161–170 of 307 posts
I find after long days of technical thinking I really enjoy a lighthearted funny piece of fiction to help me unwind and get to sleep. At this point I don't think I could handle much more math or computer science and stay sane.
Charlie Stross, Halting State.
Jacques Barzun, An Essay On French Verse: For Readers of English Poetry.
Recently finished:
James Shapiro, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (nonfiction, highly recommended; more about the history of the Shakespeare authorship controversy than a salvo in it)
Ian Banks, Consider Phlebas (first book in the Culture series, well-written but way way longer than it should be, which is annoying)
John le Carre, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (re-read this spy classic, for Le Carre's style)
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao (peppered with nerdy references from the 80ies and 90ies, the style is annoying at first, but grows on you, and the novel only gets better. A great novel)
I was where you are a few years ago: realized that I thought of myself as still reading, but in reality I was reading very little. Then I decided to adopt a very simple system: I try to read about 40 pages every day. If I read more, great. If I read less, I don't punish myself or carry debt (this is crucial), I just try to make 40 pages next day. The point here is simply to have reading on my mind as a desirable activity. I found that if I don't consciously remember that I want to read, it's very easy to spend all free time in other activities (browsing the web, reading long HN/reddit threads, etc.), which I don't actually prefer to reading; they're just there in the foreground, in my browser. Just remembering the I want to read ~40 pages per day makes reading occupy part of my conscious foreground, and helps me read more without other important stuff really suffering.
Right now, Charlie Stross Wireless , a short story collection. However, what I'm going to read very shortly will be Moby-Dick for the third time; my daughter just read it in her high school English class and it became clear to me that it's time to read it again. Good Lord, that man could turn a phrase.
Awesome. I'm a huge fan of Stross. "Missile Gap" was my favorite story in that collection. "Accelerando" is his best novel by far, IMO. Check it out if you haven't already.