Amazon link I never got around to reading Ayn Rand in college when everybody else did, but I was going away for a week on business, and wanted something long but compact to read, so I picked this up in paperback form at the used bookstore. Her basic thesis of Objectivism is that reason and […]
Category: books
Aramis or the Love of Technology, by Bruno Latour
Amazon link I really liked Science in Action, another book by Latour, so when I saw this on a friend’s shelf, I borrowed it. Unfortunately, it took me several months to actually get through it; I started it over Christmas vacation, but I kept on getting distracted by other things, until I finally powered through […]
Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents, by Ellen Ullman
Amazon link Saw this at the used bookstore, and it looked sufficiently interesting that I picked it up. Ullman worked as an independent computer programmer contractor throughout the dot-com years, and this book is a sort of memoir of her dedication to the machine, sometimes at the cost of losing track of the people involved. […]
The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World, by Peter Schwartz
Amazon link I liked the talk by Peter Schwartz that I went to, so when I saw his most well-known book at the used book store for $3, I picked it up. A pretty quick read detailing the idea of scenario planning, a management strategy involving coming up with several detailed future possibilities for the […]
To the Nines: A Stephanie Plum Novel, by Janet Evanovich
Amazon link Another Stephanie Plum novel. It was at the library when I stopped by recently, and so I grabbed it and read it. Entertaining and frothy as always. A nice quick read.
Hardcase and Hard Freeze, by Dan Simmons
Amazon links for Hardcase and Hard Freeze I picked these up at the same time as Dim Sum Dead, in my failure of self restraint at the used bookstore. I like a lot of the work by Dan Simmons, and am thoroughly impressed by his exploration of so many different literary genres. These two books […]
Dim Sum Dead : A Madeline Bean Culinary Mystery, by Jerrilyn Farmer
Amazon link I picked this up kind of randomly at the used bookstore a couple weeks ago. Why am I going to the used bookstore when I have more unread books on my floor than I have time to read? I can’t explain it either. Heck, these days, I can’t even keep up with my […]
Small Things Considered, by Henry Petroski
Amazon link Subtitled Why There Is No Perfect Design, this book by an engineer describes the compromises necessary in any design. This was recommended as a book-of-the-month by Joel Spolsky – scroll down for his snippet on this book. I was intrigued enough to toss it into my latest Amazon order, and read it while […]
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
Amazon link This was recommended to me by a couple co-workers. When they were describing it to me, with its plot referencing the Knights Templar and other secret societies, I said it sounded a lot like Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, dumbed down into a thriller format for an American audience. So when I was at […]
Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore
Amazon link This is one of those standard high-tech marketing books that everybody refers to in the technology business sector. I had never gotten around to reading it, but after our marketing folks started mentioning the chasm in every presentation recently, I figured it was time to skim through it, just to find out what […]
