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Reading!
moniker
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Webster's dictionary defines 'books' as the multiple or plural for book...
Anyway, what are you reading? What are you about to read? What are some good things to read? What should you ask for/give come Xmas? I'm working my way through Anna Karenina and just started The Children of Hurin.
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It is christing huge and really confusingly obscure in its discussion of bond angles/orientation/notation and shit. I just wanted to learn a bit more about chirality and instead I have plunged myself into some dark mathematical world.
Because apparently I get tested on this shit in a week.
Speaking of college stuff, I've been reading Exploring Economics by Robert L. Sexton for my Econ class.
I'm slogging through Microeconomics for Today by Irvin B. Tucker and trying to remember why in the world I signed up for this class.
"Did you do anything heroic? You can get a silver medal if you did something heroic"
"No, We were blown up while we were eating cheese."
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. I may or may not be a huge music/science nerd.
Just started into the Dark Tower series. Apparently its required reading
"Those who are willing to give up essential liberties for a little safety diserve neither liberty nor safety"-Benjamin Franklin
But ever since September, I've been reading Engineering Electromagnetics by Nathan Ida, Microelectronic Circuits by Sedra and Smith, Principles of Electric Machines and Power Electronics by P. C. Sen, and Linear Systems and Signals by B.P. Lathi.
I'm havin' a fuckin' blast.
Usually the best strategy to get your ass to do something is to put money at stake, which is why I'm considering a Kindle or something similar, after spending so much money in a simple reader I would find hard to procrastinate all my reading like I do know.
Oh, I forgot about that. I really liked the preview chapter in the back of Making Money, too.
Nation is excellent. One of his best.
The description on wiki made me wonder if it'll be a more "serious" book, in comparison to his usual style. The world looked simple enough to jump right into.
I'm currently "reading" Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and by reading I mean audiobooking. I go through about 2-3 audiobooks a week on my mp3 player at work, but at least I'm getting some books out of the way and into my head. Anathem is interesting so far, as it has a strange mystery to understanding the technical mathematics of the world's religion. I'm still waiting on a major event, since it is mostly in a kind of monastery full of logical people. All in all not what I was expecting, but I'm liking it so far.
These people were amateurs, and the real shame isn't that they birth monsters they couldn't have even imagined, it's that the population at large thinks that's just the way things are supposed to be when they bother to notice at all.
But seriously though, great book.
Also polished off Supreme Courtship by Buckley (the Thank you For Smoking guy/son of William Buckley) which actually was a fun read, even if it did somewhat drip a laughable amount of conservative philosophy and get kind of sloppy towards the end.
I feel the same way. I used to love reading, but now it's so easy to kill a few hours online that I barely do it anymore. I've tried to force myself to read ASOIAF, and I'm about half way through A Clash of Kings, but it's slow going. I'm also reading the Divine Comedy, which is pretty dense, or at least the Longfellow translation is.
I'm also listening to the Diamond Age audiobook on my commute since I tried several times to read the book, but it just wasn't happening at the time.
Ugghhhh... I want to crawl into a hole and die.
edit: actually, just read Discworld. Nobody can start reading a Discworld novel and not finish it right quick.
but i think that was just cause it dragged on and was incredibly boring
i kept expecting something to do with magic to happen
It's alright.
I guess it won an award?
Pragmatic Programmer
Programming in Scala
I haven't lost my interest in reading, I just lost my ability to make time to do so. My trick lately has been to make sure that as the wife is watching TV, I have the kindle out. Downside, it isn't exactly cheap. I've wound up purchasing a few books after the preview just because I wanted something to read. (Got the Alchemyst this way.... was a popcorn book that didn't leave me too interested to read the sequel.)
Edit: A fun feature of the kindle, every book that has been suggested on this page that I can find on Amazon, has a sample chapter being delivered to my kindle right now.
I read this over the summer and I really liked it. I think because it was written as if told by a character in the story, i think the setting was a lot more realistic than some fantasy books i've read. Probably because you don't see someone casting magic spells on every streetcorner
I can already tell I'm gonna cry.
I quite enjoyed that, but it does suffer from "I'm obviously the first book in a series" syndrome. Not helped by the fact that the second one isn't going to be out 'till April next year (in the UK anyway, and usually these things get pushed back a wee bit).
I am struggling finding something to read that will hold my interest but is not so hardcore that I can't read a couple of pages waiting for the train, get on the train and then have to re-read a page 'cos otherwise you get lost.
This is the problem of having read too much.
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
I just finished Princep's Fury, which is book 5 in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. Quite good. Really quite good.
See how many books I've read so far in 2010
I remember Sedra and Smith. It was an okay book - delved into far too much detail for what I needed most of the time, but I keep it on the shelf as a reference for when I really need to find out obscure stuff like the non-linear characteristics of semi-conductors, or second order equivalent models for transistors.
I like "Power Electronics" by Mohan, Undeland and Robbin - nice theoretical analysis of basic power electronics. I find it odd to say that I actually like a textbook, but then, I've used it in a few practical situations and I find it relevant to what I do, so...
Anyway, been trying to read Dante's Inferno when I get an hour or two. The translation I have isn't as dry as I had feared, and it's been pretty smooth sailing so far. I wonder how much I'm missing out on by not reading it in the original Italian, though.
Also finished Making Money by Pratchett - I felt it lacked the... hmmm... humour? Quality? A certain something which makes Discworld books good.
Something about "how to think about psychology." It's actually designed for non psychologists but I wished to go through it because sometimes you'll pick up a basic thing about your field you should have remembered from first year, or whatever, but were never taught (or forgot).
Also I'm planning to start on next semesters reading list before christmas.
I may be insane?
I agree with this. I didn't get very far. Well, I guess halfway is pretty far in such a thick book.
Also, re: House of Leaves. I don't know what it was about it, but it grabbed me. I read it in like 2 days. Parts of it actually really frightened me, and the book isn't even that scary. I recommended it to a friend and he seemed to like it, though. He could've just been lying.
As for me, I'm lost. It's been really hard to stick with one book lately, it really sucks. I might pick up the Benjamin Button story just because I'm really fascinated by the film's trailers.
Don't worry man.
It's just you.
I'm sure you'll get better.
super rad. I mean, the last Watch book was better, but its still really well done.
I just finished The Gift of Fear, and I'm working my way through ASOIAF book 3 on the bus. My flatmate handed me Twilight last week, and I spent the first half hour going oh-god-what-is-this-idiocy...
...and then suddenly it was 5 days later and I'd just finished the fourth book. I'm really not sure what happened there >.>
Im well and truely burned out on fantasy, even awesome fantasy, after Crimson (anyone have any comments on it btw?), i'll definately be done.
Im in the mood for some really good horror, or post-apocalypsey stuff, or mid-apocalypsey stuff. Any recommendations?
Crud. Figured as much.
It just felt like there were too many... tropes? I guess that's the word to use. I feel like Discworld novels typically inverts tropes, or subverts them in some way, but Making Money just seemed to me to be straight trope, cliche, trope, trope, cliche.
On the other hand, I can imagine having to write something where Moist von Lipwig and Vetinari are both involved as being rather difficult.
Oh well. Maybe I've just missed it and it'll suddenly hit me when I reread it in a few months.