When I do have some downtime, I try to fill it with learning, but not school enforced learning. I read. Let's get this out of the way right now, Listening to an audio book is reading. I don't want to here the bullshit that it is not. If listening to a book isn't reading than nor is feeling a book, in the case of the blind using brail. Now that we got that out of the way......
I am very proud of myself to digesting theses. I never was much of a reader. Hell I probably went years in-between reading a book. With my growing interest in science based reading materials and some friends that gave some great recommendations, I got into it. The audio format I think was the key. I take the bus to and from school, that makes about 1 hour or more of do nothing time. I get car sick if I try to read or play a game on my phone, so audio books are perfect. Plus when I was running daily, I typically would listen to a book. I also listen when driving alone, grocery shopping, washing dishes, cooking, pretty much when ever someone isn't talking to me or when I am in the shower.
Here are the books I have read in the past couple of years. Some I really enjoyed and some were a bit of a slog. Regardless I would recommend them all. These aren't in any order, just as I remembered them or looked them up in i-tunes. The Hyperion series was my first real dive in to Sci-Fi and I really enjoyed them, tip of the cap to AJ for that. Never thought I would be a sci-fi reader, but hell, shit happens. There are plenty of science based stuff on there and some biographies. The Shackleton story is utterly amazing.
A life too short: The tragedy of Robert Enke. Ronald Reng
Th Black hole war. Leonard Susskind
13 things that don't make sense. Michael Brooks
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the great debate about the nature of reality. Manjit kumar
The Hidden Reality. Brian Greene
Hyperion, The fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The rise of Endymion. Dan Simmons
Food politics. Marion Nestle
Horizons of Cosmology: Exploring worlds seen and unseen. Joseph Silk
Medium raw, Kitchen confidential. Anthony Bourdain
Hitch-22:a memoir. Christopher Hitchens
Orphans of the Sky. Robert Heinlein
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Kim Stanley Robinson
Ring world. Larry Niven
Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's life in science. Lawrence Krauss
A universe from nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing. Lawrence Krauss
Wizard, Tesla biography. Marc Seifer
A brief History of Time. Stephen Hawking
The God delusion. Richard Dawkins
Death by black hole and other cosmic quandaries. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Just play ball. Joe Garagiola
Tony la Russa, man on a mission. Rob Rains
The Quantum world. Kenneth Ford
Thinking outside the box. Brad Friedel
How to Brew. John Palmer
South: The story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 expedition. Ernest H Shackleton
So if you want to read some books, have a look at the above.
I have three more books queued up to read; Abundance, The Rational Optimist and The better angels of our nature.
I will let you know how those go. All recommendations by Brian Brushwood. If you don't know who he is, google him, He does Scam School, NSFW show <>, Weird things, and a million other projects.
I hope you all enjoy your holidays and wish you a successful and a kick ass 2013.
For me, it is family time, and I guess I will get around to working on my thesis.
Peace and Chicken Grease
