Eli Bendersky's website - "Dr. Euler's Fabulous Formula" by Paul J. Nahin - a kind of sequel to the previous book I read by this author ("An imaginary tale"). Here he collected all the interesting mathematical explorations that didn't make the cut for that book. I found this one to be much closer to a textbook on the math spectrum - most pages are crammed to the brim with integrals. Not easy bedside reading, for sure, though it's still a good book and I appreciate the author's enthusiasm about these topics.
- "Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games" by Sid Meier - an autobiography by the famous computer game designer, best known for his Civilization series. I think I was confused by what "designer" means in Meier's case, because it turns out he's a coder extraordinaire who was churning multiple solo-written games every year in the 1980s and into the 1990s. This book is very interesting and insightful; the author exudes charming good nature, optimisim and some real hard-won design wisdom. A delightful read for fans of the genre.
- "Pnin" by Vladimir Nabokov - some notes on the life of a professor of Russian who emigrated to the US around WWII and teaches at a fictional New England college. The writing is masterful, but overall I felt like this novel's main point eluded me - there's probably certain groups it was very relevant to, but not me.
- "Churchill - walking with destiny" by Andrew Roberts - a modern biography of Winston Churchill, augmented with documents that only became available in the last couple of decades. Even though this book is a behemoth (over 1000 pages in the printed edition, 50 hours on audio), it's surprisingly readable and engaging. The author does his best at being objective, providing detailed accounts of criticism against Churchill and his failures. Nevertheless, the character of the man emerging from this book is extremely impressive and inspiring. I should probably try reading one of Churchill's own books - I had no idea he was such a prolific and highly regarder author (with a Nobel prize in literature).
- "The Chip" by T.R. Reid - secondary title is "How two Americans invented the microchip and launched a revolution". Tells the story of the simultaneous discovery of integrated circuits by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce. The first half of the book is fascinating; the second half is not as good and mostly seems to be a filler.
- "How to rule the Universe, without alerting the orderlies" by Gregory Khait - (read in Russian) yet another collection of short stories, with some new stories on the interim period of immigration when people were stuck in Europe while waiting for US visas. At least 1/3 of the stories are repeats from previous books.
- "I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life" by Ed Yong - talks about the symbiosis of bacteria with multi-cellular organisms, providing many examples of research findings from the animal and kingdoms, including humans. The book is interesting, but this is a topic that moves quickly, so the material gets outdated fast. Mostly, my impression was surprise at how little we know about these things. The science here is definitely in its infancy.
- "The computational beauty of nature" by Gary William Flake - "computer explorations of fractals, chaos, complex systems and adaptation". A nice book with some interesting code samples, but most of it feels awfully outdated a quarter century after publishing. It's quite impressive that the C code it bundles is still easy to compile and run, though.
- "Math for English majors" by Ben Orlin - alas, by far Orlin's weakest work IMHO. It's not clear what this book is even trying to do - a list of humorous definitions for various mathematical terms? Drawing parallels between elementary math and English grammar? I'll update this review if this book becomes popular with my kids, but so far it seems unlikely.
- "The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I" by Barbara W. Tuchman - a detailed history of the events leading to the outbreak of WWI and its first month or so, in which Germany's attack into France was eventually blocked and the Western front settled into the years-long trench warfare deadlock. I found the first half of the book - dealing with the politics leading to the war - the most insightful. It pairs wonderfully with one of my favorite books - "All quiet on the Western front", because it's a perfect contrast of the decisions made in the upper eschelons vs. the reality on the ground for millions of soldiers. The second half is more of a classical military history of events, and I wasn't particularly impressed by it.
- "Tom Swan and the Head of St George" by Christian Cameron - a wild adventure story set in the late crusades era. A young English knight's escapades in Italy, Greece and Turkey, full of unrealistic fighting, womanizing and drinking. Occasionally fun, but mostly pretty silly. I don't think I'll be reading the rest of the books in this series.
- "Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass" by Darren McGarvey - a memoir of a Scottish rapper about growing up in a poor, dysfunctional family in Glasgow in the 1990s, sharing his views of the class-based social divides of society. The author's own struggles with alcoholism and mental health issues play a major role in the book. Some parts of this book are insightful, especially on the topic of class divides within the liberal left.
Re-reads:
- "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
- "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery
- "The Luzhin Defense" by Vladimir Nabokov
- "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl