matt.oddbug.net

The Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science by DK Publishing

This book has just enough information to really whet the appetite on all kinds of subjects. It has just enough good pictures to keep a visually addicted person like me engaged and it is brief enough to actually finish a topic. It makes me want to study all kinds of other disciplines. Then the sour sting of bile reminds me how I feel about school. I have this problem where I conflate the knowledge school promises with reality. Never quite kicked that habit from elementary school of tearing up my homework before I even start it, which might not help either.

This book ought to be great light geek reading. Then maybe I’ll pull a Good Will Hunting and go to my library for the free details.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and The Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

Listening to NPR last week I heard the author of this book speak about the Middle East. He struck me as quite intelligent and made several good points, though the details of the entire thing have slipped my mind. All I had was the author’s name that I managed to speak into my cellphone’s voice recorder as I drove to work. Luckily, that was enough to track the book down during a trip to Barnes and Noble.

The book is an account of the Islamist movement that lead up to groups like al-Qaeda and the response of U.S. and international intelligence to the growing movement.

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Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlen

Since I have a Robert A. Heinlen quote on the main page of oddbug.net, I figured I should read a book by him. This is his most famous and supposedly one of the most famous science fiction novels of all time. I’ve heard it is strange and a bit edgy. It is also not so new, published in 1961. I’ll be interested to see how ideas of sci-fi have held up for that long.

I am looking forward to reading it. I have been taking ever so slightly longer lunches at work to read and give my brain a rest from routine during the day — so there is some chance I’ll get to this book sometime soon.

I have decided to add a couple of groups of book posts. One will be simple — it will simply make entries when I add books to my library. I’ve decided this is a good idea since it is an easy post and it’ll at least express my subject interests (that way I can be judged by my covers!). I also just got a few new books and I am excited to put them up, so I’ll seize the moment!

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