what are you reading?

TFO · Post by **TFO** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:21 am 0

Am reading a translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh...from here doth much of the old testament come.

betamax · Post by **betamax** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:21 am 0

Jedburgh wrote:
betamax wrote:
Jon wrote:I am currently reading 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat' by Oliver Sacks, which is a very interesting book about neurology and some of the weird and werider things that can occur with the brain.
Comes recommended (by me) to anyone who wants a handle on perceptual theory. It approaches the horror of perceptual faliure in an incredibly compassionate and human way while retaining enough objectivity to be a useful reference book. Some of the case studies will have you fighting back the tears.
Read it the other week. Found it interesting but somewhat dated and I didn't take to Sacks' style. Possibly because I'd already read Phantoms in the Brain, a much more recent work by V. S. Ramachandran that manages to be both more accessible and more in-depth.

Cheers Jed, I'll have to track down a copy. Oi! Amazon!

arron · Post by **arron** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:29 am 0

Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.

It turns out that the holocaust (as we know it) was proposed in the nineteen century around 20 odd times by leading people of the day..and would seem that hatred of the Jews stretched back centuries. It didn't take a lot to change the mindset of a nation to doing what they did in the end..

Oh, and the OpenGL Xwindows (green) book which I got at the weekend. It would have made the secret project a hell of a lot easier had I got this in the first place!

fritx · Post by **fritx** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:36 am 0

arron wrote:Oh, and the OpenGL Xwindows (green) book which I got at the weekend. It would have made the secret project a hell of a lot easier had I got this in the first place!

Curiouser and curioser

Currently reading The Way of Wyrd by Brian Bates. It's about Anglo Saxon sorcery highly recommended if you like magickal things.

TT · Post by TT » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:37 am 0

Just finished reading "Past Mortem" by Ben Elton. Its the first of his books I've read and it was surprisingly good.

Just started "Tommyland", which is Tommy Lee's (drummer from Motley Crue) autobiography. The first chapter is a conversation between him and his penis.

But it warms up after that, and he seems quite an insightful guy. Which is a revelation, considering...

romanista · Post by **romanista** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:38 am 0

as i was on holiday last week, i did another section of A la recherche du temps perdu (in search of lost time) by marcel proust..

and i read a marvelous dutch book by kluun (see kluun.nl) about a man who loses his wife to cancer, and tells in a very funny but impressive way how he deals with it

WhiteSpy · Post by **WhiteSpy** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:40 am 0

Betrayal (Dhamon Saga Vol: 2) from the Dragonlance series.

Jac · Post by **Jac** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:41 am 0

Our Hidden Lives by Simon Garfield, which mysteriously changed from being subtitled 'the everyday lives of a forgotten Britain' in hardback to 'the remarkable diaries of postwar Britain' in paperback. Either way, it's a sampling of writing by some participants in a diary scheme, detailing things like VE Day and postwar rationing and politics, as well as their own personal preoccupations. It's fascinating stuff.

korruptor · Post by **korruptor** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:49 am 0

Just re-read the Nights Dawn Trilogy (Peter F Hamilton), have started Silverfin, Accounts Demystified, Hackers Delight and the Naked Chef. And last months Edge...

GeeZa · Post by **GeeZa** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:52 am 0

arron wrote:Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.

It turns out that the holocaust (as we know it) was proposed in the nineteen century around 20 odd times by leading people of the day..and would seem that hatred of the Jews stretched back centuries. It didn't take a lot to change the mindset of a nation to doing what they did in the end..

Read this on publication and it's an impressive if almost deliberately polemic work. You should have seen the furore at the time, good discussions though, Goldhagen was on TV constantly for a little while.

Njal · Post by **Njal** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:59 am 0

Hmm.. that was weird, I've just gone through the thread and realised I've already read about 98% of the books mentioned

I always have several books on the go at once, these are the ones I'm currently reading..

I can't remember the authors for most of these..

The Voynich Manuscript - Gerry Kennedy, Rob Churchill
All under heaven: a complete history of China - R. Kruger

And attempting to make up for my shocking lack of maths knowledge:

Understanding Pure Maths (some sort of A level textbook)
Understanding Calculus (only bought this last night, don't know if it will help or not)
Mathematics from the birth of numbers - Jan Gulberg

If anyone has any recommendations for maths books that make things easier to understand, such as giving good clear examples of what you can actually use various mathematical concepts for rather than just rattling off a load of formulae, I'd appreciate it. I'm really struggling with this stuff (with the books I currently have).

Books I'd recommend:
The Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Anything by Thomas Pynchon, but especially Gravity's Rainbow or Mason & Dixon.
Anything by Don Delillo - Especially White Noise.

grue · Post by **grue** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:03 am 0

Njal wrote:
Books I'd recommend:
The Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake

Ough

I gave it a go but the tempo was soooo crawling that I abandoned all hope

I loved the TV series though

Glyndwr · Post by **Glyndwr** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:05 am 0

Robert Ludlum's

The Bourne Legacy

by Eric Van Lustbader.

Njal · Post by **Njal** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:08 am 0

grue wrote:
Njal wrote:
Books I'd recommend:
The Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake
Ough
I gave it a go but the tempo was soooo crawling that I abandoned all hope

I loved the TV series though

hehe, I know that a lot of people find it really hard going, I mean, let's say Mr Peake tended to go into a LOT of detail about absolutely everything. But the writing and characterisation is so good you let him get away with it.

I really love those dense kinds of books though, ones that you can really get into and inhabit, rather than have it all over with in a few hours, see also Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, attempting to read them while on the toilet tends to make your legs go numb

.

betamax · Post by **betamax** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:09 am 0

Njal wrote:Anything by Thomas Pynchon, but especially Gravity's Rainbow or Mason & Dixon.
Anything by Don Delillo - Especially White Noise.

The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon) was a nice excercise in imagined helplessness and paranoia.

To my infinite shame I never got to the end of White Noise, but managed to read E.L Doctorow's City of God (which is far more nebulous and mindbending) in a single all day sitting.

My "To Do" pile contains some gems though.