fighting the lack of good ideas
It’s not often I read Christian fiction – too often some (or even most) the doctrines embraced and promulgated by the authors are not ones I agree with. I was very pleasantly surprised to fine that R E Bartlett’s book, The Personifid Project was not like that. It’s even a great example of science fiction,…
Blaise Pascal, the famous mathematician, philosopher, and part-time theologian, is a fascinating member of history to me. Several years ago I borrowed a copy of his “Pensées” from a friend, and skimmed it. At the time, I was impressed more with the randomness of the collection than with anything specific he wrote. A few days ago,…
My interest in cryptography has extended, now, for more than 15 years. The first book I read on the topic was David Kahn’s seminal work, The Codebreakers. Several years later, I received a copy of the book for Christmas, which I promptly reread. Kahn’s writing style is eminently inviting, sucking the reader into an extensive…
I have read, and reread, Flatland several times. It’s subtitle, “A Romance of Many Dimensions”, would most likely have been surprising when it was originally published in 1884. Edwin A Abbot weaves a tale of exploration, heresy, discovery, enlightenment, geometry, and more in a mere 81 pages (in the copy I have). We are introduced…
I had high hopes for Martin Langfield’s book, The Secret Fire when I purchased it several months ago. The cover headline reads, “the world is under threat… from a weapon launched in 1944”. Sounded good. The back cover, likewise, sounded pretty good, too: Sotheby’s, London, 1936 A paper by Sir Isaac Newton is sold at…
Several years ago, Cliff Stoll’s amazing, true-life account of espionage and system administration in the 1980s was recommended to me. Mr Stoll started his professional life in astronomy, but, due to budget cuts at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, he moved into systems administration. Interspersed through the book are both political commentaries (he was after all at…
While I was living in Singapore, I read The Host by Stephanie Meyer (of Twilight fame). I had completed the Twilight series, and had, overall, enjoyed her writing style and was interested to see if she would be able to write a story that did not involve vampires, werewolves, and a bizarre romance between a…