Robert Harris
August 29, 2008 - Books
Looks like I haven’t updated Currently Reading in the sidebar for quite some time now, in fact I haven’t really updated the whole page for ages. Guess it’s about time for another approach to change this situation. Let’s get started with a post about what I’ve been reading lately and maybe give you some good advice on what you should check out as well.
Amongst other things I read every single novel of Robert Harris over the last weeks: Imperium, Pompeii, Fatherland, The Ghost, Enigma and Archangel. Most of them have been really good but let’s just have a short review on each of them in the order I read them. Read more…
Jäger im Weltmeer
April 8, 2008 - Books
As you may or may not know I’m a big U-Boot fan and was thus happy about one of my christmas presents: Jäger im Weltmeer.
The book written by Lothar-Günther Buchheim is a report about two patrols of the german U-96 during the 2nd World War. Buchheim himself was on board and wrote the report based on the photos he took and his own experience during the patrol.
The report is also the base for Buchheim’s best selling novel Das Boot which was eventually turned into a movie directed by Wolfgang Petersen. I guess you know the movie, if not you should hurry up and watch it - it’s awesome in my humble opinion.
The photos and the report are no glorification of the war but a down-to-earth description of how life was on a submarine during the war and how it’s like to fight two opponents at once: The military enemy and the elemental enemy, the sea.
I awfully don’t know if there’s an English version of Jäger im Weltmeer but if you understand German - or find a translated version of the book - it’s definatly worth a read. Well, I have to be honest, if you’re not interested in naval warfare, the 2nd World War or submarines it might be pretty boring to you.
Books
March 26, 2008 - Books
Just realized that I haven’t written about my reading habits for a long time and that the Currently Reading section in the navigation was totally outdated with Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. I hope to be writing about a couple of the books I’ve been reading lately soon, for now just a few lines on Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages and an update to Currently Reading.
As already mentioned back in August I wasn’t so sure about reading Umberto Eco’s philosophical works and came to the conclusion that my scepticism proved me right, at least with this book. I didn’t even finish it as it was way too much input for me. Too many names and too many references I had to look up to keep track of what he’s talking about made it not really enjoyable. I’m sure that it’s interesting and enjoyable with solid knowledge of medieval art and artists but mine doesn’t seem to be solid enough.
The Elegant Universe
August 15, 2007 - Books
After Vondur recommended the book The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory to me (Although he never read it!) I couldn’t resist but buy and read it.
As the title suggests it’s about the superstring theories and ultimatly the M-Theory which tries to unify all five superstring theories. All in all it was interesting and the author, Brian Greene, managed to explain the whole topic pretty well and understandable.
The only thing that really bugged me was that the first couple of chapters are about the special and the general theory of relativity as well as Quantum mechanics. Sure, both topics are the basics to even remotely get the concept of the superstring theories but the fact that I already know quite a bit about them and that Brian Greene explained them in lenghty detail made those chapters rather boring to read.
Afterall I went and bought another book by Brian Green, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, and hope to be reading it soon.
First of all I’m trying myself on Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages by Umberto Eco, though. I really dig his historical novels - The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum for example, just to name my favorites - but haven’t read many of his more philosophical works yet.
By the way, I’m wondering whether it’s better to link book recommendations to Amazon or to Wikipedia, any opinions on this?
Big Bang
February 12, 2007 - Books
After reading The Code Book and Fermat’s Last Theorem (which I posted about earlier) by Simon Singh and found them both to be damn good reads, I bought his latest work - Big Bang - and finished it yesterday.
Simon Singh tells the history of the Big Bang Theory using the same syle as in his previous books by putting the people who built the theory up front and not the equations behind it. This style makes everything feel more like an exciting novel, not like a scientific paper which would probably be hard to understand (at least for me) and thus bore me.
Definatly a good read and definatly worth buying. Period.
Fermat’s Last Theorem
December 6, 2006 - Books
I’ve been reading quite a lot since my last update, way too much to write something about each and every book. The book I read most recently, though, is Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Singh.
The book is about the most notorious problem in the history of mathematics and the stories surrounding it. Even if you don’t know or care that much about mathematics it’s a very interesting read.
Around the year 1637 Pierre de Fermat considered a slightly mutated version of the Pythagorean Theorem
x2 + y2 = z2
by increasing the power of the equation
xn + yn = zn, where n is any number greater than 2
According to Fermat, none of these equations could be solved and to back up his theorem he developed a mathematical proof but instead of publishing it he scribbled the following note:
I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.
A couple of years after Fermat’s death in 1665 the race was on to rediscover his proof. Trial and error showed that Fermat’s Last Theorem seemed to be true, because nobody could find three whole number solutions, but without a proof nobody could be sure.
To learn more about the book check out the Fermat Corner on Simon Singh’s website or just buy it over at Amazon.com, it’s worth it.
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