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.
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Just finished
Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith. A light and funny short novel featuring Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfield, a professor of Romance philology in Regensburg, Germany. A send-up of academia and its discontents
(started and finished) Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis. The world of competitive Scrabble and some of its top players. A good book that captures the lure of the game, but Fatsis spends too much time on some of the more unusual characters (and their more unusual characteristics).
Now reading
Cooler Smarter: Practical tips for low carbon living by the scientists at Union of Concerned Scientists, a great group. These folk make sense, concentrating on the changes you can make that have the biggest impact with the least effort.
Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman, most famous for his work with the late Amos Tversky, is one of the leading psychologists of the times. Here, he posits that our brains have two systems: A fast one and a slow one. Neither is better, but they are good at different things. This is a brilliant book: Full of insight and very well written, as well.
What hath God wrought? by Daniel Walker Howe. Subtitled “The transformation of America 1815-1848. I am reading this with the History group at GoodReads. This is very well written, and does a good job especially with coverage of the treatment of Blacks and Native Americans.
The hard SF renaissance ed. by David G. Hartwell. A large anthology of “hard” SF from the 90’s and 00’s. I think Hartwell takes SF a bit too seriously, but the stories are good.
On politics: A history of political thought from Herodotus to the present by Alan Ryan. What the subtitle says – a history of political thought.
He, she and it by Marge Percy. Near future dystopian SF set on Earth.
A Most Dangerous Book by Christopher Krebs. How a short book by the Roman Tacitus had a dangerous life, culminating in its use by the Nazis to support their ideas of lebensraum and “Ein volk, Ein reich, ein fuhrer”.
The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven. The sequel to Ringworld in which Louis Wu, Chmee and the Hindmost return to Ringworld, which has become unstable.
Measurement by Paul Lockhart. About mathematics and, especially, how it should be taught and learned. Lockhart is wonderful; his first book A Mathematician’s Lament was, in my view, the best books on teaching math ever written.
Just started
Nothing this week (but see above)
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