Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: What Books Are You Reading This Month?
An anonymous reader writes: Hey fellow Slashdot readers, what are some books you're reading right now, and intend to pick up later this month? Also if you would be so kind, what are some good new-ish novels (fiction / non-fiction) you recommend? Thanks!
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban's War
Abaddon's Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
All in the last month. Can't put them down.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Picked it up at a yard sale along with several other related books, mostly Asimov which I am also reading. Working through them when I find time.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Okay, 2016's "We are Legion, We are Bob" was not ground breaking Sci-Fi that reshaped my vision of tomorrow and helped me understand the true meaning of Arbor Day. But it was fun, and I need all the fun I can get these days.
So I can't wait for the sequel, "For We Are Many" to hit the shelves. Or more likely to hit my Audible Library. Printed books are so 14th century.
I'm trying to read some classic Western literature to see what thought processes led to current Western culture. Currently I'm reading the Tragedies of Aeschylus (Agamemnon specifically). Encyclopedia Brittanica put together a list of the books they thought were most influential throughout Western history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . My goal is to work my way through all of them, eventually. There's a good variety: literature, philosophy, history, theology, math, and science.
Now your making me feel bad for not having time to read books something more important always seems to turn up. Darn you real life, youtube and netflix!
I hate dialup so much but I often think I'd get more done of that was still my only option.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Assembly Lines: The Complete Book Been itching to learn on an 8bit system!
I have them all on my Kindle, so I've been plowing through them. Next after that are the 'Caine Riordan' SF novels by Charles Gannon.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Due to my concerns that the American middle class is being decimated...
Currently reading:
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
Review
Previously read (related):
Why Nations Fail
Review
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
Review
Currently reading "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
downfall" Discovered the first book at a used bookstore and just get the whole set that I'm reading through.
Very, very funny with a lot of heart (it wasn't a very easy war for him) - you can see a lot of the "Goons" in the books.
If you see any of the books, like British Comedy, read them.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Just finished "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I know Dawkins himself isn't everybody's cup of tea, but the book is excellent....I should have read it ages ago - it's really helped me come to terms with my atheism,
Based on the descriptions, you'd think they're pretty silly. But this series of books (5) are my favorite non-GRRM, non-Tolkien books. Great action, great characters, each book is a bit different and self-contained.
The internet has screwed up my text-based attention span so much, I'm not sure I could even finish a normal length book anymore.
Just finishing Sundiver by David Brin. I love both the technological speculation and the ideas about how differing intelligent species would interact. It's got an exciting detective story, too.
I'm half-way through reading this one: Irresistible (Rise of Addictive technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked) by Adam Alter It's really well written.
"Opal: Advanced Cutting and Setting" by Paul B. Downing
"Gem Identification Made Easy" by Antoinette Matlins and A.C. Bonanno
"Creative Gold- and Silversmithing" by Sharr Choate and Bonnie Cecil De May
And a bunch of loose gemstone faceting diagrams (several of which have failed to render properly in GemCAD so I'm quite sure their angles and indexes are off) including the famous Lone Star Cut.
Refractive Index is a fun thing to play with if you know what you're doing.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
A Beginner's Guide to Losing Your Mind: Survival techniques for staying sane
By Emily Reynolds, formerly a writer at Wired magazine in the UK.
Not an easy read at times, but has +5 insightful bits on how to deal with mental illness, ours or our friends'.
Striking Thoughts, Bruce Lee. So far it's pretty great.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Read "Collapsing Empire" by John Scaltzi.
What's it like. Not a magic fantasy fan myself so I like to only read great books in that genere.
in the last month I read:
1) THe Girl on the Train.
Yet another novel with "the Girl" in the title. But this one holds up because of the superb point of view telling from not one but three unreliable selfish narrators, the good prose, and a reasonable intrigue. The characters are distinct and well drawn, people's personalities come across.
2) Red Shirts. After the grim Girl on the Train, I went for lighthearted. This was just laugh out loud hillarious. Great set of twists on an initial comic premise make it far more than a one-joke story. It gets meta. And has great ripping dialogue. funny funny funny and clever to boot.
3) The Spaceship Nextdoor. The art in this one is the telling of it. very wry. Humorous with a premise I'd not encountered before. It wraps up a bit abruptly but it was a fun ride all the way through and kept me curious.
4) Having enjoyed the spaceship next door I got the author's earlier book "immortal". This is crass shadow of the space ship next door and not stimulating. Not going to finish this one.
5) the pervious couple months I read Hamilton. Now that is one of the most amazing human adventure biographies I've ever read. Hamilton started out in Dickensian poverty in the caribbean and rose to be not just the most influential desginer of our government but also the one's influences on our banking system remains the most important today. I highly recommend this extraordinary work.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
So far it feels like a comic version of "illuminatus"
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
30 years after I first read it.
Previous to that I read Canterbury Tales. There is something about old stuff that seems to make it better than most modern {pulp} fiction.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Douglas Adams' "The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul" and "The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation" by Michael Perelman.
The Age of Wonder
Sapiens
The Long Earth/Long War
Yes, Please
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
And I'm trying to read the Hitchhikers Guide series of books. Starting on #1 when the neighborhood pool opens up.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm reading "Slow News Day" by "Tufuk Inglazee, Turight Anartical"
Fred S. Roberts, Barry Tesman: Applied Combinatorics, CRC Press, Special Indian Edition (way cheaper and good quality).
This book is awesome, just like all other books by Roberts. Unfortunately, I can only read it for learning some basics and taking a look the many examples, as I lack the time to really work through it. :/
Is the Notre Dam bigger than the Hoover Dam?
Either way, I don't give a dam.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I'll buy Change Agent when it is published on the 18th. The author is an IT guy, which means his books are also heavily IT influenced. I really liked the other novels he already published.
---
I'm currently reading
* Gerard K. O'Neill - The High Frontier. A classic on space colonization (non-fiction), 3rd edition (c) 2000. Boy, have we missed out on possibilities...
* Robert J. Sawyer - Flashforward (c) 1999. This is the base from which the TV series was built. Quite good scifi.
I've got several more scifi books in the pipeline, by Kim Stanley Robinson, Greg Bear, Alastair Reynolds, Neal Asher, Peter F. Hamilton.
I also intend to read-read the classic sagas from ancient Rome and Greece, it's been somewhere between 25 to 30 years since I last did those...
Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life by Mark Goulston
.
On Deck ---
The Complete Infidel's Guide to Iran by Robert Spencer
A Burglar's Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh
D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944 by Holger Eckhertz
Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed by Jason L. Riley
Confluence (Linesman book 3) by S. K. Dunstall
The Liberation (The Alchemy Wars Book 3) by Ian Tregillis
Finished in March ---
The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart
Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores
The Rising (The Alchemy Wars Book 2) by Ian Tregillis
Alliance (Linesman Book 2) by S. K. Dunstall
The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent by Larry Correia
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
I'm told I'm too wordy and unnecessarily use complex words.
Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
- The Four Pillars of Investing. Good begginer-to-mid-level book in investing. Slightly dated, because it came out in '02 and is aware of the dot-com bust but not the real estate one. I think the author has an updated book, but I don't think the principles will have changed much.
- The Divide (beta read). A space opera about a war between spacefaring races. Only available on BetaBooks.co, through their beta reader pool. Looking forward to seeing this one in print.
- A Crash Course in Python - just refreshing some python programming skills
- Just finished an audiobook on Brahms, his life and music.
- Just starting an audiobook on Mindfulness.
- I'm also obsessively re-reading my third novel, Stranger and Better, which is due out in the next month, just to catch final edits. Coming of age at Oberlin College, engaging in an impossible search for the meaning of life.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Do they need to have pictures or not? If anything, the question sounds like you want to do some profiling on people as what I like has nothing to do with what you like.
Go to a bookstore and browse there. Even better if it is a second hand bookstore. You will find things that are not the standard answers that you will see every time and you will be surprised by how good they might be.
Because what you are asking as what your favorite food is and the answer will be pizza. That while you will see a LOT more when you just walk around and go into restaurants and order what you like at that moment.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Music at the Limits - Edward Said
Across the River and Into the Trees - Ernest Hemingway
Shadow of the Giant - Orson Card
God Mining Boomtown People of White Oaks, Lincoln County New Mexico Territory - Roberta Haldane
love is just extroverted narcissism
By myself:
Adams - Dirk Gently 1 & 2
Plato - The Republic
Milton - Paradise Lost
With my kids:
Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events
Milne - Winnie the Pooh
Grahame - The Wind in the WIllows
by Neal Stephenson. And maybe Expanse #5 -- erm, Nemesis Games.
I started Seveneves a week or two ago, and am maybe 25% through. It's the first Stephenson I've read (I know, I know) and is quite good. So far, highly recommended. I was hooked by the first line:
Read the first chapter here.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
This is about the financial derivative blowup in the 90s.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
I got interested in it after hearing Musk named his barge and landing platform after ship names in it.
Current
Empire Game, Charles Stross
Next ups:
For we are many (book 2 of Bobiverse) by Dennis Taylor
Change Agent, Daniel Saurez
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
I am working my way through Terry Prachet's Diskworld series. It has been quite some time since I read most of them.
If you want some fun the "Don't tell my parents I am a super villain" series by Richard Roberts is a quick funny series more directed towards middle school and high school age readers.
$50 dollar knife by Wayne Goddard since ....well... Making knives
Adding in some classic literature such as Moby Dick (Herman Melville) and Jules Verne 20000 leagues under the sea and Journey to the center of the earth (both the counterfeit and translation) many of which are free on Kindle I have been reading quite a bit lately.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
Well, actually, despite featuring the highly technologically advanced Commonwealth from other books, Peter F. Hamilton's "Night Without Stars" is mostly set in a 1950's equivalent totalitarian regime. I'm enjoying it.
High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel.
I'd heard of the Hollywood blacklist but I had no idea of the number of lives it affected. And an interesting read also if you're a fan of "High Noon".
In anticipation of the release of part 2, I'm re-reading Harbinger by Ian McKinley
Amazon link
Ya, it's a self published fantasy book. But it's not your run of the mill high fantasy. The author calls it "fantastic realism" where it is a fantasy world, but there isn't some stupid powerful magic to save the day.
. . . .prior to reading Book 9, "At the Sign of Triumph"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I add more books before I finish the ones already in the hopper. Right now, though, I'm reading Into the Cannibal's Pot, a rather harrowing look at post-apartheid South Africa and how it's on track to become the next Zimbabwe.
After an incident at work with some of our switches where we "fixed" a problem by swapping capacitors between boards rather than just swap in a working switch and configure it, I figured maybe a CCNA might be useful, so I've also been going through the study guide for the first of two exams for the routing & switching CCNA.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
The Art of Madness by A.J. Mayall https://www.amazon.com/Art-Mad...
Just finished "Windswept" and "Like a Boss" by Adam Rakunas. Interesting take (if a bit one-sided) on interplanetary labor contracts, union/corporate dynamics, and grass-roots organizing. I hope he's working on another book with Padma and friends.
Current audiobook is Golden Son (#2 of the Red Rising series; start with Red Rising).
Next up will be "Dust" (#3 of the Silo series; start with Wool Omnibus).
One Second After - William R. Forstchen (recommend)
The Homing - John Saul (not his best work)
Currently reading "Blue Remembered Earth". Previously, read the Revelation Space series (or most of it), Century Rain, Push Ice, and Terminal World.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Hilariously funny. Every bit as good as the Hitchhiker's Guide series:
https://www.amazon.com/Starshi...
https://www.amazon.com/Robot-N...
This month I just finished reading Syndrome E by Franck Thilliez, translated into english by Mark Polizzotti. This is detective/police thriller fiction, but hard science based in the plot. I am just digging into a second book in the series called Bred to Kill. It's not really a sequel, just another book with the same police detectives.
Also, Hugo-winner "Downbelow Station" by C. J. Cherryh, just because.
Recently finished the two books, so far, in a series starting with "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss - excellent fantasy. Am eagerly awaiting the next one.
Last month I enjoyed reading "A Man for All Markets", the autobiography of Edward Thorp, who is arguably one of the most successful investors of all time but who got his start in "investing" and iconoclastic thinking when he developed card-counting for blackjack and wrote "Beat the Dealer".
Have also recently enjoyed a couple of books by William Hertling that may appeal to computer nerds: "Avogadro Corp" and "Kill Process".
Big Ear Two (John Kraus) about antennas and radio astronomy The Hardware Hacker (Bunny) Asimov on Numbers
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
I'm currently reading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series for the first time.
I'm also writing my own science fiction series, it's a cheerful post-apocalyptic hard sci-fi adventure. With explosions.
The first book is free here: fixerbook.net
Current:
The Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu, translated to English by Joel Martinsen (10% done, so far excellent)
Recent:
the Dark Tower cycle (all), Stephen King
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson
Speak, Louisa Hall (I recommend this one highly)
The Annihilation Score, Charles Stross (recommended)
Up next:
My annual trip through The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and probably The Children of Hurin and a few other of Christopher Tolkien's contributions to his father's legacy.
WALSTIB!
Starting on #1 when the neighborhood pool opens up.
Book pool? Or swimming pool?
I've also been reading Seveneves and found it to be one of the worst books I've ever read. I'm about 40% through and its going to be one of the very few books I don't bother finishing. Its amazing that he managed to make a global catastrophe this boring.
In general I've found his novels to be disappointing given how popular they are. Snow Crash was mediocre, Anathem was bad and Seveneves is terrible.
All you nerds should read it too!
Pretty good so far; if you are interested by the maker movement.
https://www.makershed.com/prod...
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. - Marcus Aurelius
The first part of the book is great. The last part sucked. (in my very humble opinion). My favorite books of his are The Diamond Age and Reamde.
Recent reads I enjoyed and would read again:
Non-fiction:
It improves quite a lot.
"Truth is what works" -- William James "It works!!" -- o-dark-AM comment
I am currently rereading the excellent sci-fi book "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" in preparation for the sequel "For We Are Many" to be released on April 18th. It is a story about a computer programmer and sci-fi fan (like many of us here) who pays to have his body frozen when he dies. He then wakes up far in the future to find that his consciousness has been placed in a computer which is to be sent out in space in a self-replicating probe. This is easily one of the best sci-fi books that I have ever read. It is entertaining, funny, relatable, and engaging. I have been very eagerly awaiting the sequel and I would highly recommend them both to any Slashdotter.
Nevermore.
I realize you're just trying to be a jerk, but you missed that almost all of the (five star) reviews on Amazon of this book were written by women.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
"The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2", by Donald Knuth. 'Tis a rewarding but frustrating experience.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
I'm curious, but haven't had a chance to read it myself. Is it worthwhile?
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
"The Medical and Surgical Uses of Electricity" (full text) by Alphonso David Rockwell. It was written in 1896, before the Internet became popular. I stumbled across it while doing research as it mentions Tesla and Edison. I am reading it because I find it interesting that the topic is about using electricity, when house outlets weren't a thing yet.
At 10% in, the author has spent dozens of pages describing what they knew then about magnetism, basic electric principles, Ohm's law (they use "C" for current!), the properties of batteries, how they are made/work, and the common chemistries of the time period. So far, this is all for doctors so they can use the information and make/maintain their batteries to treat their patients! I like the undistracted perspective of it all and am filling my decades-old electronic knowledge with stuff I've never thought about before.
The upcoming medical chapters should be interesting to this armchair doctor too, as I am not quick to dismiss the ideas/experiments of brilliant men just because time has moved forward.
So glad you asked. I am about a quarter of the way through "The War On Science" (2016) by Shawn Otto, subtitled "Who's waging it; why it matters; what we can do about it".
I had already read "Censoring Science" (2008) by Mark Bowen and "The Republican Ware on Science" (2005) by Chris Mooney, but Otto's new book is so much broader, detailed, encompassing, historical, philosophical, up-to-date, and forward-looking, that it is hands down a must read for all citizens, and not just of the United States. Though I live in North American, I am not an 'American' citizen, so I won't get into politics except to note that no political party escapes Otto's critical examination. If you care about your country, please read this book.
The Ambassador of Progress.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Wolfe's Claw of the Conciliator (may give up on it)
Pratchett's Interesting Times
Now:
"Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead" - Hod Lipson & Melba Kurman. Terrific so far. Rich with tech details.
Next:
"American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What to Do About It" - Jennifer Stisa Granick. 1984 has arrived. Time to face the enema.
"Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History" - Stephen Jay Gould. I once visited the Shale in the rain. It made many thousands of 100 million year old fossils clearly visible. An amazing experience.
"Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age" - Sherry Turkle. I love language and ideas too much to merely broadcast my life online.
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford.
This is the book that famously coined the phrase "The Banality of Evil".
Adolf Eichmann was the Nazi SS Lt. Colonel who was in charge of "evacuating" Jews from Germany and the occupied territories to concentration camps. For five years after the war he lived under various assumed names in Germany, before emigrating to Argentina.
In 1957 Mossad was alerted to his presence in Buenos Aires, and in May of 1960 agents kidnapped Eichmann and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial.
The book an Hannah Arendt's report on Eichmann's trial, and it's a work of stunning bluntness and brutal honesty. Reportedly Eichmann in Jersusalem destroyed Arendt's long-standing friendships with many of her fellow Jews, for it did not shy away from the question of Jewish community leaders' complicity in Eichmann's activities -- although she by no means equates them. Arendt stubbornly refuses to lend the Nazis the kind of satanic majesty that pop culture attributes to them, but rather puts them on a continuum of Evil There aren't enough pure monsters to make something like the Holocaust possible; the monsters need the help of ordinary, intellectually lazy people who let groupthink override their scruples.
In an age where people are confused about the differences between real and fake news, Eichmann in Jersusalem needs to be more widely read. This is what a real attempt to come to grips with the produces: not a neat picture of pure angels an devils, but a messy one in which people who know better foolishly go along with things they shouldn't.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author and his two engineers leave the startup they worked at to create a startup at Y Combinator to create a better version of the Digg toolbar (remember toolbars?) for Google advertisers in 2010. I'm at the part where they get served with an intellectual property lawsuit, as one of the engineers wrote half of the code base at old startup. Fun times.
I doubt this book will replace Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan as my favorite Silicon Valley startup book.
By next week, I am planning to start re-reading some Herman Hesse books, probably Steppenwolf first. Afterwards, Orwell’s 1984.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
I just started tackling "Crucifixion of the Warrior God" by Greg Boyd. Deep Christian theology.
When I need a break from too much deep thought, I'm cruising through the Hitchhiker's series again.
"Just as there is nothing so unreal as reality TV, there is nothing as unsocial as social media." - Alistair Dabbs
a novel called "the bridge of beyond" by simone schwarz-bart.
the description on the jacket is everything i would never want to read in a novel, but the reality of the reading is a top notch experience. would recommend to anyone, even to slashdot readers.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: nice fiction. I didn't watch the movie, preferred the book, as I restarted to read printed books this year before several years in digital readers.
I was forced to rent a different house (the previous owner asked the house for his daughter), and for some days, due the new house being a totally new building, I had no Internet, phone (just mobile) TV, and even electric power. It was the best that happened for me in years. We got so calm, mainly the kids. The current TV show for kids are really stupid, just screaming all the time. Myself, as a IT guy, work under pressure in front of a display the entire day. So, following this "back to roots" movement, I bought a physical book again.
The end of story: I canceled my cable TV and phone. Just a basic Internet for home work. No more TV on kids bedroom. And I'm reading books again.
I haven't had time to read any books since I've been spending my free time writing my second book.
I'd recommend my first book - Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief. Then again, I'll admit I'm biased. You can download the first three chapters for free from my website.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As it happens, about two weeks ago I set my mind towards an attempt to read one book a week (roughly 40 books till the end of the year) for a variety of reasons and also to get me away from the screen. So far I've read: 1984 - George Orwell -- 5/5 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute -- 5/5 I'm busy with a James Patterson novel called "The 8th Confession" which has been a laborious and boring effort thus far.
Currently reading Deep Reading: Reading The Prophet by Ghalil Gibran //Good for getting the imagination going. Its probably more literature and requires a lot of introspective thought for me.
Reading You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen //Good book on relationship communication. Its academic in nature by socio-linguistic researcher.
Light Reading
Tiger Woman on Wall Street by Junheng Li //Good for accounting and finance theory. Also insight into Chinese Culture
Recently read:
Read Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky //Good for understanding community organization and how members on the left side of the aisle think and act. Politics
Read Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie //Good for finding work that has meaning. Job and Life Satisfaction are themes.
Daniel Suarez avoids the worst of the ridiculous tech miracles and puts together pretty good stories.
The lesser-known earlier Dan Brown books can be interesting (Deception Point, Digital Fortress).
Not recent: I really enjoyed Rama years ago and have been trying to read Rama II but never seem to get very far (Arthur C. Clarke). I highly recommend reading all four Odyssey books. 2001 is almost exactly like the film, so just watch the flick. 2010, again, if you want to skip the book, the film covers it pretty well. But 2061 and 3001 are worth a read, if for no other reason than to see what kind of future Clarke envisioned in them.
(not) Ludlum: I read one or two post-Ludlum "Ludlum" books, but I quit. I liked the earlier real Ludlum books for the most part. The well-known ones are pretty old now, but Frederick Forsyth books are pretty good. If you're old enough to remember anything about the Persian Gulf stuff around 1991, Fist of God is pretty interesting.
Clive Cussler (and "friends"): Some recent, some not; I still enjoy them. Isaac Bell stories are set in a period (early 20th century) often skipped by others, so that alone makes them interesting. I also find the contemporary Oregon stories interesting. Don't read much Dirk Pitt stuff.
Next two on my list are:
- Homo Deus (DONE) ... and some more (on current list)
- The Soul of a Machine (Nearly Done)
- Godel, Escher, Bach (re-reading)
- The Mind's I
- The Third Reich at War (Nearly Done)
- The Algebraic Mind
- Binti (ScienceFiction Novel)
- The Character of Physical Law
- Feynman Lectures I
- Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions (DONE)
If you can get hold of it, I always suggest 'The Dispossessed' as a SciFi-Novel.
That's actually my current reading list
Such a shame there will be no more Iain M. Banks books.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Great book.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
by James Oliver Curwood.
I'd never heard of JOC but I'm thoroughly enjoying his book. Unexpected twists and turns.
So why the downmod? Did the AC have wrongthink about the religion or is the Koran not a book?
If you wanted to know more about a religion and that religion is based on a book, reading that book seems like an excellent place to start.
I'd go even farther.
Read the Bible! Witches, talking donkeys, genocide, slaves (how to buy and acceptable beating of), rape (how to do it right), gods, devils, angels and one zombie. It also tells you things like how it's bad to murder and steal, in case you haven's already worked that out for yourself.
Perhaps I'm in a bit of a thematic rut, but I found all these to be quite compelling and thought provoking given the current geopolitical environment.
Camp of the Saints - Jean Raspail (Fiction)
Suicide of the West - James Burnham (Politics & Theory)
The Fourth Turning - William Strauss and Neil Howe (History & Theory)
"indoor veggie growing" == Best.Explanation.Ever.
As a Mormon, you generally try and study The Book of Mormon daily - even if only for a few minutes - because inspiring words make you consider new concepts each time you read it.
Fact or fiction, its stories surprisingly give the reader philosophical nuggets that are very relevant today, like some of the ones I threw together below (book chapter#):
* Old debates between Atheism vs. Christianity focuses on many of the same, general core ideas as they do today (Alma 30)
* While rehabilitating prisoners is the right thing to do (Helaman), capital punishment shouldn't be banned outright because it sometimes serves the greater good (1 Nep. 4)
* Preachers that work for pay, popularity and power (i.e modern televangelists, priests) can commit terrible crimes to obtain those things (Alma 1, 31, 35)
* Lazy, comfortable societies and their leaders neglect their military strength and ultimately end up conquered (Mosiah 19)
* Efficient, absolute rulers like kings or dictators can be the best OR worst form of government (Mosiah 29)
* Democracy is generally better than absolute rulers because it gives the society the freedom to survive or die by its own choices (Mosiah 29)
* Democracy is fragile and can be upended easily, and requires responsible, educated, involved citizens to survive (pretty much all of Alma and Helaman, 3 Nep. 7)
* Wealthy, connected people usually clamor for more power than they already have (multiple places)
* Liberty and democracy come at a steep price, and patriotism/nationalism in the right hands can motivate people to do great things. (Alma 2, Alma 46)
* Great, innovative military leaders make up for fewer resources (Alma 46-62)
* Mafias and other forms of secret combinations/groups undermine governments - corrupting laws for their own gain (Helaman 4)
* Religious reformation/conversion can move a society to do far more than any military action - "the word is mightier than the sword" (Helaman 6)
* Economies and nations prosper when the majority of the people share core Christian beliefs - charity, honesty, honor, etc. (the whole book)
* Propaganda and how it can be abused by governments to terrible ends (Alma 48)
* Long lasting wars (years or even decades) numb societies to Christlike-principles like charity, hope, positivism and make them forget about the service those military men may be providing (last 6-7 chapters of Alma)
* "Signs" from God don't convert anyone for the long term. They just scare people for a while until they forget them again. (3 Nephi 1)
* Evil empires/hordes are ultimately leeches that must have an innocent host to feed on to survive (3 Nephi 4)
* Voluntary communism (sharing of one's wealth with others) is the road to true social equality, and pride (looking down your nose at others) is the poison that brings those systems down (4 Nephi)
* Churches baptizing babies are wasting their time (Moroni 8)
* Wars are truly awful - regardless of the era or available technology (Moroni 9)
The Atheist vs. Christian debate in Alma 30 is one of the most relevant of all the chapters in the book today, IMO.
For expanding knowledge at Work:
Compiler Design and Construction
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
Knowledge and Representation
Introduction to Quantum Computers
Expert Systems: Principles and Programming, Fourth Edition
Situated Cognition: On Human Knowledge and Computer Representations (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
Principles of Semantic Networks: Explorations in the Representation of Knowledge
Representations of Commonsense Knowledge (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Representation and Reasoning)
Parallel and Constraint Logic Programming: An Introduction to Logic, Parallelism and Constraints
Expert Systems: Principles and Programming
The Engineering of Knowledge-Based Systems
Introduction to Expert Systems (International Computer Science Series)
Expert Systems: Principles and Programming, 2nd (The Pws Series in Computer Science)
For personal Interest:
Hands-On Start to Wolfram Mathematica: And Programming with the Wolfram Language
Mathematical Methods Using Mathematica®: For Students of Physics and Related Fields (Undergraduate Texts in Contemporary Physics)
Mathematica for Theoretical Physics: Electrodynamics, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, and Fractals
An Introduction to Mathematical Cosmology
Gravitation And Cosmology: Principles And Applications Of The General Theory Of Relativity
A Most Incomprehensible Thing: Notes Towards a Very Gentle Introduction to the Mathematics of Relativity
Applications of Tensor Analysis (Dover Books on Mathematics)
TENSORS made easy with SOLVED PROBLEMS
Mathematica Navigator: Mathematics, Statistics and Graphics, Third Edition
Mathematica for Physics (2nd Edition)
Just because I'm curious about why there is so much that needs to be known these days.
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan
Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics
For some reason I can never quite find enough time to get to that last set.
I recommend several of the books by Michael McCloskey
I am reading the first book in the Parker Interstellar Travels series, Trilisk Ruins. It is currently available for free on Amazon. I am already planning on buying the whole set as soon as I finish this one.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
"Never Submit" (Kutherian Gambit book 15)
"Nomad's Fury" [with Craig Martelle]
The Job Pirate, by Brandon Christopher
I come here for the love
Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp books are thrillers that are hard to put down. I used to feel bad about reading Pendleton's Executioner series because of all the violence, but they don't hold a candle to Flynn's gore.
Keith Laumer: Bolo (emotional stories about tanks) and some Retief stories. The Great Time Machine Hoax, The Undefeated, and Galactic Odyssey. Fast reads, much in the line of Laumer's emphasis on self-improvement and moral action.
I started Plutarch's Lives over 20 years ago and I'd like to finish it soon. The vision of honor and morality therein stands so far separated from the modern equivalents that it's almost unrecognizable.
Joan Hess: Pride v. Predudice. Hess has been writing funny mysteries for 30 years. If you like Evanovich, Hess is a little less wacky.
Jim Butcher: Fool Moon part of the extensive Dresden Files series, violent mysteries in a universe where magic is real. It gets old rapidly.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Code of Honor by John Dramesi - POW experience in Viet Nam. McCain said this is the toughest man he ever met. -
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Book I: Homeland (The Dark Elf Trilogy #1; hardcover, March 2004, ISBN 978-0-7869-3123-1; paperback, December 2005, ISBN 978-0-7869-3953-4; audio book, 26. March 2013)
Book II: Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2; hardcover, June 2004, ISBN 978-0-7869-3126-2; paperback, March 2006, ISBN 978-0-7869-3983-1; audio book, 9. April 2013)
Book III: Sojourn (The Dark Elf Trilogy #3; hardcover, December 2004, ISBN 978-0-7869-3081-4; paperback, June 2006, ISBN 978-0-7869-4007-3; audio book, 29. April 2013)
I don't read a whole lot, but when I randomly picked up The Thousand Orcs, from the Hunter's Blade Trilogy, I was immediately hooked. I'm almost done with the Dark Elf trilogy and would happily start purchasing The Icewind Dale trilogy novels as soon as I'm done.
I tend to rant.
So far in April, my reading has been light:
I'll probably follow those up with something by Jack Higgins or Clive Cussler from my to-read stacks.
Good idea to promote fantasy books here. Does the book of Mormon really have a chapter called 'Moron'???
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
NOT SO FAST - Thinking Twice about Technology, by Doug Hill, I highly recommend.
Also reading a biography of Rose Macaulay, by Sarah LeFanu.
"Ready Player One", by Ernest Cline (should come out in theaters sometime later this year).
"Armada", also by Cline.
"His Share of Glory", The Complete Short Science Fiction of C.M. Kornbluth
"Quarry", by Max Allen Collins
"Arkwright", by Allen M. Steele
"Laravel Up and Running", by Matt Stauffer
Others, but they were so six books ago...
Some of it, yeah - but not all. Not everyone agrees on capital punishment - even within the LDS church. And paid (and usually corrupted) clergy are commonplace and accepted in Western society. Baptizing babies is completely ridiculous because babies can't repent of their sins, but millions of Christians are still baptized that way today every year. The American empire and peace in its homelands will fall apart if we ever cut way back on military spending and don't act like decent people to each other and around the globe.
It clarifies these debatable issues and becomes a philosophical guidepost for the American continent, for this time - which is what makes it unique. It didn't come from the Middle East, China, India, Mecca, etc. - it was written for the New World.
As a work of fiction, it still makes those points in its stories as allegories/legends, etc..
Nope - just Moroni.
If a book isn't currently copyrighted, you might be able to get a free copy of it at Project Gutenberg.
I read Adler's book years ago, and would definitely recommend it.
And it doesn't bother you that the author raped children? His youngest "wives" were prepubescent. Fuck you and that child rape cult you're trying to spread.
This month I might re-read "The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History", by Michael H. Hart. Hart chose the 100 people who, in his opinion, influenced mankind the most. Then in his book, he takes them one by one and tells who that person was, what they did, and why the author ranked that person higher than some and lower than others.
Sometimes you agree with the author, and sometimes you don't. But it's a lot of fun to read.
Rich People's Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent Explains the history of movements focused on reducing taxes of the very wealthy. Good read. Very informative.