Reading

I have some how managed to finish a book that I have been reading for the last couple of weeks or so.

The book is called The Strangest man and its by Graham Farmelo is about the Quantum genius Paul Dirac.

I have to admit that I had already heard of Dirac and what one of his discoveries was in the world of Quantum physics. So finding a book on this bloke it was always to me going to be interesting to see what made this man tick.

I don't think the book pulls that part off completely, and from what I know understand of the man I don't think any book will capture what or how Dirac ticked.

The book makes it very clear that Dirac saw the world in a different way and that may have been the reason why he was so good at what he did.

One sad fact that this book reinforces for me is that must original thought in the bleeding edge of human thought appears to me over by your late thirties, which from some of my reading appears to hold if you are male or female and it does not matter from part of the planet you are from.

Anyway back to the book.

The is well worth reading as it does explain the man and the world that he was brought up in and what the state of human knowledge was with the atom and all that sort of stuff in the late thirties, so well worth the time.

Reading

I don't know if I recored it here that I finally late last year read Spitfire by Leo Mckinstry, its the second book of his that I have read, the first being Lancaster.

Well as I was out yesterday and found myself in a book shop, what should I find in paperback for the first time?

Yep another book by Leo this time called Hurricane.

Its the third book in the series and I hope that it will be just as good as his other two books.

Jammie Oliver Book

We have the new Jammie Oliver book, cook meals in 30 minutes, well I can tell you it can;t be done. I mean I and the wife are no slouches in the kitchen, but even we could not get any of his 30 minute meals cooked in that time.


So I reckon that what you see on the TV is not how it really happened, by that I mean his TV shows must have been edited, and edited hard.

Reading

I have been a bit slow in putting this Blog up and on to the site, but I have completed the reading of another non fiction book.

Its by Alice Beard and as far as I can make out its also going to or has been on the BBC.

The book is called Pompeii and it gives a lot of information and corrects lots of things that I thought were true are in the main not. But its a book that tended to drag a bit for me in the odd chapter. I did want to know more about this Roman town and I did, but it would for me have been nice to see it compared with other towns of the period just so you could understand where it stands in the Roman world.

What I did get from the book is just how much we still don't know and that not all of the town has been excavated .

Book Read

I have finished another book by an author that I have read before, I can't decide if he is getting better at writing or not, but the fact is that I enjoyed the book and when I have found myself in Waterstones, like you do I have looked to see if there is a new book by him, so I suppose that does mean something.

The book is called "Almost a whale" an its a hard fact book on evolution and it is an update in a way to Darwin's book The Origin of Species.

Steve Jones I think does a good job in explaining what we have learnt from Darwin s time. One thing that surprised me was just how much stuff Darwin got right, even more so when you see the information that he had to work with. If nothing else it confirms to me just how good Darwin was.

Jones is an easy author to read and the examples of evolution at work are great and show to my mind at least that Darwin was right and has always been right on how evolution works and is still working.

Read

I have just finished a book by a well known author that for me to read has been a bit of a struggle. Now normally when I read this authors work its an easy read and the book is great fun and I have a good time and it's a good story, I could also say that I felt that I had been entertained as well, which is the whole point for me of reading a book in the first place.

For some reason, with this particular book by this author that just did not happen, strange that.

The author is James Patterson, yes that bloke who seams to release a book a month or at least it feels like it, looking at the local book shop shelf.

The book that has caused all the problems for me is called You've been warned its also written by Howard Roughan now how much of the book did James write? not an easy question to answer, but I have read somewhere that James may have come up with some of the ideas and that the other guy writes it, then James edits and adds his bits to it. I don't know if that is true or not

I just did not get on with this book, I think in the end it took me more than a year to finish it, in fact I read a lot of other books instead of completing this one.

One of the problems for me, with this book is that the main character who is a young woman, I just did not like and early in the book I just wanted to shout out at her and tell her to grow up and stop acting like a (insert favorite nasty words here) I am, that's how under my skin she got to me.

So for me this book was not fun but for you out there your experience may be very different.

Perhaps what I should do is go as see if there are any reviews and see what others thought of the book, it may be that I am completely in the wrong and that its a great book it might also be that it really is not a great book, who knows?

If I do look at some reviews of this book I shall update this blog post and put some comments on what I found.

Book reading

I have got through another book in the last few days, and this was a book that I did enjoy very much.

Its not a fiction book, its one of those books written for I suppose the man in the street or the woman in the street that want to know something more about a partcular science subject.

In this case its about the legacy of Charles Darwin and all his works, I did not know just how much other work Charles did, apart from his evolution work and the survival of the fittest.

This man did some really amazing work that appears to go unnoticed, and what is sad is that most of it he got very right far before anyone else and all that modern science technology appears to have done is filled in the fine detail using the science of DNA that he just did not have access to.

I liked the book that was all about what Charles knew and what we now know and sometime the extra information we have is one because we have ways of looking at a creatures DNA in ways and means that have only come about in the last 5 or so years.

The book is called Darwin's Island and its by Steve Jones, who writes in a very easy to read style and presents lots of facts that had men saying out loud, well I never! and stuff like that.

I know Charles Darwin is to some just the farther of Evolution, but after reading this book its clear that he was the farther of far far more, its sad that his other work is mostly known to scientist's as I am sure that if the general interested publish knew about his other work they would realise just how clever and forward thinking Charles Darwin was.

This is a great book for lifting the veil on some of the other work that Charles did and is well worth the read.

Reading

Have read some more books that I have not spoken about here yet, so here goes The first is by James Patterson and is called Run for your life, now as entertainment this book mostly worked for me, but and this is a big but, for me the end of the book and the bad guy did not work for the very simple reason that the bad guy suddenly changed the way they they though and acted, through most of the book the bad guy was always intelligent and acted in a methodical manner, then you get to the last few chapters and he starts acting like a completely different person.

Why?

May be the deadline for the book came to soon or the word count had to be kept to, I don't know all I know is that the book could have been so much more.

The other book the I have read cost me nothing as its an out of copyright book that I read on my Itouch.

The book is called The Ultimate Weapon and its by John W Campbell, who if you are into your science fiction and the golden age of science fiction was the editor of Astounding Science Fiction in the 40-60's he introduced to the world authors such as Asimov and Helien.

The book was written back in the early 1930's and it shows in how its written and the science in it, but as for something to read it was great.

Reading

another book that I read and completed on the 12 August 2010 is Medusa by Clive Clussler well that's what it says on the book with the help of another author who name I am afraid to say escapes me as I write this and don't have the book near to me at this time.

I get the feeling that most if not all of the book was written by the other author and that Clive only had the job of saying yes or no to the book.

The story is good and works well, I think the bad guys are just your typical Hollywood bad guys which is a pity as much more could have been made of them, which would have make the story even better, but as it is the story works and so does the characters in it.

Was it entertaining?

Yes.

Reading

As I said in a blog post the other day I have done some reading but for one reason or another I have not recorded here what those books are.

Well the first book that I have read is by Charles Stross called The Fuller Memorandum, which is one of the Laundry series of books by Charles.

If you have yet to read one of these books you are in for a treat.

This book was good and its written in such a way that you as a reader are drawn into the story without trying. Good entertainment as far as I am considered.

Reading

Another book that I have read, but up until now have not written about is called "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown.

I have to say that for me it did not quite work and at the end of it I felt some how that I had been short changed, I don't know how to put that into words that feeling but that's what it was.


I think and this is only my opinion on this that the book needed to have been edited harder by an editor who was after a good story that would entertain and not worry about the author's feelings too much.

I was entertained in parts of the book but overall as I have said before I felt that the author has some how or other managed to short change me in giving me a full enjoyable story.

Reading

I have just completed reading "Why does e=mc2" by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw I had a bit of a problem with parts of the book, I got the feeling that the authors lost site of who they were writing the book for.

I must admit that I liked the book and it did explain some of the terms that I have heard on the TV and seen on some websites.

Reading

Just completed a book that was really fun to read and I learned a lot which was nice and a surprise. The book as you can tell is a fact book and on a subject that I have not really thought about that much.

The book is called The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer and its a good read and well worth the time and effort to read it.

Reading

I have just completed reading a book that has left me not to sure about the main subject matter, and when I tell you the name of the book you will see that when I say that when they are dead we may then learn some of the truth then I think you will understand what I am going on about.

I did and did not enjoy this book I say this because the author appears to have become emotionally involved I was all ways told that with this kind of book that is the very last thing that you should do.

Any way the name of the book is Clint The life and Legend by Patrick Mcgilligan

Read

I have finally finished the book that I spoke about the other day, it really is an easy read. But and there is a but, the book feels like its a draft for a longer book, it felt to me as if the author had run out of time and the manuscript was just handed in as it was. The because of who the author is the editor did not do a full edit on the book and demand changes.

Which I think is a real pity as I am sure the book could have been much better.

Before I forget the book that I have just read is called The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson and Martin Dugard.

I think that the book needed more time and also to be longer, that way part 2 of the book could have been better presented and done in such a way that this reader did not get the impression that this was a peace that had already been written and just the names changed, why I get that impression I just don't know but that's what I got. The parts that are set in the present might have been better presented as author notes or something like that, but the way that they have been present really jar's with the rest of the book.

As for how James and martin have decided there was a crime just does not ring true, when James describes a murder in his other books you get told far more about how and why, but in this book he does not do that, I found it was something that I missed.

Was I entertained?

The answer is yes, but I also came away feeling a bit cheated, like I had not been served the best meal or story that I think and know that James can deliver.

Anyway that what I thought your ideas and that may be different.

Books

I have just picked up a book by James Patterson that I thought he would never write, and I must admit that so far its been a good read, its a while since I have read one of his books and the thing that for me always takes a while to get used to is just how short the chapters are in his books. I must admit that the short chapters do not get in the way of the story it's just something that he appears to do. It certainly has not hurt his book sales from what I can make out.

Any way the name of the book that I never expected him to right is The murder of King Tut, I know it threw me as-well.

but the story is good the way that he is telling it is very different to what i expected but so far it appears to work for me, your mileage may be different.

So I shall carry on reading it just to see how he is going to pull off this subject in his style.

Am I being entertained? you bet ye.

Problem

I find myself if an interesting problem, and its something that has happened many times before, but the last time this particular problem occurred is so long ago that I don't remember what I did.

The problem is this I have two new books that I want to read and I just don't know which one to start first as both books are about 500 pages long. One book is a biography the other is a SF book.

The SF book is one that I even pre-ordered, the biography is a book about a very famous male film star that I have been looking for, for some time, say years.

So which one do I read both are I am sure god books.

As a principle I don't read reviews of books that I am going to read as I don't want to be influenced by what others have said.

So it's a good problem, perhaps I shall use that most complicated of choice deciders and flip a coin!

reading

Well I have just finished another book, I know its scary this could be my second or third book that I have read this year, I wonder if I can keep up the pace.

The book is called Corsair and its by Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul. I think that means that Jack wrote most of it and Clive had the chance to change things that he did not like, or something like that.

Anyway to me it does not matter as for this kind of book all I want is to be entertained, which I was and that's all that I wanted and that's what I got.

I suppose it would be interesting to find out just what the real work split is, but in the end its a good story with characters that after several other books in the series you know to a large extent just how they are going to react and they do react as you expect, which is nice.

I suppose as a reader its one of the reasons why series of books always do well in that you are on familiar ground with the hardware and the main reoccurring characters its how the characters react in the different situations is the play off for the reader and I suppose for the author.

So all in all yes if you want a pager turner of a book with lots of action then this is a book that will deliver.

Reading

I have just finished a book that I pre-ordered on Amazon, so I got it as a hardback book, which is some thing I don't normally do but for this author I thought I would take a chance.

I think that this may be one of those occasions were I may have had just a bit of a bad result.

On the book buying side I have no problems, the book was sent to me on time and I must admit that all the price promises that Amazon made where kept, in that there was a price change and I got to have the benefit of it. So thank you Amazon.

Now the book contents part.

I am not too sure on this one, even though I have had some time to think all about it, I still feel as if I have been let down in some way by the author.

The book is by Iain Banks and is call Transition, I will not try to explain the story as I think that, that is one of the problems, Iain has I think tried to do what a lot of other authors have done and that is to write a story from many view points and times.

I don't think to me that he gets it quite right, in that this poor reader was at times feeling left behind, even when I went back to reread the parts that did not make sense.

I don't know if its his use of language or prose, but sometimes it just did not work for me.

I was entertained that I am sure of, its just that I was expecting to have an easier time of getting entertained.

I shall now that I have read the book go and have a look at what others have said about this book, to see if it just me or if there is a perceived problem with it.

Reading

I have just finished reading a book which when it was first out in hardback caused a bit of a storm, well for a few days back in 2009.

You will see what all the fuss is about as soon as you see the books name, but just to prolong things a bit longer, I begin to wonder what all the fuss was about as 90 percent of what the author says is well to be simple and straight forward.

I enjoyed the book and there where parts of it that where presented in a way that I had not seen before.

The book I think losses a bit in that not enough examples of the current state of things is given and then saying where he thinks they are going to go. Don't get me wrong the book is okay its just that I think you need to know where you are before you can say where you could or might go.

Anyway it did entertain me and at the of the day that's all that matters for me.

So after all that the name of the book is "Love & Sex with Robots" by David Levy