Harry Potter

Axler, Sheldon. Linear Algebra Done Right.

Pickwick Papers and Dava Sobel’s biog of Marie Curie.

Pathogenesis.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogenesis:_A_history_of_the_world_in_eight_plagues

 

 

 I am rereading The Across Real Time series By Vernor Vinge 

The bobbles?  I read the one (Marooned) that was serialized in Analog.  Good stuff.  

He died of Parkinson's last Spring, RIP.  I also liked A Fire Upon the Deep, in his Zones of Thought series.

A former GF met him at a sci-fi conference, apparently by means of squeezing through a crowd and under David Brin's armpit en route.  I cannot vouch for the veracity of this account.  

11 hours ago, TheVat said:

The bobbles?  I read the one (Marooned) that was serialized in Analog.  Good stuff.  

He died of Parkinson's last Spring, RIP.  I also liked A Fire Upon the Deep, in his Zones of Thought series.

A former GF met him at a sci-fi conference, apparently by means of squeezing through a crowd and under David Brin's armpit en route.  I cannot vouch for the veracity of this account.  

I thought the bobbles was a great plot idea as well, such a simple device to form a story around. 

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( almost finished ) and started Catastrophes by Donald Prothero yesterday

I like books about history and just finished one of the best I have ever read; "The Great Monkey Trial" by L Sprague de Camp. While an old book, the parallels to what is going on today is interesting. Written with the style and clarity sci-fi fans have loved for decades, de Camp chronicles the Scopes Monkey Trial from the passing of the law forbidding the teaching of evolution in Tennessee to the final appeal upholding his conviction. The book is filled with descriptions of ongoing events and great quotes and narratives from the likes of Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan and newspapermen like H L Mencken (if you don't know who he is, I highly recommend looking up some of his writings, especially on politics).

Just read the late Octavia Butler's Patternmaster stories - Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, Patternmaster. 

I was always impressed by her Xenogenesis aka Lilith's Brood stories but am not normally a fan of horror/supernatural themes, which (barring Clay's Ark) these stories explore. That is an odd one out in the collection, being almost pure hard SF, with no supernatural elements but to my mind more disturbing in the themes even than the others that do have them - probably for an alien parasite/symbiont seeming more credible than magical powers.

I might have said Butler's themes were about being on the losing side yet surviving and even finding optimism in their slavery - no heroes always winning against impossible odds in her stories - but I think they may be more about surviving sexual enslavement, where people not only have no choice but have to deal with acquired/imposed biological urges overwhelming them - becoming addicted and enjoying it whilst hating the powerlessness. Even the Master races in her stories can be powerless against their own biological needs.

Have heard nothing but praise for Butler.  So, thanks, this may be the nudge needed.  

Just finished a novel by an Australian, Kate Grenville, called "The Idea of Perfection". It's an acutely observed meditation on the imperfections of human beings and the love they nonetheless inspire, in a low key, everyday sort of way. It's set in a small, remote town somewhere in Australia, the atmosphere of which is conveyed with brilliant economy. I was rather struck by how, unusually for a modern novel by a woman, two of the men in the story come across as displaying a kind of understated heroism, in spite of their various weaknesses and inadequacies. A book that does not judge people, and shows a certain warmth and humanity, I thought, which is a refreshing change after so many that seem to want to shock the reader. It won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2001.

I'm reading Sapiens - A brief history of mankind, right now.

I am reading books of my favorite philosopher Seneca - On Anger, On Clemency, On the Shortness of Life. And these books really make you think and reconsider your worldview.

Seneca was as scheming as he was brilliant. He brought up the most cruel emperor ever, Nero, and Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed that order...

"The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man", Thomas Mann. Surprisingly funny in places. Also quite modern in its matter-of-fact portrayal of the voile et vapeur sexuality of the protagonist.

The Dream Hotel, by Laila Lalami (2025), one of the best novels I've read on the dystopian aspects of AI, and how people can be tracked and assigned an identity by an insentient algorithm. It is not wildly dystopian but very much about where we are now, with a little tweak that seems to have the ring of truth as all great fiction does. It is a Black Mirror sort of exploration which dives deep into questions of how we identify ourselves and how people can push back against external coercion and control. The protagonist, flagged as a risk for future criminal action (resonating with Philip Dick tales like The Minority Report), is held in a "retention facility" (not a prison, oh no!) under a Kafkaesque system of monitoring and evaluation which we come to understand as feeding profit to a corporate contractor, trapping both the retainees and their keepers.

Lalami has been shortlisted for a Pulitzer and a Booker prize for previous work, and if this book doesn't earn her one then I just don't understand book prizes. It is brilliant, profoundly moving, and for all the patches of darkness, hopeful and upbeat.

Time to squeeze in a couple more weeks of light summer reading. Today it is the quintessence of fun, mirth, and ripping good adventure with likeable characters which is almost any John Scalzi novel. "Kaiju Preservation Society"

I'm learning German; I'm reading the book German All-in-One For Dummies and combining it with online learning at this website: https://learndeutschnow.de/

Edited December 15Dec 15 by toiquay

A. Neve's An Economic History of the USSR.