24 April 2006

Books I am reading and have read this week

I have just finished 'Collapse: How Societies choose to fail or succeed' by Jared Diamond and 'The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the United States Marines' by Bing West and Ray Smith, 'V for Vendetta' by Alan Moore and David Lloyd* and 'Modesty Blaise: The Puppet Master' by Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero* and a title on a German artillery unit of World War II earlier this week.

I am currently reading 'Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are hijacking the Global Economy' by Moises Naim, the editor of Foreign Policy, 'In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat' by Rick Atkinson, 'Self-Discovery' by Vladimir Savchenko, and a couple of others.

What are you reading at this moment?

*The artist of that respective comic.

13 comments:

V said...

Just finished "The Planets" by Dava Sobel. Am about to re-read Brian Greene's "The Fabric of The Cosmos." Though I have not yet read "The Elegant Universe" yet.

For a bit of fun, I'm also reading "Farnham's Freehold" by Robert a. Heinlein.

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

V, you appear to be versed in cosmology and other scientific works. I was eyeing
"The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos" by
Joel R. Primack, Nancy Ellen Abrams over the weekend. May I know if you have read that one?

The 'Elegant Universe' seems interesting. I have seen it around but I haven't looked through it. How is 'The Planets'?

Those old Heinlein classics with its sense of optimism and mankind's manifest destiny in space are excellent reads! I love them...

Anonymous said...

Just skimmed thru 'The Road to Dune', K. Anderson & Brian Herbert's less than stellar reworkings of Frank Herbert's original notes to his Dune epic. The main offering is a vastly dumbed down novella - a kind of still born abomination of Dune - imagine the Duke Leto renamed as 'Jesse Linkham', and the Lady Jessica as 'Dorothy Mapes'. Strangely enough, some of the 'original' short stories by KA&BH aren't too bad... compared to the totally juvenile writing style of their earlier 'Dune prequels'. Glad I found this in the library. Makes me wish I had bought the Jim Burns-illustrated 'DUNE-EYE' years ago.

Still catching up on my PKD backlog... just finished the nightmarish Dr Bloodmoney, now starting on Counter-Clock World.

hujan_batu said...

I'm currently reading:

"Blood on the Street" by some reporter
"The House of Morgan" by Ron Chernow
"Experimental Economics" by some economist
"The Roaring Nineties" by Joe Stiglitz
"Assembling California" by John McPhee

I usually read three or four books at the same time and swap between them when I get bored of one.

Andrew Glazebrook said...

At the moment I've been looking through Architecture Now 4 published by Taschen and also reading through 3D World and Cinefex magazines !!

BlackRX said...

Hello to V. I, too, am interested in knowing what science books you have found enjoyable.

shyuech, I find The Elegant Universe to be a less "dense" read than The Fabric of the Cosmos. In the latter Greene tries to cover and explain more topics compared to the former.

There is much more historical (e.g., describing the key experiments) and philosophical (e.g., the question of what Time is) material in "The Fabric..."

V said...

Chaung and Blackrx, I only began reading books on the cosmos about two years ago. Before that I was mostly just interested in astronomy. The book you mention, I have seen and have looked at but have not bought it yet. Though I'm thinking of getting it.

The books I have enjoyed reading the most are those of Carl Sagan's. So far, I have read "Cosmos", "Billions & Billions", "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors", "The Demon Haunted World" and I have "The Dragons of Eden" yet to read.

Others that I have read "Alpha & Omega - The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe" by Charles Seife. And Stephen Hawking's "The Universe in a Nutshell"

"The Planets" is a very enjoyable read. It is like a guided tour of the solar system that does not make you feel like you're reading a science book at all.

All these books I have enjoyed reading and will read again in due time. I'm not blessed with retaining the words I read, so I must re-read. I think it has something to do with A.D.D. :)

Thanks for asking, friends.

Off course anything you can recommend is greatly appreciated.

Anonymous said...

wow.... I'm currently reading my own readings for uni... international economy, the Gold Standard... politics.. oh, and my own book, Race by Studs Terkel and 10 steps to a more tolerant Australia... gd stuff... not as chim as the rest though hee.. :)

Happy Reading all!

Anonymous said...

currently... well... books on education? heh.--liz

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

Ahh... that doesn't sound terribly exciting Liz. Of course, if books on education is your thing....

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

Pinkys, I'm just curious, do you read for leisure? The stuff you read seems deadly serious.

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

Andrew, the Taschen press do have excellent offerings. I have several volumes but not many. I'm currently looking through two volumes on houses and gardens. They are awe-inspiring. The variety...

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

"I usually read three or four books at the same time and swap between them when I get bored of one."

Brian, I do that all the time. However, may I know how you do that with library books? Do you simply renew them or just read very fast?

Where is the Numero Uno Commando-Uber Sniper book?