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Last post Author Topic: What books are you reading?  (Read 480788 times)

mouser

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What books are you reading?
« on: October 16, 2009, 10:03 PM »
Thought it might be nice to have a thread where we could talk about what books we are reading and share thoughts and recommendations, etc.

This week I finally started going through Chris Bishop's "Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning":
http://www.amazon.co...istics/dp/0387310738

61LLReXatVL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg

So far i'm really liking it, though its more heavy on math and lacking in higher-level discussion than i would like.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2009, 10:05 PM by mouser »

cranioscopical

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2009, 10:54 PM »
Wisdom of the Psyche: Depth Psychology after Neuroscience
Ginette Paris

and

The Guards
Ken Bruen

invenit

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #2 on: October 16, 2009, 11:05 PM »
"Beginning the Linux Command Line" by Sander van Vugt http://www.amazon.co...255751554&sr=8-1

Scott Granneman's "Linux Phrasebook" wet my appetite, and Sander's book gets under the hood without being overwhelming.

40hz

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #3 on: October 16, 2009, 11:10 PM »
This week I'm rereading Gerald M. Weinberg's Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Getting and Giving Advice Successfully for about the 20th time. Excellent commentary and insight into the oftentimes paradoxical world of expert advice. More than a book, it's a collection of usable tools.

SecretsOfConsulting.jpg



Also highly recommended is another one of Gerry's books: An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. This is one of the true classics.

(Gerry has about a dozen books to his credit. These two titles are easily his best.)

tanis424

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2009, 12:36 AM »
They're all much too high brow. :)

Just got the latest Discworld novel - Unseen Academicals.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2009, 12:39 AM by tanis424 »

CleverCat

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2009, 01:25 AM »
Audio Books as I can't hold a 'real' book... :)

invasionofthebodysnatchers500.jpg

4wd

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2009, 01:40 AM »
In between atm, but just finished part 3 of Dean Koontz's take on Frankenstein:

Dead and Alive

605015.jpg

And looking forward to the continuing saga of Jack West in 4 days:

cover_fivegreatestwarriors.jpg
« Last Edit: October 17, 2009, 01:52 AM by 4wd »

CleverCat

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2009, 02:05 AM »
Dean Koontz is an amazing writer - I've read his books (when I could hold them)...

He has a style second to none!

Deozaan

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2009, 02:49 AM »
I don't know how great of a site this is, but I have family and friends on http://www.goodreads.com/ which is a site that does exactly what this thread is for.

You can list the books you've read, write reviews, put books in your "to-read" list, display which book(s) you're currently reading.

I just signed up on it yesterday, but haven't spent the time to thoroughly go through it yet.

bluesear

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #9 on: October 17, 2009, 03:36 AM »
Interesting topic!
I like reading books about linguistics. Hope for more.

4wd

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #10 on: October 17, 2009, 04:01 AM »
Dean Koontz is an amazing writer - I've read his books (when I could hold them)...

He has a style second to none!

I have to agree, (naturally), his recent Frankenstein trilogy is more reminiscent of his earlier style, IMHO, which I preferred more than his later "romance adventures", eg. Dark Rivers of the Heart, Lightning, etc.  Although he does throw some really good ones in from time-to-time, eg. The Taking, Seize the Night, Fear Nothing.

Richard Laymon is good for "what if coincidence...." type of novels but for pure non-stop action from virtually page one, it's got to be Matthew Reilly  :Thmbsup:

Bond, (James Bond), is a nancy boy compared to Scarecrow, (Captain Shane Schofield), and Huntsman, (Jack West Jr)  ;D

40hz

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #11 on: October 17, 2009, 07:37 AM »
They're all much too high brow. :)

Just got the latest Discworld novel - Unseen Academicals.

Don't let what I'm currently reading fool you. I'm nowhere near that high brow.  ;D

(I'm also a big Pratchette fan. I've read everything he's written - and I'm always on the lookout for the next Discworld installment. Great books, all of them. :up: :up:)

For recreational reading, I just finished Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind.

The_Shadow_of_the_Wind.jpgWhat books are you reading?

Love, civil war, mystery, and books (including a secret library of forgotten and "lost" works) - plus a mysterious dead author, whose works of strange fiction are being systematically hunted down and destroyed by a sinister figure.

A plot summary doesn't do it justice. A friend handed it to me when I asked her what it was about and told to me read a little of it instead.

I was hooked after I got about 3 pages into it.

International bestseller.(And for once, deservedly so.) Truly awesome book. :Thmbsup:

« Last Edit: August 28, 2012, 10:01 AM by 40hz »

tanis424

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #12 on: October 17, 2009, 08:24 AM »
For recreational reading, I just finished Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind.

Sounds interesting, added to my "to read" list.

I've recently been reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich - 15 books so far with several novellas too. No need to bring your brain for these, just sheer fun at the expense of Stephanie Plum and an amazing cast of characters, including her Grandmother who's described as "a soup chicken wearing a tracksuit". :)

Darwin

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #13 on: October 17, 2009, 10:35 AM »
Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog (translated from the French). It's early days yet and I haven't yet decided if I like it...

I haven't read an academic book in about six months  :o I quit my PhD program in January and haven't had much desire since  :( I have a huge backlog of books that I purchased prior to that and have not yet read. Maybe after I get through this novel and revisit some of them...

zridling

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #14 on: October 18, 2009, 09:43 AM »
Philosophy and Chess stuff.

a-drgriffinNxSL._BO2,204,203,2001.jpg
David Ray Griffin -- Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy

a-alekhine_BO2,204,203,2001_.jpg
Alexander Alekhine -- My Best Games of Chess, 1908-1937

TucknDar

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #15 on: October 18, 2009, 12:32 PM »
Currently "Battle Royale" and a few books on childhood in relation to my studies.

I've got a huge list of books (fiction) that I want to get through, too... looking forward to next summer when my studies will be over  8)

gpetrant

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #16 on: October 21, 2009, 07:16 AM »

(I started it back in 2002.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to motivate myself to finish it...and I'm also dealing with self-esteem issues too, now that I've put on a lot of weight.  Hopefully, no one will spoil the ending for me.  It's the trip journey that counts, not the denistation .)
Shywolf

PPLandry

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #17 on: October 21, 2009, 08:19 AM »
For recreational reading, I just finished Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind.

+1 for Zafon's book. Great suspense in beautiful Barcelona!

Currently reading Michel Folco trilogy: http://fr.wikipedia..../Un_loup_est_un_loup



Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present -- Albert Camus -- www.InfoQube.biz
« Last Edit: October 21, 2009, 08:21 AM by PPLandry »

rjbull

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #18 on: November 08, 2009, 10:09 AM »
I've recently been reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich - 15

I gave up on those when they all began to seem the same - off-sage hot sex and on-stage comfort food...

rjbull

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #19 on: November 08, 2009, 10:23 AM »
Currently reading Kate Elliot's  "Traitors' Gate," third in her Crossroads series.  She's a good fantasist, but this one isn't to my mind as good as her earlier Crown of Stars sequence.  Before finding that one, I'd begun to think that fantasies set in pseudo-Mediaeval pseudo-North European milieus were, however enjoyable, using a paint-by-numbers public domain background.  Crown of Stars changed my view on that.  She used the very early Middle Ages, and made it grittily real, rather than starting from unconsidered hand-me-down retellings of Arthurian legend.  The marvellous inverted version of Christianity is fascinating and the character development is excellent.

Darwin

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #20 on: November 08, 2009, 11:01 AM »
200px-Evolution_and_the_Theory_of_Games.jpg

tomos

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #21 on: November 08, 2009, 03:58 PM »
(see attachment in previous post)

Can you give us a summary when you're done ;)
Tom

Darwin

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #22 on: November 08, 2009, 04:04 PM »
Sure - it's about the theory of games and its application to evolution  :P

Perry Mowbray

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #23 on: November 09, 2009, 07:48 AM »
DialogueMapping.jpgWhat books are you reading?
« Last Edit: November 11, 2009, 08:05 PM by Perry Mowbray »

Crush

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Re: What books are you reading?
« Reply #24 on: November 09, 2009, 08:46 AM »
I´m now a proud owner of the full Game Programming Gems Series and some other interesting things like Game Programming AI by Example or Physics for Game Developers. It´s so much material that I can´t work through within the next year.
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=20287.0
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