None, I am sad and ashamed to say. I have read one book in the last 20 years. Before we had kids I read a lot, mainly fantasy. After the kids were born, well, your time is really not your own until they are finished with high school and on their own.
That time is coming up pretty soon for me... in a couple more years. So I'll watch this thread closely and pick out my 'updated' reading list.
Finished «The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger» by Marc Levinson and started Think Complexity By Allen B. Downey (O'Reilly series)
It's about the founding of Hong Kong after the first Opium War. History, Morale, Politics, Ambition, Money, Power and Love viewed through 2 different cultures. I discovered it after listening to Shogun (I read it a few years back) and was happy as a little kid when I discovered there are more books to read. It does not disappoint so far.
"King Rat" is on my stack. I read "Shogun", and I'm curious about "King Rat" because he was a Japanese POW, and "King Rat" is his first novel, and that's what it's about.
Just finished reading this myself and would highly recommend it. Both Shogun and Tai Pan were thoroughly enjoyable reads. Deeply woven plots with rich characters and historical intrigue.
I liked "snow crash" and "the diamond age", but found "cryptonomicon" hard to get through, even though it's super popular among geeks.
I think even if I ever get to the end of this one, I won't be reading anything from him for a while though.
I found Reamde frustrating: there were a bunch of different good interesting ideas and plots and they just get dropped to pick up something else, and I wasn't at all interested in the something else.
I just finished up Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari -- which, while not groundbreaking, was supremely interesting and readable. If you like Aziz's standup, it's basically him playing sociologist for 200 pages.
Right now I'm going back and forth between Black Hat Python (because I owe it to myself to at least learn a little bit of this stuff) and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Carver. Two totally separate ends of the spectrum, but they're both great.
Finally bought Pragmatic Programmer and Code Complete so I'm perusing through those in between my school work/reading.
Also got Rapid Development for 5 dollars, but haven't started on that. Haven't really read any software engineering books like these before, but enjoying them so far.
Godel, Escher, Bach was one of the things that inspired me to study math in college. These days I'm just trying to do more reading and less mindless web surfing, to see if it helps me think better. Right now: Sherlock Holmes.
Just finished Guns, Germs and Steel by Jarod Diamond. A bit longer than it needed to be for my purposes but he covers the material in some depth, I'd definitely recommend it.
Prior to that I'd read Psycho Vertical by Andy Kirk Patrick which I would very strongly recommend, I don't think you need to be into climbing to enjoy it.
I think I'm about to start reading What the doormouse said by John Markoff or finish reading Technical revolutions and financial capital by Carlota Perez. I think I'll leave the latter and restart it when I've more brain time to spend on it.
I'm a huge Clapton fan so I'm finding it a really interesting read. He talks a lot about people who influenced/inspired him so it's also given me a wealth of new listening material.
Just finished the recent Ta-Nehisi Coates "Between the World and Me" and Toni Morrison's "Sula". Currently, I'm nearly finished with "The Feast of the Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa.
It's a long list, because I'm guilty of interleaving my reading of dozens (or more) of books at at time. My Goodreads "currently reading" shelf has about 25 books in it. :-(
But of the ones I'm really actively reading right now, and plan to finish soon:
1. Surfaces and Essences: Analogy As The Fuel And Fire Of Thinking - Douglas Hofstader and Emmanuel Sander
2. The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
3. The Balanced Scorecard - David P. Norton and Robert S. Kaplan
Also, books that I don't really think of in terms of "reading" so much as "working through":
This is a really casual Material Science book. It's sub-title is "Exploring the marvelous materials that shape our man-made world." I am about a quarter of the way through and am really enjoying it. I really knew nothing about materials, this book served as a fun/interesting introduction to modern materials. The first chapter (my favorite thus far) was about metals. It goes into how different types of alloys are created and into sword making; what makes a good blade vs a brittle blade that will fall apart in combat(hint: it has to do with the amount of carbon in the blade. Too much and it is brittle. You want about 1% in the entire blade.)
Before that, it was "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II". I decided to read it because I saw a kinda not great movie about the period immediately after surrender, and I realized it was something I knew almost nothing about. It's good, but relatively academic; I cared about how the Japanese publishing industry and their literature changed over the time period, but not that much. It is worth it, though, as I knew very little about Japan in this period. Something that drives this home is that for Japan, "the war" for the Japanese people essentially lasted from 1931 (when Japan invaded Manchuria) to 1952 (when the US occupation of Japan ended) - I had never thought of it that way before.
Currently reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (http://hpmor.com/). It's an alternate Harry Potter story where Harry is a genius scientist and rationalist. Hilarious and well worth a read.
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by Wallace and Erickson - because it came out in 1993 it is interesting to read what they saw as the MS empire back then. I am taking a while to read it because every time they mention a name I have to go look that person up online to see what has happen in the 20+ years since the book came out. It is very interesting to see who has went on to notoriety and who has been forgotten. For example, they devote 2 pages to this guy named Gabe Newell...
I adore "A Short History of Nearly Everything". I have re-read it more times than I can count, by just picking it up, flipping to a random page, and reading from there. All of his books are good, but that book has a special appeal for anyone who appreciates science.
I've just discovered Greg Egan, so I've read Diaspora, Quarantine, and I just finished Distress. I'm working on Axiomatic, which is a collection of his short stories. His characters are a little flat and his endings feel a little odd, but I love the worldbuilding and the ideas.
I'm having trouble finding other people who've read him and want to talk about his books, though.
80 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadThat time is coming up pretty soon for me... in a couple more years. So I'll watch this thread closely and pick out my 'updated' reading list.
It's about the founding of Hong Kong after the first Opium War. History, Morale, Politics, Ambition, Money, Power and Love viewed through 2 different cultures. I discovered it after listening to Shogun (I read it a few years back) and was happy as a little kid when I discovered there are more books to read. It does not disappoint so far.
King Rat was a pretty good movie too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Rat_%28film%29
I found Reamde frustrating: there were a bunch of different good interesting ideas and plots and they just get dropped to pick up something else, and I wasn't at all interested in the something else.
Mastering BitCoin: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032281.do
Right now I'm going back and forth between Black Hat Python (because I owe it to myself to at least learn a little bit of this stuff) and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Carver. Two totally separate ends of the spectrum, but they're both great.
Also got Rapid Development for 5 dollars, but haven't started on that. Haven't really read any software engineering books like these before, but enjoying them so far.
Prior to that I'd read Psycho Vertical by Andy Kirk Patrick which I would very strongly recommend, I don't think you need to be into climbing to enjoy it.
I think I'm about to start reading What the doormouse said by John Markoff or finish reading Technical revolutions and financial capital by Carlota Perez. I think I'll leave the latter and restart it when I've more brain time to spend on it.
The elements of statistical learning
The murders of the Rue Morge (Poe stories mix)
I'm a huge Clapton fan so I'm finding it a really interesting read. He talks a lot about people who influenced/inspired him so it's also given me a wealth of new listening material.
But of the ones I'm really actively reading right now, and plan to finish soon:
1. Surfaces and Essences: Analogy As The Fuel And Fire Of Thinking - Douglas Hofstader and Emmanuel Sander
2. The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
3. The Balanced Scorecard - David P. Norton and Robert S. Kaplan
Also, books that I don't really think of in terms of "reading" so much as "working through":
4. Learning R - Richard Cotton
5. Practical Common Lisp - Peter Seibel
This is a really casual Material Science book. It's sub-title is "Exploring the marvelous materials that shape our man-made world." I am about a quarter of the way through and am really enjoying it. I really knew nothing about materials, this book served as a fun/interesting introduction to modern materials. The first chapter (my favorite thus far) was about metals. It goes into how different types of alloys are created and into sword making; what makes a good blade vs a brittle blade that will fall apart in combat(hint: it has to do with the amount of carbon in the blade. Too much and it is brittle. You want about 1% in the entire blade.)
Before that, it was "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II". I decided to read it because I saw a kinda not great movie about the period immediately after surrender, and I realized it was something I knew almost nothing about. It's good, but relatively academic; I cared about how the Japanese publishing industry and their literature changed over the time period, but not that much. It is worth it, though, as I knew very little about Japan in this period. Something that drives this home is that for Japan, "the war" for the Japanese people essentially lasted from 1931 (when Japan invaded Manchuria) to 1952 (when the US occupation of Japan ended) - I had never thought of it that way before.
Next one:
Genocide of One - Takano
Previous three:
Malice - Keigo Higashino
The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino
Salvation of A Saint - Keigo Higashino
Excellent popular science intro to, well, nearly everything.
Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, fast and slow
Absolute recommendation. Is changing my perspective on myself and the world with every chapter.
I'm having trouble finding other people who've read him and want to talk about his books, though.