What have you read lately?

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    Was not an easy read, but interesting nonetheless.

    i have this book, still need to read it.

    after finishing my quest of attempting to find bruce chatwin's "in patagonia", i'm currently reading it.

    i'm also reading antimatter, which gives a good insight into antimatter, what the universe is, and how physics work on a a deeper level. fairly easy read.

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    I'm currently reading the memoirs of jean de joinville written by the guy himself in 1309;

    Jean de Joinville was the son of a noble family of Champagne who left his family to join the king of France Louis IX and the christian knights onto the seventh crusade and to who he became later confident and counsellor.

    The text is meant to be dedicated to the son of Louis IX on the life of his father, where de Joinville clearly write down to earth what was happening during the crusades and after. He is basically a witness of his time as a fighting man during the crusade;

    This is pretty amazing to read because it forces you into a century/culture that isn't ours anymore with people with different psyche and way to see the world.. it's amazing to take a step back and get a "new" look on our own time; worth many many sci fi books to me

    Some glimpses :

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    A blow from one of the enemy’s swords landed in the middle of Erard de Sevirey’s face, cutting through his nose so that it was left dangling over his lips. At that moment the thought of Saint James came into my mind, and I prayed to him: ‘Good Saint James, come to my help, and save us in our great need.’ Just as I had uttered this prayer Erard de Sevirey said to me: ‘My lord, if you think that neither I nor my heirs will incur reproach for it, I will go and fetch you help from the Comte d’Anjou, whom I see in the fields over there.’ I said to him, ‘My dear man, it seems to me you would win great honour for yourself if you went for help to save our lives; your own, by the way, is also in great danger.’ (I spoke truly, for he died of his wound).

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    "King Louis also spoke to me of a great assembly of clergy and Jews which had taken place at the monastery of Cluny. There was a poor knight there at the time to whom the abbot had often given bread for the love of God. This knight asked the abbot if he could speak first, and his request was granted, though somewhat grudgingly. So he rose to his feet, and leaning on his crutch, asked to have the most important and most learned rabbi among the Jews brought before Him. As soon as the Jew had come, the knight asked him a question. “May I know, sir,” he said, “if you believe that the Virgin Mary, who bore our Lord in her body and cradled Him in her arms, was a virgin at the time of His birth, and is in truth the Mother of God?”


    The Jew replied that he had no belief in any of those things. Thereupon the knight told the Jew that he acted like a fool when – neither believing in the Virgin, nor loving her – he had set foot in that monastery which was her house. “And by heaven” exclaimed the knight, “I’ll make you pay for it” So he lifted his crutch and struck the Jew such a blow with it near the ear that he knocked him down. Then all the Jews took to flight, and carried their sorely wounded rabbi away with them. Thus the conference ended.


    The abbot went up to the knight and told him he had acted most unwisely. The knight retorted that the abbot had been guilty of even greater folly in calling people together for such a conference, because there were many good Christians there who, before the discussion ended, would have gone away with doubts about their own religion through not fully understanding the Jews. “So I tell you,” said the king, “that no one, unless he is an expert theologian, should venture to argue with these people. But a layman, whenever he hears the Christian religion abused, should not attempt to defend its tenets, except with his sword, and that he should thrust into the scoundrel’s belly, and as far as it will enter.”

    I'm forcing myself to read the original text in old medieval french, it's hard but i'm finding it so much instructive.

    I've found an ebook version of the text translated into english, if you guys are courageous enough give it a try, it's worth reading :

    http://archive.org/s...age/n7/mode/2up

    and in old french if you want to read it

    http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechel…V000.htm#JVH010

    Steve Jobs

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    finished yesterday. I think it's a must especially for everyone working with computers, i found thrilling especially the early years when Apple came to life, because the author did well to paint a broader picture of the California tech boom.

    ~

    Just started "El Palestino", by a guy who infiltrated a Spanish Arab terrorist cell for 6 years(!).

    Haruki Murakami - Underground


    A bunch of short 2-12 pagers. Each one a personal account of the Tokyo gas attacks by the cult Aum.


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    Bjarne Stroustroup - The Design and Evolution of C++


    A historical perspective on how the C++ language was designed, what was dropped from the spec and why certain things are the way they are.


    Apparently they used to have post-ctor init methods and pre-dtor cleanup methods. I implement those a lot myself. would have been great if they were a language feature.


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    History of Nintendo focusing on what they did before they made video games.


    Great shitter read, everything is broken into small sections and is really interesting.


    There's a great part about how the president (yamauchi) invested in Japanese love hotels. They lost a ton of money but a bunch of newspapers said with the amount of money he spends taking women to love hotels it might have actually SAVED Nintendo money.


    tldr : the president of Nintendo was a manslut

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    It took me half a year but only one book remains. Never in my life have I've read such an compelling story. The writing itself may be slow, especially in regard to the fast pace style of my other favorite author (Robert E Howard) but it's fascinating from beginning to end. Many a night I spent reading until dawn, utterly amazed by the sheer amount brilliance of all the scheming happening before my eyes. I can not remember having seen anything so carefully worked out. The setup of certain twist (which are not all about killing of characters you haters) is just pure genius. It's not a story anymore. It's a world that has come alive. Something so great that it has to be preserved forever.


    Now let's just hope god will be less cruel and not kill Martin before he finishes his epic saga.

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    This book was generally really good but there's one point in this book that is some of the best writing I've ever read in my life. I was on a bus starting to get all teary eyed, totally came out of left field.


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    That part where he discovers the landscape from his dreams on the alien planet then hears the queen think. She says something along the lines of "they haven't forgiven us we are going to die" and leaves the egg for Ender behind the mirror. Wow, I did not see that coming, the way it was written it's like you can feel the queens pain and regret.


    It's a great book but that last chapter is on another level. I know it all builds up to that throughout the book and can't stand on it's own but it all culminates into this profound emotional impact.

    AlexM

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    Maybe I'm just a robot incapable of feelings but I found that a bit too melodramatic and lame personally, didn't do anything at all for me (the same when that happened in the movie). Perhaps I just can't relate to a bunch of bugs... The part where you get to know the game is fake and he's been annihilating the bugs all along, that was very goose-bumpish for me, very awesome!


    Just finished Neuromancer, by far the hardest book I've ever read. Not per se as in difficult to understand but just hard in the way it is written, going through it takes a lot of time and attention from the reader (or at least me). Took me almost 3 months cos I could only read 10-20ish pages in a sitting.


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    Now onto Dune!

    I don't really have a substantial list, I was just talking to my art director about sci fi books some while back and he mentioned a couple so I've been going through those while also getting a second opinion through some lists online. But yeah basically I'm planning on going through these: Ender's Game, Neuromancer, Dune, Altered Carbon, Snow Crash. Reading them in that order for some reason A close friend of mine is reading Hyperion but I wasn't interested in that, I forgot for what reason though but maybe it's something for you.


    I've read Foundation about 10 years ago as well and from what I remember it was pretty good albeit a bit dated...


    A lot of lists share the same books so I doubt you'll find one on there that is really bad, flavor might be a bit personal so in the end it might not become a favorite but I doubt you'd find one in there that really sucks. I mean, most of them had a big significance on popular media so they're worth reading for just that alone!


    I pretty much did the same with fantasy books last year but got tired of the genre a bit, hence the switch to sci-fi, I'll probably get back to it though


    OMG so glad to know I'm not the only one who took months to finish that book. I remember when I read it (I was probably 15 or something) I had to restart it 2 or 3 times because it was so hard to follow.


    Anyway, great story and characters. Still waiting for the movie

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