nesf's reading log

nesf

I always have trouble remembering what I've read each year, it would make sense to keep a log of it, what I want to read and so on.


Since January:

Books finished:

The Origin of Virtue - Matt Ridley


Excellent read and well argued throughout.


Books being read at the moment:

The Cash Nexus - Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money - Niall Ferguson

Both somewhat interlinked. The Cash Nexus is a denser read, started "The Ascent of Money" as a bit of light reading while I was sick. Both excellent books if you're interested in a layman's view of finance and its history. I'm looking forward to his Rothschild family biographies (2 volumes) at some point.


Books on the bedside table that I need to get around to picking up again:

The Age of Turbulence - Alan Greenspan

Very interesting, got sidetracked by a few of Matt Ridley's books during the winter and want to come back to finish the last third of this soonish.

The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins

Good book am enjoying it. Got halfway through this before getting distracted by "The Age of Turbulence". Notice a pattern here?

God created the Integers - Stephen Hawking

Am only a few chapters into this. I'd hesitate to recommend this to anyone who did not already like maths a lot but if you do find maths interesting some of the most beautiful and important proofs are in here for your perusal.


At the moment I'm reading almost all economics/history/science. I might try something very different with the next book after "The Cash Nexus" before getting back into Ancestor's Tale est.

nesf

Finished "The Ascent of Money". Good read despite him straying from history to speculation in the final chapter. The history of the development of the bond market and the insurance market is interesting, I must take a deeper look at both at some point in the future.

nesf

Ok, delayed post but have been busy with college reading so not as much time for other stuff.

Books I've been reading that I'd recommend to others:

The Bottom Billion
Wars, Guns and Votes

Two good books on why the poorest are poor and what we can do to help them. A refreshingly empirical and level headed look at the problems facing these countries.

The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine

My wife got me this and, well, if you find medicine interesting it's a great read with most importantly pretty and interesting pictures to look at!

Life's Solution

A complex, well cited and fascinating look at convergence in genetics.



None finished yet but am enjoying all of them so far.

nesf

Read Trick or Treatment? by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst this week. A fascinating book about what the most recent scientific studies have to say about the effectiveness of Alternative Medicine. Unsurprisingly most of it shows that the treatments only work for a minority of the ailment they claim to work for and even then most of them appear to be placebos rather than actually effective therapies. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in the facts of the matter.

nesf

Right so, recent purchases. I've been leafing through all of them but haven't really read any of them in detail yet. I've been rereading Feist (a fantasy author for those who don't know) and enjoying a few of his newer works that I hadn't had a chance to read. I wanted a week or two of light reading to relax and try to chill out so I'm delaying starting on a bunch of faction for a bit.

I'm one of those people who buys books and then not read them for years.

The End of Overeating: A book about obesity and theories on whether certain combinations of fats and sugars in processed food encourages overeating (I'm horribly oversimplifying here but it should be interesting).

The Forge of Christendom: A look at the transition and the emergence of Western Europe as a power in the world.

In Mortal Hands: A book on nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the complicated relationship between them. It is also a thesis on why nuclear power, while set to play a major part of future power generation, cannot replace gas, oil or coal in their entirety due to problem that a country with the ability to use nuclear power is a country that can quite easily produce low power nuclear weapons and "dirty bombs", thus limiting the spread of nuclear power to only countries that are very stable.

The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective: A book investigating why the Industrial Revolution happened in Britain and not in another country at that time as well as an in-depth analysis of the Industrial Revolution itself.

nesf

Haven't been reading much recently for a variety of reasons that I don't want to get into but here are recent purchases that I've been tempted by:

The Origin of Financial Crises

Bad Science

The Myth of the Rational Market

Between XX and XY

Life Ascending

Big Bang

I'm sick and feeling lazy, so ye can click through to read descriptions this time!

nesf

nesf wrote: »

The End of Overeating: A book about obesity and theories on whether certain combinations of fats and sugars in processed food encourages overeating (I'm horribly oversimplifying here but it should be interesting).

Just as a note on this one, this really disappointed me. It was very pop-psychology based and didn't live up to its scientific billing for me. Other people who like such personal stories would enjoy it but not my cup of tea at all.


Also, The Forge of Christendom and the book on the British Industrial revolution were very interesting. Haven't finished either (mostly through loaning them for a bit to my father-in-law) but well argued and good historical/economic work here for any interested in the areas.

nesf

Just to note:

Bad Science is an entertaining rant against Alternative Medicine and the Pharmaceutical Industry. Worth picking up for anyone who enjoys such.

ei.sdraob

hope its ok to comment here?


if your interested in Nial Ferguson's works

checkout his documentaries (based on his books with same titles) from channel4

"War of the World" and "Empire How Britain Ruled the World" for great insight on history

The "ascent of money" is quite cool but your already reading that

nesf

ei.sdraob wrote: »

hope its ok to comment here?

Yeah, it's fine I don't mind.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

if your interested in Nial Ferguson's works

checkout his documentaries (based on his books with same titles) from channel4

"War of the World" and "Empire How Britain Ruled the World" for great insight on history

The "ascent of money" is quite cool but your already reading that

I don't have channel4 otherwise I would have watched both. I'll pick em up on DVD if I spot them.

I badly need to update this thread, I've bought quite a few books recently!