Just finished "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" which is great for understanding the triggers you can build into your product to build an inbound gravitational pull for potential and current customers.
Now I'm about to tackle "Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love"
I just finished reading The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver. It was an interesting read, but it felt a bit shallow in it's analysis.
I was feeling the need for some fiction, so I picked up Vladimir Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin by Aleksandr Pushkin. Not sure what to think about it yet, but it's interesting reading Nabokov's analysis and seeing into his mindset a little. Sheds some light on his work as well.
Coincidently, I just finished reading The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver too. I found it interesting and not too technical. It covered lot of ground.
Now, I am reading Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos. It is more in depth and technical than Nate's.
I'm in the middle of Assembling California by John McPhee. It's a richly written exploration of where the land that is now California came from and how it got here. It examines the geologic history of the state as well as the discovery of plate tectonics and more recent California history such as the Gold Rush.
It's the last in a series exploring the geologic history the country along Interstate 80.
Saving the Season By Kevin West. Yes it is a cookbook, but it has some fabulous essays about everything from fruit, vegetables, history of preserving, all sorts of things.
Plus the recipes look crazy amazing. I rarely say that.
GEB is a good book to finish, congrats. Unless you're exceptionally brilliant and got it all on the first read, plan to read it at least once more though. But let it sink first :)
Did you like The Atlantis Gene? I've almost pulled the trigger at Amazon a couple times but the reviews seem hit or miss and my reading list is already so long.
I tried the first book but could not choke it down. It's crap, and I say that as someone who usually doesn't mind iffy writing if the story is entertaining.
I enjoyed it. I also finished the other two books in the series which ties it all together. I can see where the reviews would be very binary though. It brings up some possibly controversial scenarios which requires some suspension of disbelief. It's almost Fantasy more than Science Fiction in that regard.
I just devoured Blindsight by Peter Watts[1]. It's a fascinating bit of SF that explores some really fascinating ideas about how consciousness works.
I've also been dipping into Daily Rituals: How Artists Work[2]. Lots of brief summaries of how various famous creators have broken up their workday; it both inspires me to get off my ass, and makes me feel better about the days when absolutely nothing happens.
Oh, and I've been slowly picking at Thee Psychick Bible[3], a collection of the majgickal documents of Genesis P-Orridge. Not sure it's really got any ideas I haven't seen in my other mystical readings. But there sure is a lot of it.
I just finished "Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment" by George Leonard.
It approaches the topic of attaining mastery from the angle of Aikido, but I found it strongly resembling my feelings in the programming domain. I'm still pondering it, and will likely re-read it soon (it's a very short book).
i just finished listening to brandon sanderson's "words of radiance" as read to me by my digital personal assistant during my work commutes. in the ivona amy voice, of course as she's pretty good with crazy names like "urithiru".
moving on to his "warbreaker" now. apparently, they're all tied together in an uber-epic.
The Art of Thinking Clearly, Write Portable Code by Brian Hook, Thomas Mann's The magic mountain, The mythical man month, Intellectuals by Paul Johnson and Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, by Ernesto Laclau are on my table right now.
But I don't think reading many books in parallel is a good strategy...
>But I don't think reading many books in parallel is a good strategy...
I think if you got a system, it works - for example, I usually read one non-fiction and one fiction book at a time, possibly with a book of short stories. As long as I don't neglect any of the books for so long that I forget what they're about, and when the switches between books are in logical locations like at the end of a chapter and not in the middle of the text, it works out for me [1].
For that e-readers are good - they let you easily switch between books.
[1] It has failed exactly once, when I didn't open a book for a few months and had to re-start from the beginning
Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People
I started The Martian by Andy Weir about 3 days ago and I'm really enjoying it. It's a really entertaining book that I highly recommend!
Last week I finished The Paradox of Choice and Zero Day. I enjoyed both of them, although I don't think I'll be reading any of the sequels to Zero Day.
Before that I went through The Maze Runner trilogy, those were entertaining reads.
Some other books I've read recently that I can remember off the top of my head are the Divergent series of books (eh), How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen (great read), Ready Player One (loved, loved, loved this book), Starters (didn't bother reading any more in the series) and Moon walking With Einstein (I enjoyed it).
Just read The Martian recently. It was recommended to me as extremely detail-oriented.
It is extremely detail-oriented. :-)
Fun and engrossing if you like super-hard science fiction. (I sure seemed to, although I glossed over a few of the details in the middle.)
I was going to say that Kerbal Space Program fans would probably like it, but actually now I really want to say that NetHack fans would probably like it. (What is the effect of breaking a +6 wand of oxygen scrubbing? What happens if you dip a cursed ring of radiothermal generation into a blessed potion of liquid nitrogen? How much nutrition can you get from a partly eaten food ration?)
I've added it to my list of books to inspire my kids. So if they ever come to me and say, "Dad, what is chemistry good for?" I can just give them The Martian and say, "read this and you'll know"
I also started Gödel, Escher, Bach. Have yet to finish the preface.
Discover Meteor: a book for the Meteorjs framework. Good book if you want to learn the framework.
I read a lot of fiction I guess.
Now I am reading American Gods, and before that, Dune. Before Dune I read the 2 released books of The Kingkiller Chronicle.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 164 ms ] threadNow I'm about to tackle "Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love"
I was feeling the need for some fiction, so I picked up Vladimir Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin by Aleksandr Pushkin. Not sure what to think about it yet, but it's interesting reading Nabokov's analysis and seeing into his mindset a little. Sheds some light on his work as well.
Now, I am reading Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos. It is more in depth and technical than Nate's.
Apparently when you're eating, your experience of flavor is about 80 percent olfactory!
It's the last in a series exploring the geologic history the country along Interstate 80.
Plus the recipes look crazy amazing. I rarely say that.
Behold, it was very good[2].
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Is-God-Vegetarian-Christianity-Vegetar...
[2] Gen 1:31
Definitely going to let it sink in first before taking another plunge as well ;)
I've also been dipping into Daily Rituals: How Artists Work[2]. Lots of brief summaries of how various famous creators have broken up their workday; it both inspires me to get off my ass, and makes me feel better about the days when absolutely nothing happens.
Oh, and I've been slowly picking at Thee Psychick Bible[3], a collection of the majgickal documents of Genesis P-Orridge. Not sure it's really got any ideas I haven't seen in my other mystical readings. But there sure is a lot of it.
1: http://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm 2: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009Y4I4OM/ref=oh_aui_d_det... 3: http://www.amazon.com/THEE-PSYCHICK-BIBLE-Apocryphal-Scriptu...
It approaches the topic of attaining mastery from the angle of Aikido, but I found it strongly resembling my feelings in the programming domain. I'm still pondering it, and will likely re-read it soon (it's a very short book).
moving on to his "warbreaker" now. apparently, they're all tied together in an uber-epic.
But I don't think reading many books in parallel is a good strategy...
I think if you got a system, it works - for example, I usually read one non-fiction and one fiction book at a time, possibly with a book of short stories. As long as I don't neglect any of the books for so long that I forget what they're about, and when the switches between books are in logical locations like at the end of a chapter and not in the middle of the text, it works out for me [1]. For that e-readers are good - they let you easily switch between books.
[1] It has failed exactly once, when I didn't open a book for a few months and had to re-start from the beginning
Last week I finished The Paradox of Choice and Zero Day. I enjoyed both of them, although I don't think I'll be reading any of the sequels to Zero Day.
Before that I went through The Maze Runner trilogy, those were entertaining reads.
Some other books I've read recently that I can remember off the top of my head are the Divergent series of books (eh), How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen (great read), Ready Player One (loved, loved, loved this book), Starters (didn't bother reading any more in the series) and Moon walking With Einstein (I enjoyed it).
It is extremely detail-oriented. :-)
Fun and engrossing if you like super-hard science fiction. (I sure seemed to, although I glossed over a few of the details in the middle.)
I was going to say that Kerbal Space Program fans would probably like it, but actually now I really want to say that NetHack fans would probably like it. (What is the effect of breaking a +6 wand of oxygen scrubbing? What happens if you dip a cursed ring of radiothermal generation into a blessed potion of liquid nitrogen? How much nutrition can you get from a partly eaten food ration?)
Discover Meteor: a book for the Meteorjs framework. Good book if you want to learn the framework.
I read a lot of fiction I guess. Now I am reading American Gods, and before that, Dune. Before Dune I read the 2 released books of The Kingkiller Chronicle.