Bad Voltage Book Club

This could be fun! But, where does one start??

I found that the series The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons, is written very well. I have listened to the audiobooks a couple of times. Not something to listen to when one is depressed though. I am really not sure how to summarize the books, for they are quite involved. The Wiki link above does a much better job than I could have.

From Steve Martin, Pure Drivel is very entertaining. It is a collection of short humor that was released in The New Yorker. A caution though. I was listening to him reading “Side Effects” on National Public Radio when the book was released. I was driving at the time. It was not a safe thing to do, for I was in tears laughing so hard.

Here’s one, I haven’t actually finished reading it but I’m about half way through. It was recommended by my calculus teacher.

Reamde by Neil Stephenson. It’s about an MMO that includes a real world currency exchange system. This is exploited by a group of Chinese hackers as a payment system for the ransom-ware ‘reamde’ This holds the files of an organised criminal group ransom and they attempt to take vengeance.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936976021

Source.

Reamde took me a long time to finish, but the pure Stephenson insanity ending was worth it.

Hate to sound non-elitist (well Ok, then) Ha! but … What other book clubs’ are there ?

Well, not to be a dick, but right off the top of my head stuff that we as geeks may have heard of, there is the Fark’s Saturday Morning Book Club and Hacker Public Radio’s Audio Book Club…

–VR

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I appreciate this is an old thread, one of my own even.

I have been ill recently, nothing to worry about - bad cold (flu like) symptoms: bad ridden - now fully recovered.

As a result I had nothing to do but read. My daughter gave me her copy of:

The Fault in our stars
John Green

Is in my opinion a terrible film but a great book. It tells the story from the girls perspective of how she knew she had a life threatening disease (Cancer) and hence probably a short one she was going to to make it the best she could.

I would never have chosen this book for myself, as it is normally considered as “teen literature”. The book is worth a read though - the film is not worth a watch.

Sorry to hear it - I have toothache and an appointment in November. Nurofen. It’s all about nurofen !

#NonFiction.
Anyway found this treasure trove on github.
Hope it helps !

https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books/blob/master/free-programming-books.md

Love to get into assembly and make a kind of isometric helicopter game that trumps flappy-bird.
Then upload it to MikeOS.

I was on holiday in France for a fortnight a couple of months ago, and I decided to get back into (Kindle-assisted) reading again. I’ve ended up burning through:

James S. A. Corey’s The Expanse Series (all 5)
D. F. Jones’ Colossus Trilogy
Stephen King’s 11.22.63
Stephen Baxter’s NASA Trilogy (Voyage, Titan, Moonseed)

and I’m just about to get stuck into Ben Winters’ Underground Airlines. By God, Kindles really do make this stuff easy, don’t they? :slight_smile:

Saw this topic was recently talked about on slashdot :slight_smile:

https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/09/12/1834226/slashdot-asks-what-are-your-favorite-technology-books-and-novels

Are things that dull in France that all you can do is read? :slight_smile:

There seems to be a_lot of Activity happening over in Australia recently by the grey bike company.

Decided to read a decent book and take a breather today instead.

There were some best-of, non-western books, that were mentioned over at The guardian newspaper (UK)

Christopher Hitchens Autobiography, Hitch 22 is well worth a read.

Even if you weren’t keen on his religious opinions, his description of his mother’s death alone is breathtaking and worth the cover price.

ISBN-10: 044654034X
ISBN-13: 978-0446540346

@jonobacon I am sorry to here about Mr Nakamura.

I understand he was Japanese reading the newspaper content.
The closest I could get to anywhere near there was an Oahu book from my past-travel Library.

The book is called Discover Honolulu, Waikiki & Oahu and it looks as though my cleaner kept things tidy yesterday.

After Jono’s recommendation, I recently read this book. Would rate it as one of the better books I read in 2016.

Its a hilariously written book about the startup culture, in places its almost unbelievable the things that were happening in Hubspot (the company in this book), but perhaps only unbelievable from someone who hasn’t worked in the valley (me). The company I work with would have a culture of looking after their employees and often that translates to basically shiny toys, this book helped me put into perspective for myself what is worthless drivel and what is good employee benefits.

It also made me feel more thankful for the company and work environment that I have.

Definitely worth a read if you have even a passing interest in this sort of thing. I have recommended it to non-tech friends.

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Any Nero Wolfe fans here? I started listening to these novels after watching the show. They are very entertaining!

Me favourite service when away is the Beeb quitter.se feed, & they do cater for younger audiences (within their walled-garden). { You can bing it by searching for cbbc-book-club }.

Only sometimes … I have a last peek on my kindle before I turn-in, if I have the persuasion.

although, MITPress in archive.org gets a dust-off once-a-while on the :calling: fair-phone 2.

http://i.imgur.com/HYkc0Yb.gif

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