HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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.
If you like to trade books, try bookmooch
I've written some book reviews on Yahoo Voices:
Book reviews on Yahoo
Readers and Book lovers schedule
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
Just finished
Stiff by Mary Roach. A re-read for me, with the History group on Goodreads. This is about what happens to us after we die. It ain't pretty.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meachem. A well-researched and well-written account of Jackson, concentrating on his White House years. Meachem has a dual view of Jackson: Positive on most things, very negative on dealing with Indians and Blacks. This book won Pulitzer Prize
Making Money by Terry Pratchett. Another re-read. Now that the post office is running fine, Moist von Lipwig is bored. Then Lord Vetinari "offers" him another job: Running the bank.
Now reading
On politics: A history of political thought from Herodotus to the present by Alan Ryan. What the subtitle says - a history of political thought. But he should add the adjective "Western" or something as he doesn't discuss other traditions or writings.
Leibniz: An intellectual biography by Maria Rosa Antognazza. Leibniz was co-inventor of calculus (with Isaac Newton) but he also made contributions to law, philosophy, physics, economics, chemistry, geology, medicine, linguistics, history and more. This book is good, but fairly dense.
The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell. The philosopher writes about why he thinks a lot of people are unhappy when it is not justified by their external circumstances. Written in 1930, this is partly interesting as a time capsule and partly as advice (quite a bit of which remains valid, 80 years later).
I play bridge and I decided to start listing bridge books I am reading
Bidding, probability and information by Robert MacKinnon. Appeals to both the bridge player and the statistician in me. Not very well written, unfortunately, and aimed at better bridge players than me, but still interesting.
Card Play Technique by Victor Mollo and Nico Gardner. One of the classics of bridge literature. Subtitled "The art of being lucky". Very well written, intended for that huge class of bridge players called "intermediate".
Turing and Burroughs by Rudy Rucker. This is a deeply weird book. Not in a bad way at all, but .... odd. It starts off with the (possibly true) attempt of someone in the British government to kill Alan Turing with cyanide laced tea. But Turing's lover drinks first and dies. Then Turing uses biological tools he has been working on to switch faces with his friend. Then the tools get loose, Turing escapes to Morocco where he meets (and melds with) William Burroughs.... This is strange stuff but fascinating. Rucker captures Turing quite well in my view (I have read a lot about Turing).
21st Century Science Fiction ed. by David Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. A collection of shorter length SF from the first decade of the 21st century.
Just started
Leviathan Wakes by James Corey. Recommended here on WAYR a couple weeks ago. Space opera set solely in the solar system. Good fun.