New Books You Got For Xmas

[Pangloss]

So... we all know we're all a bunch of readers here, whadya get whadya get whadya get?!?!

 

Here's a short list (at least until I finish unpacking the car and refresh my memory):

 

Reality Show, by Howard Kurtz. Interesting narrative, just published in October, of the last ten years in the American network news biz, focusing mainly on the change of anchors at CBS, NBC and ABC. It's not getting a lot of great reviews, but I've read about half of it so far and find his insider angle and objective analysis to be really valuable. Kurtz is the media observer for the Washington Post.

 

Your Movie Sucks, by Roger Ebert. Some of Ebert's best work are his reviews of the WORST movies. Great stuff.

 

World War Z, by Max Brooks. Some sort of zombie novel. Looked interesting, and I think somebody here recommended it to me so I threw it on my Amazon list.

 

Common Ground, by Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel. I think I did a write-up on this for the politics board earlier, but basically these guys (one conservative, one liberal) write a regular column for USA Today in which they try to find real common ground on major issues. This book presents a collection of their columns, I believe.

 

Best of all, me mum found me a first edition of The Roman Revolution by Sir Ronald Syme, complete with fold-outs. Woot!

[ecoli]

Kurtz is the media observer for the Washington Post.

I am? sorry, but the guy stole my last name.

[ydoaPs]

3:16 is the only book I got for Xmas.

[ecoli]

I bought myself an MCAT study guide.

[Severian]

I didn't get any books for Christmas. I got a power drill (a hint to do more DIY I think), a silver wine coaster and a webcam (so my daughter's grandparents can see her more often).

[Reaper]

I got Half Life 2, and some The Office episodes.

[Royston]

Four Laws by Peter Atkins, a book on thermodynamics

The Void by Frank Close, which is a book on nothing...started reading this already, it's first chapter discusses vacuums, but I believe it will lead onto the 'how do you get something out of nothing' question.

 

I also got a new fx pedal for my guitar (Line 6 Pocket Pod.)

Chocolate, T-shirt, 2 bottles of vodka (nearly finished) and a dialysis machine

[chemkid]

No books, just a lot of new glassware. chems etc.

[Sisyphus]

I got nice antique editions of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding and Following the Equator by Mark Twain, a Robert Frost anthology, the Raj Quartet by Paul Scott, the new translation of the Histories of Herodotus, and an encyclopedia of scotch whisky. An excellent haul all around.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Discarded Science: Ideas that seemed good at the time..., by John Grant. Just started it today, so we'll see how it is...

[Reaper]

I also got some DVD's, the Universe series season 1. Just started watching them today.

 

On the side note, how surprising I find it when the history channel now actually shows more science then the discovery channel nowadays...

[Sisyphus]

On the side note, how surprising I find it when the history channel now actually shows more science then the discovery channel nowadays...

 

They make up for with all the shows about ghosts, alien abductions, and the prophecies of Nostradamus.

[Michael_H]

I got some sweet books!

"A First Course In String Theory" -Zwiebach

"The Elegant Universe" -Brian Greene (already read the library's copy though)

"The State of The Universe, A Primer in Modern Cosmology" -Pedro G. Ferreira

"Pushing Ice" -Alastair Reynolds

 

I'm still finishing a bunch of books that are overdue at the library so I haven't really started reading any of them yet. The string theory textbook is really awesome though!

[Psyber]

Spike Milligan's unpublished letters. I may not have bought it myself, but it is an interesting read.

[CDarwin]

I've gotten some comedy books:

 

Our Dumb World from the Onion

 

Our Dumb Century from the Onion

 

I Am America (And so can you!) by Stephen Colbert

 

American (the book) by Jon Stewart

 

and

 

Evolution a textbook on the subject you would expect it to be on by Douglas Futuyma

[Pangloss]

I got the Colbert book as well. I actually kinda liked it better than Stewart's, which I got a couple of years ago. Usually I think Stewart is the funnier of the two, but Colbert's book was more focused.

[blike]

I bought myself an MCAT study guide.

You poor, poor soul. Which did you get? And when will you take the exam?

 

This is the first Christmas in a long while I got no books. I got some gift cards to B&N though.

[ecoli]

You poor, poor soul. Which did you get? And when will you take the exam?

 

I know

 

I got this one: http://www.mhprofessional.com/product.php?isbn=007147076X&cat=111

 

I'm planning on taking the exam in late august or early september.

[blike]

I used princeton review (the book, not the course) and borrowed examkrackers to flip through. A lot of people I know took the Kaplan course, but if you're disciplined a course is redundant.

[ecoli]

I used princeton review (the book, not the course) and borrowed examkrackers to flip through. A lot of people I know took the Kaplan course, but if you're disciplined a course is redundant.

 

I can't really afford it either.

 

I'm trying to get into an Md/PhD program, but my goal is to do research. So, if I don't do that great on the MCATs, I'll probably just go get my PhD anyway.

[Pangloss]

Good luck!

[JohnB]

What books did I get for Christmas?

 

"Manhunt" by Christian Jacq.

 

He's an Egyptologist who writes fiction set in the dynastic era. (Liberally peppered with footnotes about the reality of the times.) While the books are fictional they are set in an accurate socio/politico/economic reconstruction of the times.

 

"Mindscan" by Robert Sawyer. Once you've uploaded (copied) your consciousness into that shiny new android body, what happens to the old you? And have you cheated your decendants out of their inheritance?

 

"Flashforward" by Robert Sawyer. A CERN experiment goes wrong and projects the consciousness of every person 20 years into the future for 2 minutes. How would it affect you to know that you were murdered the day before the future date?

 

"Calculating God" by Robert Sawyer. Aliens land and say "Take me to your Palaeontologist". They have impirical proof that the Universe has a creator and wish to see if the proof is repeated here.

 

"Gunpowder Empire" by Harry Turtledove. What happens when something goes wrong and you're trapped in an alternate timeline, the 21st Century Roman Empire? Similar to H. Beam Piper's "Paratime" series and just as good.

 

Pangloss, I'm jealous. That was the original 1939 edition, right?

[Pangloss]

Yah, a very beat-up copy but I'm not really a collector, I just think it's cool.

 

Mum also has a 1911 Brittanica, similar to this set. I try not to drool on it when I visit.

 

BTW John have you ever read Household Gods?

[JohnB]

I haven't read that one yet. My favourite of his is "Guns of the South". General Lee's Army does quite well when armed with AK-47s.

 

For pure drool value, I have a complete set of "The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night" original 10 volumes and the 6 supplemental volumes as translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton, print date 1896. (Slightly foxed)

 

They are the pride of my collection.

[Pangloss]

Oh, a very nice addition. Scary-zade, I used to call that. We are apparently terrible collectors, though -- you're supposed to get the books that are in GOOD condition!

 

I enjoyed Guns of the South and eventually I'll probably get around to reading his longer series/timeline collections. I enjoyed the one about the aliens showing up in the midst of WW2 with something akin to Vietnam-era (?) technology. He always has such clever setup, but sometimes his execution leaves something to be desired.