience, practice, life: The Screwtape Letters
262 - Ecclesiology: The Myth of Pope Joan
291 - Comparative religion: A History of God

303 - Social processes: Guns, Germs, and Steel
305 - Groups of People: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of Zion
304 - Factors affecting social behavior: The World Without Us
327 - International relations: Thirteen Days
330 - Economics: Freakonomics
337 - International economics: The Lexus and the Olive Tree
338 - Production: The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: 1. Microeconomics
339 - Macroeconomics: The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: 2. Macroeconomics
355 - Military science: Intelligence in War
359 - Sea forces & warfare: Six Frigates
363 - Other social problems & services: Global Warming, Global Threat
364 - Criminology: The Devil in the White City
370 - Education: The Abolition of Man
384 - Communications, Telecommunications: The Victorian Internet
394 - General customs: A History of the World in 6 Glasses

409 - Geographical & persons treatment: Empires of the Word
417 - Dialectology & historical linguistics: The Story of Human Language
423 - English Dictionaries: The Professor and the Madman

500 - Natural Sciences and Mathematics: The Canon
510: Mathematics: Innumeracy
520 - Astronomy and allied sciences: Cosmos
521 - Celestial Mechanics: Feynman's Lost Lecture
523 - Specific celestial bodies and phenomena: The Planets
526 - Mathematical geography: Longitude
529 - Chronology: Calendar
530 - Physics: The Physics of Superheroes
537 - Electricity: Electric Universe
540 - Chemistry & Allied Sciences: The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry
550 - Earth sciences: The Map That Changed the World
551 - Geology, hydrology, meteorology: Six Degrees
553 - Economic Geology: Salt
567 - Fossil cold-blooded vertebrates: Tyrannosaurus Sue
576 - Genetics and evolution: The Blind Watchmaker
581 - Botany: Seed to Seed
597 - Cold-blooded vertebrates, fishes: Close to Shore
598 - Aves (Birds): The Beak of the Finch
599 - Mammals: Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins

609 - Technology - Historical treatment: Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel
611 - Human Anatomy: Your Inner Fish
613 - Personal Health and Safety: Nutrition Made Clear
614 - Incidence and prevention of disease: Plagues and Peoples
623 - Military and Nautical Engineering: Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb
624 - Civil engineering: Why Buildings Stand Up
629 - Other engineering: A Man on the Moon
641 - Food and Drink: In the Devil's Garden
646 - Sewing, clothing, personal living: Getting Things Done
648 - Housekeeping: Dishwasher
681 - Precision instruments and other devices: The Difference Engine

711 - Area Planning: City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction
726 - Buildings for religious purposes: Cathedral
737 - Numismatics: Illegal Tender
741 - Drawing and drawings: Understanding Comics
761 - Prints and Printmaking: Relief Process: God's Man, Madman's Drum, Wild Pilgrimage
781 - General Principes & Musical Forms: How to Read Music
791 - Public performances: If Chins Could Kill
792 - Stage presentations: Something Like This
795 - Games of Chance: Quick Guide to Winning Blackjack
796 - Athletic & outdoor sports & games: Great Football Writing

808 - Rhetoric and collections of literature: The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories
809 - Literary history & criticism: Rings, Swords, and Monsters
811 - American Poetry: Poe
812 - American Drama: The Crucible
813 - American Fiction: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
818 - Miscellaneous writings: The Zombie Survival Guide
822 - English drama: The Tempest
823 - English fiction: Robinson Crusoe
829 - Old English: Beowulf
833 - Germanic fiction: The Metamorphosis
842 - French Drama: Waiting for Godot
843 - French Fiction: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
853 - Italian fiction: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
863 - Spanish fiction: Ficciones
870 - Latin literature: The Roman Way
882 - Classical Greek Drama: Sophocles 1
891 - East Indo-European and Celtic Literature: We
895 - Literature of East & Southeast Asia: Shipwrecks

901 - Philosophy and theory: The End of History and the Last Man
902 - Miscellany: Cartoon History of the Universe
909 - World history: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
910 - Geography and travel: Age of Exploration
915 - Asia: Early Japan
918 - South America: The River of Doubt
919 - Other Areas: Pale Blue Dot
920 - Biography, genealogy, insignia: Banvard's Folly
937 - Ancient History - Italy: Imperial Rome
938 - Ancient History - Greece: Classical Greece
940 - General history of Europe: The First World War
942 - England; Wales: The Anglo-Saxon World
944 - France: A Distant Mirror
945 - Italy: A History of Venice
948 - Northern Europe; Scandinavia: The Vikings
949 - Other parts of Europe: The Fixer
951 - General history of Asia China and adjacent areas: When China Ruled the Seas
955 - General history of Asia Iran: Persepolis
956 - General history of Asia Middle East (Near East): Six Days of War
967 - General history of Africa Central Africa and offshore islands: Black Hawk Down
970 - General history of North America: 1491
972 - General history of North America Middle America Mexico: The Path Between the Seas
973 - General history of North America United States: The First Salute
974 - General history of North America North Eastern United States: Changes in the Land
975 - General history of North America Sout Eastern United States: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
979 - General history of North America Great Basin and Pacific Slope: Norton I, Emperor of the United States
985 - General history of South America; Peru: The Incas: Inside an American Empire
996 - Other parts of Pacific Polynesia: Unfamiliar Fishes

919 - Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. A very readable book about the exploration of the solar system both past and future.

I got a little lucky here. I started reading it before the challenge and assumed it would be another 520 (Astronomy) but multiple sources, including LT, have it as 919 - Geography and travel: Other areas, which I agree is a better fit. I'm guessing that wouldn't have been the "other areas" Dewey would have meant.

648 - Dishwasher by Pete Jordan. "Dishwasher Pete" describes his quest to professionally wash dishes in each of the 50 states. It was entertaining but gets repetitive. I would have preferred more info about the different locations and less of the "I'm too cool for this" attitude.

It's a 648 - housekeeping. I guess no difference is made between private and commercial housekeeping. I'm not sure what 647 - management of public households covers. Part of the fun of this challenge is looking at a category and then browsing a section of library I rarely visit.

On the plus side, I enjoy stories of people's quirky jobs or hobbies - so this may be a good way to cover a range of categories.

540 - The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry by Larry Gonick. This is a quick overview of chemistry written in the style of a comic book, by the author of the Cartoon History of the World series. I thought it was a good introduction. A few chapters toward the end got a little more detailed then I was looking for - but nothing too bad that I got totally lost.

There isn't much to say about it's classification. It's under 540 - Chemistry.

Year end count: 7/10, 32/99, 43/909

The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry looks pretty entertaining!

>7 carlym:

It was, although I think the humor is better in the history ones. There's more material and he can work the jokes into the narrative itself. Still, the chemistry version definitely keeps up the whole "learning can be fun" vibe.

646 - Getting Things Done by David Allen is about creating a system of organization for both your work and personal life. The system focuses on getting the stuff you are trying to keep track of out of your head (and recorded somewhere), being clear on the outcomes you want for your stuff, and always knowing what the next concrete action you need to do to move towards that outcome is. I don't think I'll incorporate the complete system, but there's some good tips in there.

The category 646 is a strange one - Sewing, Clothing, and Personal Living. The first two have a clear connection but third (where this book obviously fits) seems tacked on. I wonder if it was added later on or if there's a historical reason they're combined. A few libraries put it as 158 (Applied Psychology) which also fits the practical nature of most of the book.

I'm reading Getting Things Done right now!

>10 Morphidae: Neat. Let me know what you think of it. I had no idea how popular it was until I started looking around on the internet to see what software people were using for the lists and stuff.

I started trying it out at work last week - the collection phase was very tedious, but I do feel better thinking I've got it all.

I use Toodledo.com for my lists, it works very well with the GTD process, and then I have my calendar. Keeping my email box empty has been a huge help.

304 - In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman speculates on what would happen to the Earth if all of humanity suddenly disappeared. From the quick decay of New York City's infrastructure to the long lasting nature of plastics and radioactive material, Weisman's thought experiment provides a fascinating way of looking at man's impact on the environment.

It's categorized as 304 - Factors affecting social behavior. At first glance the category seems odd - in a setting without humanity, there's no social behavior to affect. There's a lot of other books on the enviroment (which would meet the category) so I guess that's why it ended up here. 577 - ecology is also related but not a perfect fit either.

809 Rings, Swords, and Monsters are a set of audio lectures by Michael Drout giving a overview of modern fantasy. Tolkien takes up about 1/2 the lectures, with other ones covering children's, Aurthurian, and Victorian fantasy as well as magical realism.

It's an 809 - literary history and criticism which is fairly straightforward, although I notice a lot of criticism is just under the same fiction category as the works themselves (813, 823, etc.). His lectures cover authors from several countries though, so it wouldn't fit as neatly in to any of those.

291 In A History of God, Karen Armstrong traces the traces the development of how the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions view God. The book is extensively researched, very detailed, and - while I found it a a bit of a tough read - does an admirable job covering the subject's 4000 years.

At 291 one it's my first 200 category. 291 is Comparative Religion which fits well. It does show some of the bias of the Dewey system when this category that covers such a wide range gets a single 3 digit category, while more specialized topics in Christianity get their own individual ones.

A History of God does seem like a momentous task. Did you find it a tough read because of style or subject matter? Or something else?

>16 carlym:

Mostly, it was the level of detail that made it tough. The subject is so vast, there's just so much information. Although I've seen people recommend it as an introduction, I think I would have been off reading it after having read a more bare bones outline of some of the topics. As someone who only has a cursory knowledge of some of these beliefs, there were instances where I had a hard time really differentiating between various camps whose positions on a subject all seemed so close. I did best when I just tried to take 20-25 pages chunks at a time and call it a day. It was both very interesting and somewhat confusing to see how many times throughout the history of those religions that people would be grappling with the same questions.

The style is decent. It's a bit dense and academic but there are plenty of references to back up her points without cluttering the text further. Her opinions sneak in a little more often then I would have liked but it wasn't too distracting. After reading the introduction, I was afraid that she had a major act to grind, but if she did, she keeps it out of most of the text.

Overall, I'd recommend it - just be ready to put some effort in.

I wanted to add some counts to see how I'm doing. I'd also like to concentrate on the secondary level (first two digits) categories - but not exclusively. I hope I counted the not assigned / no longer used categories right.

8/10, 33/99, 47/909

812 The Crucible is a play by Arthur Miller that dramatizes the Salem witch trials to show how people's fears can be manipulated. Miller discards the cultural and historical influences of the event and focuses on a very personalized story, where mass hysteria, deceit, conformity, and resistance make for a moving tragedy. It's a short but very powerful read.

The Dewey category is 812 - American Drama, which is self-explanatory. I haven't given much thought to the Dewey fiction categories so it's nice to knock one of those out. I was struck by how readable it was, so hopefully I can fill out the other drama categories.

153 How We Know What Isn't So feeds my interest in why people believe things - especially fringe beliefs like paranormal phenomena and the more out there conspiracy theories. How We Know What Isn't So looks at the issue from a psychological perspective by focusing on the cognitive and social elements of how we are given and how we perceive information. The book is at it's best (parts 1 and 2) when it concentrates on specific psychological processes that usually work to our advantage and how they can fail us when it comes to critical thinking - especially when these points are illustrated with simple psychological experiments.

The book is 153 which is Psychology - Mental Processes & Intelligence. While that's completely fitting, it's interesting to see that other books on the topic of critical thinking and uncommon beliefs are scattered throughout the catalog. Sagan's Candle in the Dark is under 001 for knowledge and Why People Believe Weird Things is 133 for parapsychology. The fact that they fit in their own section well despite being about the same general topic highlights the fuzziness of having to organize physical books.

500 The Canon, A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, this book presents a quick overview of one or more of the major basic concepts in several fields of science. There's chapters on math, statistics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and physics.

Because it covers topics from through out the 5XX range, it gets labeled a general 500 - Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

641 In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food is a popular history of food taboos and traditions. Allen presents numerous interesting anecdotes about how some of these attitudes may have arisen and their fascinating consequences. My Favorite was the history of different types of bread in France and how they were associated with the various classes.

Simply enough, the book is a 641 - Food and drink.

Thanks to kaelirenee for the recommendation in an earlier Dewey thread.

833 I can't summarize the plot of The Metamorphosis any better than the opening line:

One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

What follows is Gregor's and his family's attempts to deal with the situation. Sometimes sad and sometimes funny (in an absurdist way), this classic novella is a quick but thought provoking read.

It's an 833 - Germanic fiction.

948 The Vikings is a 36 lecture (18 hour) Teaching Company course that does an admirable covering three basic topics. 1) pre-Viking Scandinavia, 2) the famous Viking raids, and 3) the changes in Scandinavia during the Viking age. This was a pretty thorough introduction to the subject and an enjoyable change from some of the lighter "pop" histories I've been reading.

The audio lectures were cataloged the same as they would be if it was a book which was a 948 (even though it was shelved separately).

End of second quarter counts:

9/10, 36/99, 53/909

For the rest of the year, I'd like to get that last 3 digit categories (the 400's) and another 3-4 two digit ones.

The Vikings is one of the first TTC lectures I listened to. Prof. Harl has been a favorite ever since.

>26 DaynaRT:

Thanks - I wouldn't have thought to look for other courses by the same lecturer. For some reason, I assumed they'd only do one course. My local library systems has a few of the others. Is there any you'd recommend. I'm thinking about the Byzantium one - you could tell from comments in the Vikings one that he was passionate about the topic.

526 Longitude: The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel finds European nations more and more dependent on maritime activities - especially over long distances - but without the ability to accurately determine longitude at sea. The book does a good job of explaining the problem, some of the various attempts to solve it (some quite clever, others pure chicanery), and the eventual solution by an amazing piece of machinery.

The topic is 526 - mathematical geography - which makes sense given the book's title. The book, however, doesn't talk much about longitude itself. There is a little of that - what it is, why the particular divisions were used, how they came to choose where to start counting - but it's very cursory. The main thrust of the book is really on time and navigation. The various astronomical and mechanical methods for determining longitude are all based on comparing times. Plus, the book really centers around a series of chronometers. As such I think 529: chronology is just as fitting a category.

Longitude is on my TBR list for 526, so I'm happy to see positive comments about it! Maybe longitude itself isn't that interesting, and that's why she included other topics?

>29 carlym:

Oh, certainly. She puts in enough stuff about longitude itself to give you all the background you need for the main part of the tale. I don't think the book would be helped by a more rigorous mathematical explanation of angles and arc lengths. I was only thinking about the contents of the book vs. the Dewey category it was placed in.

364 In The Devil in the White City, journalist Erik Larson presents a history of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (known as the white city) and the story of H. H. Holmes, a serial killer who preyed in the fair's surroundings. I really enjoyed the part about the fair which makes up the majority of the book. The stuff about Holmes was less interesting, although that's not surprising since I'm not much of a fan of the true crime genre. I also thought Larson never really did a good job tying the two topics together. Despite jumping back and forth between them, they read as two separate tales. Those criticisms aside, the story of the fair is intriguing and well told, and I'd still recommend the book.

It's a 364 - Criminology, which works for me. Although as I said most of the emphasis is on the fair, Holmes does get a full story in the book and hey, he's the title character.

384 The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage

With this book on the invention and rise to prominence of the electric telegraph, Standage describes an interesting moment in history where the world becomes seemingly smaller. He does a good job relating the changes this technology forced in so many fields - government, news media, war, business, etc., while never losing sight that the device never lived up to the hype that often accompanies new technology - it doesn't lead to civilization's end or remove all obstacles to a peaceful world despite such outrageous predictions. There are also several anecdotes about the culture, strange uses, and misunderstandings that surrounded the telegraph. Finally, although he only touches on it with the title and in the introduction, the similarities between the story of the telegraph and that of the internet are plain for the reader to see.

It's a 384 - Communications; Telecommunications which does seem to be the best fit.

423 The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

When first compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, its creators requested submissions of literary quotes demonstrating the meaning of the word being defined. The Professor and the Madman recounts the tale of one of the most efficient and frequent of these volunteers - William Minor, who happens to done all his work for the dictionary while incarcerated in an asylum for the criminally ill. Winchester does a good job of setting the backdrop of the monumental undertaking of the dictionary's creation as well as telling the tragic story of Dr. Minor.

When I first read the list of categories, I was afraid that 423 would be only actual dictionaries - but I was pleasantly surprised the variety there - with books about dictionaries and some humorous compilations.

Also, this is my first 4xx category, so I now have one read in each of the first level divisions.

Also, this is my first 4xx category, so I now have one read in each of the first level divisions.

Congrats on the big milestone!

Thanks _Zoe_, I know I've no chance of actually completing the challenge so having little goals along the way is fun. And thanks for setting up the challenge in the first place, I'm really enjoying it.

843 The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

This book was not at all what I expected. I never knew that it was historical fiction (written in the 1830's about 15th century Paris) nor that the hunchback was only one of of several main characters. (I now know that the original French title was simply Notre-Dame De Paris).

Once you get past a few very long descriptive passages in the beginning, the book is a well told and effective tragedy. The plot has several contrivances and the characterization is not always subtle (most of the major players are emotionally very dysfunctional) but the ending remains powerful. There's also some nice touches of humour throughout and an excellent moodiness and atmosphere set by the author.

It's 843, French fiction

I'm a little late, but you're welcome! I can't take credit for thinking of the idea, though; that was Morphidae.

510 Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos

In this short book, the author discusses what boils down to a society that is, more often than not, bad at math - or at least lacking a basic foundation in the subject. The book is most interesting when it's actually talking about math itself - how to think about estimating, probability, large numbers.

It's 510 (Mathematics), which is fitting since it contains segments on general principles (511), arithmetic (513), and a lot on probabilities (519) plus a general description of math's role in society.

611 Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin

This is an evolutionary history of several parts of human anatomy including such diverse items as limbs,ears, and teeth. Shubin, drawing from fossils and genetic evidence, does a good job presenting how these parts developed across various species. I really enjoyed the book and never felt the author was dumbing down the material as seems so common in popular science works.

It's a 611 - Human Anatomy. I notice that more and more books seem to have a Dewey category on the copyright page (like the LOC). I guess that makes this an easy decision and prevents any categorizing under evolution instead

970 1491 by Charles Mann

1491 covers 'recent' developments in the study of pre-Columbian history in the Americas. The author presents a heavily researched account of how Native Americans arrived in the Americas earlier than popularly believed, where more numerous than popularly believed, and were also more sophisticated in their technology.

It's a 970 - General history of North America. There's no perfect fit since there's no general Americas category - only North (970) and South (980) America.

End of year counts:

10/10, 40/99, 61/909

537 Electric Universe by David Bodanis

Electric Universe presents several key developments in the history of the discovery and mastery of electricity. Although the individual aspects covered are interesting and well told, with the exception of a long section in the middle consisting of diary entry after diary entry, the work often feels disjointed. It seems that the author just grabbed random developments that he found interesting rather than try to find a stronger theme to tie the whole work together.

It's 537 - Electricity. That makes sense although I think more time is spent on applied rather than theoretical developments which might put it somewhere under Technology. Electricity itself, however, is the only thread present in each subject so I agree that's the best fit.

891 We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

We, written in the 1920's, is a Russian dystopian novel. The narrator starts the book as a proud worker drone in the strictly regimented and totalitarian One State, but his world view is turned upside down when he becomes infatuated with a mysterious woman. The prose - an often disjointed, almost stream of consciousness narration with rapid shifts in the protagonist's mindset - highlights the psychological aspects of people living in such a world. A very person reaction to a completely impersonal system.

It's an 891 - Literatures of other Languages - East Indo-European & Celtic. Obviously the desire to fit everything into 10 categories creates this odd 89x group, but it's interesting to see that what today would be considered one of the world's major literary powerhouses (Russia) is buried 2 levels deeper than others. It's also a chance to see Dewey's patterns at work. I usually see the book as 891.73, where the xx1.7 is Russian (same as it is under 490 - languages) and the 3 is fiction (same as it is under other 8xx categories, 813 - American fiction).

359 Six Frigates by Ian Toll

Six Frigates relates the history of the United States' early navy. Skipping the naval history of the American Revolution, he focuses on the Quasi-War with France, the first set of conflicts with the Mediterranean pirates, and the War of 1812. The title refers to a early budget measure where the government sets aside funds to build its first six frigates; frigates that go on to play roles throughout the book.

359 Sea (Naval) forces & warfare is an obvious choice for the work, although I was surprised that that particular category is under the 350s (Public Administration) so far from history.

553 Salt by Mark Kurlansky

Starting with ancient Chinese and Egyptian societies and working up to modern day multinational corporations, this book explorers the role salt has played throughout civilization. Trying to survey the intersection of a single common commodity and world history makes for an interesting but unfocused book. There's a ton of fascinating tidbits throughout the work but it tries to cover to vast a subject without the deft hand of something like A History of the World in Six Glasses.

553, economic geology, seemed like a narrow category but it had a surprisingly wide range of topics. I expected a lot of books on diamonds and oil, but found ones on sand, amber, salt, and precious metals.

974 Changes in the Land by William Cronon

Changes in the Land is a cross discipline work detailing the effect that English colonists had on the environment of New England in the 17th century. Cronon does a good job handling the complex interplay of history, culture, economics, law, and ecology of the natives and colonists. This is a scholarly work with copious sources and directly sourced statements.

It's a 974, General history of North America; Northeastern United States. As a cross-discipline work I guess it could go in a few different categories, but most other books on colonial interactions with native Americans are in the 970s as well.

Mid year counts:

0/10, 41/99, 66/909

where the 10 represents top level categories in which I've read 1 book from each second level group.

792 Something Like This by Bob Newhart

This is an audio recording of some of Bow Newhart stand-up routines. In any anthology you're going to get some hits and some misses but this had plenty of hits. Some routines (Abe Lincoln and the ad-man and the one on defusing a bomb) were hysterical and those I didn't love gave me a few smiles and never felt like they were going on to long.

It's a 792, Stage presentations, which if you're assigning Dewey numbers to everything (it's not really an audio-"book") makes sense.

629 Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin

This history of the Apollo moon missions focuses on the astronauts and some of the support crew. Chaikin uses numerous interviews to provide a real sense of these people. It's a good overview of the missions that actually went to the moon (the preparatory missions that traveled there, the landings, and the failed Apollo 13). I wouldn't of minded a bit more about earlier Apollo missions (maybe use Apollo 4 to talk about the rocket scientist von Braun and little more about NASA administrator Mueller).

629 is "Other branches of Engineering" which is where much of the early space race and moon mission works are located. Newer stuff, even those that focus on the technology - like the Mars rovers - often appear to be in 52x Astronomy section.

>44 lucien:- Too funny. You and I have almost polar opposite opinions of Salt and History of the world in six glasses (the latter I admit I'm still only about halfway through - I'm somewhere in the rum/liquor section).

I keep thinking that 6 Glasses will have more continuity, but I feel that the combination of intentionally jumping between alcohols and time/space, as well as the layout with short sections makes the reading very choppy. At times I feel the writing is just there to tick each box, but that really all he wanted to say was the interesting factoid towards the end of each section/chapter that could be useful to whip out at a cocktail party.

Salt was more compelling of a story to me for the first half than the second, but the continuity of one commodity, Kurlansky's writing, and the fact that I was listening and enjoyed the narrator's voice all pulled it together for me.

>48 GoofyOcean110: - Ha, that is interesting. I think, for me, the fairly consistent structure of each section (some history of the drink followed by how it interacts / represents some aspect of history) was enough to tie it together, especially considering the breezy nature of the writing.

It's been a while since I read 6 Glasses, but I remember thinking he did a job including information on how the drink represented or illuminated an aspect or era of history rather than being the driving force behind it. I often feel these micro-histories oversell their topic.

I liked Salt for the most part and agree that the first half was better than the second (although I thought Gandhi's salt march was summarized very well and definitely made me want to learn more about it). I also listened to the audiobook* and I think, given the scope and detail, that may have been a mistake since I couldn't look into any notes the author may have included. For example, I wasn't convinced by his argument that salt supplies were such a decisive factor in the American Civil War, but couldn't follow-up on his sources. I thought the writing was fine would like to try one of Kurkansky's other works, like Cod.

*assuming there's only one edition, that's the one read by Scott Brick who I greatly enjoy. He also read The Devil in the White City which I included here for criminology.

581 Seed to Seed by Nicholas Harberd

Struggling to find a new direction for his research in plant genetics, Nicholas Harberd turns to observing plants in their natural setting rather than his lab for inspiration. As part of that process, he chronicles a year in the life a small plant. Visiting the plant throughout the year he describes what's happening to that plant - changes which he sees directly as well as genetic and cellular processes underly those changes. I found the parts about the observed plant as well as his descriptions of his lab work very interesting but felt the book dragged with his repetitive musings on how he was stuck deciding on which new project to pursue and how he felt about the scientific world view. There was never enough depth to make those bits interesting. He does an excellent job describing the nitty-gritty science. He's usually clear and concise without talking down to the audience.

It's a 581 botany since he's using the particular plant that he observes and researches to explain plant growth in general.

It's also my first 58x making the 500s the first group in which I've read one of every second level category.

50>

It's also my first 58x making the 500s the first group in which I've read one of every second level category.

Congratulations on the milestone! The 500s were my first for that too.

#50 Congratulations on the milestone - I haven't managed it yet. The botany book looks interesting and (yay) my library has a copy!

Congratulations!

Congrats! It's interesting to hear which groups tend to be completed first. I'm not there yet, but I expect it will be the 900s (is there an unambiguous but less awkward way to say "the 10 categories of the 900s"?).

A milestone, nice! It will be a long ways before I get to that one.

Thanks everyone. I'll need to pick a new mini-challenge for next year.

>54 _Zoe_:
is there an unambiguous but less awkward way to say "the 10 categories of the 900s"?

I fight with the phrasing for that all the time. The pdf on dewey summaries from the oclc labels them as 10 classes, 100 divisions, and 1000 sections, but I don't know if it's any clearer or less awkward to say something like "all 10 divisions of the History and Geography class".

#56 Thanks for sharing the "official" labels - I think it actually is much less awkward than the way I've tried to refer to the different subdivisions. So, there are no "categories"?

Yeah, I think it will make things easier. Thanks! So, I think I'll get through all the 900s divisions first.

I've decided to refer to them to hours, minutes and seconds. I can't remember how classes, divisions and sections relate to each other.

796 Great Football Writing

American football that is. It's a collection of essays, articles, and fiction selected by the editors of Sports Illustrated going back quite a few years. They're broken up into different sections - such as the early game, great games, famous writers, player's careers, player's lives after they retire, and the downsides of the game (steroids, wear and tear on the players, serious injuries). Like any anthology there were hits and misses, probably a few more misses than hits. The most interesting to me was the series of vignettes about the earliest football games and players and the last section on the serious problems in the sport. Ultimately though I just can't get that into sports writing. I enjoy the games, but can't relate to the life or death level of importance some writers and fans attach to them. But finding that out is part of the point of the challenge I suppose.

It's 796 which is Athletic & outdoor sports & games. Not surprising but it was interesting to browse the section in the library to see what sports are most represented. Baseball wins by a long shot in my local branches.

Baseball also seems to attract more good writers than football. I suppose that's because it's considered a bit more intellectual and, to me, anyway, is more aesthetically pleasing. Were there any famous writers included in the football anthology?

In the introduction, Peter King mentions how baseball is often seen as the domain of great sports writing and claims that part of the anthology's point is to show that football has it's fair share. To this end, there is a section with famous writers - Jack Kerouac, Don Delillo, David Halberstam, and John O'Hara.

I think your point about there being something inherent in baseball that produces (or attracts) better writing is a good one. I'm not sure what it is, though. I wonder if part of it is simply that the game itself suffers the least when it's related solely by a verbal telling. I've always thought that's what makes it such a good radio sport.

822 The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The banished Duke of Milan uses his sorcery to shipwreck his enemies on the island where he lives out his banishment. He seizes the opportunity to set things right. It's a very interesting play with both a lot of backstory but a tightly plotted series of events that take place over a very short period of time.

It's an 822 - English drama. There's no surprise there, but I was surprised to realized I haven't read a Shakespeare play since 2002.

End of year counts

1/10, 42/99, 71/909

I'm thinking my goal for next year should be to either get 8 more second level divisions so I'm half way there or try for all 10 sections in a single second level division (most likely 97x).

069 Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler

The first part of this book describes the The Museum of Jurassic Technology, a strange museum / art piece that houses works of art and samples of natural history - samples which are sometimes factual, sometimes embellishments with some basis in reality, and others that seem made up whole cloth. The result is a weird and maddening place. Weschler captures those feelings well in his writing and the way he unravels the story behind the exhibits. The museum and book seem to be making a statement about both appreciating wonder and about the nature of knowledge - especially how people trust the knowledge of an authority (like a museum). The second part of the book is a more straightforward history of the 16th century wonder cabinets of which the museum reminds the author. These were scatter shot collections of art works and natural objects (often ascribed supernatural origins) collected by the wealthy.

The book is a 069, museum science. That's fitting enough even though The Museum of Jurassic Technology is more like a single large piece of art.

@65 I've been to the museum once before reading the book and once after. I thought the author did an excellent job of unwrapping the narrative of the museum without giving away too much.

I will agree that the museum was certainly maddening to see the first time. I wanted to be able to figure out what was bogus and what wasn't. It's rare that you're in a situation where everything must be critically evaluated be for you can reasonably access it. After reading the book I've given up trying to sort the facts from the fiction there and just enjoy it a as a bizarre little curio.

Where is the museum?

Los Angeles -- Culver City to be specific. It's worth checking out if you're ever in the area.

>66 fundevogel:
without giving away too much.

I agree that this was key to his success in conveying the atmosphere of the museum.

I do notice that most of the people who either review or comment on the book have been to the museum. I'm starting to wonder if the museum itself isn't made up and the online commentators are all in on the conspiracy!

That would certainly take the similarity to Tlön, Uqbar and Orbis Tertius even further. Excellent story by the way, if you only ever read one by Borges make it that one.

609 Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel by Frances and Joseph Gies

This is a very good overview of the, as the subtitle says, Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages. It covers what inhabitants of the Middle Ages inherited from the Romans, imported / adapted / incorporated from outside (the Chinese and Arab civilizations), and created on their own. The authors also use this subject to help dispel the notion of the "Dark" Ages, showing a vibrant era, while not to be romanticized, was capable of real progress.

I imagine it's peppered with words you can only find in the OED. I love those.

The construction of cathedrals and similar buildings in the Middle Ages always amazes me--it's just hard to imagine how they planned and built some of those buildings without the tools, physics, and math that weren't developed until later. Sounds like an interesting book!

>72 fundevogel:
There were a good few. Every gizmo has several doo-dads that do one very specific and unique thing. Not to mention that every inch of a cathedral seems to have it's own name. As an overview, they mostly stick to secondary sources so you don't get as many fun archaic words as you might hope.

>73 carlym:
The cathedrals are really remarkable. The authors do talk about how so much of what went in to those buildings (even little things like stained glass and metallurgy) was discovered through trial and error with little understanding of the underlying science.

I'm also amazed about how long they worked on some of those cathedrals. Here in the States, we're lucky if we can keep a public work going from one session of Congress to the next!

829 Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney

This is Heaney's recent verse translation of Beowulf, which I got way more into than I would have guessed. His introduction gives enough of an overview of what he was trying to do for the layman like myself to appreciate and I enjoyed the tale itself - both the story and language. This version also has the original Anglo-Saxon on the opposite pages which was interesting but I couldn't make too much out of it. I wonder if the (unfortunately abridged) audio version has any of that read aloud. I'd love to hear it.

It's an 829, which is Old English (Anglo-Saxon). The 8x9s don't follow a pattern as closely as the other 800 divisions. 819 (American) is unused, 849 (French) uses it for Provencal - which I think could be Old French or the modern uncommon dialect, 869 (Spanish) uses it for Portuguese (is there no Old Spanish?), 899 just uses it as a general "other", while 88x flips it and puts 881 - 888 as Classical Greek and 889 as modern Greek.

McWhorter mentions that translation in the book I'm reading now. He said it attempts to mimic old English language style. I think he meant is uses modern word groups to translate what would have been compound words that didn't survive to modern English. But that was many chapters back, I'm trying to remember what was said from a vague note I made.

It's definitely the translation I'd want to read.

As I recall Provencal is another variant of French. There used to be a lot of very different versions of French spoken throughout the country, but at some point the government mandated that everyone quit their local language and all speak Parisian French. I believe Provencal was one of the other variants that was stomped out. However, unlike the others it was later revived by people that found cultural value in it.

The Heaney translation of Beowulf made me understand why the story has survived this long.

551 Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas

Six Degrees aggregates numerous scientific articles on climate change to describe what the world will look like at each one degree increase in average global temperature. It paints a pretty bleak and vivid picture of what the future may hold. The structure is a bit artificial - things that start at say two degrees are still going on (and are now stronger) at three - so there's some jumping back and forth and repetition that would have been avoided if another approach was chosen. Given the amount of discussion in recent climate negotiations over what increase we should be aiming for, however, I thought the choice of laying the book out like that was a good one. I thought most of the book was very well done. Only the final - appeal to do something - chapter was weak. Can I call Godwin's law on a book?

551 is Geology, hydrology, meteorology. Wow, the 550s are up there with the 520s in being a bit of a mess. The huge topic of geology is bound up with meteorology (and apparently climatology) but economic geology gets is own section and 6 of 10 sections are for earth sciences of a specific region. I suspect a modern outline of earth sciences would look very different. I'll have to look at how the LOC does it.

942 The Anglo-Saxon World by Michael Drout

This set of of audio lectures by Modern Scholar covers two main topics. The first is the history of Anglo-Saxon England, while the second is a look at the civilization's culture and literature. Much of the history is pretty light-weight - at least until the 9th and 10th centuries when we get closer to the author's area of expertise. Drout is a literature professor, so even though the literature lectures are fewer in number, his infectious passion for the subject made them stand out. Overall I liked it but feel the Teaching Company consistantly puts out better courses. I don't know why Modern Scholar always forces the 14 1/2 hour lecture format. I did, however, get to hear bits of the original Beowulf (and other Anglo-Saxon works) read aloud which I've been wanting to get to since reading it.

It's a 942 which is European History: England and Wales. The fact that 941, which houses works on Britain / UK as a whole as well as Ireland, is on the same level as 942 is odd in what is usually a hierarchical system. Just another weird result of trying to force everything in to groups of ten I guess. Also, I've been doing a lot of reading on the Middle Ages lately and it's interesting to see how spread out over the system those works are - So far I've hit 6xx, 8xx, and 9xx with at least a 7xx coming up.

argh! I thought I had heard all of Dr. Drout's lectures. Here's another to add to the pile.

Ha ha. I finally get some revenge on someone else's TBR pile!

"Just another weird result of trying to force everything in to groups of ten I guess."

I've become convinced that all of 000 is a consequence of this. Virtually every book in that section could fit just as well into a section in one of the other nine classes. Is there a word for a compulsion to make the world fit a base of ten? I think Dewey had it.

Mid year counts:
1/10 44/99 76/908

#82: I agree with you on the 000s, to some extent. It would make more sense, I think, to have bibliographies, periodicals, and "general collections" sorted by topic rather than by the type of book.

>82 fundevogel:, 84
Certainly computers (another messy set of divisions) could go somewhere in technology (6xx).

As for "Is there a word for a compulsion to make the world fit a base of ten?", if there's not I'm torn between decamania and decaphilia.

882 Sophocles I by Sophocles

This volume contains Sophocles three Theban plays - Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. I read a version by University of Chicago Press translated by David Grene - which was very accessible. It's amazing how something written 2500 years ago can be so relatable. Despite being much older, in many ways it's less alien than Beowulf. Underneath the over the top tragedy and the bouts of bloodshed there are some very simple and engrossing stories that work on an emotional level. There were a couple of mythology references I had to track down but it's not like I get every pop culture reference in contemporary works either.

It's an 882 - Classical Greek drama. As I noticed before, for obvious reasons this flips the usual pattern of having the modern stuff broken out in xx0 - xx8 and the old stuff is under xx9.

"As I noticed before, for obvious reasons this flips the usual pattern of having the modern stuff broken out in xx0 - xx8 and the old stuff is under xx9."

I noticed that. It's got to be a bit of an insult to Greek literature that the ancient lit has so completely overshadowed more contemporary works. You would think all the best Greek writing was behind us the way they treat it. Of course if it weren't for the ancient writing they probably wouldn't even have a division of their own. Poor Greece.

>87 fundevogel:

It is a bit harsh but you make a good point about Greek literature at least getting a division of their own. I imagine all that cultural heritage is a tough act to follow though.

944 - A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

This covers a history of France (and to a lesser extent Europe) throughout the 14th century - with it's devastating plagues, wars, and political and religious turmoil. It took me forever to read but I'm not sure why. I enjoyed it, it's well written, I find the time period interesting, and it appears well researched (claims are directly cited with an extensive notes and bibliography section).

It's 944 - French history which is where most of the story is, although a fair amount of English history (as well a bit of other areas) is included.

P.S. Touchstones that stick across edits are awesome!

#89 This looks like a wonderful choice for this section. Thanks for the recommendation.

529 - Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle To Determine a True and Accurate Year

Starting with some early lunar calendars and the ancient Egyptian's fairly accurate solar one, Duncan traces the development of the West's current system for keeping track of the year. It's not especially scholarly, but it is a surprising rich story. There's a number of little tidbits that seem like great tales in their own right. For example, there is something of a real life Prometheus who stole the carefully guarded rules for determining the dates and posted them in town for all to see. On the other hand, he relates the apparently false explanation of why August has 31 days - so it suffers for it's lack of cited sources. There is a general bibliography.

It's 529 chronology which is a section of the astronomy division underlining the connection of the calendar to the orbits of the sun, earth, and moon.

004 - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices: Accelerated (CCNAX): Volume 1

Oh - I read it, cover to cover. And all his little friends too. Now let's never speak of it again.

Cisco books are typically 004 - Data processing & computer science. I guess it makes sense although the distinction between the computer sections isn't crystal clear to me.

End of year counts:

1/10, 45/99, 80/908

The book about the calendar looks interesting. The network devices one, not so much :)

>93 carlym:
The calendar book was interesting. There are some great little tidbits in it as well as some fascinating characters. I'd really like to read a biography of Roger Bacon. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it.

That said, it really leaves a bad taste in my mouth when an author relates a story that just sounds fishy and that I can debunk with a few minutes of poking around on the internet. Theres a few other popular books on the calendar that I've heard of (like Empires of Time) but their ratings / reviews are all about the same level. I don't know if there's one that's considered definitive.

I would have been interested as well if it weren't for the flaws you mention. I expect better.

248 - The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Lewis sets up this meditation on the spiritual life as a series of letters from a high ranking demon giving advice to his nephew who is trying to lure a human to damnation. It's a clever enough device, with opportunities for humor both in the juxtaposition of how the demon describes immoral acts as praiseworthy and in the notion of routine bureaucratic evil. (I love the line in the introduction where he advises the reader not to take the horrible portraits of human that demon draws too seriously because there are wishful thinkers in hell just as there are on Earth). Even so I don't think he capitalizes on the set-up enough - primarily, I suppose, because that's not his intention. Instead there's too much telling readers to follow an rigid code of religious behavior, taking shots against things that a conservative in the 1940s doesn't like about society, and tossing in a little "men are like this and women are like that and that's the way it is" for good measure. To be fair Lewis writes well and there are insights into human behavior here but not enough for me to recommend to a general reader. Someone with strong Christian beliefs should probably give it a try - I think they'd get more out of it than I did (although they'd have to be willing to shrug off a dated viewpoint at times).

It's a 248 which is listed as "Christian experience, practice, life." There is a strong emphasis on how to live your life (to avoid damnation) so it fits. I like Lewis' fiction (despite some problematic elements) so I thought I could get a 200 through the side door by reading essentially an (allegorical) fantasy story but no luck - it's a full on religious book.

Ah, thanks for the heads up. I wasn't sure whether that one would be suitable heathen reading or not. Too bad, as you said it's a really clever premise.

>95 fundevogel:, 97
I feel like I'm waging a one man campaign against books here!

I may have been a bit harsh on Screwtape. Lewis makes some sharp observations about people but then just focuses on how they affect one's religious life and I lose interest. I felt like at times I was fighting the text to make the arguments work more symbolically but couldn't pull it off. Maybe I'm just grumpy this week. Or maybe I should have gotten the audio version read by John Cleese.

The style is interesting. I also like how the letters are only presented in one direction - so you have to reconstruct both the junior demon and the humans through the senior official's writing.

Ah yes! How many books can you convince me not to read?! It's been a long while since I read any Lewis and the last bit was one of his religious books. I expect I'll go back and re-read some Narnia if only to see how it reading it as an adult atheist compares to reading it as a Christian child. If nothing else the man knew how to put pen to page.

I dunno.. I was actually somewhat disappointed when going back to the Narnia Chronicles as an adult.. the pacing seemed all off to me and the religiosity too blatant (the recent movies as well). But I loved them as a child and they remain in a prominent spot on my (new) shelves.

Do tell about the new shelves.

lol, varielle.
i just moved into a house from an apartment. the house has a TON of built in bookshelves all over the place, but in particular in my new home office - 2 complete walls floor to ceiling! for the first time i don't have enough to fill the available shelf space. i worry about what it would look like if i did...

853 - If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

A difficult book to summarize. Two readers start a book, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, only to find that most of the book is missing. Trying to track down the remainder of the novel, they keep coming across other novels that start but are then interrupted right as the reader gets in to them. It's a excellent novel about books and reading, even if the first chapter is overly cute. Unless you absolutely can't stand post modernism or second person narration, I strongly recommend this. I will definitely be reading more by this author.

It's 853 - Italian fiction. Although the author was born in Cuba, he lived most of his life in Italy and the book was originally written in Italian.

good to hear you liked that. i have it on my shelf somewhere and have flagged it to read, but haven't gotten to it yet. might move that up a notch.

955 - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Told in comic book form, this is a memoir of the author growing up in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution. The comic book memoir genre seems really popular right now and this is one of the better ones. I thought she did a good job of capturing a child's voice even if she's filtering events through what she knows now.

This 955 - General history of Asia: Iran - was a bonus item for me. I had read it previously and only discovered it's classification when playing with the new Dewey browser on LT. I think I got the two volumes (the second volume covers her adolescence in Europe and return to Iran) from two different libraries and they both had it in 741 (where comics usually are). The OCLC classification page, however, shows that 955 is more common. I agree that non-fiction works should go with their topic. Seriously though the OCLC page gives me a pie chart? I can't just get a table with the counts?

937 - Imperial Rome
938 - Classical Greece

These are two volumes in the Time Life series Great Ages of Man. They were quick overviews of the subjects that provide readers with a basic timeline and the main players. That was exactly what I was looking for. More well informed people probably won't get much out of them. They were written in the mid-sixties so I'm sure some things are a bit out of date. Unlike a lot of older history, however, they did include pieces on cultural history and women's roles in society.

I've put them as 937 and 938 - history of the ancient world, Italy and Greece respectively. More commonly both of these works show up as 913 (geography and travel - ancient world). I think that's a hold over of an older category (when it was geography and description). Since they are older books I assume they were most often cataloged under an older scheme. So I've decided to go with the less common but more modern classifications. Tactically a good decision. I get two new sections and one new division as opposed to only one new section. Strategically, however, it may be a failure. Books on the history of ancient Greece and Rome are easy to come by. If I discount old history books a 913 might be hard to find. Perhaps a related travel memoir?

Mid-year counts:

1/10, 48/99, 85/908

106>

Yeah, 913 is a tough category. I read The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek which I recommend.

Thanks. That does look like an interesting one. I'm still always amazed about how much traveling went on in medieval times - never mind ancient ones.

945 - A History of Venice

A History of Venice covers the history of the city from its founding in late antiquity to its capture by Napolean. It's one of those histories that focus on kings (or doges in this case) and battles but I liked it. Norwich writes well and presents the information in clear way. The latter is especially impressive given the number of people with the same or similar names and the contantly shifting alliances of the Italian kingdoms. He also works in a little wry humor and some entertaining anecdotes. I would of liked more social and economic history.

It's a rather straightfoward category at 945 - Italian history.

146 Darwin's Dangerous Idea is Daniel Dennett's interesting look at evolution and it's implications across several disciplines. The book can be rambly and a little disjointed but his points are well argued and forcefully made.

It's a 146 - Naturalism, which I do think is a better fit than the evolution classification. There is a lot here on the philosphy of science, on how to think about evolution itself and it's wider impact on the sciences, and a naturalistic world view.

795 - Quick Guide to Winning Blackjack covers the basic strategy for playing Blackjack - i.e. how to determine which move by the player has the highest odds for winning a hand given knowledge only of the player's card and the dealer's up card. There's also a little bit of an overview about managing your money and your emotions. The topics were covered well enough that I felt comfortable playing for some time and not making a fool out of myself - even if I did walk away down a few dollars.

795 is games of chance, which is where all card games seem to go. This is a complement to 794, which is (indoor) games of skill (chess being the big entry here). Not sure I'd want to be the one deciding where each game goes on the luck vs. skill spectrum. The number of books on bridge and poker in my local branches lead me to believe that there must be quite a bit of skill involved in those games of chance, if there's that much to teach about them.

Perhaps "games of chance" is being used in lieu of "gambling".

I pity the player who bets on their own game of solitare! You are right that other non-card casino games go here as well.

870 - The Roman Way is Edith Hamilton's tour of ancient Roman literature and civilization. Although the total absence of Ovid strikes me as odd, overall I thought it was a good introduction to the topic. It gives not only an overview of major writers and genres but places them in their artistic and historical contexts. I feel like I've now got a decent idea of what to expect in the rest of the 870s.

The book is frequently categorized as either 870 (latin lit) or 937 (roman history). The CIP puts it at 870 as do my local library branches. LT's records are mostly 937. Worldcat seems evenly split. To me it's more about the literature with historical context than history as elucidated by literature so I'm keeping the 870.

863 - Ficciones is a slim set of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges. Easily one of my favorite reads of the year, I find it difficult to describe. They are often based on some outrageous or fantastical elements but the real charm is just enjoying Borges play around in his carefully constructed ideas. Wonderful, heady, and trippy stuff.

863 is Spanish fiction which seems fairly obvious, which means I've now read one of each of the 800 divisions.

Congratulations on having read something from each of the 800s!

I love Ficciones! I was just trying to explain Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius to my mom last night. I even keep my pens and pencils in a hrön cup.

>117 Ella_Jill:
Thanks. That's 2 classes down, eight to go.

>118 fundevogel:
I remembered. It only took me 2 years to get post 70! Your strong recommendations were part of the reason I made Borges my first choice for 863, so thanks.

I totally forgot about saying that, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's definitely his best.

949 The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo is a non-fiction work in comic book form about a local who arranges logistics for journalists covering the war in Bosnia. I wasn't crazy about it at first but it's grown on me after the fact. It's as much about the way stories about war are created (by participants, politicians, and journalists) and how some bits are bound up in a mix of fact and fiction than it is about the specific events of the war covered here.

The 949 is one of those catch all categories (History of Europe: Other Areas) which apparently includes the Balkans. Again, though, I almost missed counting this as my local library rarely puts non-fiction comics anywhere other than 741.

417 I really enjoyed the Teaching Company lecture course The Story of Human Language about the study of language, with a lot of emphasis on how they change over time. It's a good introduction to a subject I knew nothing about and I found it fascinating. Such discoveries are the type of thing I'm always hoping to get from this challenge when I read outside my usual areas of interest.

It's a 417 which is historical linguistics. I'm feeling a lot better about the rest of the 400s (Well at least the 40x and 41xs).

711 City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction outlines the building of a fictional ancient Roman city. It's aimed at a younger audience but I still got a good deal out of it. Like all of the works in Macaulay's series it's heavily illustrated - illustrations that really bring to life Roman ruins.

The 711 section is area planning - under civic and landscape art. I found it interesting that urban planning is under the art class and not social sciences or technology (where civil engineering is).

The Macaulay books are really neat.

They are. I find them enjoyable at any age even if there's not that much meat to them. They cover quite a few categories and are quick to read. I may have to revisit some others.

End of year counts:

2/10, 53/99, 93/908 - Passed halfway on the divisions, 10% on the sections. Three more lifetimes and I might get somewhere.

Congratulations on your stats!

But what does 2/10 mean? Surely you've read books from all the ten main classes!

Thanks. The 2 of 10 is the number of classes in which I've read at least one book from each section in that class. They are the 500s and 800s.

220 God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible describes the undertaking of a new translation of the bible by order of King James. The King James Bible might a famed work of the English language God's Secretaries is a mediocre one. I thought it started out well fleshing out the context of England at the start of the 17th century and how the pressures society faced influenced the bible but then it meanders for most of the rest book with too many tangents.

It's a 220 - Bible - which makes sense since with the categories as they are now. It covers a translation of the whole of the bible while the other 22x sections are devoted to smaller chunks of the bible. The whole division is a bit odd since it has the bible (220), the old testament (221), and historical books of the old testament (22) on the same level (all sections) in a hierachical system. I would have expected 220 - bible, 220.1 old testament, 220.11 historical books of the old testament or some such.

personally i dont think any of the numbering for the 200s makes any sense whatsover...

>129 GoofyOcean110:
Yeah, even at a quick glance it's clear the 200 have significant issues as a cataloging scheme. Most of that I can attribute that it being very outdated (e.g. the Christian specific bias) or the desire to fit things into lists of 10 but this break from a heirachical system stood out (though it pops up from time to time elsewhere).

737 When Roosevelt began to remove the US from the gold standard during the Great Depression private ownership of everyday gold currency became illegal. This meant that the most recently minted gold coins would never be released and would instead be melted down and stored as reserves. Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed, and the Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle is the story of how some of those last coins, notably the 1933 twenty dollar gold coin, would escape into the wild and the government investigation to recover those missing coins - an investigation that plays out over almost 70 years. This is a well written and researched account of an interesting story.

737 is Numismatics, which I agree is the best fit. The main story is the crime and investigation but the are chapters on the creation of the coin and coin collectors (business man and hobbyists) are essential to the tale. Also I found it interesting that paper money is far away in 769 (engravings) while coins are put under sculpture. No books on collecting both, please!

That one sounds interesting. Most books for that category seem completely boring unless you're into coin collecting.

Yeah, I was pretty happy with it. There is another one on the exact same topic named Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World's Most Valuable Coin. Neither had a lot of ratings here or on Amazon but I the one I choose had a slightly higher score. There's also a book on the meaning behind the designs of the US State quarters series but it seemed a bit fluffy.

I think I'll add Illegal Tender to the suggestions Wiki.

338 - The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: 1. Microeconomics
339 - The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: 2. Macroeconomics

These were a decent two volume overview of economics told in a comic / graphic novel style with a bit a humor much like Larry Gonick's various works. Not quite a meaty as some of Gonick's stuff but a worthwhile read.

338, "Production", is a bit of an odd choice but it's where the CIP, my library branch, and the OCLC all put volume one. Volume one focuses on microeconomics and how economists view how individuals, pairs, and small groups optimize their decisions. I'm not sure how that relates directly to production. 339 is Macroeconomics which is a direct match to books contents.

613 The set of audio lectures Nutrition Made Clear, from The Teaching Company, does a good job presenting the basic facts of nutrition and what appears to be the general consensus of experts regarding a recommended diet. I thought the opening third or so which covered the individual nutrients was the best section. I also followed it up with In Defense of Food which looks at how some of that general consensus is now being questioned.

Both are 613 which is personal health and both works focus on the health aspects of nutrition which makes this a better fit than something like 641.

129
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, is a fairly irreverent look at scientific and pseudo-scientific attempts to investigate the human soul. The author moves quickly through several topics; taking a tour through investigating reports of reincarnation, a history of how mediums work, and how one might go about measuring the weight of the soul. She doesn't stay on any topic too long and she clearly enjoyed the research.

It's a 129, origin and destiny of the human soul. The book fits the section cleanly although I'm not sure the section fits the division of Epistemology rather than being part of 133 (parapsychology) or somewhere in the 200s. It looks like it might be a hold over from a previous version where 12x was Metaphysical topics.

Mary Roach is pretty hilarious.

I love her TED Talk.

>137 carlym:
Agreed. I enjoyed the humor and was happy she managed to be funny without getting overly condescending. I'm looking forward to Stiff.

>138 fundevogel:
Thanks for mentioning it. I'll have to give it a listen.

996 Unfamiliar Fishes is Sarah Vowell's short book on history of US involvement in Hawaii leading up to it's annexation, with special attention paid to the early missionaries. I liked it for the most part. The writing was a little choppy but it was quirky and humorous enough that I'll try some of her other more popular stuff.

It's a 996, Other history: Other Pacific Polynesia, which is where Hawaii's located after all - far from the rest of the US both in geography and in Dewey.

761 Lynd Ward: God's Man, Mad Drum, Wild Pilgrimage is the first volume of Library of America's set of Lynd Ward's woodcut novels. There's three different stories, each consisting of one woodcut image per page with no text. Many of the individual images are striking not least because, in a reversal of the typical black and white comic, the bulk of each image is black and the line work is white. As whole stories they're a mixed bag - the first is good but simple, the second is ambitious but at times I found it a bit difficult to follow, and I thought the third was the best. I'll be picking up the second volume for sure.

761 is prints and printmaking: relief process for it's woodcuts. I've seen a few 741s but that's for drawings which these are not. I think it gets the 741 to put it in with comics but that's a stretch to me as well.

920 Pauls Collins relates the stories of 13 obscure but interesting individuals who history has forgotten in Banvard's Folly. Each case is someone who had or almost had great success or fame, however briefly, but never managed enough to be remembered for posterity.

Since its subjects include artists, scientists, inventors, and frauds this book remains in the general 920 biography section. This is unlike single subject biographies that are now classified with their subjects; i.e. a biography of an astronomer is with books on astronomy in the official system. Most public libraries I visit still have a separate biography section so it doesn't seem that this change was so popular.

End of year counts:

3/10, 59/99, 102/908

where 3 of 10 is the number of classes (500, 800, & 900) in which I read at least one book in every division.

521 Feynman's Lost Lecture is built around a lecture famous the physicist gave proving that the planets travel around the sun in an elliptical orbit using geometry (rather than calculus). The book is nicely laid out. There's a short history of the science of the motion of the planets, a short biography of Feynman, a methodical look at Feynman's arguments, and finally the transcript (and audio recording) of the lecture itself. I enjoyed the book even if I really had to work at some parts of the proof but with effort I was able to follow it.

It's a 521 - Celestial Mechanics which is straight forward.

262 There was a tale in the middle ages about a woman who moved to Rome, dressed as a man, rose through the ranks of of the Catholic Church, and became pope - only to be exposed by giving birth during a parade. Moving quickly past the question of whether it actually happened (with a verdict of "almost certainly not"), The Myth of Pope Joan focuses on the history of the story moving from a meticulous recounting of its earliest versions to its use in the anti-Catholicism of the Reformation and the overall anti-clericalism of revolutionary France. I thought the subject matter was handled well but that there were some organizational issues, including a related diversion that takes up almost the first quarter of the book (which, while interesting in itself, might have been better as a long appendix).

Current definitions list 262, where a preponderance of libraries put it, as Ecclesiology which is broad enough to include the papacy. Some older versions - like the one used at LT - have 262 specifically as the papacy.

A couple of quick reads.

020
With chapters more like stand alone essays, This Book is Overdue flitters through the world of the librarians and archivists. It's meant to be a breezy celebration of libraries but I don't know if it's entirely sucessful. The book is certainly preaching to the already converted who love libraries like myself but it's very superficial. If you've ever wondered if the libraries you are so fond of are really beneficial for society (which given the subtitle "How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All" one might think would be touched on here) or if you're just getting your reading hobby subsidised by taxpayers this book won't be of any help.

On LT there is a close race between 020 - library & information sciences and 021 - library relationships. OCLC classify puts it at 020 which makes sense given it's coverage of several areas although I'm not really sure what goes in library relationships.

623
Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb is a decent primer on the subject (both it's development and deployment). It's a solid work in both writing and art but nothing oustanding.

It's 623 military engineering which seems like the best fit although books about atomic and nuclear bombs seem scattered throught Dewey (some are in history and others in policy).

912
Using the famous Waldseemüller map as end point, The Fourth Part of the World traces the exploration and accompanying European mapping of the known world from the rediscovery of Ptolemy to the beginning of Europe's period of massive overseas colonization. Some of the exploration parts are pretty well known but tying it in to steady improvements in cartography still made fresh and interesting. A recommended choice for a category full of atlases and other map collections.

912 is Graphic representations of earth likely since the maps are the central story.

I'm glad you liked The Fourth Part of the World because it's on my TBR list as well!

I've been remiss with entries from the last quarter of the year.

001
Written in comic book form, How to Fake a Moon Landing is a series of pieces about various topics in pseudoscience and science denialism. It includes chapters on the supposed moon landing hoax, climate change denial, and scares about vaccines. Some chapters were fine but for some the short length was a detriment.

As examples of poor thinking and distorted information it ends up under 001 Knowledge.

133
In the Devil's Snare is yet another look at the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century but is worth a read. It brings a new angle to the topic (examining the the role that fear of attacks by native american played) but it is also a well presented chronology of events.

It's listed as a 133 - Specific topics in parapsychology and occultism, which turns out to be a really broad category. It includes books about historical witch trials, a variety of 'new age' practices (tarot, astrology, etc.), and some books analyzing aspects of pseudoscience.

599
Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins is an engaging tour through the current state of research on early humans and their ancestors.

Like Beak of the Finch with birds, this is under 599 Mammals rather with the general evolution works.

And couple of fiction categories from the end of 2013

811
Poe is a slim volume of Edgar Allen Poe's poetry from Easton Press. I found it surprisingly difficult to read. I kept having to try and force myself to read slower and emphasize the rhythm of the texts in a way I'm not used to with prose. The gloomy atmospheric poems did more for me than the more than the love poems, but I don't know if that's because of my areas of interest or is a case of the author playing to his strengths.

811 is American Poetry and since it's the first poetry category I've filled using records going back to 2002 it's fair to say I've never gotten that in to the form. Trying to fix that should open up some new sections although perhaps I should look for some recorded works.

895
The short historical novel Shipwrecks tells the story of a boy growing in a small Japanese village that struggles to get by on subsistence level fishing. Some years, however, the village's fortunes turn on vessels full of trading goods that shipwreck off the dangerous coast. A sparse and poignant tale.

I was all set to note another example of Dewey's western bias, cramming a large area (Literature of East & Southeast Asia) of the world in the single section 895 but the LOC system isn't exactly weighted evenly either. There a single subclass covers "Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania" while there are several different subclasses for different European languages and other subclasses for European literature.

End of year counts:

3/10, 62/99, 112/908

where 3 of 10 is the number of classes (500, 800, & 900) in which I read at least one book in every division.

409
Empires of the Word is an engaging history of how several of the world's major (past and present) languages spread and how they have (or may yet) lose ground. It limits itself to written languages but spans from the ancient Near East (e.g. Sanskrit) to the modern proliferation of English.

409 is Geographical & persons treatment. Wikipedia includes the "history of speech communities" under historical linguistics which has it's own category (417). Whether or not that's a correct definition almost all entries I see put it in 409.

781
The title of How To Read Music: The Fundamentals of Music Notation Made Easy covers the contents and I thought it was successful. I've been taking some lessons but when searching for things on the internet, I often found notation that we hadn't covered yet so this was helpful.

Not knowing anything about the formal study of music, I'd say reading it is pretty elementary so putting it under 781 (General principles and musical forms) makes sense.

Finally catching up on the rest of last year.

091
The Friar and the Cipher examines the famous Voynich Manuscript (the cipher) with a focus on Roger Bacon (the friar) as it's potential author. I've wanted to read more about Bacon since some anecdotes in Duncan's The Calendar so I was okay with that angle.

091 is for manuscripts and although Bacon gets a lot focus there is some other coverage separate from him (such as modern attempts to decipher it) that it's the most fitting category.

192
When I picked up Bertrand Russell's Unpopular Essays I expected that they would be well written and often insightful but I didn't expect them to be so humorous. I don't think every argument is great but the collection is worth a read.

Nothing to note about it's categorization as 192 - Modern British Philosophy - is surprising.

222
Prolific comic writer Robert Crumb faithfully relates the full biblical book in The Book of Genesis. There's no send-up or exaggerations - it's just an edition of the influential text.

As a straight adaptation it fits in 222, historical books of the old testament.

305
Another work by a famous comic author, The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of Zion, is Will Eisner's history of the notorious fraudulent work's creation and it's role in stoking antisemitism ever since.

I found 305, social sciences - groups of people, a bit of a surprising classification. A reaction to the antisemitism that created it (and that it fostered) is clearly Eisner's driving motivation for the book but the focus is very tight on the document so I would have expected it to also be under 09x (manuscripts). Still 305 is where my local library and OCLC classify has it so I'll take it.

975
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil describes the various eccentrics the author encounters after moving to Savannah, Georgia. It's almost two tales - one about the characters centered around a specific murder and the other about everybody else.

Although a murder is a the center of the story there's plenty of unrelated individuals that are only tied together by their hometown that 975 - southeastern United States - is a cleaner fit than true crime).

Although I didn't do very well keeping up with posting, it wasn't a bad year for my challenge. I read at least one each from the 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 9 classes (0, 1, 2, and 4 being my weakest). In total I added 4 new divisions and 7 new sections.

End of year counts
3/10, 66/99, 119/908

where 3 of 10 is the number of classes (500, 800, & 900) in which I read at least one book in every division.

Which makes for nice round 2/3 of the divisions.

>154 lucien: That's why there's so much Russell on my Dewey list. I adore his sense of humor. In the last one I read by him he explained why the hydrogen bomb was preferable to bombs using plutonium and uranium. Essentially, because of the scarcity of plutonium and uranium humanity would certainly run out of the elements long before they succeeded in completely eradicating themselves. But with hydrogen being so plentiful we never have to worry about such things.

>156 fundevogel:
I do want to try some of his other writings. I'll have to go through your list to see what else I can fill in.

There are certainly plenty of options. He's almost Asmovian when it comes to Dewey.

842
This is the second time I've read the famous play Waiting for Godot - a play about two men waiting for someone who never comes. It's still very good but fitting with the subtitle "A Tragicomedy in Two Acts", the first (very long ago) time I think I found it funnier and this time I found it sadder. I blame old age.

842 is French drama - although Beckett was born in Ireland he spent most of his adult life in Paris and the play was originally written in French.