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.

Books

Just looked at my reading pile, I have some 9 books to read. One of them I have now had for more than half a year and have only looked at the first page!

The book in question is about a 1000 pages long and is the sequel to a book that I enjoyed very much, but for some reason or other I just don't seem to pick it up when selecting a new book to read.

Funny that.....

Enemy Coast Ahead Uncensored: The Real Guy Gibson Soft Cover: Amazon.co.uk: Guy Gibson: Books

Enemy Coast Ahead Uncensored by Guy Gibson

Just read this book and I have to admit that it has changed how I view Guy Gibson.

Well worth the read, especially this uncensored version. I did not realise just how young he was when he died.

He was just 26!

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 .

Mind Maping

Just got a book on Mind mapping just to see what all the talk is about it, and to see if its something I could use for my book writing and other creative things.

I did wonder though as all mind mapping seems to be in words or images, why can't I have mind mapping in sound?

Anyway the book is called The Mind Map Book and is by Tony Buzan, and so far, I am on page 21 its all going okay, I have not really learned anything new, I have been given another way at how the mind may or may not work which was interesting but as I am only right at the start of the book its really to early to say if its going to be something that is going to change how I get creative or not.

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.

Reading yet again

I have finished the James Patterson book at last, in fact I have finished two of his books both in the same series.

I know how come I have managed to read two books so fast?

I think it's down to the fact that both books were written by Maxine Paetro 1st and then James then edits them and adds his bits to the story.

If I am wrong then the way the books with Maxine as the second author reads are totally different when the book is just written by James Patterson.

Any way the book that I have just read are 7th Heaven and 8th Confession both are credited as being written by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, both were a good read in that the stories were good and the main characters world and lives changed during the course of the books.

Reading and Stuff

Just started to read yet another James Patterson book,in fact in the reading pile I have one more to read and it turns out to be the next one in the series of the book I am reading, which just shows how far I am in my reading or that James Patterson is writing and releasing the books far to quickly for me to keep up with, not sure which is the right answer to that one.

So I have to say with this current book I have found it much easier to read and that I find after only a short while that I am on page 141 of the book!

The story is good, and James Patterson's co-author is Maxine Paetro, who has co-author several books with James.

Now I did a bit of research and have found out that normally the 1st draft of the book is written by the co-author and then the final version by James, so I think it is noticeable that the books by different co-authors do read differently, well at least to me.

Is the book any good I think so, but until I have read the whole book I will not know.

The name of the book that I am reading is 7th Heaven and is part of the women's murder club series.

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

I have read another book, it is one that I have been on the look out for for a few years now and its called Grouch & Me and its by Groucho Marx.

It was worth the wait to get the chance to read it, as he writes to some extent how I would expect him to speak, he has been dead quite a few years it was great to hear him again after all this time.

Was the book worth the wait?

Yes

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

Books that I have read but did not record here in my Blog are Glasshouse by Charles Stross, this was a good read but and its only a small but I did work out very early on what was going to happen. What was great was that it did provide me with some good entertainment which is after all the main reason why I read fiction books in the first place.

I have read other peoples reviews of books and for some reason they forget that when reading fiction books you want to be taken somewhere else by the author and if he does that in such a way that structure of the book and the words he uses are simple, who cares! as long as the author gets the story in your head in stereo and full HD 3d that's all that matters as far as I am concerned.

Anyway back to Glasshouse, it has some great ideas that make for a good story that will make you think ( well it did me).

Now I did read another book but I have forgotten the name of it and who the author is, it was a fact book on the Lancaster Bomber of WW2, to make matters worse I have lent it to someone else on the understanding that he can lend it out after he has read it.

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

What I have been Reading

Well I have just read another book which is by an author called Alastair Reynolds. The book is called "Terminal World" now don't get me wrong, as a story goes, it's good, but I when I completed reading the book I was left disappointed by it, I think somehow the book was brought to an end with too many story threads not brought to a nice ending.

I am after all reading the book to be entertained and as I have said before I expect the author of the book to play fair with me the reader, and provide me wuth a story that comes to some sort of ending that allows me as the reader to have closure with the characters in the book, which I have come to know and have spent some time with, and so I do want to know what mostly happens to them next or that their story is complete ect.


Anyway back to the book, so like I said eariler in this book that does not happen, lots of the characters are left in mid air so to speak, and that's what has left a bad taste in the mouth.

Alastair's writing is good and the ideas in the book are good and so is the plot and all that stuff that makes for an intresting read and they all do work and do the job, its just that the ending is, well it sucks.

If I did not know better, I would say that the publisher has told the author to end the book in such a way that a second book could be written if needs be. There could aslo be a word or page count limit and that as written the book was too long and Alastair had to edit the book down to a certian size on page lenght or works. I dont know if its this or that the ending is how he wanted it and that I am just looking for the story to end in a particular way and this time its not what I wanted or got.

I think I shall look out for more books by him but if he keeps gining me stories that end like this one, then perhaps I shall have to look else where for my entertianment.

Reading

Another book that I read a little while ago, but have not had the time for some reason to record it here is by John O'Farrell and it's called An utterly exasperated history of modern Britain.

I think I can say that I did not enjoy this book too much, don't get me wrong I did read it cover to cover but, and this is the but some how or other the author tone, voice? got under my skin and I was left with a bad test in my mouth.

So this is one of those books that to me was a bit of a let down, I think partly because the author appears to have gone out of his way to show how clever he is with hindsight and complete knowledge of events, while the people and events that he is talking about are of course unable to see everything.

Reading

Another book that I think I can say I have read is "The cloud collector's handbook" by Gavin Pretor-Pinney I hope that you can see from the books title why I said that I think I can claim that I have read it, I must admit that it's a great little book for working out what sort of clouds you can see and it will also give you extra information such as what height the clouds are at, and it always to me comes as a bit of a surprise just how heigh some cloud type are.

The other thing that i like about this book is that it goes on to give information on some of the stuff that you can see in the sky that is rare but is well known about.


Such as Sun-dogs I had heard of them, I have now since reading the book realised that I have indeed seen them and not realised just what they are.

This is not a book that is entertaining, it can't be but as a useful reference book it works a treat.

Reading

I have had some free time, well leave. I managed to do some reading this first post is about the first book that I read.

Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.

Not too much too say other than its a great book and I can see why it has sold more than 1 million copies, based on the qi shows some of the items in the book made me think how much stuff you think you know that is wrong.

Well worth the read.

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