What are you currently reading?

Infinitum

Hey people,

I believe this would be a good way to find out new(probably good ) books, so just as it says on the tin, what are you reading now?

I currently alternate between Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem, and Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan. Nearly finished both so I can surely use some suggestions!

BobG

I'm currently waiting for a new book to arrive: "Chasing Venus, The Race to Measure the Heavens".

I'm kind of psyched for the upcoming transit of Venus. I bought a ND16 filter for my camera hoping to get a decent picture of both the annular solar eclipse and the transit of Venus (and, naturally, after being sunny all day, the clouds blew in front of the Sun just I got home to try it out). I'm hoping an ND16 will be enough, as I've never taken pictures of the Sun before. But it definitely does make a difference when you just hold it up and look at the Sun (as I did outside the camera store). Ideally, I'm hoping to get enough clarity that I can see some sunspots (we are in the middle of a solar max). And, of course, I'm hoping to block enough of the light that the telephoto lens doesn't result in my camera being burned like an ant.

I took some decent pictures of the full moon this morning, to at least get a feel for the amount of zoom I need to size the Sun in the frame (the Moon and Sun appear approximately the same size, hence the solar eclipses). We'll hopefully see how much detail the ND16 filter gets me for the Sun today.

Adyssa

I'm reading this one at the moment:

A Life of Discovery: Michael Faraday, Giant of the Scientific Revolution - James Hamilton, and I agree with the first review over @ Amazon, it's a great biography but the author skims over some scientific details in favour of the more ... human story, which is both refreshing, and a pity.

and I just bought:

For Whom The Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway, and I can't wait to read it. I fell head over heels for The Old Man And The Sea when I read it earlier this year (amazing book!) and I bought this hoping for something equally as good - the reviews are all great. :)

@Infinitum - you mention Singh's book on Fermat's Last Theorem, I'd like to read that - I have The Code Book by the same author, on the history of cryptography, and it was excellent!

Integral

The memoir of Gen. W.T. Sherman of the US Civil war.

Danger

This thread, but I'm almost finished.

zoobyshoe

Last week I read The Roman Invasion of Britain. Then I read Chinatown: Portrait of a Closed Society. Today I finished The Monster of Florence by Preston & Spezi.

The last contains, in part, a scathing portrait of the Italian prosecutor who went after Amanda Knox, if you followed that story. He is rabid and paranoid and has been trying to "uncover" a satanic cult in Italy for years, a cult for which he has never been able to produce one shred of evidence. He spent years arresting and jailing alleged cult members for the "murder" of a doctor, who had, in fact, simply fallen from a boat and drowned. He's under indictment for that whole farce, but, inexplicably, was allowed to continue to work in the meantime, during which he invented the whole new twist on his satanic cult obsession, this time including Knox. A book guaranteed to leave you outraged.

Saladsamurai

Currently half-way through The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and I am really enjoying it.

phylotree

phylotree is on his way to Origins:Fourteen Billion Years Of Cosmic Evolution by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith

Ryan_m_b

Current non-fiction: Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital by John Restakis. A really interesting read about the history and modern progression of the co-operative movement and how new practices with new technologies are allowing co-operatives world wide to out-compete corporates in areas they previously could not hope to.

Current fiction: A Song of Fire and Ice series. I watched the Game of Thrones for the first time a month or so ago and have devoured my way through most of the books. If you like tales of swords, kings and kingdoms with a dash of fantasy then you might like to try it.

Jimmy Snyder

Fiction: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Doyle.
Nonfiction: On the Origin of Species by Darwin.

Infinitum

I've read The Code Book and Big Bang too, and they're both pretty awesome. I just finished Fermat's Last Theorem, and I found it the best of the three, but that's probably biased because I love math stuff.



I was* SO confused

I had heard of this one earlier, but it slipped my mind Thanks for reminding! It turns out my local library has these too(of a modest little collection) so that's a plus.

Gonna give this one a go. Thanks

zoobyshoe

About?

Infinitum

Amanda Knox's story popping in out of no-where. I assumed she was a fictional character....
And the satanic cult....

Google helped, though.

zoobyshoe

It's a non-fiction book, yes. She was actually jailed in Italy for four years because of a crazy prosecutor who got his belief in her guilt from a psychic channeling a dead priest.

Mépris

- Caligula by Albert Camus
- Le Mythe de Sisysphe by Albert Camus

When I'm done with that, I will start "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan.

rollcast

Just finished 1984 by George Orwell and Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner. I'm on the last chapter of their second book SuperFreakonomics and plan to go on to Free Lunch by David Smith and A breif History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

I might also take a look at either some Shakespeare or A clockwork orange for a nice fiction read.

Whovian

Spiral by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams.