{"id":865,"date":"2012-12-16T23:17:18","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T07:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/?p=865"},"modified":"2012-12-27T13:36:59","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T21:36:59","slug":"the-year-in-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/?p=865","title":{"rendered":"The Year in Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Books I&#8217;ve read this year:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1594484805\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us<\/a> (Daniel H Pink)<br \/>I started the year by finishing this book. I was rather late to the party in reading it; it&#8217;s practically received wisdom now, especially for managers of knowledge workers. And of course there is a nice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc\">RSA Animate video<\/a> which has been popular also.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0061161721\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Unseen Academicals<\/a> (Terry Pratchett)<br \/>This was a quick read although I had had a false start or two. It was enjoyable.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1575860104\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Digital Typography<\/a> (Donald E Knuth)<br \/>This book was amazing. I read it on various car trips over a period of about two years in all. It&#8217;s really a collection of essays about how Knuth wrote TeX and Metafont, and as such contains some astonishing scholarship. I have now finished one more Knuth book than most programmers!<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B003F3FJGY\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">At Home: A Short History of Private Life<\/a> (Bill Bryson)<br \/>I love Bill Bryson&#8217;s humour and I find this kind of &#8220;popular history&#8221; fascinating. A really good read.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0375725601\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">The Devil in the White City<\/a> (Erik Larson)<br \/>This one took me a while to finish: I read about half of it and then put it down for a few months, before coming back to finish it. It&#8217;s a fictionalised account of a true history: the Chicago World&#8217;s Fair of 1893, following two threads: the story of the planning and architecture of the fair, and the story of the world&#8217;s first serial killer who found many victims there.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/159420229X\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything<\/a> (Joshua Foer)<br \/>A fairly quick read about how a journalist found his way into the world of competitive memory feats.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0684842963\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">50 Short Science Fiction Tales<\/a> (Isaac Asimov, Groff Conklin)<br \/>I like Science Fiction of course, and in particular short stories, so this was something I read as a &#8220;rest book&#8221; in between more demanding reads.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1907605002\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Sift<\/a> (Lawrence Sail)<br \/>The author is a friend and former teacher of mine; while visiting the UK last year he invited me for lunch and signed a copy of his latest book for me. Knowing him as I do made this book all the more interesting to read. A biographical selection of his childhood experiences.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0061353248\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Predictably Irrational<\/a> (Dan Ariely)<br \/>This book was recommended to me by more than one colleague, so I got around to reading it. There is currently a huge market in these types of business-psychology books. This was one of the worthwhile ones.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0615574734\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">The Curiosity Cycle: Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion<\/a> (Jonathan Mugan)<br \/>A quick read that my wife foisted on me under the guise of being an education-technology crossover.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0137143680\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Teach What You Know<\/a> (Steve Trautman)<br \/>This was recommended by a colleague. I originally ordered it from Amazon, then returned it because the print quality was very poor. I got it from the company library instead. Anyway, it turned out to be about 4 times as long as it needed to be. The useful information was there but swamped by endless examples and repetition.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0123850037\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">API Design For C++<\/a> (Martin Reddy)<br \/>At first, I didn&#8217;t think much of this book. But it grew on me, I think because tthe initial chapters were fairly uninspiring, and the later chapters were more useful. Now I would recommend it.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0877958904\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder<\/a> (Rudy Rucker)<br \/>A quick read as an aside. Mathematical Fiction (a small subset of Science Fiction) is something I always enjoy.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0553386794\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">A Game of Thrones<\/a> (George R R Martin)<br \/>Everyone was raving about the TV series, and I don&#8217;t get HBO or have any time to watch TV, so I decided to read the book. I actually got 4 books from the series for Xmas; this was just the first one. After reading one, I decided not to continue with the others just yet.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0691025479\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Hands<\/a> (John Napier)<br \/>This book is great. Fairly short, but packed full of insights social, evolutionary and medical about the human hand. You never knew that your hands could be so fascinating.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0321146530\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Test Driven Development: By Example<\/a> (Kent Beck)<br \/>I read this because I wanted to know more about TDD. This book was OK, and certainly contained useful nuggets of information, but you can&#8217;t <em>really<\/em> learn about TDD by reading.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/145160713X\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">For the Love of Physics<\/a> (Walter Lewin)<br \/>This is a very good book. Unfortunately, I have read many books of its ilk, so for me it wasn&#8217;t a great book. But still, a fairly quick read, and enjoyable enough for a filler.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1596062193\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Dark Integers and Other Stories<\/a> (Greg Egan)<br \/>More Mathematical Fiction, another filler book that I read along the way this year.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0061824739\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Periodic Tales<\/a> (Hugh Aldersey-Williams)<br \/>I have a thing lately for the elements, so I lapped this up. Really enjoyed it, and I haven&#8217;t yet had enough of reading about the (history of the) elements, so next I read:<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0375704043\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood<\/a> (Oliver Sacks)<br \/>A more human take on the denizens of the periodic table. I&#8217;ve read several of Oliver Sacks&#8217; books and liked them all. This was no exception.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0062218867\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Snuff<\/a> (Terry Pratchett)<br \/>Well, I&#8217;ve read every Discworld novel so far, so it seems like I have to keep on reading them. And I did enjoy this one, more than Unseen Academicals actually.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1461178185\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Lauren Ipsum<\/a> (Carlos Bueno)<br \/>This book is great. As soon as my kids are old enough I&#8217;ll be recommending it to them. I read it through in about 2 hours. Imagine if Alice&#8217;s Adventures in Wonderland were written by Douglas Hofstadter.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0307887448\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Ready Player One<\/a> (Ernest Cline)<br \/>It seemed like several friends were reading this, so I did. I couldn&#8217;t put it down and finished it in a weekend. This is one for the SF canon.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0060853972\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Good Omens<\/a> (Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett)<br \/>This is one of my favourite books ever, better than anything Terry Pratchett did alone IMHO. I find myself rereading it about once a year as a light filler between more weighty tomes. Still as enjoyable as ever and has a really good screenplay going on in my head.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0887309895\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Dealers in Lightning: Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age<\/a> (Michael A. Hiltzik)<br \/>This was a good book, a fascinating read about Xerox Parc. Most things in computers were invented in the 60s and 70s.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1848877951\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens&#8217; London<\/a> (Judith Flanders)<br \/>So now I&#8217;m at the end of the year, and I picked this book up on my Kindle after seeing it recommended in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alumni.cam.ac.uk\/news\/cam\/\">CAM<\/a> (which I find a pretty good source for book recommendations). It&#8217;s a really good read and I am currently recommending it to everyone. It is really long though, or at least it seems that way on my Kindle.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Books I&#8217;ve read this year: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Daniel H Pink)I started the year by finishing this book. I was rather late to the party in reading it; it&#8217;s practically received wisdom now, especially for managers of knowledge workers. And of course there is a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions\/875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}