For those who are new ... we discuss books. I list what I'm reading, and people comment with what they're reading. Sometimes I post a special edition on a particular genre or topic.
Just the usual diary this week.
cfk has Bookflurries on Wednesday nights, with links to lots of other diaries about books and reading on daily Kos (this week, she posted last night instead).
sarahnity has Books by kossacks on Tuesdays.
Just finished
Grimspace by Ann Aguirre. This is the start of an SF series about Sirantha Jax, a woman who carries the rare J-gene that lets her use 'grimspace' which allows faster than light travel and the exploration of the universe. At one level, this is space adventure - battles are fought, lives lost, risks taken, sex is engaged in - and at that level it's a complete success. At another level, all the main characters are at the edge of what 'human' is - I won't spoil it by giving details - and Aguirre seems to be trying to say something about what it means to be human. At this level, I think, it's a partial success. I have high hopes for the series: full review
Now reading
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. As noted above, we will be reading this in Let's Read a Book Together on Sunday. This is an attempt to answer the question: Why do the Eurasians and their descendants have all the stuff, while the people of the Americas, Africa, and Australia have very little?
Year's Best Science Fiction by Gardner Dozois. In my opinion, the best of the annual anthologies. I am going through this slowly, but I want to finish it before next summer!
Mistakes were made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris. All about cognitive dissonance and how we justify our own actions. Excellent book about how we all fool ourselves and how memory works (and doesn't). A lot of information on cognitive dissonance and other topics, very clearly presented.
The annotated Alan Turing by Charles Petzold. This is a brilliant idea. Petzold has taken Alan Turing's classic paper on computability and provided extensive, paragraph by paragraph commentary on it, making it comprehensible for a lot more people (like me). This sort of thing should be done more often.
The Pursuit of Glory: Five revolutions that made modern Europe: 1648 - 1815 by Tim Blanning. To quote the NY Times Book Review: "History writing at its glorious best". Blanning is a highly knowledgeable guide to this period, but, more than that, he has a talent for pointing out the odd fact and making it fit into a bigger picture. He makes observations that strike you as obvious - once you've read them - and draws you into the narrative. Anyone with interest in this period should read this book
Finding our Tongues: Mothers, infants and the evolution of language by Dean Falk. Wonderfully written and engaging, this is scholarly writing at its best. Speech - and language generally - is the quintessential human activity. While there are arguments about whether other primates can really learn a language, or how much language some other species have, there's no doubt that no animal uses language to the extent that we do. How did this happen?
Wanderlust by Ann Aguirre. The second in the series started with Grimspace (see above). More good SF adventure fun. Sirantha Jax is named ambassador to Ithisstor. If there's a less likely ambassador .... but she has some trouble getting to the planet.
Varieties of Scientific Experience: A personal view of the search for God by Carl Sagan. Sagan gave the Gifford Lectures which had also been given by William James. James' series was written up as Varieties of Religious Experience, and Sagan makes a play on that title. This is a look at the religious (or not) views of a man who was much more than a science popularizer
And some technical books for work.