Books I've read 2012

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This is a summary of the non-fiction books I read in 2012. It is just as much a way for me to keep track of what I've read as it is a service to you, dear reader.

Actually, it isn't really a list of the books I read during 2012 as much as it is a list of the books I wrote about on this blog during 2012. There is a lag between reading a book and writing about it here on the blog (currently - since I have slipped - around 5 months). I regularly write blog posts about "books I've read recently", typically summing up three or four books I have read "lately" and I wrote such blog posts in February, March, May, June, July, August, September, October and November. All the books I wrote about last year are listed below.

Despite posting this blog post almost two months into the new year, I find it useful to sum up the academic books I "read last year". I will probably back-date this blog post later so that it will look like it was published in the beginning of January...


February
Julian Dibbell, "Play money: Or, how I quit my day job and made millions trading virtual loot" (2006).
Peter Zackariasson, "Cyberk@pitalism: Om konsten att tjäna pengar på att döda drakar, stjäla vapen och dansa naken i virtuella världar" (2009). ["Cyberc@pitalsim: On the art of earning money by killing dragons, stealing weapons and dancing naked in virtual worlds"]
Tim Guest, "Second lives: A journey through virtual worlds" (2008).
Maria Bäcke, "Power games: Rules and roles in Second Life" (Ph.D thesis/pdf file, 2011).

March
John Kenneth Galbraith, "The great crash 1929" (1954).
Robert McElvaine, "The great depression: America 1929-1941" (1984/2009).
Robert and Helen Lynd, "Middletown in transition: A study of cultural conflicts" (1937).
Catherine Newman, "Chutes and ladders: Navigating the low-wage labor market" (2006).
John Steinbeck, "Vredens druvor" (1941). [The grapes of wrath] Bonus - fiction!

May
Allen Guttman, "From ritual to record: The nature of modern sports" (1978).
Jane McGonigal, "Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world" (2011).
Mikolaj Dymek, "Industrial Phantasmagoria: Subcultural interactive cinema meets mass-cultural media of simulation" (Ph.D thesis/pdf file, 2010).

June
Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch (eds.), "The post carbon reader: Managing the 21st century's sustainability crises" (2010).
Richard Douthwaite and Gillian Fallon (eds.), "Fleeing Vesuvius: Overcoming the risks of economic and environmental collapse" (2011).
Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine (eds.), "Dark Mountain (Issue 1)" (2010).

July
Barbara Ehrenreich, "Gilla läget: Hur allt gick åt helvete med positivt tänkande" (2009). ["Smile or die: How positive thinking fooled America and the world"]
David Jonstad, "Kollaps: Livet vid civiliationens slut" (2012). [Collapse: Life at the end of civilization]
Björn Forsberg, "Omställningens tid: Tillväxtens slut och jakten på en hållbar framtid" (2012). [The Age of transition: The end of economic growth and the pursuit of a sustainable future].
John Barnes, "Mother of storms" (1992). Bonus - fiction!

Thomas Mann, "Buddenbrooks" (1901). Bonus - fiction!

August
Bill Tomlinson, "Greening through IT: Information technology for environmental sustainability" (2010).
Lorenz Hilty, "Information technology and sustainability: Essays on the relationship between information technology and sustainable development" (2008).
David Owen, "The conundrum: How scientific innovation, increased efficiency, and good intentions can make our energy and climate problems worse" (2012).

September
E. F. Schumacher, "Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered" (1974).
John Michael Greer, "The ecotechnic future: Envisioning a post-peak world" (2009).
Richard Schickel, "Intimate strangers: The culture of celebrity in America" (1985).

October
John Markoff, "What the dormouse said: How the 60s counterculture shaped the personal computer industry" (2005).
Fred Turner, "From counterculture to cyberculture: Steward Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the rise of digital utopianism" (2006).
Richard Barbrook, "Imaginary futures: From thinking machines to the global village" (2007).

November
Chris Carlsson, "Nowtopia: How pirate programmers, outlaw bicyclists, and vacant-lot gardeners are inventing the future today" (2008).
Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, "The new spirit of capitalism" (1999).
Peter Jakobsson, "Öppenhetsindustrin" (Ph.D thesis/pdf file, 2012). [The openness industry]


My recommendations for best buys (a combination of quality and price) are:

- Jonstad, "Kollaps" (45 SEK)

- Ehrenreich, "Gilla läget" (49 SEK)

- Dibbell, "Play money" (109 SEK)
- McGonigal, "Reality is broken" (109 SEK)

- Greer, "The ecotechnic future" (125 SEK)

- Heinberg & Lerch, "The post carbon reader" (158 SEK)

The three Ph.D. theses listed above are of course possible to download for free - and you can't beat that price! Do note that the contents of the hefty and very reasonably priced Post carbon reader for the most part can be downloaded online!


Are there any books you have read? Do you for the most part agree or disagree with my opinions about these books? Have you bought/read any of book above because I wrote about them of this blog?
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