"Snuff" is not the last book of the series

I'm sorry to hear that. I won't be completing the set, then - I did in fact set "Snuff" aside, permanently.

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth by Paul Hoffman

Recreations in the Theory of Numbers: The Queen of Mathematics Entertains by Albert H. Beiler

 

Because OEIS made attributions to this work that others assured me are not in it, I ordered this book a few years back but never got it. On a whim I tried again last week and now have it in my hot little hands. A quick check of the pertinent section shows my friends were correct and OEIS mistaken, though this won't forestall my reading the whole of it for my own recreation.

I have committed the sin of leaving my last book half-finished.

 

Instead I read The Quantum Universe, revised 2nd ed. by Tony Hey & Patrick Walters which is a neat primer on quantum mechanics.

 

And I read Egg, by Richard Burton, which is a children's book with marvelous photographs of various species in the act of hatching.

 

I currently read Molecules, by Peter Atkins, which is a collection of descriptions of various molecules, where they are found in nature, what they usually react with, and their products.

I have committed the sin of leaving my last book half-finished.

 

Instead I read The Quantum Universe, revised 2nd ed. by Tony Hey & Patrick Walters which is a neat primer on quantum mechanics.

 

And I read Egg, by Richard Burton, which is a children's book with marvelous photographs of various species in the act of hatching.

 

I currently read Molecules, by Peter Atkins, which is a collection of descriptions of various molecules, where they are found in nature, what they usually react with, and their products.

 

 

I cannot remember which was the first book I left half finished - but doing so was immensely liberating and has cut down on me spending too much time reading tripe in the mad hope that it will get better.

I am reading "The Many Colored Land of the Golden Torc" by Julian May...

"As we sat there on the mountain, the plenitude of pure, white stars seemed fixed in their positions, although of course all of them - and Earth as well - were moving ever outward toward a void at terrifying velocities."

excerpted from chapter 53 of the book "Innocence" by Dean Koontz

 

Dean Koontz's understanding of cosmology is a bit off. All the matter of the Universe is embedded in space which is currently expanding in all directions at a speed greater than the speed of light. But the matter in the universe is not expanding toward a void in the way that Koontz is visualizing it. It is the energy of space which drives the expansion and which carries the matter of the universe along with it, rather than the matter of the universe exploding into a void like the fragments of an exploded hand grenade.

Just finished my annual reading of "Hogfather". Will likely be getting Pratchett's last discworld novel for Christmas (waiting for my late-sleeping daughter to arise to open presents).

In my Discworld reading, I am up to Eric, I started reading the mega-webserial Worm, but only a chapter a day.

I'm really enjoying the MaddAdam trilogy by Margarett Atwood. When I have time for it.

It's a great look at how the world may come to be after we obtain the ability to create our own organisms through gene splicing.

Ultimately a plague is our ultimate demise. It is induced by an intelligent man who creates his own species of humans and decides that the old version needs to be eliminated in order for his new version to survive. So he makes a "sexual performance enhancing" pill to sell and induce the plague to kill us off. Some of us do survive though and this is mostly about the aftermath.

What books are you reading now?

 

Doesn't matter what kind, what subject, whatever. It'll just be fun to see what everyone's reading. I'd certainly like to get more reading material in.

 

I'll start: I'm currently starting The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins, as I'm currently writing a report discussing evolution and I spotted it in the library while doing research.

Just finished Call of Cthulu and am working on a few other short stories by HP Lovecraft

Read "This Census Taker" recently by China Miéville. Still unsure if it was his most normal or least normal book.

 

Good read; though, if you've never read his works before, don't read it first.

 

Did capture the feel of taking census perfectly. Did it this latest time. Questions of dubious logic, illegible writing, incredible shows of trust and more frankly rational suspicion.

 

Loved it, as much a roller-coaster ride as the job itself.

Edited March 31, 20169 yr by Endy0816

'The Stuff of Thought' Stephen Pinker, because I just can't get enough.

Am reading "His Limbo Paradox" or aka "advertisement".

 

House of Leaves

 

up next: S.

Right now reading Rising Steam by Terry Pratchett. Discworld for me is known series, generally speaking I'm done with all series except Rincewind.

But what impressed me recently was Neal Shusterman's Skinjacker Trilogy, a great thing for fantasy-lovers.

Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander

Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander

Dare I ask what that is about?

Dare I ask what that is about?

It's about fishing. I was J/K. All these high-brow books people throw I thought I'd chuck that out. Good book though... if you're 15-.16...educative in the ways of amour.. It was written in the seventies.

Edited August 18, 20169 yr by StringJunky

It's about fishing. I was J/K. All these high-brow books people throw I thought I'd chuck that out. Good book though... if you're 15-.16...educative in the ways of amour.. It was written in the seventies.

Rigorous testing may be required to validate results

Stern-wheelers Up Columbia: A Century of Steamboating in the Oregon Country by Randall V. Mills

&

Poison Arrows: North American Indian Hunting and Warfare by David E. Jones

Edited October 17, 20169 yr by Acme

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

 

An example of how good marketing ("Manifest Destiny") can get an entire nation behind the movement to steal the land and destroy the culture, religion, and way of life of Native Americans.

 

By comparison, our mistake of nominating Trump for President is a minor blip in our history.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

 

An example of how good marketing ("Manifest Destiny") can get an entire nation behind the movement to steal the land and destroy the culture, religion, and way of life of Native Americans.

 

By comparison, our mistake of nominating Trump for President is a minor blip in our history.

 

You might substitute the phrase Manifest Destiny with the legal term terra nullius; this was how the British Empire justified its enormous landgrab. Land could not be claimed if there were people living on it - so the imperialists just defined the native inhabitants of USA, Canada, OZ and NZ etc. as "not people" . There is a brilliant book about Eddy Mabo and the Tores Strait Islands fighting this ruling many many years later

The Amazing Kavalier and Clay, which won a Pulitzer for fiction, by the sublime Michael Chabon.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

 

An example of how good marketing ("Manifest Destiny") can get an entire nation behind the movement to steal the land and destroy the culture, religion, and way of life of Native Americans.

 

By comparison, our mistake of nominating Trump for President is a minor blip in our history.

But we cannot really call Trumps election to be a minor blip, now, can we? As, the night is young, he is only about two months in office. There is still lots of time for him to do enough damage to our nation and its standing in the world do as to elevate from minor blip to momentous flashpoint.

Edited March 12, 20178 yr by Velocity_Boy

I recommend a short sci-fi story from Isaac Asimov.

 

Really interesting combination of science and bogus.

 

http://multivax.com/last_question.html