{"id":904,"date":"2014-01-08T22:26:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T06:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/?p=904"},"modified":"2014-01-09T20:51:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T04:51:45","slug":"2013-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/?p=904","title":{"rendered":"2013 Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Books I read in 2013:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B008FPOIT6\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Mr Penumbra&#8217;s 24 Hour Bookstore<\/a> (Robin Sloane)<br \/>I loved this book. A modern-day mystery story, set in San Francisco with all the tech hipsterism that implies, but also featuring old books, movable type and a secret society.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B005X3SAEC\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Taking Sudoku Seriously<\/a> (Jason Rosenhouse and Laura Taalman)<br \/>This was another awesome book. A thorough exploration of sudoku and all related puzzles, taking in a bunch of branches of mathematics along the way; completely accessible without being dumbed down.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00AYIN78A\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Dirk Gently&#8217;s Holistic Detective Agency<\/a> (Douglas Adams)<br \/>A fun break to re-read this. I think I prefer the Dirk Gently titles to the Hitchhiker ones.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00AYIDVM2\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul<\/a> (Douglas Adams)<br \/>Likewise a quick read after the first Dirk Gently novel. I think I watched the TV series as well at this point.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0674627512\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Notes on the Synthesis of Form<\/a> (Christopher Alexander)<br \/>It&#8217;s supposed to be a classic, but I found it fairly unfulfilling. Maybe it was too high-level for my taste.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00BW4VEGM\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan<\/a> (Robert Kanigel)<br \/>This was slow going at first, but I persevered with it, and it got better. Ramanujan was an incredible man.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00FH8B2D4\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">When Computers Were Human<\/a> (David Alan Grier)<br \/>This was interesting in parts but so slow-going that I only got halfway through it. Perhaps someday I&#8217;ll find the time to finish the rest.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B001CDZZI6\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">StrengthsFinder 2.0<\/a> (Tom Rath)<br \/>I read this for a course at work. Unsurprisingly my #1 strength came out as &#8216;Learner&#8217;.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B0078XFYDA\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">The Magic of Reality: How We Know What&#8217;s Really True<\/a> (Richard Dawkins)<br \/>A fairly interesting and certainly beautifully produced book. I read it mostly as a precursor to having my kids read it (which they haven&#8217;t, yet). Understandably it&#8217;s a bit below the level I want from a science title. I prefer Dawkins-as-hardcore-evolutionary-biologist as in The Selfish Gene, rather than Dawkins-as-celebrated-atheist-champion.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B004J4WNL2\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can&#8217;t Stop Talking<\/a> (Susan Cain)<br \/>This was enjoyable and somewhat thought-provoking. And I identified with a lot of what was said.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0060953500\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form<\/a> (Scott McCloud)<br \/>A sequel of sorts to the famous <em>Understanding Comics<\/em> &#8211; and similarly engaging. Unfortunately I missed the chance to see a lecture from Scott when he came to Blizzard.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00E3UR83A\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">A Mathematician&#8217;s Apology<\/a> (G. H. Hardy)<br \/>A quick read and an enjoyable one. Something I felt I should read.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/leanpub.com\/lisphackers\">Lisp Hackers<\/a> (Vsevolod Dyomkin)<br \/>A free download and a cool collection of interviews with developers. This was worth the read.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B005ERIJS4\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Guitar Zero: The Science of Becoming Musical at Any Age<\/a> (Gary Marcus)<br \/>The title promised, but the text didn&#8217;t really deliver. It was too long on questionably-interesting anecdotes and too short on science. I unreservedly recommend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B000W939JI\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Musicophilia<\/a> (Oliver Sacks) instead.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00555X8OA\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/a> (Daniel Kahneman)<br \/>This book is good, but too long. I&#8217;m still slogging through it. This is where the Kindle experience can be disheartening &#8211; you read a whole chapter and only minimally advance the percentage-read figure. I think I will need to make a precis of the salient points after I finish, so I can remember them. There is a lot in here.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1937785335\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">Good Math: A Geek&#8217;s Guide to the Beauty of Numbers, Logic, and Computation<\/a> (Mark Chu-Carroll)<br \/>I bought this on a whim because I recognised the author&#8217;s name and I thought it would be worth it. It&#8217;s pretty good, but I&#8217;m really reading too much of this kind of thing and getting over-satiated.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0452265886\/ref=nosim\/elbenocom-20\">The Medical Detectives<\/a> (Berton Roueche)<br \/>The last book I finished in 2013, and it was excellent. Real-life case studies of epidemiological puzzles and the stories of how they were solved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Books I read in 2013: Mr Penumbra&#8217;s 24 Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloane)I loved this book. A modern-day mystery story, set in San Francisco with all the tech hipsterism that implies, but also featuring old books, movable type and a secret society. Taking Sudoku Seriously (Jason Rosenhouse and Laura Taalman)This was&#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-904","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\/904","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=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":910,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elbeno.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}