Happy holidays! Next week, the year in review
For those who are new ... we discuss books. I list what I'm reading, and people comment with what they're reading. Sometimes, on Sundays, I post a special edition on a particular genre or topic.
cfk has Bookflurries on Wednesday nights, with links to lots of other diaries about books and reading on daily Kos .
If you like to trade books, try bookmooch
Just finished
A reread of Jingo by Terry Pratchett. More glorious Discworld fun. Years ago, Klatch and Ankh-Morpork fought over a small island of no particular significance. It sank. Now it's arisen again, and the war is on! Pratchett aims his satire at prejudice and the sort of blind patriotism that is pathetic.
full review
The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks. More neurological case histories from the eminent Dr. Sacks, these all focus on vision, and how it can go wrong. What strikes me most about Sacks is his humanity. Full Review
A re-read of Ringworld by Larry Niven. SF set in the fairly distant future, in the Known Space universe. Humans named Louis Wu and Teela Brown and a kzin named Speaker to Animals set off for the Ringworld, led by a mad puppeteer named Nessus. The Ringworld is an artificial world shaped like a ribbon around a sun, and it's 9 million times the size of Earth. Wonderful
Voodoo River by Robert Crais. The fourth Elvis Cole novel. In this one, he is hired to find the birth parents of a famous actress who was adopted at birth. It looks like a standard case. But, once Cole flies down to New Orleans, it turns out there's more than crawfish on his plate. People are getting killed. And he's falling in love (or a strong case of high-minded lust). Fun and easy reading.
Now reading
The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the dark ages by Chris Wickham. A really good history of Europe and western Asia, from 400 to 1000 AD.
This one is more or less on hold. I need to pay more attention to it to keep track of all the unfamiliar names.
The Great SF stories volume 1: 1939 ed. by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg. I have this whole series on my shelf and I think I will re-read them
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton. Far future science fiction of the space opera variety. Just started.
The autobiography of Mark Twain. I am giving up on this one. It's BORING. And reviews say it doesn't get better.
Just started
Stiff: The curious lives of human cadavers by Mary Roach. What happens (and has happened) to dead people. Fascinating and very well written, with some humor. Not for the squeamish.
And some technical books for work:
Professional SAS programming secrets by Rick Aster.
Introduction to Statistical Mediation Analysis by David MacKinnon
and
Foundations of Factor Analysis by Stanley Mulaik