Adam
On the Goodreads Best Books of 2015, one book stood out amongst all others as being the overwhelming winner in their category – The Girl on the Train. Mystery isn't a genre I generally approach, but the storytelling and characters in this one drew me in from the start. The story is told from the first-person from three women in the story. All of these women have their own quirks and flaws that make them interesting and keep the storyline from being predictable.
This is one of the best programming books I've ever read at a conceptual and functional level. It guides the learner through basic D3 all the way up to where you feel powerful with the framework. King does a great job of introducing concepts as needed in an intentional way – something I appreciate greatly when trying to learn a complicated new topic. If you're going to read one book on D3, this should be it.
Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything
Minecraft had one of the fastest rises in popularity of any game in history. The meteoric rise, as well as the team behind the phenomenon was always a mystery to me. The marketing strategy used for propagating Minecraft was one of the most interesting parts of this – as that was how I learned about it initially as well. Rather than hiring a PR company, people would upload videos of their creations to Youtube, acting as both a way to learn about the game and as avenue for players to show off and build reputation.
If you watched Aziz Ansari's recent Netflix show, Master of None, then the content of this book might sound appealing. Unfortunately it is more of a clinical depiction of some of the great comedy from the series. The book itself focuses on the different ways people connect today, and how that's different than it was 50 years ago. What was the most interesting to me was how people connect around the world – in France, Japan and South America.
If you saw the movie Fallen, the premise of touch may be familiar – a special being that can transfer to another body and effectively “take control” of it. Where this story differs from the thriller, is that it focuses on many people with this ability and how they cope and adapt. I loved how this story went into the real world implications of this concept. How could you grow old in someone elses body, denying them life? If you have no conscience that's one thing, but for good people this ability sounds more like a curse.
Where it fell short for me was a connection with the characters. With Claire Norths other book,The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, I was constantly worrying about what would happen, and feeling for the characters. In this one I didn't have the same connection. An interesting topic, and well explored but the connection with the characters left me feeling like something was missing.
In NPR's top 100 Sci-fi/Fantasy list this was one I'd been wanting to read for a while. The ideas presented in it were inventive and elaborate, but my difficulty in following them kept me from fully enjoying the story. After reading the wiki synopsis of the book upon completion, I realized how many small things I'd missed. Vinge doesn't talk down to his readers – he lets them discover things for themselves – but unfortunately I didn't read between the lines on a number of concepts, leaving me confused for far too long. I have a feeling I would enjoy this one a lot more on a second reading.
100 years before the events in A Song of Ice and Fire, Egon Targarian was only a small kid. If you're curious about how he became the most well adjusted of his family, this one is worth checking out. Although an engaging number of stories that add a bit of backstory, they only shed a small amount of new light on overall setting and family dynamics of the era.
If you're curious about the idea of picking up and just traveling around without much planning, or even a return ticket, you might enjoy this book. Not planning is something I've had trouble doing when it comes to travel, but I'd still like to go with the flow more. Although there were a few chapters about this concept, a lot of the book was devoted to preparing your lifestyle.
At the beginning of this one, I really wasn't into it. I think that was the point. Perfect State takes a look at what would happen if you started with a somewhat boring character and shape them into a hero – but in a non-traditional short story. This could be described (and this isn't spoiling anything, as it's explained early on) as the first version of the Matrix, the one where people got everything they wanted, but where each person is in their own isolated universe. When people who have only talked to AIs decide to talk to other actual humans, things get interesting.
This short story by Sanderson describes a night in the life of an unexpected bounty hunter. As you would expect given the author, the unusual parts of the world are given the attention you would expect in a full novel. Ghosts that attack at the sight of blood could have been a cliche topic, but in this case it was flushed out enough with the economy, protection and past events to keep things interesting.
With this being the 5th book in the Mistborn universe, and 2nd in the Wax and Wayne series, I wasn't expecting too much. Alloy of Law didn't hook me in anywhere near as much as Sandersons other works. Although it set the stage in a new time, it didn't evolve the world as much as I'd hoped. Shadows of Self, on the other hand, conjured some new ideas into the world and brought more light to the condra who I always was interested in hearing more from.
A few years ago, the Stardust movie floored me. It was one of the most surprisingly great stories I'd heard in a long time. In wanting to learn a little more about the world, I decided to check out the book. To my surprise, the movie really did the book justice. There are marginal changes, but nothing serious. Like the movie, it had me enthralled throughout.
Religion and war going wrong serves as a fascinating and depressing backdrop to Cat's Cradle. While touching on important topics like the arrival of the atomic bomb, the storytelling was what really drew me in at times. Not all of the story, but for parts of it I was mesmerized by the multiple lines of thought being weaved and brought back together in a very short period of time. It's a technique of story writing I haven't seen too often but would love to learn.
When an author or book gets as much attention (good or bad) as a Neil Strauss, you can bet I'll check it out. This follow up to his previous tales of picking up women focuses on the troubles of building a relationship. I say relationship loosely, because much of this book is discovering what doesn't work. As a guy in a relationship, it's hard not to find at least some takeaways in the sea of bad decisions made here. Even some insights into where motivations come from which were unexpected. I don't know that I'd recommend this though, except to someone looking to test their own boundaries on whats normal.
After reading The Three Body Problem, I was split. On the one hand, the story had some amazing, innovate takes on science fiction – but on the other I didn't identify with any of the characters. The Dark Forest elevates the sci-fi even more while creating flawed but interesting characters I wanted to see what happened to. The concept of the “Wall Climbers” and the “Wall Breakers” was a welcomed addition – and allowed for a hidden motive to an otherwise linear story. When I think about the wide variety of topics covered, this book has parts that are Battlestar Galactica, Foundation, Caves of Steel, Rendezvous with Rama, Dan Simmons and more.
A philosophy book told through first person is extremely interesting to me – especially a travel memoir. Many of the conversations hit on specific points that I was nodding in agreement at. Specifically many of the ones that included frustration when getting points across to others, or taking pride in upkeep and finding a way to enjoy it. The only reason I'd rate it lower was due to the long periods of time between enlightening moments.
I've been interested in managing other developers for a while and read quite a few books trying to continually get better at it (still learning!). This one offered quite a few new takes on this topic. The format of the book includes interviews with tech leads in various states of their career, with similar questions asked to each. Some had better takeaways than others, but the collective similarities also highlighted things I need to work more on.
Pandora's Star is one of the few books that I've heard glowing reviews about by people with similar interests only to read it and not enjoy it. What's funny is I think the story is amazing. Similar to “The Mote an God's Eye”, it focuses on a far flung star system. In this case, the system, and it's neighbor, are encased in a Dyson Sphere. Did they erect it, or did someone else? What distanced me from enjoying this book was my lack of ability to connect with the characters. It was much more situation focused than character or major plot focused, leading to discussions of things I had no interest in when so much else was happening in the world. Some of my lower rating is also because I gave up on it a few times, which lead to a disjointed reading experience.
The subtitle for this book could be “How to use habit to direct human behavior”. Most of the examples are less about habit on a personal level and more about them on a societal level. One example that I enjoyed was about a time in Iraq where people were collecting in a square everyday. Eventually someone would throw a loud firecracker (or worse) into the mix and everyone would flee – a dangerous situation. Rather than using force to move people out, they moved the food vendors a block away. Now the crowd couldn't hang around for hours on end, as their food habits caused them to disperse earlier.
After hearing this one was similar to “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August”, I knew I had to check this one out. The mechanism for the “life after life” affect took me a little while to understand, but made sense after a while. I didn't feel that I was able to connect with the main character by the end, leaving me withdrawn from the overall direction.
