October 31, 2005

Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur, October 2005

Attention conservation notice: I have no taste.

Stan Jones, White Sky, Black Ice and Shaman Pass
First (and only?) two novels in a series of mysteries about a native Alaskan state trooper. A sort of Tony Hillerman of the Arctic Slope. Presumably not the same Sam Jones who wrote a series of Christian instructional books under the rubric God's Design for Sex.
John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent
A post of Timothy Burke's made me realize the depths of my ignorance of sub-Saharan African history. In e-mail, he recommended this as an OK, though not ideal, starting point. I like the emphasis on human ecology. The claims that the (relatively) consensual, non-centralizing nature of authority in pre-modern African societies seemed, by contrast, very thinly supported.
Benjamin Weiss, Single Orbit Dynamics
Important for ergodic theory and information theory. Mathematicians will find the chapters on using single-orbit methods to solve problems in other areas of pure math more interesting than I did...
Jane Langton, The Escher Twist
Does not, actually, revolve all that much around the works of Escher (unlike many of Langton's earlier mystery novels, e.g. The Dante Game, or the Darwin-centered Dead as a Dodo.) Not, on that account, any less good.
G. M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand
Intelligent and inspiring hero-worship.
Peter Straub, In the Night Room
Elizabeth Moon, Marque and Reprisal
Robert Silverberg, The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado
Much buckling of swashes; madness gleams and beckons from a thousand crazed eyes.

Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur

Posted at October 31, 2005 23:59 | permanent link

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