What are you reading?

[Curious layman]

• Seven Brief Lessons  On Physics   -  Carlo Rovelli

very thin, only 79 pages, but seems good overview for understanding the basics.

• Unmasking Europa. -  Richard Greenberg

[swansont]

On 6/10/2019 at 4:32 PM, swansont said:

Just finished “The Poison Squad” by Deborah Blum - very good

Now reading “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War” by Ben Macintyre - thus far also very good

Finished the Spy and the Traitor a few weeks ago. Very good telling of the tale.

[koti]

On 7/12/2019 at 4:05 PM, swansont said:

Finished the Spy and the Traitor a few weeks ago. Very good telling of the tale.

Could you recommend a book store/place where I could find good books/papers on physics for my new Kindle for our 2 week mediterranean vacation? Also if anyone has a tip on a good scifi/dystopia/utopia book I’d be grateful. 

[MigL]

You're going to the Mediterranean for two weeks and you're gonna read ???
Greece isn't it ?

I can think of much better things to do.
( grilled octopus, Ouzo, and seeing all the little islands by boat and scooter )

[koti]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

You're going to the Mediterranean for two weeks and you're gonna read ???
Greece isn't it ?

I can think of much better things to do.
( grilled octopus, Ouzo, and seeing all the little islands by boat and scooter )

„Kos” island in a multiple pool, private beach and all inclusive hotel presumably with a bunch of other families with kids. I’m already hating myself for doing this but we got a 3 year old so regrettably this is not going to be a dedicated adventure and exploration trip. I wonder for how long I will be able to hold my urges to go and do something stupid, we’ll see...I need good reads to stay a good boy. 

Edited July 14, 2019 by koti

[Phi for All]

7 hours ago, koti said:

„Kos” island in a multiple pool, private beach and all inclusive hotel presumably with a bunch of other families with kids. I’m already hating myself for doing this but we got a 3 year old so regrettably this is not going to be a dedicated adventure and exploration trip. I wonder for how long I will be able to hold my urges to go and do something stupid, we’ll see...I need good reads to stay a good boy. 

Take some good reads, but I did the same thing in Cozumel when I had a 3-year-old. When we weren't playing in the surf and sand and pools with her, the resort had daycare to keep her ocupado while mom and dad explored for a while. 

[koti]

34 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Take some good reads, but I did the same thing in Cozumel when I had a 3-year-old. When we weren't playing in the surf and sand and pools with her, the resort had daycare to keep her ocupado while mom and dad explored for a while. 

Thats the plan, they have some day care thing. I got some old William Gibson and Philip K. Dick novels I havent read so I’ll be taking that. Plus I never read „Dune” and got some long due physics papers I want to read.

[Phi for All]

8 hours ago, koti said:

regrettably this is not going to be a dedicated adventure and exploration trip.

A friend of mine told me it's important to make a distinction between a "trip" and a "vacation". A trip is full of sightseeing and adventure and exploration. A vacation is where you park your butt on a beach and relax with a good book (or sunglasses) and DON'T think about all that other stuff.

[koti]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

A friend of mine told me it's important to make a distinction between a "trip" and a "vacation". A trip is full of sightseeing and adventure and exploration. A vacation is where you park your butt on a beach and relax with a good book (or sunglasses) and DON'T think about all that other stuff.

Exactly. We’re taking a weeks trip to the local lake distric right after Greece. I’m counting on resetting and hopefuly getting new firmware for whats comming in September. 

[Endy0816]

On 7/13/2019 at 4:37 PM, koti said:

Could you recommend a book store/place where I could find good books/papers on physics for my new Kindle for our 2 week mediterranean vacation? Also if anyone has a tip on a good scifi/dystopia/utopia book I’d be grateful. 

Not sure if it is exactly what you're looking for but the Belisarius Series is pretty great. Mix of alternative history, scifi and dystopian/utopian elements, set in the Byzantine period.

[Curious layman]

On 7/13/2019 at 9:37 PM, koti said:

Could you recommend a book store/place where I could find good books/papers on physics for my new Kindle for our 2 week mediterranean vacation? Also if anyone has a tip on a good scifi/dystopia/utopia book I’d be grateful. 

The Road by Cormack McCarthy. Post-Apocalyptic, Not too long, simply written, absolutely brilliant.

 

Edited July 15, 2019 by Curious layman

[Ken Fabian]

I just read Paolo Bacigalupi's "Shipbreaker" trilogy - "Shipbreaker", "The Drowned Cities", "Tool of War".

I am not that adventurous in my reading - mostly SF but not a lot of new or unknown authors - but even so I haven't read much SF that really treats climate change with any seriousness; the last near future SF I read was Vernor Vinge "Rainbows End" but, as impressive as it was, global warming may as well not exist for the lack of mention of it. Other global problems, sure, but, for whatever reason, not climate change. Bacigalupi does put the reader right into the middle of the worst of global warming consequences and - I expect deliberately - makes societal breakdown within the USA a major feature. A recent history of (failed) Chinese peacekeeping missions is probably also intended to get up American Exceptionalist noses.

He has militias fighting over the remains of "drowned cities" including Washington (took me a bit to realise it was Washington), descended to conscripting slave labor to strip the remains for salvage, all to buy guns and bullets to keep their never ending wars, to rid the place of "traitors" (ie everyone else), going. It doesn't chronicle the breakdown, though the politics of treating legitimate opponents as traitors gets a mention. But these are as much cautionary tales about bio-engineering as global warming - and I didn't find that as compelling or believable. Though that could be my lack of imagination for how far genetic engineering can go... and go wrong. Even so, I found them compelling and very readable. It tends to emphasise a conclusion I had already made - that our social institutions and practices like functional governments within democracy and the independent rule of law - are our most essential and valuable assets.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Ken Fabian

[firestarterone]

Currently nothing, just browsing this thread looking for book recommendations. 

[Moontanman]

3 hours ago, firestarterone said:

Currently nothing, just browsing this thread looking for book recommendations. 

Outlander is pretty good, between netflix, Hulu, and amc there are more shows that anyone can really watch. I like british TV shows quite a bit bit. I am binging Outlander right now I made a very partial list a few posts and back and everyone else has been making some good suggestions as well. Time is my limiting factor! Primeval has to be one of the best time travel type shows ever! 

Edited September 9, 2019 by Moontanman

[Phi for All]

6 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Outlander is pretty good, between netflix, Hulu, and amc there are more shows that anyone can really watch. I like british TV shows quite a bit bit. I am binging Outlander right now I made a very partial list a few posts and back and everyone else has been making some good suggestions as well. Time is my limiting factor! Primeval has to be one of the best time travel type shows ever! 

You need to write a book about what TV shows you're watching. Or post this in What Are You Watching?

[Curious layman]

Really interesting article on Huntington's disease on wiki

Milton Wexler  

quote... 

In 1972 Wexler became aware of a village on the edge of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela with an extremely high incidence of Huntington's disease. He became aware of this village when a Venezuelan physician and biochemist at the university of Zulia, Americo Negrette, showed a film at a medical conference about this community, where the condition was known as 'El mal'. Negrette had become aware of this condition in the area in 1955. In 1979, Wexler's daughter Nancy set up a research project there to study its transmission and to collect DNA from those with the disease and from those who had escaped it. Her work there earned the nickname 'La Catira' (the blonde) among the villages. This project is still ongoing.

The origin of the disease was eventually traced back to a single women, Maria Concepcion, who had lived in this area about 200 years before and whose roughly 18000 descendants were primarily located in two villages in Venezuela, Barranquitas and Lagunetas. Maria Concepcion's father seems likely to have been an unknown European sailor who also had Huntington's disease. The materials she collected were sent to a geneticist, James F Gusella, at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Fascinating stuff.

 

[Moontanman]

17 hours ago, Phi for All said:

You need to write a book about what TV shows you're watching. Or post this in What Are You Watching?

Yup screwed the pooch on that one, my favs books would take up far more space... 

[druS]

Just finished Adam Becker's "What is Real? the unfinished quest for the meaning of quantum physics" - a history of quantum foundations. Well researched, well written and I at least found it thought provoking. Glad I read it.

Edited September 19, 2019 by druS

[JIMMY12345]

The gene an intimate History and The Emperor of all maladies both by Siddhartha Mukerjee

This guy can really write!

[geordief]

Have just finished Delia Owens" Where the  Crawdads Sing"

Found the dialogue  very stilted  but the setting (the Carolina marshland in the 50s and 60s) was quite absorbing  and the subject matter very worthwhile. 

The author is  a scientist.(zoology)

Edited January 19, 2022 by geordief

[Genady]

I'm reading "Number. The language of science" by Tobias Dantzig. Published originally in 1930 and recommended by Albert Einstein. Very pleasant read indeed. 

One observation I want to share is, that with regularity the author makes little remarks like this:

Quote

This definitely disposed of the problem of squaring the circle, without, of course dampening in the least the ardor of the circle-squarers. For it is characteristic of these people that their ignorance equals their capacity for self-deception.

It seems that "these people" annoyed him very much then, 100 years ago, long before Internet.

[Peterkin]

At night, I'm reading Pilgrim, a novel by Timothy Findley.  In the afternoon, I'm reading Places of the Soul by Christopher Day. It's about architecture.

[zapatos]

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

The best novel I've read in several years. He also wrote Kite Runner which I also very much enjoyed.

[Cognizant]

I need to start reading 'Dune" after I understood almost nothing from the movie... but I'm too busy with the repairment of my apartments so all I read now is various information about how to paint the rooms properly, renew the floor and the ceiling, replace windows etc. Hope I'll finish this project soon and will have free time)

[Qilin]

On 2/20/2022 at 2:29 AM, zapatos said:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

The best novel I've read in several years. He also wrote Kite Runner which I also very much enjoyed.

I absolutely loved these books! Thanks for reminding me, I might have to reread them at some point actually.

On 4/14/2022 at 6:32 PM, Cognizant said:

I need to start reading 'Dune" after I understood almost nothing from the movie... but I'm too busy with the repairment of my apartments so all I read now is various information about how to paint the rooms properly, renew the floor and the ceiling, replace windows etc. Hope I'll finish this project soon and will have free time)

Haha I know what you mean! Was so confused, but the book is pretty intimidating in terms of size…

I’m currently reading Daring Greatly by Brené Brown and Walden by H.D. Thoreau. Both very very good reads so far!