What are you readioactive now(and other book related stuff)?

[cv4]

I was in need of books and Chapters had a Buy 2, Get 1 Free deal on pocket paperbacks. Ending up picking up

Starship Troopers
A Feast For Crows
American Gods
His Majesty's Dragon
Foundation
Mona Lisa Overdrive
Neverwhere
The Time Machine/The Invisible Man
Animal Farm

Normally I buy my books on Amazon but these were all ~ the same price as online, so it worked out good. Now just have to decide what to read.

[viscusanima]

Currently reading a book called The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine by James le Fanu. It's really interesting, there's an extended prologue (about 200 pages) which details the 12 defining moments of 20th century medicine, which is incredibly enlightening. However, I've just gotten to 'The Fall' and it's taken a turn for the pessimistic and depressing, which is sad. I don't like pessimistic outlooks, especially regarding something I want to move into as a career. I've got enough trouble with people trying to put me off already!

[Ishindri]

Just finished Fine Structure, an online sci-fi novella. Really a fantastic read. It's hard to absorb all the detail and threads on just one reading, though. Just the way I like it.

[Chuff]

Reading Emma right now. She annoys me but the pages turn so I guess I'm enjoying it.

[ImagingGeek]

Working my way through the foundation series. On book four of the original series. Its OK, but I really don't see why its as famous as it is. Good yes, exceptional, no.

Please don't shoot me

Bryan

[ian]

Working my way through the foundation series. On book four of the original series. Its OK, but I really don't see why its as famous as it is. Good yes, exceptional, no.

Please don't shoot me

Bryan

It's no longer exceptional because it has influenced everything, thus it no longer stands out as individual.

[ImagingGeek]

Working my way through the foundation series. On book four of the original series. Its OK, but I really don't see why its as famous as it is. Good yes, exceptional, no.

Please don't shoot me

Bryan

It's no longer exceptional because it has influenced everything, thus it no longer stands out as individual.

That wasn't really how it was bothering me. I'm somewhat of a fan of "hard" sci-fi (i.e. fiction actually based on real science, vs. fantasy novels that happen to have spaceships). I thought going in that was what the foundation series would be - I've read some of his "robot" books in the past, and while they pushed the edge of credibility they still managed to stay on the credible side of the line. The foundation series started with a science-cred problem, and by book 2 had given up all trappings of being vaguely scientific. That was disappointing.

Those issues aside, I'm also not overly impressed with the overall story. Hollow characters, unreasonable jumps in the story, deus ex machina as a standard plotline, etc.

As I said, please don't shoot me

Bryan

[JayDee]

The foundation series started with a science-cred problem, and by book 2 had given up all trappings of being vaguely scientific. That was disappointing.

Part of that is science marching on. When it was written it wasn't so far from plausible. I've read comments from Asimov (or Clarke, maybe) about sci-fi with various psychic themes - at the time, they hadn't been so thoroughly falsified. (I loved the first ~four stories, everything up to the introduction of the Mule, personally.) If Foundation doesn't seem like hard sf that's because the goalposts have moved since it was written.

Those issues aside, I'm also not overly impressed with the overall story. Hollow characters, unreasonable jumps in the story, deus ex machina as a standard plotline, etc.

Those are all pretty reasonable criticisms. The jumps tend to come from the fact the books are collections of short stories from magazines, printed years apart. Short stories which tend to be idea focused rather than plot or character or setting, etc. So they rise and fall on those ideas. Which are a little dated. Mileage varies on how much that matters to an individual.

---

I'm currently reading a bunch of non-fiction. Including:

The Ambitions of Curiosity compares the beginnings of science in ancient Greece and China, asking various interesting questions. Fascinating stuff, and recommended to anyone interested in the history of science but who has only ever looked at the branch of history leading back to Egypt / Greece.

Last night I read The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint by Edward Tufte. Solid argument and solid presentation about something that I've vaguely railed against for years. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to easily tolerate many of my lectures this week.

Slowly making my way through The Big History Question: Snapshots of Australian History, a collection of essays adapted from a radio show. Short (a couple of pages) pieces answering questions like "Why was Sydney selected for the Second Coming of Christ? Who was the mysterious 'Great Teacher' and how was he to manifest his authority? Why was an amphitheatre built facing Sydney Heads?" or "What was the secret life of Governor Arthur Phillip? How did international espionage play a central role in Australia's early colonial history? And when is a scientific expedition not a scientific expedition?" So many interesting little things that tend to be left out of most formal history education in this country. It's criminal.

And slower still I'm reading the short stories collected in Asimov's Mysteries. He was apparently told that science fiction mysteries couldn't be written (because the readers wouldn't know all the rules!) and thought that was nonsense, then set out to write a murder mystery on the moon. Solid mystery shorts in science fiction settings, that tend hinge on scientific principles and follow the rules and conventions of the genre. Both genres. Plus there is an emphasis on chemistry which I do appreciate.

[emceng]

I am currently reading...nothing. Which is weird. There are maybe 6 books that I stopped partway into that I should get back to, but no desire to do so really. I'm trying to figure out what I should read next. What I really should be doing is reading some technical material for work, but that's not happening right now.

My options:

Try and get back to GEB. I like it, but it's a really tough read, and I have a hard time dedicating the time and mental effort, instead of just grabbing a few pages here and there.

Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works. Interesting, but not enough to keep me engaged.

Random other non-fiction I never got back to. Some of it was decent, but again didn't wow me.

Midnight Tides. I've bought up through book 9 now, but only have read through book 4.

Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy - I've heard good things, and I liked his work on the WoT

O'Brien's Master and Commander series. I've gotten up to book 9, and enjoy them, but haven't read one in a year or two

Julian Stockwin's sailing series

Other random sci-fi - Piers Anthony's space emperor series, Farmer's world of tiers or other stuff, a few Heinlein books, a Peter Hamilton book, some Pynchon I couldn't get into, Stand on Zanzibar, I, Cladius, The Mayor of Castorbridge, One Hundred Years of Solitude, some Bester, some Harlan Ellison, A Canticle for Lebowitz, and on and on.

[ImagingGeek]

The foundation series started with a science-cred problem, and by book 2 had given up all trappings of being vaguely scientific. That was disappointing.

Part of that is science marching on. When it was written it wasn't so far from plausible. I've read comments from Asimov (or Clarke, maybe) about sci-fi with various psychic themes - at the time, they hadn't been so thoroughly falsified.

That makes sense - still bugs me though

That said, the whole psycohistory thing would have been laughable circa 1850 - it defies the very statistical principals Asimov apparently based psychohistory on.

(I loved the first ~four stories, everything up to the introduction of the Mule, personally.) If Foundation doesn't seem like hard sf that's because the goalposts have moved since it was written.

Those issues aside, I'm also not overly impressed with the overall story. Hollow characters, unreasonable jumps in the story, deus ex machina as a standard plotline, etc.

Those are all pretty reasonable criticisms. The jumps tend to come from the fact the books are collections of short stories from magazines, printed years apart. Short stories which tend to be idea focused rather than plot or character or setting, etc. So they rise and fall on those ideas. Which are a little dated. Mileage varies on how much that matters to an individual.

I agree that the first books were short stories, and the jumps excusable. But the later books were written as books, and still had the same issues. But it was the general issues - deus ex machina in particular, which are driving me nuts. 2000+ years ago, when the term was invented, it was accepted as a poor story-telling motif. The fact it is so often used in the Foundation series is driving me batty.

Its especially irritating, as Asimov didn't do things like that in his robot books - many of which were also short stories. I had expected better.

Re-reading the above, it seems overly harsh. I'm not saying its bad - just below my expectations based on other Asmiov works I've read, and below what I expected based on the long-lasting hype the series has had.

The Ambitions of Curiosity compares the beginnings of science in ancient Greece and China, asking various interesting questions. Fascinating stuff, and recommended to anyone interested in the history of science but who has only ever looked at the branch of history leading back to Egypt / Greece.

Bought it after reading the description over at amazon - thanks for brining it to my attention.

Last night I read The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint by Edward Tufte. Solid argument and solid presentation about something that I've vaguely railed against for years. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to easily tolerate many of my lectures this week.

I see we share a pet peeve. I don't know if you've seen this vid, but it touches on the same topic as your book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d04w4vvByDI

Bryan

[JayDee]

That said, the whole psycohistory thing would have been laughable circa 1850 - it defies the very statistical principals Asimov apparently based psychohistory on.

This I am curious about. I was willing to forgive it because I thought it was cool (mortal chessmaster putting into play a plan that unfolds in the thousands of years after he dies? Awesome.) As much as I didn't like Second Foundation (the book or the idea) the scenes set on second foundation with the maths were also pretty cool. I've read other stories from the period, from Heinlein and maybe others, that feature the notion that psychology would become a precise mathematical science. Perhaps it was due to the popularity of psychoanalysis at the time?

But the later books were written as books, and still had the same issues.

I think the latter books were something of a cash-in / submission to popular demand. Thirty years passed between the writing of Second Foundation and Foundation's Edge. Haven't read those latter books, though, since I was under the impression they weren't worth it.

[ImagingGeek]

That said, the whole psycohistory thing would have been laughable circa 1850 - it defies the very statistical principals Asimov apparently based psychohistory on.

This I am curious about. I was willing to forgive it because I thought it was cool (mortal chessmaster putting into play a plan that unfolds in the thousands of years after he dies? Awesome.). . . I've read other stories from the period, from Heinlein and maybe others, that feature the notion that psychology would become a precise mathematical science. Perhaps it was due to the popularity of psychoanalysis at the time?

My problems are two-fold. First, he consistently refutes his claims that individual actions don't matter. Each and every "sheldon crisis" that comes along is precipitated, and solved, by a small number of people. By his own rules, that shouldn't occur.

As for stats, the way he sets up psychohistory runs counter to the way statistics work. His basic premise is that in large enough groups peoples behavior becomes probabalistic. That may or maynot be a realistic expectation, but its irrelevant to my gripe. Where he goes wrong is in the idea that with a large enough population, probabalistic systems become predictive, or near-predictive enough to have a sheldon plan. Stat's don't work that way. Having a larger population size doesn't make the actual probability of an event change, so no matter how big the universe population was, events would remain probabilistic, not predictive.

He also ignores the effect of cumulative probabilities. Any sort of sheldon plan would require that tens of thousands - if not millions or even billions - of events come out the way they were predicted. Any small divergences would rapidly amplify to the point that all predictability would be lost. Lets say you have a series of events with 99.9% probability of occurring. If you have 2 of these events contingent on each other, the chance of both occurring as expected is 99.8%. If you have 50 events contingent on each other, all with a 99.9% chance of occurring, the chance of all 50 occurring is 95%. If you have 100 of said events, the probability of them all occurring is 90%. 500 of said events, the probability drops to 60%. Even assuming a low-ball of 1000 of said events, your cumulative probability of everything going right is only 36%. If there is 1 million events, your probability is a whopping 3 X 10^-433%. While a plan based on those events could be kept on track by his "second foundation", formulating a plan where your predictability drops off like this would be impossible, mathematically speaking.

Bryan

[Psycho Goose]

I recently finished reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It was good. Very good. May be the best thing I've ever read, and I never say that after I finish a book.

No, seriously. Read it now. It's really a series of nested novellas--one takes place in the 1850s, and that stops halfway through to jump to one that takes place in the 1930s, and the main character of the 1930s story reads the journal that the first bit consists of. This continues into the distant future. For the first bit, it was kinda hard going, as the first few stories start out a wee bit slowly, and--frustratingly--break off just as soon as they start to get interesting. But then they pick up, and it's really the ending that matters--I have long believed that a story's ending is its most important part, and Cloud Atlas has six fantastic endings that range from hilariously uplifting to depressingly tragic. I'm not very good at describing books, but I can't think of a person I know who would flat-out dislike this book, and considering the people I know, that's some pretty high praise.

Now reading The Iliad. This is summer reading for school--I have to finish it before I begin my freshman year at college. So far, I think it's very good, but a bit overwhelming. I'm just not used to its poetic, overdescriptive (and a bit dry, but this may be a translation issue) style. The story, however, is picking up a bit--the characters are getting fleshed out, and it's brilliant the way Homer squeezes all sorts of past and future events into the present that he's describing. Oh, and just about everyone is totally fucking badass. A somewhat major (though, as far as I can tell, not too important) character just stabbed Ares. And made him cry.

[cv4]

Just finished A Feast for Crows. Pretty bummed that I am now caught up in the series. WTB Dance with Dragons ASAP.

[The Milkman]

I started reading Vonnegut. Now I don't want to put him down.

On Breakfast of Champions right now, and I'm gonna save it for my long and upcoming plane trip.

[Chuff]

Waverly, by Sir Walter Scott. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be funny, but it definitely is. It's hilarious.

[liveeeee_]

The last book I read was "The Metamorphosis" by Kafka. It's the third book by Kafka that I read (the first too being "The Castle" and "The Trial"). The three books are very, very similar. I liked them, but I don't know exactly why. I think it's the quality of the narrative, the feeling of despair you get by those ever worsening situations in which the characters are.

I'm looking forward to read "Slaughterhouse Five" now. Or maybe something by Tolstoy.

[svensen]

I started reading Vonnegut. Now I don't want to put him down.

On Breakfast of Champions right now, and I'm gonna save it for my long and upcoming plane trip.

It's been a while since I've read Vonnegut, but I remember absolutely loving it... Sirens of Titan especially. I'm currently searching for something to read, which sucks. I need to start keeping a reserve pile of "books to get to" so I don't find myself in this situation anymore. But yeah, that's the third or fourth time over the past few weeks that someone's mentioned Cloud Atlas to me...I'm thinking it must be fate.

[cv4]

Just finished Neverwhere by Gaiman. Most likely, going to either Foundation (Asimov) or Xenocide (Card) next.

[ImagingGeek]

Just finished Rendezvous with Rama. Next up: plato's replubic or flatland.

[Venn]

Despair by Nabokov (more inconspicuous to read on public transport than Lolita). I picked it up at a !local bookstore because the publisher (Vintage International) does excellent cover art for classic books. The Dostoyevsky covers were gorgeous, but the books were too fat to carry.

I just finished Freakonomics because I was feeling acutely uneducated for not reading Another One of Those Books Everyone Is Supposed to Have Read (But This Time They Actually Did).

[emceng]

Despair by Nabokov (more inconspicuous to read on public transport than Lolita). I picked it up at a !local bookstore because the publisher (Vintage International) does excellent cover art for classic books. The Dostoyevsky covers were gorgeous, but the books were too fat to carry.

I just finished Freakonomics because I was feeling acutely uneducated for not reading Another One of Those Books Everyone Is Supposed to Have Read (But This Time They Actually Did).

I found Freakonomics very interesting. I know it is pop psychology/sociology/economics so you need to take some of it with a grain of salt, but it was a fun read. I think it also had more data and actual science behind versus say Malcolm Gladwell's stuff.

Reading The Princess Bride right now. I looked at my list for the year - 32 books. That seems pretty sad, and make me think I will fall significantly short of 50. I would try and read a bunch to work on it, but I am swamped with other things right now.

[Dave_Wise]

I'm reading vanity fair by Thackeray. It's kinda sarcastic, but a lot of fun to read.

[delfts]

I just finished The Catcher in the Rye and I'm currently reading Ender in Exile.

[cv4]

Just finished Foundation. Really liked it. Either doing American Gods or Xenocide next I think.

[LoganCale]

I'm reading a bunch of books at once currently, though primarily The Pope's Rhinoceros by Lawrence Norfolk, along with Bad Art by Eric Gideon, We The Living by Ayn Rand and The Mongoliad by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, etc. I've also got many other books queued up on my Kindle and a giant box of assorted hardcover books I bought used for $5.

[Dave_Wise]

The human stain by Philip Roth. It's brilliant! You feel kind of dirty reading it, but at the same time it's unputdownable.

[blu]

It's been a while since I'd read a new book so I went to a close book store and bought a couple at random.

One was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was an OK book, but the English translation wasn't very good and the
characters and their actions were dubios at times. I don't think I'll give it a second read.

Second is Gardens of the Moon. I am currently at the end of the Darujhistan section.
This book is obtuse at times and it took me a while to get into it. That being said, it's getting better as I read.

I started reading a book in Hebrew called (translated) "Frost", it's some weird suspense book that occurs 500 years in the future in Tel Aviv. It's weird...

Is this worth a read? I don't usually bother with local books (too expensive, among other reasons). Last one I read was A Week in the Life, 2 years ago or so.

[vector]

Just finished Bridget Jones's Diary, which reads like a modern-day, comedic Pride and Prejudice (for good reason, too). Definitely recommend: it's one of the few "chick novels" in which I actually found myself rooting for the heroine's romances (others are Special Topics in Calamity Physics and The Princess Bride).

[delfts]

I'm currently reading Foundation. I'm almost done with it (about 50 pages left to go), and it's pretty good, but a lot of ideas and events are discussed very quickly, so it's a bit confusing... Perhaps I need to re-read it in a couple of years.

[JayDee]

I'm currently reading Foundation. I'm almost done with it (about 50 pages left to go), and it's pretty good, but a lot of ideas and events are discussed very quickly, so it's a bit confusing.

Asimov's Foundation? It might be worth knowing that those were short stories written for magazines in an age when that was the thing. It's one explanation of the quickness, at least.

[theGoldenCalf;]

Just finished "The Road" by Cormack McCarthy. Rough experience. It is a brilliant book, but a very depressing, bleak read, full of cruelty, cannibalism, despair, fear, grotesque death and other such stuff that make for a super-fun-tuesday. It gave me fucking nightmares. Nothing gives me nightmares, and that includes Palahniuk.

Started reading Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union", so far it's a delight.

[KingSkin]

The Road is a brilliant book but also horrifically depressing. I read it when my son was about 3 months old and some parts really did get to me. Very well written though. It didn't give me nightmares but did leave me thinking about it constantly during the day. I'm not sure why Pahalniuk's stuff would give anyone nightmares though, it seems to be written with the point of view of shocking you which immediately makes it less shocking. Neuropath by Scott Bakker is far more horrible and more likely to give you nightmares (or at least sleepless nights), especially if you've got kids.

I haven't read Yiddish Policeman's Union but I highly reccommend Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road which is a great little adventure story which he originally wanted to call 'Jews With Swords'.

I'm reading The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson which is a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be. Very light reading but his descriptions of burn treatments are very interesting.
After that I'm thinking about re-reading Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney because (for all it's faults) it's one of the wost beautifully written books I've ever read and certainly one of my favourites.

[theGoldenCalf;]

Well, 'Guts' haunted me for quite some time. I ate very little the following few days, had phantom stomach aches, had to shake disturbing images out of my head pretty often, but slept like a rock.

[ImagingGeek]

Just finished Ringworld and The Republic, mid-way through Man in the Iron Mask. Read them all before, but they're favs of mine that I read every 3 or 4 years.

Not sure what's next - I've got neuromancer and the entire wheel of time series loaded up on my ebook reader. Question is, do I want to blow through neuromancer first, or get started on the 10,000 pages (or so ) of the WOT series?

Choices, too many choices.

Bryan

[minesweeper]

Currently reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and a couple of DSP textbooks.

[paravatar]

Just finished with "The Quiet War" by McAuley; liked it very much, hard SF with speculative biology. Continuing with the sequel "The gardens of the Sun".
In parallel Mort (Pratchett), Visual Explanations (Tufte), Dune, A World without End and some more.
Re-reading Ringworld, and QED
And the stuff for work…

[MotorToad]

Just finished reading (erm, listening to) Nation by Pratchett. I didn't know when I got it that it was "young adult," but it might just be my favorite book since Letters from the Earth for provoking thought and absolving doubt.

Presently about 2/3 through Unseen Academicals which common opinion had caused me to expect little of, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

[charliepanayi]

I'm reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, which I am enjoying despite the fact pretty much every character in it is a complete ass.

[ian]

Just finished reading (erm, listening to) Nation by Pratchett. I didn't know when I got it that it was "young adult," but it might just be my favorite book since Letters from the Earth for provoking thought and absolving doubt.

Presently about 2/3 through Unseen Academicals which common opinion had caused me to expect little of, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

I'm waiting for my housemate to finish up Nation so I can read it. I've been waiting a while.

Reading 'all you need is KILL' atm. It's pretty good. Though the last few fiction books I read before it were classics so the lower quality of writing, which is by no means bad, can be a bit obvious at times.