what are you reading, and is it any good?

I'm currently reading Richard Carrier's "Proving History", which gives a great understandable introduction to Bayes' theorem and using it to judge the likelihood of alleged historical events and facts. It has eye opener qualities, because he shows that when thinking about such things, you are either using Bayes theorem already without knowing it, or you are doing it wrong. He then goes on to show how to make well-defined judgements about historical hypotheses by using it properly.

Also, I'm struggling with Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. He follows the question why culture has developed at such different paces in different parts of the world (in a nutshell: why did e.g. the Spanish crush the American empires, and not vice versa). It's excellently written, but at times a brutal fact dump, hence the struggling part.

As happens quite often, I'm not reading fiction at the moment. The last two books of fiction I've read were Solaris by Lem (so much more to my tastes than the movies), and Digital Fortress by Dan Brown (hey, everyone is allowed one guilty pleasure, ok?).

Copied and pasted from another thread.

I just finished reading two books.

The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice. I have to state with honesty, even though The Wolf Gift Chronicles intrigue me, there seems to be something lacking in her writing style that The Vampire Chronicles possessed in abundance.

Innocence by Dean Koontz. Sometimes, the man inputs particular religious themes into his novels, and this is one of those times. Other than the religious theme, that I actually found to be quite tedious, it was not a half-bad novel.

Can anyone recommend a good (relatively hard) steampunk novel?

@Kitanetos: which genre is the first one you mention?

(March 13, 2014 at 10:21 am)Alex K Wrote: @Kitanetos: which genre is the first one you mention?

How can you not be familiar with Anne Rice? Her novels are fiction, though I would state they are more akin to supernatural fiction.

(March 13, 2014 at 10:28 am)Kitanetos Wrote:

(March 13, 2014 at 10:21 am)Alex K Wrote: @Kitanetos: which genre is the first one you mention?

How can you not be familiar with Anne Rice? Her novels are fiction, though I would state they are more akin to supernatural fiction.

Well, there I was doing to impossible all these years, and you spoil it

I finished man in the high castle last month by phillip k dick. I have rendezvous with rama and fahrenheit 451 that I started, but school and work gives me no time to really sit down relax and read how I would like. So this summer I'll finish them.

(March 14, 2014 at 2:11 am)Asimm Wrote: I finished man in the high castle last month by phillip k dick. I have rendezvous with rama and fahrenheit 451 that I started, but school and work gives me no time to really sit down relax and read how I would like. So this summer I'll finish them.

How's the Dick? We have the Valis trilogy sitting on the shelve and haven't had the nerve to start it yet.
Fahrenheit 451 is a pretty quick read (according to the author, it was also a quick write if I remember correctly).

What do you do with a chocolate Jesus - Thomas Quinn. It certainly isn't your usual run of the mill bible bashing book!

An RFP for a F-15 starter gearbox test stand.