Martin Posted August 7, 2004 Posted August 7, 2004 On amazon.uk.co best seller list as of Friday 6Aug at 5PM (GMT-8) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/static/-/books/amazon-bestsellers/ref=cs_nav_sn_4/202-5121337-2949434 It is topped only a diet book and the DaVinci Code Penrose has been #4 for most of the day and by late afternoon had moved ahead past one of the diet books, into 3rd place. This means he is ahead of Michael Moore (#6) and Lance Armstrong (#15) and the Alexander McCall Smith lady-detective novels.
Martin Posted August 7, 2004 Author Posted August 7, 2004 Does anyone know of good online reviews of the book besides these?: from the Statesman, Times byline http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=24&theme=&usrsess=1&id=50300 from last Sunday's "Scotsman" http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=849142004
Martin Posted August 7, 2004 Author Posted August 7, 2004 Today, Saturday, Penrose started off #3 but slipped, and is now back at #10 place on amazon.co.uk bestseller list still pretty good for a book of that type
jordan Posted August 7, 2004 Posted August 7, 2004 I'm a bit confused by #5 on the list: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Is a book about punctuation really selling well?
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted August 7, 2004 Posted August 7, 2004 Yes. It is rather funny. Many of the sentences can mean two different things, depending on how you read it. Like "Eats, shoots & leaves". You can eat shoots and leaves, the plant parts, or you can come into a restaurant, eat, shoot someone, and leave.
Martin Posted August 8, 2004 Author Posted August 8, 2004 Well? what is the Panda version? I guess a Panda eats bamboo shoots and leaves so this has possibilities, and maybe it is offensive too, so you had better tell us Sayonara before Capn expires of curiosity
Martin Posted August 9, 2004 Author Posted August 9, 2004 Wait til you see the book Cap'n In the meantime, have you read the reviews? from the Statesman, Times byline http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=24&theme=&usrsess=1&id=50300 from last Sunday's "Scotsman" http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=849142004
Martin Posted August 9, 2004 Author Posted August 9, 2004 I will obtain this book and master it! Great ambition! It is not a popular-written book, apparently. Today it is down to #16 on amazon bestseller list. I believe a lot is that he shows you the formulas and equations, which turns some readers off. But I like that aspect of it.
Arg Posted August 10, 2004 Posted August 10, 2004 If it lacked equations and formulae, I would burn it in protest. If I wanted to take things on faith, I'd believe in God and alchemy.
Guest SurfCityJohn Posted August 20, 2004 Posted August 20, 2004 Bummer.. they do not appear to have it in the US? I searched Amazon here with the ISBN and found nothing.
Martin Posted August 20, 2004 Author Posted August 20, 2004 Bummer.. they do not appear to have it in the US? I searched Amazon here with the ISBN and found nothing. If I had it to do over I would order from Amazon.co in the UK. Postage from UK to US is not all that bad and i would get the cheap UK price (21 pounds, less than 40 bucks) and I would already have the book by now. Instead I found a US supplier who claimed they had it for $54 and I ordered it two weeks ago and still dont have it. they discovered it wasnt in their warehouse yet and put the order on hold. When it finally comes out in US it is likely, I am told, to be more expensive than the 21 pound price in UK. trouble is, I at least am not used to ordering from UK my wife has done it a bunch and it's worked for what she's ordered. the atlantic ocean may not be such a big obstacle except in the mind
Severian Posted August 20, 2004 Posted August 20, 2004 I have never been very impressed with Penrose. Weinberg's books on QFT are good though (although he has some funny conventions).
Martin Posted August 28, 2004 Author Posted August 28, 2004 I have never been very impressed with Penrose. Weinberg's books on QFT are good though (although he has some funny conventions). Different genre. To make an obvious point, Weinberg's "The Quantum Theory of Fields" is not a mass audience book and the set costs 120 pound stirling. Penrose "The Road to Reality" is rather mass audience and costs 21 pound stirling at Amazon I just checked to see how it is selling and it was now down to #32 place so it has had its moment of fame and now all one can say is that it is on the Top 100 chart. who will use "The Road to Reality"? Smart highschool students. Amateurs who got interested in theoretical physics and cosmology late in life and cant drop everything and go back to grad school for a different major. It has a lot of pictures and makes a lot of sense----it is more or less understandable without going knee-deep in math. At the end he waffles about future directions in physics, what to expect from string, from LQG, from his own pet twistors. he is outspoken but indefinite, if that makes any sense.
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