Books about your specialty please!

Another book recommendation thread! A broad-scope one though, I think.

So there's probably one or a few topics that you know a whole crapload about. Or at least more than the average bear. Your job, or your hobby, or your degree, or just something you're really curious about. I bet you've read books about it.

What would you recommend as a good intro-to-topic-x book? Maybe the one that got you started, or one you just thought was really good, or one you wrote! Ideally it'd be relatively easily available from most bookstores or libraries or at least amazon.com. Not too much technical jargon that isn't explained in the text. And kind of thorough, not like an entire course worth of material but at least an outline of the major branches of the topic. Fiction is probably irrelevant but if it provides a better illustration of something than the non-fiction options, then I guess it's good too.

Also I know there are a lot of people here that like airplanes and wars and stuff with a billion different specialized subcategories. Along with the ULTIMATE KOREAN WAR BOOK could somebody maybe suggest a book about warfare in general, or Korea? And the ULTIMATE KOREAN WAR BOOK too.

If by any off chance you haven't read it, and aren't too informed about philosophy yet, I sincerely suggest picking up Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. Yeah sure it's about a 14-year-old girl and whatnot but that doesn't really matter, it reads really well and has a rather surprising and original plot in it, while simultaneously giving you a solid base on philosophy.

Cato the Elder said:

If by any off chance you haven't read it, and aren't too informed about philosophy yet, I sincerely suggest picking up Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. Yeah sure it's about a 14-year-old girl and whatnot but that doesn't really matter, it reads really well and has a rather surprising and original plot in it, while simultaneously giving you a solid base on philosophy.

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I agree maybe the best book about philosophy.
Besides you can read Dan Brown,Digital Fortress,Angels-Demons.
Very good books.

a good introduction into history: the sesam encyclopedia on world history.

Extremely well and intresting written.

Unfortunaly it's only avaible in Dutch, it is based on the work of Carl Grimberg and reworked by diverse Dutch and Belgian history professors.

It's unfortunaly up to the 1980's though.

Another one by Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel. A very intresting book, and I think you can handle it, Lucy

Also: Quantum-Mechanics for dummies.

The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

good introductions, and Russell is a great writer (won Nobel Prize in Literature).

Computational Intelligence by Poole, Mackworth, and Goebel is a very easy to read/understand introduction into "AI".

A History of the Crusades by Runciman is the best book on the crusades that i know of. Very comprehensive.

Computer networks by Tanenbaum is generally considered as one of the best books on the subject.

The Big Book Of Brewing by Line is very helpful if you want to brew your own beer. Contains lots of suggestions, instructions and recipes.

Hmm... gotta think of some good intro-to-classical-guitar books... never thought of this before. I'm gonna check if I can find something.

Harrington on Holdem is a good poker book I have read. A classic that every player must read is of course Doyle Brunson's Super System. I bet Super System 2 goes as well, though I haven't yet read it.

Lucy, I don't know of any great Korean War books. (I'll be looking out for any suggestions as well ) If you want a really good one volume Civil War book, though, I'd recommend the Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. It's actually fairly interesting and well written. (I think it won a Pulitzer) I don't know whether you like long books or not, but it's over 900 pages - which sounds daunting, but considering how much it actually covers, it isn't that much.

Cato the Elder said:

If by any off chance you haven't read it, and aren't too informed about philosophy yet, I sincerely suggest picking up Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. Yeah sure it's about a 14-year-old girl and whatnot but that doesn't really matter, it reads really well and has a rather surprising and original plot in it, while simultaneously giving you a solid base on philosophy.

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Meh. I read that a year or two ago. The regular story was kind of boring and strange; I actually found myself looking forward to where they'd actually get back to the philosophy. And while a decent overview, there were some mistakes and odd views in there. A lot of that, though, I think can be explained by the author - he's pretty far left, and notably published a rather bizarre editorial around the time of the 2006 Lebanon War, claiming that Israel shouldn't be recognized because of its "crimes against humanity", and that Judaism was "archaic and warlike" and so on. The whole thing came off as rather anti-semitic and strange. Anyway, it wasn't a terrible book, it just wasn't as good as it could have been.

I'm sure there are other good philosophy books out there; I'm sure one of fifty's suggestions would be even better.

Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things.

Well written, some funny examples, and its at the introductory level.

The best cookbook in the English language is Sauces by James Peterson. It is a highly detailed encyclopedic breakdown of classical French sauce making. It also includes a chapter on ingredients which covers all the herbs and spices and how to use them (pretty much everything else too), a chapter on equipment and a brief history of western cuisine. All the recipes work too.

Super specific books:

The Peloponessian War by Donald Kagan

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Automotive technologies: A system approach

isbn 0-8273-6292-7

Development studies orientation
Putting the Last First -Chambers
Putting the First Last -Chambers

Interdisiplinary Ecology Introduction
Cultural Ecology -Netting

Studies in interdisiplinary ecology and subsistance agriculture
Smallholders, Householders -Netting
Settlement Ecology -Stone

Methodology as a separate topic
Case Study Research, Design and Methods -Yin
The Comparitive Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies -Ragin


Tangent:

Review of Radical Ecologic Movements
Radical Ecology -Merchant

Marine Biology (deep sea)
Sea Change -Earle

A good book to get an insight into the French society, really interesting and well-written, is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Million...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213726585&sr=8-1

Title is: 60 million Frenchmen can't be wrong (why we love France but hate the French).

Written by a Canadian and an American, it's the best book I've read that explains France to non-French people.

Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned by Kenneth C. Davis was an excellent intro book into historical study. It was substantially in-depth, but not excessively sophisticated, so I think it would serve to spark the reader's interest in history, rather than scare them away.

More specific to my field, I'm presently reading When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty by Hugh Kennedy. I find his writing style to be very helpful and easy to follow, yet very detailed without making you realize that you're going into intricate detail.

No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam by Genevieve Abdo is another excellent book which goes greatly in-depth in explaining the origins of Islamist movements in Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Iran, and gives the reader an in-depth understanding of the history behind today's Islamist and Islamic Extremist movements. This book also has a function in Political Science, because it gives the background needed to understand a lot of what is going on in Egypt and Iran today.

In Military History, The Classic Book on Military Strategy by Basil Liddell Hart is much easier to understand and follow than Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, or Machiavelli.

Anthony Beevor's Battle for Spain is probably the best account of the Spanish Civil War that I've read, and he's a skilled writer.

stormbind said:

Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things.

Well written, some funny examples, and its at the introductory level.

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What's that book about? I saw it in a bookshop once and it interested me, but I didn't read the blurb.

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene if you want to know some basic about superstring theory.

The Code Book by Simon Singh is a very good history of cryptography.

Arwon said:

Anthony Beevor's Battle for Spain is probably the best account of the Spanish Civil War that I've read, and he's a skilled writer.

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Similarly, Beevor's Stalingrad was the book that triggered my interest in the Second World War.