letters to a young mathematician by Ian Stewart. Pretty cool things. pg. 207 in reference to page 111. I think. The object is to duplicate image of missing conors. So if two diagonally conors are missing. The dominoes cannot produce same board but if it is topside/botomsides. The dominoes fill it in for matching images. Book is thin and pretty easy to read. I just had to do it.
He's great. Just finished Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Perspective by Paul Erlich. In retrospect, I should stick to dead people and our precursors instead of culture/behaviors/etc. It's wicked sticky. Read Lynne Truss' (or should it be Truss's?) Eats, Shoots & Leaves which is very funny (and, perhaps unsurprisingly, makes reading some posts on BS more interesting).
Still somewhat early in the book, but her thesis is that while oil plays an important role in the US-Saudi relationship, it is not everything. Rather, it really was more an outgrowth of the Cold War, namely the use of Islam as a bulwork against godless communism. The current difficulties are really an outgrowth of the end of the Cold War, and a need to reevaluate the relationship (and deal with the energies released by using Islam against communism). It also is an outgrowth of the now somewhat forgotten US rivialry with the UK (and to a lesser extent France) that carried over into decolonialism and the early post WWII period. (People forget that the US pushed decolonialism and that annoyed both the French and British) It is interesting. I would not underestimate oil of course. And I do not think she does (noting that Aramco acted as a virtual agent of the US government in early days as the government had few intelligence sources in the region).
Good one. Just finished Ivan the Terrible by De Madariagra. Great. So far this year I have read, The First Crusade by Asbridge and Benjiman Franklin by Isaacson I just started The Fourth Crusade... by Phillips so far it is fantastic.
I'm getting back into my bad habit of reading 12 trillion books at a time. I've started another: A look at the work of modern Ethiopian artist Qes Adamu Tesfaw:
I started reading that here at work (I'm a librarian), and realized I needed to own a copy. Half.com has already mailed my copy. The first few chapters were excellent, can't wait to finish it. EDIT: "Secularists" aren't necessarily atheists or agnostics, FWIW.
The original two-in-one paperback edition of Samuel R Delaney's first novel, published when he was just shy of his 20th birthday. [plug]I was inspired by the rereading of his memoir, so I made use of the Advanced Book Exchange. [/plug]
Just started this 1907 Jack London dystopian vision of struggle between a plutocracy and the people - easy to see why this was one of George Orwell's favorite books. So far very, very good.
Reminds me of my favorite science fiction joke: Q: Name three places no human being has ever been. A: The far side of the sun, the dark side of the moon, and beyond page 170 of Dhalgren I'm reading Very short vignettes that imagine the literary origins of businesses that are named after people who have the same name as famous writers (or in some cases, were named after the writers), written as if the writers themselves were the founders of the business. Pretty damn funny, most of them.
Only half way through this 600 or 700 page book. But waiting in the wings are two of Stephen Kinzer's books:
I'm not super crazy about the writing style and I disagree with a lot of the evangelical protestant theology in it, but I'm digging the overall point he's trying to get across so far.
Interesting book this. It's amazing how many times the newspapers the Daily Mail and the Daily Express pops up .
Interesting and witty account of "soccer hooligans". American, Bill Buford takes you inside the ranks of the soccer firms, the NF, etc.
I'm catching up on a big stack of things I've bought or been given, but haven't read yet. Right now I'm on Irvine Welsh's Filth. Then I think I'm going to go back and start in on Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana again. I started it a while back but never fully got into it.
The End of Faith, by Sam Harris, should be in my mailbox today, I ordered it after seeing him on TDS last week.