Book Talk
72e_shaun wrote:Neal Stephenson's The Confusion was great. Just finished it last week. It's the second book in a trilogy though, so you'll have to read Quicksilver (which I didn't care for as much) to understand it. Also, for those of you who haven't checked out Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, I can't give a novel a higher recommendation.
I'm reading The Confusion right now. I'm about half way through it, and so far I liked Quicksilver a lot better. Cyptonomicon blows both of them out of the water. I was pretty disappointed in Snow Crash.
e_shaun wrote: As for non-fiction, Godel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter is a favorite of mine...
One of my favorites as well.
I'm also a big fan of James Ellroy and Don Dellilo (thought Underworld was fantastic...despite popular opinion). Catch-22 is great, as is all Vonnegut.
Book Talk
74laslo wrote:Has anyone read The Recognitions (Gaddis)? I've been eyeing it for a while, but I'm note sure if it's worth the effort. From what I've heard, it's either a masterpiece or a steaming pile of pseudo-intellectual dung.
Worth the effort and a masterpiece. Beautiful sentences, grand conception, and withering misanthropy.
And 20 years later he did it again with his second book, JR, although the beautiful narrative voice is missing entirely--the book is almost entirely dialogue. Anything after that's spotty, though.
Also do check out Perec's Life, a User's Manual, quite possibly the crowning achievement of anyone out of OuLiPo.
Book Talk
76I am half-way through R. Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path. It is one of the best books I have ever read, and a lot more palatable than some of the other Bucky Fuller books I've read -- less heavy math and equations that look great but baffle me. But I am not a mathematician.
It's a great read, and he drops science about money and how it happened, and the history of human warfare and general exploitation, and how in-breeding specialization out-breeds adaptablility, etc.
It's a great read, and he drops science about money and how it happened, and the history of human warfare and general exploitation, and how in-breeding specialization out-breeds adaptablility, etc.
Book Talk
77On the finished list:
Stephanson's The Confusion: as e_shaun mentioned earlier, a fascinating read of fictionalized history and the birth of modern federal/international banking, albeit peppered with alchemy and pirates. Realizing how much of Quicksilver was actually pure setup - The Confusion is much better, and I look forward to reading all three again after the third one comes out and 1-2 years have passed.
China Mieville's Perdido Street Station: purely an adventure buy and it turned out to be excellent, kind of a better take on fictional re-imaging of the development of science and technology with different creature's magic" as source data for analyisis. That sentence is much more dense and thick than the actual book, so ignore and read anyway.
Donald Westlake's Money For Nothing - another excellent humor/crime/humor/espionage/humor novel from an excellent, funny author.
Douglas Adams's The Salmon of Doubt: An excellent, unfortunately short, posthumous release from a great thinker and writer. Actually a good start, containing essays and interviews providing insight into Adams's world perspective and illustrating the source of his humor. Also contains about a quarter of what would have been a new novel. RIP.
Alright, I'll admit that I'm a dork - 100 pages into the 6th Dark Tower novel by Stephen King, and I really am enjoying it.
Stephanson's The Confusion: as e_shaun mentioned earlier, a fascinating read of fictionalized history and the birth of modern federal/international banking, albeit peppered with alchemy and pirates. Realizing how much of Quicksilver was actually pure setup - The Confusion is much better, and I look forward to reading all three again after the third one comes out and 1-2 years have passed.
China Mieville's Perdido Street Station: purely an adventure buy and it turned out to be excellent, kind of a better take on fictional re-imaging of the development of science and technology with different creature's magic" as source data for analyisis. That sentence is much more dense and thick than the actual book, so ignore and read anyway.
Donald Westlake's Money For Nothing - another excellent humor/crime/humor/espionage/humor novel from an excellent, funny author.
Douglas Adams's The Salmon of Doubt: An excellent, unfortunately short, posthumous release from a great thinker and writer. Actually a good start, containing essays and interviews providing insight into Adams's world perspective and illustrating the source of his humor. Also contains about a quarter of what would have been a new novel. RIP.
Alright, I'll admit that I'm a dork - 100 pages into the 6th Dark Tower novel by Stephen King, and I really am enjoying it.
Book Talk
79Currently Benjamin Woolley's The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter, about Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace. She was a mathematician and theorist, as well as a friend and patron of Babbage. I've just started it, so I've been reading the Byron background stuff.
Quite interesting, particularly as Byron's sort of the first celebrity who wasn't a king, political leader, or religious leader or something. Certainly there were well-known authors before, but no one with the particular cult of personality that he had. Certainly the first tragic, doomed, rebellious heart-throb artiste, and apparently an all-around asshole. But I find it interesting that culturally we're still in thrall to this pose laid down 200 years ago.
Quite interesting, particularly as Byron's sort of the first celebrity who wasn't a king, political leader, or religious leader or something. Certainly there were well-known authors before, but no one with the particular cult of personality that he had. Certainly the first tragic, doomed, rebellious heart-throb artiste, and apparently an all-around asshole. But I find it interesting that culturally we're still in thrall to this pose laid down 200 years ago.