Classic non-fiction

Post #19,990 by ben_tilly 12/2/01 7:24:50 PM Reply	Classic non-fiction This Christmas I get to see my only full brother for the first time in close to a decade. He has told me that what he wants for Christmas is 10 non-fiction books, chosen to stretch his knowledge of things that I have looked into more than he has. (Partly he also wants to know more about who I am...) Given that he has done a lot more business, management, and travel than I have, that largely is going to mean science and computers. After doing some looking around, I think I am going to up that to a dozen. Here is my preliminary list, in no particular order: Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Schermer Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen J. Gould Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas The Right to Privacy by Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy The Mathematical Experience by Philip Davis and Ruben Hersh Information Rules by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian Database Nation by Simson Garfinkel Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan The Schools We Need (and why we don't have them) by Ed Hirsch, Jr I have an even longer list of books that I am not considering because he might have read them (eg The Design of Everyday Things and Longitude), they are more technical than he would be interested in (eg Code Complete and Applied Cryptography), the subject matter overlaps with things I already have on the list (eg everything else Gould has written), I didn't feel they met the level that other things on my list did (eg Open Sources) and so on. I may give him a list of more titles to look at, but I am not going to buy them for him. Are there any on my list which are questionable? How about any that I am forgetting which I should be thinking about? Thanks, Ben
Post #19,994 by boxley 12/2/01 7:53:58 PM Reply	no problem sleeping for a while:) howsabout Men of the Tundra by Muktuk Marsten the man who created the Alaska territorial guard during WW2. Black Elk Speaks is also an interesting tome Myths and methods a guide to software productivity by David T. Fisher originally released in Germany under the Title Produktivitat durch Information Engineering just a few picks, thanx, bill tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #20,003 by ben_tilly 12/2/01 9:13:11 PM Reply	Some more ideas I chattered about it at PerlMonks, and they came up with a few ideas I had missed. Here are some of the better ones: Mathematics - The Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline QED by Richard Feynman The Flying Circus of Physics by Jearl Walker (Fast Food Nation, GED, etc were suggested, but I didn't think they were as good.) However I also just ran across [link\|http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?salesurl=&isbn=1566191661\|1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England] by Sellar and Yeatman. I was lent this book once. All I can say is, this one's mine! Its claim to be non-fiction is..tenuous. But it is worth reading. :-) Cheers, Ben
Post #20,028 by wharris2 12/3/01 1:03:13 AM 12/3/01 1:04:33 AM Reply	keeling over Sorry, I'd rather read David Weber in my leisure time. :=) (edit) Or any non-fiction Asimov. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth Edited by wharris2 Dec. 3, 2001, 01:04:33 AM EST Expand All History
Post #20,109 by ben_tilly 12/3/01 4:03:26 PM Reply	And therein lies a difference I read books like these, for fun and pleasure. I have read a lot of them. The above are merely a sampling of the ones I thought best, chosen to not overlap each other. And part of my criteria for best is that they spark thought, they leave loose ends to think about, they encourage your mind to involve itself and find things the author didn't have time to write about. Most people don't read books like that. Ever. Not for work. Certainly not for fun. And then they wonder how people like me can possibly know a little bit about so many different things... Cheers, Ben
Post #20,078 by hnick 12/3/01 12:21:21 PM Reply	The Walker book should be good. He taught at Cleveland State in the 70's (maybe later, I kinda lost track.)A friend of mine took a class and pointed him out to me. He used to put on really spectacular demonstrations with lasers and lights. He also, annually, walked across hot coals to demonstrate the principles involved. Half the time he burned his feet, but came back the next year. The guy was seriously different. Regards, Hugh
Post #20,056 by static 12/3/01 5:34:47 AM Reply	Not sure what rule to run with here. Nice to see some Carl Sagan; otherwise I would have suggested The Demon Haunted World (I think that's the title). I found a cute little book years ago called Mathematician's Delight by one W W Sawyer. I think it was really aimed at high-school kids, or perhaps adults who never enjoyed maths at school and avoided it at Uni. Basically, it explores a lot of "first-principles" ranging from geometry to logarithms to trigonometry to calculus to complex numbers but does it in a way that brings out all the fun in learning it (however, a basic interest in "why does it do that?" is still required). It includes such wonderful insights as to why e is the number it is and also how the strangest things can be linked together - e.g. trig and logs. Remember to include the apostrophe if you search for it on Amazon. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #20,106 by ben_tilly 12/3/01 3:52:10 PM Reply	About The Demon-Haunted World I read that, and found it far more routine than Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Having interacted with a lot of scientists, it seemed to spend more energy on asserting common opinions rather than trying to raise serious questions. By contrast Shadowsit leads the reader to thinking about what are (IMO) more interesting topics. Perhaps if I had less background I wouldn't see Demon-Haunted as very routine. However I hope I would still credit Shadows as being one of the most personally disturbing books I have ever read. As for Mathematician's Delight, I haven't read it, and would have a very hard time judging it. You see, I am not in its target audience, and it is hard for me to get excited about things I find obvious. But I can get excited about The Mathematical Experience. It may be less well-known than, say, Gödel, Escher, Bach. But among mathematicians there is no book general as often recommended. Why the difference? Well GEB pulls punches, gives answers. The Mathematical Experience is far more open-ended. It covers more topics, raises questions you would have never thought of, then tells you that nobody knows the answers, and in some sense there aren't any. Much less satisfying, but much more interesting... Cheers, Ben
Post #20,284 by tseliot 12/5/01 1:19:28 AM Reply	If you have a linguistics bent, Ben T... Have you read Hofstadter's book on translation? Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language. Much more open-ended--the structure follows several wildly varying translations of the same French poem (by Clement Marot). It was (re-?)written shortly after his wife's death. Meaty stuff. --------------------------------- A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas;...despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel, but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas, they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires." Jacques Servan, 1767
Post #20,450 by static 12/6/01 5:39:54 AM Reply	Fair enough. It was, I admit, hard to reply. Perhaps I should have left off... :-) Haven't read much Sagan; I noticed you'd mentioned another by him and I must admit I mentioned the one I did to see how you would compare them. I wasn't vastly impressed by "The Demon-Haunted World" but didn't know how it compared to other non-fiction by Sagan. OTOH, somehow I hadn't noticed The Mathematical Experience. But you're right: Mathematician's Delight is not aimed at people like yourself; however you mentioned your brother was rather different to you and this is why I included it. And FWIW, I found GEB rather ponderous (though still interesting). It gave me the impression the author was impressed with his own cleverness. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #20,077 by Another Scott 12/3/01 12:02:36 PM Reply	Stephen E. Ambrose is good. I took a trip to the Black Hills of SD based on his descriptions in "Crazy Horse and Custer". He's an excellent writer and careful historian. I've read his Lewis & Clark book "Untaunted Courage" (and "Lewis and Clark" published by [link\|http://www.nationalgeographic.com/books/history/0792270843.html\|National Geographic]), but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Beautiful scenery. [link\|http://www.nationalgeographic.com/events/releases/pr991022.html\|Shackleton] is an amazing inspirational story. There are several books about him and his expedition that which have been published in the last few years. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is pretty good too. :-) I second QED; and Guns, Germs and Steel - excellent books. Cheers, Scott.
Post #20,116 by ben_tilly 12/3/01 4:22:37 PM Reply	I have heard the name before A cousin of mine loves his work. Unfortunately I have not read him myself. I only occasionally read about history per se, and when I do, American history is not my main interest. So I may make a point of mentioning the name, but no matter how excellent he is, I don't think that is what my brother is looking for from me. Thanks, Ben
Post #20,108 by Ashton 12/3/01 3:58:42 PM Reply	At least one.. Calvin & Hobbes say, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink" (Possibly under the rubric that, there'e no 'serious' proposition which is immune to.. viewing from Another angle?) Also.. 'non-fiction' is always a bizarre category, to my mentation. To further confuse - often such basic principles as seem unarguable (once you have grokked them) - can be made clearer to more folks via some artful invention. The 'story' is often better than the step-by-step serial explication. Seems so. Academia is after all, too often a proponent of the turgid, with Max Brownie Points for the obtuse, highly concentrated. Less is More? Surely a Perl Monk can grok this concept ;-) A.
Post #20,112 by ben_tilly 12/3/01 4:14:14 PM Reply	Non-fiction was his specification He thinks that the fiction I would come up with he has probably read. He is probably right. Certainly he has read Calvin & Hobbes... Cheers, Ben
Post #20,163 by tonytib 12/3/01 10:41:57 PM Reply	You should look at Edward Tufte's books The most famous being The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The name describes the content, but it's also about the format -- Tufte's books are beautiful. I've found his books interesting enough that I own three of them. To find out more, look [link\|http://www.edwardtufte.com/666586999/tufte/\|here] Tony
Post #20,171 by Ashton 12/4/01 12:30:25 AM Reply	Thanks - remembered the Napoleon March poster and also rank him with Kuhn (of paradigm fame) in his field; pity that documentation almost always ignores that which he has demonstrated so beautifully: works! Would that every science student (Hell.. every student) were exposed to his ideas and at least one of the books - I've seen only one. But spare us the Readers Digest version.. A.

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