7 more books since the last post. Two more this year, and I'll reach my book-a-week goal. I'm currently reading Accelerando, and I might read the latest Remes thriller too, if I get my hands on it, which would bring me to my goal.
At least Christmas time is conductive for reading. No fixed schedules, mostly, and some slow holiday days with nothing much else to do. Although I think I'll spend more of my time working this Christmas then the years before.
Fictional story about German paratroopers in the Second World War from Crete to Monte Cassino and beyond. Interesting and at some times touching story, but reading about real experiences would be more interesting than fiction.
Stories of the war fought against German shipping with torpedo bombers near United Kingdrom and in the Mediterranean. Real stories collected from actual pilots, as far as I understand.
Usually the story of a single attack is told from multiple points of view, so it's hard to follow individual pilots. Seemingly the book concentrates on the exploits of a few squadrons, but it is not explicitly mentioned anywhere.
Hans Metzger tells what it was like to wok in the German embassy in Helsinki between 1939 and 1944. This first book concentrates on the Winter War period and the events that followed until the Continuation War begun in June 1941.
If what Metger tells is true, the Germans were much better informed about events in Finland than I had previously understood. Very interesting.
The story of Ender's life up until the end of the war, and a little beyond. It's difficult to say anything without spoiling the story, but the notion of letting children learn military tactics on their own, without any apparent training is interesting. This sis surprising not because Ender is so superior in inventing new ways to confound the enemy, but because all the others seem not inventive at all. On some level it makes sense to have Ender do the inventing and teaching, though.
First in the series. Lots of things happen. Can't really tell anything about the details without spoilers. People tend to die a lot.
The settings is interesting, however. An apparently realistic medieval settings with a hint of fantasy here and there. A whole book on the history of the world might be interesting.
Second in the series. Even more things happen. It seems that the story is getting more fantastic elements, but without losing the realistic touch.
It's interesting that apparently there are some absolutely huge buildings in the world, for example the wall in the north and huge abandoned cities somewhere. It seems that the world on the whole is in decline, but the small people certainly don't realize that.
Metzger's second book about his work in the German embassy in Helsinki during the Second World War. The flow of supposedly-secret information from people who should know how to keep secrets to Germany and elsewhere is absolutely amazing.
Has some strange facts. Were Prinz Eugen and Admiral Hipper really in Helsinki 22.6.1944? It says so on page 245 of the book, but I can't find any mention of this anywhere else.
The human technology of 2200 seemed so very 1990s, except for small mechatronic devices.
This was a collection of early Jeeves-related Wodehouse stories. I also bought some larger collections, but the stories in them are not in any sort of order, so they are waiting now until I get my hands on the other volumes, so that I can proceed in order.
Stross writes interesting near-believable near-future scifi. Or near past, as Python 3000 was already released...
Deighton manages more-real-than-real hyper-detailed story of a single bombing raid over the Reich.
Carell tells the story of Rommel's battles in Africa.
Montgomery tells his general life-story until late 1950s. I understand he has written more detailed books on specific portions of his career as well.
My third-or-so read of Good Omens. It seems to get better every time. At least I got more of the music jokes this time.
Walter Schuck tells the story of his battles in the ranks of Luftwaffe.
My second or third read of this. Apparently re-read was in order, since I had mixed parts of other Death books with this one in my head. Time to re-read the others too, I guess.
Finally I managed to get through this one. An earlier attempt ended in defeat somewhere on the planet of the sunpups.
My second read of Sakai's war memoir. I remembered there to be more coverage of the late war, but apparently not.
A semi-believable thriller based on security holes in modern computer operating systems. Suffers from unbelievable actions on part of large companies and weird disconnects in the behaviour of the main character.
Second read of the book by Juutilainen. This was the old edition. The printing quality was bad, and I seem to remember som differences in the newer edition, but probably that's just my memory playing tricks.
A story of someone who went to Soviet Union willingly in the 30s, and pretty soon decided he wanted back out again. After several foiled attempts and some 20 years spent in prison camps he finally got back to Finland. The story is really touching at points, yet also demonstrates the stubborn belief in the Soviet propaganda by some people.
Kaufmann tells the story of his education and career in the Luftwaffe. The book is not very well written. The text is very impersonal and lacking in narrative.
Pratchett writes about football, romance and the people who make Unseen University tick. Or at least make sure that the candles stay lit and the tables heavy with food.
Hanna tells the story of her life from childhood until her surrender to the Americans. I wonder if the story is entirely thruthful, since at points it seems unreasonably naive.
An illustrated report on the British raid on St. Nazaire in early 1942. I'm not sure if I had read anything about this raid before coming upon this book. Enjoyable read.
Q: What do you do when you have read a dozen or so books without writing about them?
A: Dump them into one entry and try to get more regular about writing again.
Q: How? They are in this silly file in this silly XML format.
A: xmlstarlet sel -t -e books -m /entries/entry/books/book -c . future-entries.xml |xmlstarlet fo > foo.xml and then C-x C-f foo.xml C-x h M-w C-x b <RET> C-y plus some little editing.
On the whole it seems that I have only read 25 books in 8 months. Not quite the pace I'd like to keep up. I seem to have completely stopped reading in January, and only finished one book in February, so it's actually more like 24 books in 6 months, or somewhat under a book a week, which feels fairly reasonable to me.
It's also clear I haven't frequented the local library this year. It feels bit sad, but it seems that I have enough to read as it is.
I read this over the Christmas vacation. I don't think the story made much sense, although it was still a captivating read.
I read this one for school. I don't think I remember tenth of the details, but I certainly got a better overall view of how electricity was studied. Especially the early studies on static electricity before 1800 and the order of developments in late 1800s were interesting.
Solid Pratchett. The setting was interesting, since I was in the middle of Aubrey/Maturin series at the time when I read this.
Peter Spoden's story about his career in Luftwaffe in the 40s. Enjoyable if you are into the "genre", I guess.
Memoirs of the founder of Low Tempterature Laboratory at HUT. He certainly led an interesting life. Some of the notes on political developments regarding Finnish university system seem relevant to the Aalto University project of today.
A classic. The concept of telepathy is scary.
Part of a series. I think espionage had a large role in this part.
More of the same. Not in a bad way, though. Contains tricks that were used in the movie.
Yet another Aubrey/Maturin. Somewhat saddening story of legal issues.
Direct continuation for The Reverse of the Medal.
A fact-oriented book about Waffen SS. Lots of references, very researchy.
Aubrey/Maturin continues. Direct continuation for The Letter of Marque. Start of a longer voyage for a change.
Direct continuation for The Thirteen-Gun salute. Longer voyage continues.
Direct continuation for The Nutmeg of Consolation.
Direct continuation for The Wine-Dark Sea. Return to England, for a change.
Bought cheap in Japan. The title is very fitting.
A new voyage. Larger ships and a squadron.
Bought in Abu Dhabi. Captivating. I recommend.
A less-than-satisfactory assignment for Aubrey. The war seems to end at last.
A cruise in the Mediterranean for a change.
The war is over, so glory must be sought elsewhere.
A collection of short stories. I'm not sure when I started this, and I don't remember most of the stories. I remembr having a good time reading them, though.
A fact-oriented book on the life of one man who refused to give up military intelligence when the Continuation War ended and nobody in the Finnish army was doing much of it.
A beautiful story of life and love complicated by the inability of the man to stay in the present. I heartily recommend.
A thriller that woud be much better if it wasn't based on the ridiculous idea that a DNA computer would immediately let one have access to pretty much any computer in the world, and that nobody would be able to do anything about it. Except blow up the DNA computer, of course. I don't recommend.
I don't think I've posted an entry with two books since the very beginning in August, when the first post included a chunk of library history.
On my too-much-stuff-to-do front there isn't as much pressure as usually, since I finished my B.Sc. thesis. Now I'm concentrating on work, a school C++ project, and some other school stuff. Also, there is a potential trip to Japan looming on the horizon. It will needs planning at some point, but that can probably be deferred until Christmas.
On the B.Sc. front I still need to make a presentation, oppone someone else's presentation and write an essay about the thesis subject. The presentation is likely not that great a success, since the presentation group has dwindled from six people to just three. Not much of an audience, especially considering the subject is very technical in an obscure fashion even for a technical univerity.
I need to start more logs like this. Some ideas that come to mind are: photography, alcoholic beverages and movies. Writing out one's thoughts seems to be a good way to organize them.
Updated 208-12-07 18:55 Oops, the first posting had wrong id.
Read the whole book in one go. Very typical Paasilinna, but with more interesting environment than usually. Plot revolves around one family, mainly around the life story of one person: Antti Kokkoluoto. Antti gets to partake in an interesting period in Finland's history, being born in 1918. He survives the war, and also the other wars of his lifetime. This isn't very surprising, since a witch foretold his exact dying date already before he was born.
The book depicts the various periods in Finland's recent history through Antti's eyes. Paasilinna does this well - the depictions are mostly quite interesting and don't bother the telling of Antti's adventurous life. Individual events representative of some periods are also present. In a way reading the book is like reading the interesting parts of the Finnish hisory taught in elementary schools, but with a personal twist since it all happens to a character in the book with whom one can identify
The most interestign thriller I've read in a while. I recommend reading this n English for additional wham factor. The translation was good, but there are some language-dependent parts that would probably stand out better in English.
The story is about a private school that someone wants to bring down. Since the book is not American, the main character doesn't simply buy a ton of guns and start shooting around. Instead a contrived plan is revealed throughout the book, with some flashbacks for motivation thrown in.
The book has two main characters. One is a teacher at the shool and the other the one plotting against the school. The point of view alternates between the main characters, but time mostly advances continuously, letting the reader usually only see one side of any given event. The book ends with lots of revelations. The ending makes one want to re-read the book in order to better understand some events near the beginning.
Hm, apparently I hadn't written this post yet. I thought I had.
A book on Escer's work, comments by Escher. I think the works in this book and the other Escher book I have are not quite the same. Also, this book has much less test.
Concentrates on presenting the ideas behind Escher's work rather than technique. See Der Zauberspiegel des M. C. Escher for more Escher.
A book on Escher and his works I found in a small bookstore in Vienna. I think I found this in a small book store that was in the lobby of a train station near the powerplant (re)designed by Hundertwasser.
Hard-cover, quite a bit of text, large format. Tells about Escher and his techniques, and shows lot of his work.
I'm updating the look of the site, and moving the book listing onto a separate page.
A real page-turner, considering I finished it in a week while doing a bunch of other stuff as well. Could easily be read in an evening or two if there wasn't anything more important to accomplish. Very enjoyable on the whole, I recommend.
Woo, finished another book. No time to chat.
An interesting book. I didn't really get into the story at any point. Events seemed disconnected until the very end. Even after finishing the book many of the subtle elements about the characters didn't connect to the storey. Perhaps Deighton uses the main character again in another story? Perhaps I'm just used to shallow characters?
Deighton uses appendices in an interesting fashion. Already the fact that thee are any is interesting, but their use to add depth to both factual and fictional aspects of the story is eveb more so.
Tutka onkin sekä meri- että ilmapurjehduksen arvokas apuväline toimittaessa pimeällä, sumussa ja pilvien läpi.
In English: Radar is a valuable instrument in both air and sea navigation when operating in the dark, in fog or through cloud cover.
Apparently the book meme requires one to
For me the nearest book was the one that this post is about. I had almost finished the book before stubmling upon this silly meme, so I finished up and thus had a chance to post! I had to use page 57 instead of page 56, since page 56 only contained illustrations.
I found this book at the local book exhibition. Excellent exhibition, but costly.
An interesting read. Shows that radar was fairly well understood by some experts in Finland even when it was "new".
The book starts with some discussion on the fundamentals of radar technology and early radar development. It proceeds to list and compare various devices used in the second world war. After presenting the devices used, it tells about actual usage in teh war, starting with Chain Home (called Home Chain in the book), and ending with experiments in surface warfare (mainly counter-artillery) during late war.
There are also chapters on the use of radar in everyday world, such as air and sea navigation. Near the end the book also discusses probable developments in radar use during the rest of the century. Ideas about unmanned aircraft and use in space exploration are presented, for example.
It seems that my book log doesn't support collections of short stories very well. Also, I need to read more so that I get the excuse to write more about personal things in these comment sections.
Photos from Moscow are still largely unprocessed. Too little time. B.Sc. paper is still largely unwritten. Too little time. Course work for the machine learning course is not yet even started. Too little time. Oh, and I guess I haven't read much either - except papers about transactional memory, but those don't count.
Besides not doing what I probably should've been doing, I've started watching Dexter. It seems to be good so far, though that is to be expected, considering the series' main theme. How could a TV show about a sane serial killer who happens to work in the police not be good?
While reading this book, I started thinking that there doesn't seem to be much scifi around, that would take the current world as its premise. In the 40s and 50s it seemed to be rather popular to extrapolate developments of the then world, and write about them.
A collection of short scifi stories from the 40s and 50s. I found this in a used book store, and first noticed it because of the editor's name. Of course I had to buy it.
See Wikipedia for the table of contents. I found "The Tourist Trade and "The Rainmaker" indifferent and "Absalom" disturbing, but the others were rather good.
Long time no read. Well, I had other things to do, like seeing a bunch of movies, eating in Olde Hansa, touring museums in Russia, some studying and a bit of work. Luckily there isn't too much other stuff on the horizon now, so perhaps I'll get back to reading more.
Next on my reading list is Tomorrow, the Stars. Incidentally, it is edited by one Robert Heinlein the last of whose published works of fiction I completed in the last post. I completely forgot to celebrate, and didn't really even notice it then. Afterwards there was a sad feeling of completion, when I realized there really was nothing more to be read by the great author.
Read or listen to Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Apply to New York in the 60s. Add romance and politics.
So very quick read. IRL I visited the Helsinki comics festival, and I have in the order of 1000 pages of unread, unknown comics now. Perhaps I should start logging comics too?
Very enjoyable space adventure. Like reading a good movie.
Youngsters venture into space and have adventure. Oh wait, that was Rocket Ship Galileo. Close enough, though. This time youngsters venture to join the Space Patrol, the elite peacekeeping force of the Sol system. This is one of the Heinlein juveniles. Check the link if the term is unfamiliar.
The space patrol has high standards, so the youngsters must first pass tough training. After training, their first mission is described. Because this is an adventure novel, the mission is exciting. With a few twists a rescue mission to the asteroid belt turns into an investigation of an uprising on Venus.
The world history is not described in great detail. Apparently Space Patrol was started sometime after space travel, and it controls all nuclear weapons in the world. It appears to be a fairly standard world police organization.
The world police theme has come up in other Heinlein stories as well, in a similar manner. Candidates are recruited from all over the world, and they swear loyalty primarily to Space Patrol when they are accepted as cadets. The idea is that world police can only be impartial if it's not tied to any single community.
Even though the world is not described in great detail, some space technology is. Descriptions of space suit handling, movement in free fall are detailed. Notions of space vehicles are also interesting, and Newtonian mechanics of space travel are very much present. Heinlein's interest in engineering is apparent and appreciated.
The first week of school. Not much shoolwork yet. The
perfect time to finish a novel before two furiously busy
weeks of work, schoolwork, 17 18
movies to watch and a
trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Not
the Verne novel, though, but another Aubrey/Maturin
piece. Next up, again before the Verne, is Space Cadet.
I also fixed the timestamps of the Atom entries.
Two weeks with hardly any time to read. Novels anyway. I managed to study for an exam, and ploughed through the latest three volumes of the ultimate Barks collection though. I also watched 14 movies, worked, attended the Leningrad concert and took the aforementioned exam. Quite busy on the whole.
Despite obvious scheduling problems I managed to get halfway through a Verne book during the first week, but grew utterly bored with the style of writing. The O'Brian book proved an easier read, and a good excuse to post something here.
It seems that I was a bit early in thinking For Us, the Living was the last Heinlein story I hadn't read. Apparently I've also missed Space Cadet. Having now spent almost three hours crawling through the bibliography at Wikipedia and making sure I've read all the short stories, it seems that Space Cadet really is the only story remaining unread.
I think I started reading with Heinlein sometime in 2005, stumbling upon The Green Hills of Earth and Starship Troopers in a local library. Three years and in the order of 10000 pages later I feel sad that there are soon no more of his masterpieces to enjoy.
It will take some time until I can get my hands on Space Cadet. The only copy that was available in the regional libraries seems to have been lost in 2004, and neither of the big bookstores has it in stock here. Amazon thinks it will be here sometime between September 12 and October 2.
When I started reading For us, the Living, I thought it was the only story by Heinlein I hadn't already read. It also happens to be Heinlein's first novel, not published until after his death. The setting was clearly too dramatic to be true, since I later found out that I had overlooked one other novel.
The text describes a version of United States partially familiar from later Heinlein publications, with a history of religious tyranny and the following liberal society keen on upholding privacy. The issues of voting, economy and limiting legislation on matters where there is no physical or economical damage also come up.
The plot revolves around a young naval officer who experiences a car accident and wakes up in far future. He falls in love and has some difficulty adapting to the mores of the new society. The result is a lot of lecturing by supporting characters, in order to help the protagonist settle in his new surroundings.
The economic examples presented by Heinlein through an in-story economist and expanded in an appendix without the pretense of a story are rather interesting. I should probably try to find some more reading on large-scale macroeconomics.
I subscribed to my own feed and noticed that the updated timestamps were missing. The problem should now be fixed. I also changed the summary element to content element instead, since the content wasn't right for a summary anyway and added published timestamps to entries.
Update: Bumped all the entries' updated timestamps since they need to be reinterpreted by readers because of the change from summary to content.
The potentially-unread For Us, the Living was easily found in a local library. I found some other interesting books too. One of them was a popular science book with an interesting name: Satunnaisuuden viidakot (The Jungles of Randomness). Based on the name I tought it would be a boring text on elementary statistics, but some of the contents were actually interesting. It was a slow read too, only a bit over 200 pages in a week or so. I think I'll try the Heinlein next for quicker satisfaction.
I also added support for comments on books to the blog system. They are shown directly in the book list currently, but perhaps I'll get around to adding some pop-up or pop-open panel for them so that the list does not get too cluttered.
I picked up this book because of the interesting name. Opening it at random produced an illustration of the difference between Lévy flight and Brownian motion, so I took it home.
The book consists of 10 chapters, each exploring some area of mathematics connected to randomness, usually through real-world phenomena. The first chapter is fairly boring, explaining throuhg the usual coin-flipping examples the basics of randomness and some history, but the later chapters are actually quite interesting. The subjects explored include error-correction codes, correspondence of features of an and its spectral response and pseudo-random number generators.
Peterson's text is very clear and light on formulas, which is fine for a popularization. The sources listed in an appendix seem extensive, providing more material for the interested reader. The author also manages to use his own work as a source, which is always commendable.
I finished my first book since starting this log. Incidentally, I think this was the last "R.A.H story" I hadn't read. Or perhaps not. I think I have read For Us, the Living, but the short plot synopsis I glanced at looked quite unfamiliar. I guess I'll have to check it out, to see if my journey in Future History is complete or not.
Now both the book log page and the feed are generated from a single source instead of being hand-crafted. Perhaps they will not diverge now. I also added timestamps to to the book log page
Obviously it's a book log, what else could blog mean?
I decided to start keeping log of the books I read. I'll start by adding the book I finished last night with somewhat accurate timestamps, the previous book with less-than-accurate end timestamp and the history of my library account without timestamps.
I'll exclude comics, scientific papers and audiobooks from the log for now. A separate log for comics might make sense, looking at my library log. My library log also seems to go back less than a year. So much good information lost :(
