What are you reading? | The Coffeehouse

GoddersUK
I CAN has cheezburger and you CAN'T has stop me!

Thought it would be interesting to see what's on niners bookshelves at the moment, and perhaps pick up a few recomendations of good books along the way.

So, what are you reading? Fiction, non-fiction, technical or otherwise.

I'll start.

I've just finished the book "Do polar bears get lonely?" - a book of the weird and wonderful questions posed, and answered, by New Scientist readers around the globe. Contains loads of interesting little factlets - the kind of thing that comes up in discusions at lunch/down the pub/wherever. And it's great for dropping in and out of too - there's no need to read more than one question (and answers) or two at a time.

I'm now starting on the free ebook "Ubuntu Pocket Guide" - I'm hoping that this will give me a good basic grounding in Linux. All of what I've read so far I already know from poking about and general use, but I'm hoping this book will cover areas where my knowledge is thinner - such as the command prompt. What I've read so far is easy to read and clear to understand without being patronising. By and large the author manages to avoid the annoying I'm better than you because I use linux/Windows is bad because it's Windows etc sentiment that is rife among the linux community.

What are you reading?

EDIT: Woops my linked picture are trying to open in the pop out picture box thingy... the link for the ebook is http://ubuntupocketguide.com/index_main.html

JPeless

Just finished "Guns, Germs, and Steel".... now reading two textbooks... one for a class I am teaching, one for a class I am taking

PerfectPhase
"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

In reply to JPeless

#Aug 28th @ 3:20 PM

Almost finished Altered Carbon, quite enjoying it.

Oh yes, and the the normal large stack of half read tech books.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

Does the book about polar bears also answer the question as to what turns them white?

At work, I'm planning to read Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think! and James Kalbach's Designing Web Navigation as soon as they come in. Anyone over here who has read them? Any good?

At home, I'm reading Dumas' The Three Musketeers. It's pretty good, but not as great as The Count of Monte Cristo, which is one of my favorites. When I'm done with that I'm planning to re-read my all-time favorite book, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers:

Pirates, ship's battles, quantum-mechanical fountains, swordfights, voodoo, people switching bodies and more all in one book. How can that be anything less than awesome? After that, I think I'll bite the bullet and finally get the nerve up to start reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. I wonder how long that'll take me.

zian
Exploding heads since 1988

In reply to Bas

#Aug 28th @ 3:58 PM

I've read Don't Make Me Think and many other usability books. Don't Make Me Think gives you a great sense for a usability baseline. It's a great book for its size.

Recently, I finished reading The Myths of Innovation and I'm in the process of carefully re-re-re-reading a book that I'm printing/binding for a friend because I'm almost ready to make final copies of the book.

At work, I'm reading Lessons Learned in Software Testing, How We Test Software at Microsoft, Professional ASP .NET MVC 1.0, Pragmatic Software Testing, and How to Break Software. Free interlibrary loan is a wonderful perk of working at a university.

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

In reply to zian

#Aug 28th @ 6:07 PM

I'm currently rereading The Lord of the Rings for the 18,000th time.

I just finished reading Terry Brooks's new Magic Kingdom of Landover novel (first in 15 years or something like that), A Princess of Landover.

I'm also slowly reading through Steve McConnell's Code Complete (v2). I've been working through this one for several months now; I've been reading a chapter every few weeks when I think about it, pretty much. Not a very good way to finish a book (I'm a fast reader and could probably have the thing finished by the middle of next week if I buckled down and actually read it).

Other intermittent reading: Kleinberg's Algorithm Design (textbook). This is the only textbook I have this semester (woo!)... doesn't sound like the professor is going to be teaching the course as the book presents it, so I probably won't be reading through the whole text as I might for other classes.

I ought to drop by our library and see if they have anything interesting as far as technical books go... Don't Make Me Think looks interesting. The book selection at the university where I did my undergrad work was miserable and out of date (for CS- or programming-related topics), but where I am now is a bigger university; they may have a better selection.

JoshRoss
A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.

I'm working on Atlas Shrugged. I'll write something about the book when I am done, sometime in 2010.

raptor3676

I'm reading Dilbert (all I can), It's freaky, borderline uncanny, the way comic strips fits situations at work so perfectly on a weekly basis.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

I am currently reading The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton. I've nearly finished it, so I'll move on to The Temporal Void (the second book in the trilogy) after that. Smiley

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

In reply to Sven Groot

#Aug 28th @ 10:01 PM

That sounds like some good scifi. Do you have any other scifi recommendations?

I recently read "Do Andriods Dream of Electronic Sheep?". It's a classic of course, a bit of dystopian sci-fi and flim noir.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to Bass

#Aug 28th @ 10:27 PM

Hamilton is definitely good sci-fi. If you haven't read anything by him, I'd recommend you start out with Pandora's Star and its sequel Judas Unchained. The Void trilogy is set some 1200 years after the events of those two books and it does reference characters and events, so it's strongly recommended to read those two before reading Void. Smiley

kettch

Right now I'm just finishing up Monstrous Regiment, and then I'll be moving on to A Hat Full of Sky.

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to Sven Groot

#Aug 28th @ 10:31 PM

Just finished Pandaemonium by Christopher Brookmyer:

"The senior pupils of St Peter's High School are on retreat to a secluded outdoor activity centre, coming to terms with the murder of a fellow pupil through the means you would expect: counselling, contemplation, candid discussion and even prayer - not to mention booze, drugs, clandestine liaisons and as much partying as they can get away with. Not so far away, the commanders of a top-secret military experiment, long-since spiralled out of control, fear they may have literally unleashed the forces of Hell. Two very different worlds are on a collision course, and will clash in an earthly battle between science and the supernatural, philosophy and faith, civilisation and savagery. The bookies are offering evens."

This is the first book I've ever pre-ordered! Not quite as good as his best (horror instead of crime) but still very funny, with a few good plot twists.

Now re-reading Interface by Neal Stephenson, which I haven't read since it came out in 2002.

Taking a break from textbooks over the summer.

Herbie

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to kettch

#Aug 28th @ 10:49 PM

It began as a sudden change of fancy...

Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time...

And now she's enlisted in the army, and is searching for her long lost brother.

But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without training, and the enemy is hunting them.

All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army, and a vampire with a lust for coffee. Well...they do have the Secret. And as they take the war to the heart of the enemy, they have to use all resources of... the Monstrous Regiment.

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

I am halfway through reading Yes Prime Minister

kettch

In reply to vesuvius

#Aug 29th @ 1:17 AM

It's not as silly as it sounds. Well, it's Pratchett, so it's far sillier than it sounds, but in an oddly intelligent way.

Kryptos
Backup People!

1984

MasterPie
I'm white because I smelt an onion

In reply to Kryptos

#Aug 29th @ 8:15 AM

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to kettch

#Aug 29th @ 8:11 AM

Those excerpts were taken from my 1st edition copy. You really didn't think I'd trawled through the interwebs to get that did you now?

Vimes!

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to Kryptos

#Aug 29th @ 8:15 AM

I'm sure the cover of the book has Ninteen Eighty-Four?

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to CannotResolveSymbol

#Aug 28th @ 6:46 PM

18,000 times?

That man is a repeat offender. A bookish felon (or was that fellow) Tongue Out

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

In reply to vesuvius

#Aug 29th @ 9:34 AM

That might be a little bit of an exaggeration... Tongue Out

kettch

In reply to vesuvius

#Aug 29th @ 9:29 AM

I grovel before your greatness. Tongue Out

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to CannotResolveSymbol

#Aug 29th @ 10:13 AM

I had enough trouble getting through it once. I like the story, but Tolkien's writing style is just not for me.

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

In reply to Sven Groot

#Aug 30th @ 2:55 AM

Reading through “The Hobbit” and the 3 “Lord of the Rings” books went pretty smooth (years ago, when I was about 16), but when I started reading “Silmarillion”, I gave up pretty quickly. But that was a long time ago. Maybe I should try again now that I am older and wiser. Wink

But that will have to wait until after I've read through the pile of unread books next to my desk. I've got about 20 books I haven't read yet (picked up very cheaply). I read a combination of non-fiction (scientific, mathematics, biographic, …) and fiction (mainly science-fiction, fantasy and thrillers). I read about half an hour every day, during my lunch break.

I'm currently reading Kate Mosse's “Labyrinth”, a holy grail thriller that intertwines 2 storylines set in the South of France, one from the year 1209 and one from the year 2005.