At any given time, I am probably reading one book in paper form, another as an audio book, and another on an e-reader. I also keep an anthology or collection in my car, for those long waits. My average rating is between 3 and 4, because I try to seek out good books and authors. One goal is to read all the SF award winners and SF Masterworks. See my profile at Worlds Without End.
Finally, the "social media" info - I am a long-time reader, proud to have completed several summer reading programs as a kid. I recall reading more than 50 books one summer. When I'm not reading, you might find me gaming (board and role play) or working, either as a baseball umpire or with software.
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Jim Marlow and his strange-looking Martian friend Willis were allowed to travel only so far. …
A likeable enough book, but not as good as some of the other Heinlein juveniles. A glimpse into what RAH was putting together for later books.
Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within …
Greatly enjoyed this book, and not just because it touches on baseball, weather, games and politics. Very savvy explanations of how too much data makes finding insights harder and not easier, and how a Bayes interpretation (properly applied) can provide the best predictions. An excellent point towards the end about how predictions should be judged on how they perform in the future rather than how they apply to past data.
Well footnoted, indexed, and edited. The epub was not the fastest read - will probably buy this when the revised version comes out as a trade paperback. Recommended.
Read with my daughter. Great illustrations and facts, would have loved three times the pages. Daughter rated it a 3, but then she's not been there (yet).
I learned a lot about the history of Turkey that wasn't covered in European History or other texts. The author has a passion for Turkey and presented well, though with an annoying tendency to talk of what Turkey should do. Either pure history or pure narrative would have worked better for me - I found the mix jarring, and this is most of why a 240 page book took more than a month to finish. Slightly interested in his newest book; may seek out his journalism first.
A nice collection of pictures and diagrams, and a good history of the Seattle icon.
Mr. Bianculli did his research for this book, which is fairly well presented. Sometimes the events were out of order, events were repeated from previous chapters, or there were repeated events and stories. The frequency of repeating repeats makes me think this started as a collection of articles - but don't repeat that verbatim. I repeat, a fairly good book.
Less a history than a collection of narratives, and like many sets of stories, only a few are really good. More diagrams would have helped, I think.
[Comment by Audrey Niffenegger, on The Guardian's website][1]:
> Time and Again is an original; …
Really enjoyed this gem, and surprised I hadn't heard of it before. Ending was a bit quicker than I would have liked, but I understand there is a sequel.
Suitably impressed, though some rules are out of order. I had a peek at the revised version and it's much better. A great rules system for $10.
I appreciate the import of this idea, and the math behind it. I mostly liked the presentation - bits of the letters and the history behind them. Something about the writing - the style perhaps - didn't sit right with me. Will read some of Devlin's online column to see if I can narrow it down sometime.
Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future …
Man is Music - now that's a moral that I can get behind.
Written in 1930, this book covers two Billion years of history, which is far more sweeping than any other epic sci-fi novel. I especially enjoyed the tribulations of the First Men, with quite a few scary parallels to recent history.
After that, the book slows down a bit, despite the narrator apologizing for not covering things in detail. Wikipedia has a nice breakdown of all the descendents of men; suffice it to say it is quite a collection, living on three planets. Alien invasion, natural cataclysms, global warming - this book has it all.
Yet it wasn't ideal. I felt I was missing some message here, something more than sweeping history. Perhaps a bit of pondering will help. Until then, I want to rate this somewhere between 3 and 4 stars - rounding up to four as …
Man is Music - now that's a moral that I can get behind.
Written in 1930, this book covers two Billion years of history, which is far more sweeping than any other epic sci-fi novel. I especially enjoyed the tribulations of the First Men, with quite a few scary parallels to recent history.
After that, the book slows down a bit, despite the narrator apologizing for not covering things in detail. Wikipedia has a nice breakdown of all the descendents of men; suffice it to say it is quite a collection, living on three planets. Alien invasion, natural cataclysms, global warming - this book has it all.
Yet it wasn't ideal. I felt I was missing some message here, something more than sweeping history. Perhaps a bit of pondering will help. Until then, I want to rate this somewhere between 3 and 4 stars - rounding up to four as I think back on the stories of the First Men.
One minute, down and out actor Lorenzo Smythe was — as usual — in a …
An enjoyable romp, I may have missed some of the finer points about politics. Will look for annotations to fill me in, if need be. On many Sci Fi classics lists, and deservedly so - this book certainly influenced other writers in the last 56 years.
The Face in the Frost is a fantasy classic, defying categorization with its richly imaginative …
A short read, but interesting. An original take on magic from the perspective of a wizard; when he is attacked by illusions the descriptions are truly wild and menacing. This wizard is no Gandalf or Merlin, but instead muddles through his magic. The force of will seems to be stronger than pure intelligence in this story.
A bit anachronistic for being set in another world (described in the first paragraphs of the book); it is clear that one or both wizards have visited Earth but with no indication of how or when. When the references happened, they were jarring.
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries is a 2007 popular science book written …
Seems like a collection of essays, but they are collected into larger topics and work well together. Death by Black Hole is only one of them; most are excellent and very accessible to the non-physicist. First I've read from Dr. Tyson; will read more in the near future!
A collection of twenty-five short works by the American author written between 1950 and 1968 …
A good collection of stories spanning a wide range of years. As a collection, no broad theme or overarching goal. Some are great, a few are less than great, but the overall quality is very good. A teacher in Alabama was dismissed for assigning this to her students because it advocated "the killing off of elderly people and free sex."
