What Book Are You Reading? Volume 9

[Babbler]

I'm reading Language Death by David Crystal. It's recommendation about what is to be done about the situation is interesting.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King.
And I thought In the Skin of a Lion had a clever narrative structure.

 

[kulade]

Keynes's general theory and a guide to it.

and John Keay's India a History.

 

[Gilder]

I've read quite a bit since the last time I posted in one of these threads.

James Joyce's Ulysses
Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens
Terry Pratchett's Mort and Reaper Man
Voltaire's Candide

Ulysses had some great stream-of-consciousness, when I could understand it. It took me the better part of the summer to get through it. Good Omens, Mort, and Reaper Man were all entertaining, Good Omens probably being the best out of them all. Candide was kind of okay.

 

[Adria]

Stephen King - Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

 

[Ansar]

Mao's China and the Cold War by Chen Jian
Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev by Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov
The Tempest by Shakespeare

 

[Dachs]

Recently finished:
Frederick the Great - Robert Asprey

Currently starting:
The First World War Volume 1 - Hew Strachan
The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 - Paul Schroeder

 

[Counterclaw]

I am reading Anna Comnena's Alexiad and Shattered, by Dick Francis.

 

[Till]

About to start on The Limits of Mathematics - a course on information theory and the limits of formal reasoning by Gregory J. Chaitin

 

[Darth_Pugwash]

Read Matter by Iain M Banks recently and liked it alot, so I picked up two of his other books Excession and Use of Weapons last week. Reading Excession now and enjoying it.

Matter has a slow first two-thirds but a rapid resolution. Some might not like the slow build up but I didn't mind it, it was quite cool watching the characters' paths come together in preparation for the finale.

 

[Japanrocks12]

some Russian short stories

some Lu Xun.

 

[Agent327]

Finished Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.

Still immersed in a recently acquired An Illustrated anthology of War Poems.

Recently finished:
Frederick the Great - Robert Asprey

Currently starting:
The First World War Volume 1 - Hew Strachan
The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 - Paul Schroeder

Most commendable; my comment relates to your changed avatar text though: der alte Fritz (used fro Frederick the Great) is grammatically correct, as is alter Fritz.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Just finished The Russian Civil War by Evan Mawdseley, now moving on to Social Construction of International Politics by Ted Hopf.

 

[capslock]

The Savage Wars of Peace, Max Boot

Kind of boring, but a good book. Talks about alot of America's lesser known conflicts and "small wars." Some good tie ins to whats going on today.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor & Hitler (new shorter edition) by Ian Kershaw.

 

[Cutlass]

1635: The Dreeson Incident (The Ring of Fire) Eric Flint, Virginia DeMarce. About 1/2 way in, it's the weakest book of the series. It's disjointed and fragmented. I don't know if it'll finish stronger. I can't help wonder if too many cooks are stirring that particular soup.

 

[Imperialmajesty]

1635: The Dreeson Incident (The Ring of Fire) Eric Flint, Virginia DeMarce. About 1/2 way in, it's the weakest book of the series. It's disjointed and fragmented. I don't know if it'll finish stronger. I can't help wonder if too many cooks are stirring that particular soup.

I urge you to simply ignore any book in the series not written by David Weber and Eric Flint (except the first one written exclusively by Eric Flint)

And if you must insist on being a completest, skim those books only.

 

[Cutlass]

I urge you to simply ignore any book in the series not written by David Weber and Eric Flint (except the first one written exclusively by Eric Flint)

And if you must insist on being a completest, skim those books only.

I didn't think 1635: Cannon Law was bad

 

[Fifty]

About to start on The Limits of Mathematics - a course on information theory and the limits of formal reasoning by Gregory J. Chaitin

Be careful with that one! I haven't read it or heard anything about it, but I once watched a BBC documentary on Goedel, Cantor, Turing, and Bolzmann, and Chaitin seemed to say a lot of philosophically suspect things about just what Goedel had proven about the epistemology of math in the interviews.

I'm about to start "The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History" by David Fischer. Economic history is one of the only good areas of economics. So, needless to say, it is also one of the least prestigious areas.

 

[Till]

Be careful with that one! I haven't read it or heard anything about it, but I once watched a BBC documentary on Goedel, Cantor, Turing, and Bolzmann, and Chaitin seemed to say a lot of philosophically suspect things about just what Goedel had proven about the epistemology of math in the interviews.

I'm about to start "The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History" by David Fischer. Economic history is one of the only good areas of economics. So, needless to say, it is also one of the least prestigious areas.

Having read halfway through the book, i don't think it's worth continuing. The book is a very literal transcription of various talks the author gave, presumably to audiences with little background in formal informatics. The talks center around a "halting probability" and its features, mainly that the digits of this probability are impossible to predict due to its lack of structure.
This leads him to claim that there is "randomness in elementary number theory", and makes him a proponent of experimental mathematics.

Switching to Cthulhulian Hyperbolic Geometry by James W. Anderson.