Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - What are you reading?

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What are you reading?

Posted 2004-11-16 09:43 PM in Gaming | Tools.

Here's what I've been reading this month. These are all books that I'm in the middle of (have a bookmark in and they are on my night stand).

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? - George Carlin - It's offensive to many, but since he (and I) have interests in linguistics, I'm loving it. The euphemism rant is worth the price of admission. Get the Audible version, it's better than the book.
Worlds of Exile and Illusion, Three Novels in the Hainish Series - Ursula Le Guin - I love anything she writes, I got hooked by starting with The Left Hand of Darkness. I'm looking forward to the upcoming SciFi miniseries Earthsea.
Three Books of Known Space - Larry Niven - Another author who can do no wrong. I'm also reading:
Ringworld Engineers, the Ringworld Throne, then Ringworld's Children - I got the Audible of Ringworld, and it was fantastic, even better then when I first read it as a kid.
Rainbow Six - Tom Clancy - This thing is a big-ass tome at 912 pages. But, I got it at Goodwill for $3, and while I won't take it with me on planes, I'm about 600 pages in, and it's gripping. It also increases my enjoyment of the XBox Game. (That's why I got the book in the first place!)
Ilium - Dan Simmons - I'm struggling with this big one. I started it because I loved the Hyperion series so much (which is a SciFi re-telling of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales). This is a re-telling of the Iliad from a Sci-Fi point of view. I'm in the middle of it, but the names and places aren't clicking with me, and I have to keep referring to the glossary of characters. I should have paid more attention in A.P. English. Patrick Cauldwell would eat this up with his Liberal Arts Degree. :)
Servant of the Bones - Anne Rice - An odd one, but fun. From a quote on Amazon.com: "'Servant of the Bones' follows the format of the Vampire Chronicles: an incredibly attractive immortal relates his life story to a listener (who, oddly enough, never seems to need the bathroom during the long oral bio)." I'm enjoying it though...the immortal is Azrial, a fallen angel born in ancient Babylon. The history is a little odd, but the concept of extremely long lived folks (Highlander anyone?) is a very attractive concept for a story.

What are you reading?

P.S. Thanks to Kim Gräsman for Urlograph, an IE Toolbar Button that automatically shrinks Amazon and Google URLs! Very RESTful.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 10:37:17 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I had bought Bill Mahar's "When you ride along, you ride with Bin Laden". It is a very insightful book, which made me dislike Hummer (the urban tank!).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1893224902/qid=1100673311/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-1657627-7955105?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

It's about time for us to seriously think about how we live...

vbNullString

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 5:09:32 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scott, thanks for Illum hint - ordered! I hope you had read "Fall of Hyperion" series as well? if you did not, drop everything else since really Hyperion series was just a setup, and with "Fall" Simmons blows it out of the park, water, space - out of everything. I'd say only Donaldson "Gap" series can compare.

My counter recomendation would be new just released Covenant chronicles book by same Donaldson... well, after shiping out 6 books which i think are undisputable #2 after JRRT its hard to breath new life into series, yet Donaldson manages just that. i can't say its as great as original chronicles, yet begining of the book is stable, good ok, and in second half Donaldson gets ball rolling and in very surprising directions. Darn, its 7th book and i'm still mistified who are the ur-viles and what really is their fundamental Wurd.

for insane Donaldson lovers like myself - "Reave the Just" (his collection of short tales) is a must. in some of them (By any other name) Donaldson mastery of language and expression rises to JRRT level....

[flame] Scott, your anti-spamn add is imho inexcusable rude. 1) i already had few comments disappear without a trace since i can't guess this crazy code. don't post comment if code is wrong, but have respect for your readers and preserve what they typed. 2) by page layout it looks like one should enter code into home-page field, rather then this small box below... sheehs, thigns like that should be obvious to ASP.NET interview candidate.... [/flame]

Max S.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 5:46:11 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I am currently reading "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture" by Martin Fowler and so far I have to say it is an excellent book.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321127420/104-4785988-1860720?v=glance

Nick Parker

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 7:45:24 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I just finished reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle series. It is a three book series:
1. Quicksilver
2. The Confusion
3. The System Of The World

This guy's books keep getting better and better. If you enjoy historical fiction, I highly recommend this series.

Brian Kuhn

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 9:45:45 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I'm about half way through Cryptonomicon, which further cements my faith in Stephenson's genius. What a fantastic book.

Patrick Cauldwell

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:30:43 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Hey Scott, how did you do the amazon graphic pop-up when hovering over the hyperlink? Very cool trick.

Alistair cookes Letters from America btw.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/3527265.stm

Ian

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:36:14 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Ian, details on the DHTML here:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=cc6db5a8-c7ac-4934-94d9-2b8215978e4e

You're the FIRST to notice it! I think it's UNSPEAKABLY AWESOME, but no one else seemed to care. :(

Scott Hanselman

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 11:38:49 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Max,
You're the first to complain, but no doubt there are others who feel the same way but haven't been able to post comments! ;) Just kidding.

Since I had (wanted) to integrate the CAPTCHA stuff without recompiling dasBlog, there's no way to keep the AddComment call from happening other than a Response.Redirect. However, Omar has expressed interest in getting this supported directly in dasBlog 1.7, so I may just recompile and do the integration myself, which would solve the problem and keep your comments if you get the CAPTCHA wrong. Sorry, but I am working on it.

Scott Hanselman

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 12:13:30 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Voila, here you have it what I'm reading ... http://jopx.blogspot.com/2004/11/what-im-reading.html

jopx

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 2:27:46 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Rainbow Six is an amazing book, I've read 90% of Tom Clancy's books and I have to say this was one of the best. I loved Red Rabbit too.

William D. Bartholomew

Thursday, November 18, 2004 4:34:47 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Oh, adding significant and non-trivial feature without recompilation? no further questions - you are totaly excused! next logical step should be adding broad new user-intensive feature groups by hardware changes and run-time ROM overwrites. ( i added "mad dog" bit here http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Russian_proverbs when i was in same mood last time )

Max S.

Thursday, November 18, 2004 6:31:59 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Actually, I noticed it and thought it was UNSPEAKABLY AWESOME, too, fwiw. :)

Stuart

Friday, November 19, 2004 3:44:46 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scott,

Here is my list of books that I've read in the last six months or so beginning with the most recent.

World Religions
by John Westerdale Bowker

The Double Helix : A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
by James D. Watson

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing : Exposed and Explained by the World's Two
by: Al Reis

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
by Louis V. Gerstner Jr.

What Should I Do with My Life?
by PO BRONSON

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
by Jim Collins

John

Monday, November 22, 2004 1:20:15 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

" hope you had read "Fall of Hyperion" series as well?" <- ignore that. Of course i meant "Endymion" and "The Rise of Endymion"

Max S.

Saturday, November 27, 2004 8:44:59 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

From ScottH: ***Since I had (wanted) to integrate the CAPTCHA stuff without recompiling dasBlog, there's no way to keep the AddComment call from happening other than a Response.Redirect.***

I've solved this problem with my own HIP/Captcha control that emits client side validation routines. I've been running it on my .Text blog for a few days now, you can checkout a demo page I put up as well. I've also posted a few entries on how it works in a nutshell and why I choose to write my own.

http://abaum.com/blog/HIPImageControlDemo.aspx

-Andrew