What's Your Current Book, and What's Next on Your Reading List?

[JasonRox]

So, what are you currently reading?

Is it good? Bad?

I'm currently reading "God in the Equation" by Powell.

It's alright I guess. I haven't read a Physics/Cosmology book in a long time so it's ok. I would read two of them in a row.

Since I'm almost done I'll be looking for another book to read soon. I have no idea what I plan on reading next. It might just be another Asimov book. Who knows.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

I'm reading Quincunx right now, and it's piqued my curiosity so far. I like the writing style and the characters, but I still don't know what the book is about or how to situate my perspective just yet. It's jumped from one scene to what I think is a flashback. I actually picked it up from the Harvard Coop last summer because I liked the cover. Turns out it's a national best seller, and even the cashier commented that it was great. Hopefully it'll turn out so!

btw, if you're looking for a neat book that has a science/philosophy taste, check out Peter Pesic's Seeing Double. It's a short, but thorough examination into the nature of identity, "the separateness and connection of individuals," that draws on quantum theory, philosophy, and literature.

 

[Cyrus]

I read my textbooks, because that's all I have time to read.

 

[JamesU]

I just finished reading Angels and Demons, it was pretty good...though not as accurate as it claims to be

 

[QuantumDefect]

Im currently reading a jumble of books. I am almost done with Lanau's Mechanics text, still have awhile on Bohm's Quantum Theory and a Geometric Algebra text I've been slowly working through. However, I don't have much time for outside reading with my studies.

 

[sebas531]

I've been reading Men of Mathematics, which I really like. For school I've been reading Frankenstein. I am sure everyone or at least most people have read that. And I have read just a little bit of Journey Through Genius, but I am just going to wait to finish Men of Mathematics or Frank. before devoting my time to reading Joureny Through Genius (and ofcourse school.)

 

[neutrino]

Rindler's Intro to SR. On the fiction side, I'm reading https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140185437/?tag=pfamazon01-20 by R.K.Narayan.

 

[siddharth]

I just finished The Bromeliad series by Terry Pratchett. Like all of his other books, it was very good.

As for textbooks, it's currently Elementary Principles of Chemical Processess

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Just a few pages into ayn rand's atlas shrugged

 

[JamesU]

just a thousand pages to go...

 

[Mk]

I'm reading Dune, its good!

 

[loseyourname]

Beauvoir. Second Sex.

 

[Bladibla]

Godel, Escher Bach.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

I've still got to finish that one. Funny, I was able to use it for a paper, but I haven't finished it yet, even the sections I pulled quotations from.

 

[brewnog]

Currently reading two things:

Iain Banks - The Business
Rather entertaining so far, I read quite a few of his other books at uni and just got lent this. I don't know if I'm expecting a major twist at the end like with The Wasp Factory or A Song of Stone, but it's keeping me entertained thus far.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - The River Cottage Yearbook
I love this dude. Although it's sold as a cookery book, there are probably only 50 recipes out of 400 pages, and many of these are a bit too gruesome for me to even dare try and eat, let alone cook. But there are huge sections on how to select and grow your own vegetables, and how to select and rear your own livestock. And then how to butcher it, and prepare it for eating. Also quite a good bit about eating from the wild, - not in a Ray Mears kind of way, but in a forraging-for-mushrooms and hunting rabbits kind of way. Definitely one for people like Wolram to have a look at, I think.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The latest Flint & Drake Belisarius novel, The Dance of Time, a wonderful sf series IMHO, and Hausman & McPherson's Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy, which I saw recommended online. It's good, and clear on the way philosophers reason about real things.

 

[Geographer]

I'm nearly finished Dan Brown's 'Digital Fortress'. Really good read! And then I've got one of his other books, Deception Point, to read.

And I also have a few geography textbooks that I enjoy reading every now and then.

 

[JamesU]

Just picked up The Da Vinci Code...101 pages into it

 

[JasonRox]

So did Dan Brown really copy?

 

[moose]

I'm nearly finished Dan Brown's 'Digital Fortress'. Really good read! And then I've got one of his other books, Deception Point, to read.

And I also have a few geography textbooks that I enjoy reading every now and then.

I read that book in one sitting on the way back from poland on the plane

It was interesting enough for me to not put it down for ten hours (except to eat something and to use the restroom). However, it had a few dull moments spanning over a few pages.

 

[heartless]

I'm currently reading Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein and also Prime Obsession, both seem to be great.

Just picked up The Da Vinci Code...101 pages into it

What are your view about it? Tell me something

Thanks,

 

[selfAdjoint]

I read all the Dan Brown books a year or so ago. They are all adventure stories, well done as such, with "controversial" subplots. Digital Fortress is about the NSA, Angels and Demons is the Vatican versus the scientists at CERN, and of course Da Vinci Code is about the records of the secret history of Jesus. I don't think Brown copied the secret history stuff, it was in the open literature; it's a crank theory.

 

[JamesU]

Halfway into the book, I obviously have nothing bettter to do...

What are your view about it? Tell me something

Thanks,

could you clarify what you mean?

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

The Siddhartha: Herman Hess
The Last Guardian: David Gemmel
Cold Heart Canyon: Clive Barker
Talon of the Silver Hand: Raymond E feist
Ethics: A Guide to Modern Pluralism

As you can tell too many books to read and not enough time.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Just finished Moving Mars by Greg Bear.
Mars is colonized and has a government separate from Earth. Mars has a sort of syndicalist type of government and Earth is pushing hard for Mars to submit to federal control from Earth. Since Mars has a rather small population and relatively low level technology compared to Earth no one is quite sure why Earth is so adamant about bring Mars into the fold.
Bear focuses mostly on the politics which he does rather well but he also brings in some rather speculative advancements in quantum physics as well. For anyone who is a fan of Greg Bear he also invokes at least two of his older stories. The AI named Jill from Queen of Angels makes a cameo and his short story about a Lunar Ice Pit Station where a physicist experiments with absolute zero is used as a bit of history which the aforementioned speculative advancements are based on.

 

[Evo]

So, what are you currently reading?

"We start with a superior blend of coffee beans to create an intensely rich roast for a gourmet taste". Reading the back of a jar of coffee.

 

[Moonbear]

"We start with a superior blend of coffee beans to create an intensely rich roast for a gourmet taste". Reading the back of a jar of coffee.

I do that too...or the cereal box, or the milk carton (I'm sure that's why they put the missing kids on milk cartons; there's a lot of closeted milk carton readers).

I enjoy the Dan Brown novels too. They're certainly not great literature or anything, but they make a nice light read when you don't have a lot of time for pleasure reading. They're kind of fun too, as long as you don't take it too seriously. I also agree that it's not copied...most of the stuff he used in his plot lines was nothing really new...that's actually what makes the stories good, because you've heard those conspiracy theories enough times before that it lends a feeling of plausibility simply because you have heard it somewhere before, even if you know it's wrong.

I picked the Chronicles of Narnia back up again (the full series). I had started reading a bit of it at Disney and had planned to finish it there, but Zz kept me too busy to do much reading. After I got back, I had too many other things to do to keep reading. But, lately, I've been finding time to read a chapter or two each night while sipping my bedtime cup of tea. It shouldn't take so long to read children's books, but I just don't have a lot of free time for it, and it's actually quite fun to read at bedtime (I always did like bedtime stories).

 

[JasonRox]

I enjoy the Dan Brown novels too. They're certainly not great literature or anything, but they make a nice light read when you don't have a lot of time for pleasure reading. They're kind of fun too, as long as you don't take it too seriously. I also agree that it's not copied...most of the stuff he used in his plot lines was nothing really new...that's actually what makes the stories good, because you've heard those conspiracy theories enough times before that it lends a feeling of plausibility simply because you have heard it somewhere before, even if you know it's wrong.

It's not that you heard of it somewhere or the conspiracies.

Apparently, the plot and everything is completely identical to the book from the 1980's called The Holy Grail.

I'll probably read both books to make a better judgement.

 

[Moonbear]

IApparently, the plot and everything is completely identical to the book from the 1980's called The Holy Grail.

The courts found in Dan Brown's favor, that it wasn't a copy of the earlier book.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Apparently, the plot and everything is completely identical to the book from the 1980's called The Holy Grail.

That was Holy Blood, Holy Grail which was a "non-fiction" book. The estate of Trevor Ravenscroft who wrote The Spear of Destiny did the same thing when someone used ideas from his "non-fiction" book in a piece of fiction. The estate won that case. Personally I don't think that such cases should be taken seriously unless major excerpt are more or less rewordings of the orginal. They say that they have written accounts of real historical events and then get angry when someone uses their 'material' in a fiction setting. Dan Brown's book brought so much attention back to their book that they really ought to be thanking him rather than suing.