How To Traumatise Your Children

"How To Traumatise Your Children" is one title in what looks to be an extremely important range of "Self-Hurt" books :-).

Of course, any poor rugrat who happened to have me as a parent would already be traumatised ... as would I, come to think of it!

So, this particular one is unlikely to be of much benefit to me ... nor are "How To Get Fat" and "How To Procrastinate".

Nonetheless, I'm pleased to see such a pragmatic series of books being made available for the edification of those who do require help!

Upgrade Your Life

My dear friend Paul is a fan of the work of Gina Trapani, from the Life Hacker blog.

So, I'm sure he'll be pleased to see that her book, Upgrade Your Life has been released.

Thanks to Geek Sugar for the tip.

Where The Writers Are

As you know, gentle reader, I'm hopelessly slow at getting through novels.

However, I'm sure you aren't, so let me tell you about a little discovery I made this morning, via Geek Sugar.

Red Room is a new social networking site that bills itself as "the online home of the world’s greatest writers".

I have to admit, when I perused the enormous list of authors, I only recognised a couple of the names, but that's probably more an indication of my technical bent than the quality of the content.

If you're interested in books, I'd say it's definitely a site to check out. Who knows, you may just discover your next favourite writer!

The Cult Of Torrents

I've been tempted, a number of times, to buy a copy of The Cult of Mac, but have never been quite tempted enough to spend my hard earned cash.

The book discusses the amazing fanaticism that many Mac users feel for the platform.

While they seem to have forgotten to interview me, I do consider myself a member of that particular sect :-).

Well, right now I'm downloading both it and The Cult of iPod via Bit Torrent.

Don't worry, it's all quite legal ... No Starch Press, the publishers of the books, are giving them away.

These are no simple text extracts of the books, they're full colour, nicely indexed PDFs. So, if you're at all interested, go grab them via these torrents ...

Cult of Mac

Cult of iPod

Mathematicians In Love

I finally finished Eleven this evening.

As you will have guessed, the actual reading consumed only a fraction of the time that has elapsed since I started it.

After devouring the first story, I allowed the book to lie, neglected, until just a couple of days ago, my attention distracted by a myriad of things.

However, my procrastination should by no means be taken as an indictment of the book. While the stories were a mixed bag, each one was dark and twisted, with no happy endings to spoil the mood!

The next cab off the rank is Mathematicians In Love, a science fiction novel by Rudy Rucker.

I read two books from his "Ware" series a few years ago ... Software and Wetware ... and liked them both, so I'm looking forward to venturing down another branch of his output.

If nothing else, the title definitely suggests that this one will be right up my alley!

Happy Birthday, PFDS!

Apparently, this year is the tenth anniversary of the publication of Chris Okasaki's book Purely Function Data Structures.

I can't say much about the content, because I've only ever skimmed through it once, a couple of years ago. What I can tell you is that it presents data structures from the perspective of purely functional languages (eg Haskell and ML), where values are immutable once they're created.

That sounds very strange to we non-FP developers, because most structures we play with are modified quite a bit. However, it leads to some interesting new forms, some with tantalising names like "bootstrapped heaps".

There's a PDF available if you don't want to spring for the dead tree version.

The Onslaught Continues

I finished reading Victoria over a couple of pints of Harp at Kelly's On King in Newtown yesterday evening, before going off for dinner with my friends Greg and Jacqueline and their lovely kids, Damon and Flynn.

So, my plan to read something other than technical books this year is still going strong.

The next victim is Eleven , a series of short stories by Patricia Highsmith.

I've not read any of her works before, but have heard good things about them from a number of people. So, I'm looking forward to this one.

Goodbye, Mr Palomar; Hello Victoria.

I enjoyed Mr Palomar very much, indeed. Rather than a novel, it was a series of short stories, with a philosophical bent.

The journey into my vast accumulated pile of books now continues, with Knut Hamsun's "Victoria".

Many years ago, I read Hamsun's "Hunger", which I remember as one of those books that I just could not put down.

Perhaps it reminded me of the time I subsisted for two weeks on little more than a crate of oranges and a large jar of freeze dried instant coffee :-).

In any case, I'm definitely looking forward to devouring another one of his works!

Literary Beginnings

I've started my first (only?) novel for 2008 ... "Mr Palomar" by Italo Calvino.

Calvino wrote one of my favourite novels, "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler ...". It's a book about books and reading, with more twists and turns than a genome's worth of DNA.

I added Mr Palomar to my pile of "books I simply must read" a number of years ago, so it's about time I cracked it's cover!

Fortunately, it comprises a scant 113 pages, so there's every reason to hope I'll make it to the end before the new year :-).

Current Year's Resolutions

At the start of 2007, on the recommendation of my best friend, Jeannine, I started reading The Contortionist's Handbook, by Craig Clevenger.

I made it to page 132 in a couple of sittings, before it was displaced by other, technical material.

I've thought about finishing it on a number of occasions during the year, but each time I baulked at the re-reading required to remind my sieve-like memory of "the story so far".

A week or so ago, after discussing my pathetic novel-reading record during a Skype chat with Jeannine, I resolved to finish it before the year was out. However, as of yesterday, I still hadn't re-opened it, so the likelihood was looking pretty dim.

Tonight, after returning from a walk to the post office and discovering that my latest geek book hadn't arrived, I decided it was now or never.

I'm pleased to say, I have finally honoured my one and only resolution for 2007 ... and with more than half an hour to spare!

In fact, I enjoyed the remainder of Mr Clevenger's novel so much that I'm tempted to start 2008 by ordering his second opus, Dermaphoria, which sounds equally weird and wonderful.

Who knows, maybe I'll make it through two novels next year :-) !!

I Love Nothing Better ...

... than curling up in bed with a good book ... or someone who's read one :-).

Well, if you're looking for good books, you could do worse than to check out Good Reads. It's a social networking site that allows you to keep a diary of the books you've devoured and to get recommendations from other avid readers.

I did find four people who had Categories for the Working Mathematician on their list, so the site seems to be of value even for a weirdo like me!

While I've signed up, just to try it out, I did baulk at providing my gmail password. I'm quite happy to add my literate friends by hand.