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Well, aside from the hallmark casual omniscience, the ridiculous technology and the sanctimonious Golden Mean crap, Dan Brown's latest eye-roller for me was MSNBC's history of faking live shots with wind and rain machines. In a television studio.

Just finished Angels & Demons. I think I liked the movie better. A lot less of this namby-pamby, preachy "pure science is teh evil" bullshit. His tortured caricature of scientists as soulless heathens partying over the potential destruction of the Vatican is downright offensive, as is his representation of the College of Cardinals as nothing more than a group of pious, well-meaning holy men.

The best part of the book was Langdon waking up at a hospital thinking that aliens were about to steal his testicles.

An odd direction for a guy who's second book made the Catholic Church contain a clique of evil priests with albino assassins who wanted to wipe out the bloodline of Jesus Christ...

But I'm not surprised the movie was better. The movie of Da Vinci Code was better too.

Anyway, currently reading Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1845. It's an entry into the Oxford History of the United States, covering the time period from the end of the War of 1812 to the end of the Mexican-American War and on the social and economic and political changes of the era. The title is in reference to the very first words sent by telegraph by Samuel Morse.

Finished michael swanswick"s "the iron dragons daughter" (great book, reminds me immensely of china meiville s best), now trading various short stories by the aforementioned, charles stross ("wireless"), with plans to see if I can actually read and finish neal stephenson s newest book after my trip ("reamde").

Kindle +3 weeks hiking = great combo!

"Spectral Geometry, Link Complements, and Surgery Diagrams," by M. Lackenby.

Dalton wrote:Just finished Angels & Demons. I think I liked the movie better. A lot less of this namby-pamby, preachy "pure science is teh evil" bullshit. His tortured caricature of scientists as soulless heathens partying over the potential destruction of the Vatican is downright offensive, as is his representation of the College of Cardinals as nothing more than a group of pious, well-meaning holy men.

The best part of the book was Langdon waking up at a hospital thinking that aliens were about to steal his testicles.

I liked that movie.

I've got a couple of books that I'm reading, now that I can actually get e-books from the library on my Kindle. I've got Spycraft, which I'm partially reading (I don't really care about the history of the CIA, but the chapters on the elements of espionage are good). There's also 1493 by Charles Mann, Blood Meridian (which might take me a while), and Storm of the Century.

I've finished the chapters I want to read from Spycraft, and those were very interesting. I found them much easier to read on a Kindle than in hard copy form, maybe because the book itself is big.

I also finished 1493, and that was (like 1491) an absolutely fascinating read. I would recommend reading it for the chapters on Malaria & Yellow Fever, the African escaped slave "Maroon" communities, and the importance of silver in the global trade alone. I had an inkling that Malaria was devastating, but had no idea how devastating - some of the accounts and data that Mann provides are shocking. The "Maroon communities" chapter was fascinating because it's a part of history that I learned very little about other than that Florida was a prominent destination for escaped slaves from the US. I had learned nothing about the entire Latin American history of them.

October is going to be an interesting month in reading, since I've got a pair of new releases coming out to read. There's Sacred Band by David Anthony Durham, Cold Commands by Richard Morgan. There's also Spellbound by Blake Charlton, which came out in September but hasn't reached me yet (I'm reserving it at a library). Until those come out, I'm reading Why the West Rules by Ian Morris.

I finished Freakonomics in preparation for a College Writing class, as I thought it was the assigned book, and found out that instead the book for the summer semester was SuperFreakonomics. It was still an entertaining book. Now that the class is over, I'm reading Superfreakonomics form cover to cover.

Also, I finished Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle a week ago. The book was enjoyable, and I enjoy his sense of humor, but why is this guy considered a genius? The man seems to have something against the very idea of scientific research and people in general. Keep in mind, this, and Harrison Bergeron, are the only works of his I've read so far.

Aside from SuperFreakonomics, I'm also reading a collection of Kurt Vonnegut stories, to see how I find the rest of his work.

The Dynamics of Fluidized Particles

Frankly, some of the math in it is over my head (having never studied quite that level; tensor calculus if I'm not mistaken) but it's giving me insight. I started reading it for work because I have an interest, professionally, in solid particle erosion.

And since you need to use fluid to cause the particle erosion I'm interested in, well... Next on the list, at least, next on the list that isn't for fun, is a book on Multi-Phase Flow.

Started a book, the Dark Griffin, by K. J. Taylor. Obviously a fantasy book and suprisingly good so far. It's the first of a trilogy of books that I recieved as a late birthday present.

When I'm done with them, it's on to 'The Judging Eye' by R. Scott Bakker.

I'm working my way through Michael Kurland's fourth Professor Moriarty novel, The Empress of India.

Neal Stephenson's REAMDE.
It's Good

How to Lose a War: More Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders by Bill Fawcett. An exploration of how historical wars were lost, from Pyrrhus' giving us the phrase "Pyrrhic victory" all the way up to the Vietnam War.

Just finished "Surface Detail" by Iain Banks. Now, i'm definitely hooked to Culture novels!

I wish my library had more any Sci-fi paperbacks.

Why doesn't it?

Number Theoretic wrote:Just finished "Surface Detail" by Iain Banks. Now, i'm definitely hooked to Culture novels!

I'm in the middle of reading it myself. Good stuff.

Dalton: Perhaps going retro and digging around in the public domain stuff? That's where I've been getting a lot of audiobooks lately for when I drive. I've been enjoying EE "Doc" Smith's stuff lately.

Stofsk wrote:Why doesn't it?

probably because they would be a major expense for what most people justifying budgets still consider "trash". If I recall from my parent's membership in friends of the library most science fiction is donated by us geeks, because the "think of the children" factions wont let the library spend money on something that they consider "non educational"....

this being the inversion of the cheap used book stores where the expensive items are the sci-fi and pulp fantasy novels, while the romance novels are in the bargin bin...

currently just bought more PTerry, starting to slowly catch up on decades of Diskworld nad his other stuff. now for everyone who told me I would love this stuff, thank you, I've already forwarded the "Children's books" section to my sister's kids. (whom are all members of that teenager group, but hell this stuff was funny for adults...)

Stofsk wrote:Why doesn't it?

Because they're busy stockpiling multiple copies of all the Twilight books, books for schools and shitty romance novels. The amount of paperback sci-fi they have can fit on a shelf. I don't want to have to haul a hardcover back and forth. Time for a Kindle.

Just got a copy of Salvation's Reach. the newest Gaunt's Ghost story, about a 100 pages in so far, excellent already.

Singularities, expanders and topology of maps. By Gromov, very interesting but completely impossible.

I don't understand why I'm still melting my brain with Dan Brown pap.

Do you hate yourself y/n?

Dalton wrote:I don't understand why I'm still melting my brain with Dan Brown pap.

They're page-turners. Awful as hell, but you can't stop reading them. The Lost Symbol may have been one of the most abysmal thrillers I've ever read, but I read it all the way through.

I finished Sacred Band by David Anthony Durham. Good book, although not as character-driven as I would have preferred (and as the previous book was written). It unfortunately suffered from an explosion in minor character POV chapters as well, which resulted in pacing issues.

I'm still working through Why the West Rules by Ian Morris at a slow pace. There's also Daniel Yergin's The Prize to re-read, along with a bunch of other books I got at the library.