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I Just Need a Few Good Books
I have just about finished reading all the books listed on the sidebar of my blog, and I'm seeking more. Unfortunately, I have to have them shipped to Korea--an expensive endeavor--I need to choose carefully. I don't want to go to the trouble of procuring a book, only to finish it one day after it arrives!
So, I've been looking around for a few ideas. Tulip Girl has an interesting wishlist/reading list. I am particularly interested in The Kingdom of Christ: A New Evangelical Perspective, and Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement. Guess I'm attracted to books with "kingdom" in the title.
Any of you out there have any recommendations for me? I tend towards theology and Christian living. But I don't want to limit myself to that. I would love to read more about science, especially physics or mathematics. I read and enjoyed Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick, and I started In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality. I'd also like to read about Intelligent Design.
I'm not a big novel reader. My taste in novels tends towards the heavier side, like The Brothers Karamazov and The Samurai. But I'm open to new ideas.
So, give me your recommendations. What should I read next? What's on your current reading list or wishlist? Any books I should avoid?
David Bodanis: E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation (New York: Berkley Books, 2000)
Written for non-scientists but scientists get into it too. The science and the human stores behind it - and great stuff about some amazing women scientists we don't hear about. It's different and I liked it a lot. BTW - the title is supposed to read E=mc squared but the 2 got dropped when I put it here.
Also interesting, and not too hard for the layperson: The Cosmic Blueprint by Paul Davies.
Hmmm... there's one caled Total Truth of course... (absolute not objective)
From a completely selfish take....the homeschooling one sounds interesting. You could read it and post a review.
wittingshire.blogspot.com has a list of Intelligent Design reads on their sidebar, if you're interested.
Chaos by Gleick was a good book. The Music of the Primes - Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics by Marcus Du Sautoy is also good. I really enjoyed The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh. Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe is a must read, too, assuming you haven't done so already.
The best book about the intelligent design debate, IMO, is Del Ratzsch's Nature, Design, and Science: The Status of Design in Natural Science.
Have you read Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter? Fascinating book, should keep you busy for a long time. Canons and fugues, recursion and self-referentialism, information theory, philosophy of mathematics, with every other chapter taking the form of dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise (and the Crab, the Sloth, J.S. Bach, and assorted other characters)….
The Mathematical Experience by Phillip Davis and Reuben Hersh is also very interesting. I particularly like the philosophy of mathematics sections.
Amazon has excerpts and contents for both of these.
If you want something a little deeper, "Preaching Eugenics" by Christine Rosen is good - and scary. I heard my lead teacher say, "some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids" - and indeed, I find myself thinking (or even saying) that some people just shouldn't reproduce - most often relating to driving skills.
But then I ask, Who should decide who is smart enough to have babies?
Math and Science recommendations: "The Book of Numbers" by John Conway and Surreal Numbers by Donald Knuth both are quite readable and non-technical and a lot of fun.
"The New World of Mr Tompkins" by George Gamow was originally written in the 60's by Gamow, consists of paired chapters, every odd numbered chapter is a "dream sequence" in which the banker Tompkins, goes to a physics lecture (or some other such thing) falls asleep and dreams for example that the speed of light is 6 mph or the quantum constant hbar is 1. The even numbered chapters are the lecture he slept through.
The "shape of space" by Weeks is a neat textbook introducing topology to the high school level students, and trying to motivate the reader to be interested in the idea that our universe may not have a simple topology. It starts with flatland and wondering about the consequences of putting Mr A Square (from Abbot's Flatland) on a torus (donut shape) or moibus surface and what happened when explorers went out from the town and came back from the other side.
And in a shameless plug, links for these can all be found here (in the non-fiction section at the bottom of the page).
Whew! I just finished looking up almost all of your recommendations on Amazon.com. Thanks to you all!
Catez, The books you recommend not only look interesting but the used price is very low. Getting a good bargain is half the fun. Lol. My father used to tell me stories about the theory of relativity when I was quite young. I still remember them.
Lexie, I'll let you know if I buy it!
Ellen, Thanks for the recommendation link. Look interesting. There probably are some people who shouldn't have kids, but I'd hate to have a government or group of scientists dictating who can and who can't. God gave all of us (with a few exceptions) sinful human beings the ability to reproduce, and surely he realized the implications of that better than we do.
Sparrow, I haven't been to Whittingshire lately because South Korea blocked all Blogger sites. I think I can get to them now. . .
Macht, Thanks for the recommendations. I used to be (in childhood) very interested in codes and I still love learning about non-Roman scripts. Even tried to learn some hieroglyphics a few years back. BTW, you have a great blog too.
Atlantic, I have skimmed through GEB a few years ago, but never finished it. I've been thinking of picking it up again and reading it with my hubby. He's a AI person, so he'd enjoy it. Aside from the book, I'm a big fan of Bach's music (all of it including fugues) and M.C. Escher's art.
Mark, I took a close look at the Shape of Space and The Book of Numbers on Amazon.com. Looks particularly interesting to me.
*L* You would link to my booklist the month that I have two mindless mysteries right at the top of the list!
One of the perks of finding an expat community, is the sharing of the wealth. Of books.
Or connecting with a couple of missionaries/expats--they'll always know of people making the transocean flight and willing to carry a book or two across.
People like helping people who live overseas. Trust me. And it's a lot cheaper than Amazon shipping. . .
