Hey!
Just wanted to start a nice thread here in the culdron again... So, what kinds of books do you enjoy, besides technical ones about programming?

I was insipred to post this because I'm reading Albert Hoffman's "LSD - My problem child". Albert Hoffman is the inventor of LSD. It is a great book, really, great. YOu probably need to be interested in the matter, yes, but it's a great book anyhow

Gives a beautiful insight into a completely surreal story - Hoffman's invention of LSD at Sandoz and his later travels to South America, where he discovers the psilocybe mushrooms, Salvia Divinorum among others and their sacral use by indian tribes. He also talks about his encounters and realtions with other people like Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley among others.

I don't know.. you'll probably flame me again... But just read it... It's a great book... Definitely one of my favourites, even tho I have only read 2/3 of it yet...

I'm pretty into the Star Wars books. I'm currently waiting for the next book in this one series, New Jedi Order to be published. Aside from those though, the clasics (i.e. War of the Worlds, Journey to the Center of hte Earth, etc.), and I recently read To Kill a Mockingbird which was really good. Oh, yeah, Lord of the Rings is a very good one. I'm about half way through Two Towers now. [addsig]

I just cant get into reading physical stuff, and only virtual stuff is computer related.

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it's a book-series of 5 books, originally written by a french guy and is called "Ramses". It's about a pharao in egypt, long time ago. it's a really good series, so read it when you see it
I also love all these books which are written by a author from the netherlands called "Tonke Dragt". All of her books are cool imho
[addsig]

Right now I'm reading through the "His Dark Materials" series by Philip Pullman. Really nice books.

I'm also reading "Killing Pablo" by Mark Bowden. It's some sort of documentation of the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar,the columbian drug lord. Also a book you can truly enjoy.

Classics have already been mentioned. "Time Machine" and "1984" are the greatest in my op, both very intelligent stories. Lord of the Rings does not need to be discussed here, I suppose. We all know and love it. If you are into fantasy but have enough of orcs and Wizards (traditional fantasy) try to get hands on "The World Of Tiers" by Philip Jose Farmer. [addsig]

Another fantasy series is the Belgariad, it was really good. There's also a continuation of that called the Malloreon (I'm not sure on the spelling), also very good. Although that would be typical fantasy. [addsig]

I recently finished "The picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde, and I'm still reading "Crime and punishment" by F.M. Dostojevski and "Remembrance of Things Past" by Marcel Proust.

Also, I've started reading a book about recording engineering. But that is kind of technical .

moxx: I think I know "His dark materials".. Not sure tho, what's the german name?
Else I'm reading (well, this isn't exactly high literature but whatever ) a Sci-Fi series from the 60's ATM.
You know, those series where you'd buy the continuation every week... lol.. I found a crate full of those things in my grandma's garret...
The series is called "Ren Dhark: Weg ins Weltall" and it's really fun!

hehe...some years ago I read Perry Rhodan. Stopped afer a week or so, though. But it was fun

I'm reading "His dark Materials" in english, so I had to find out the german name, too. Well, in fact there seems to be no german name for the whole trilogy, at all, just the single books' titles.

"Der goldene Kompass"
"Das magische Messer"
"Das Bernstein-Teleskop"

I was highly disappointed reading the german titles (well, it's a 100% translation)! Never would I have bought this books...Fortunately I came across the english titles earlier! [addsig]

As for Sci-Fi, have any of you read anything by Stanislaw Lem? I've read "Solaris" and "Fiasco" and I really like his style..

Didn'T read it, but I heard a Solaris movie was on its way. George Clooney takes a major part, as I heard... [addsig]

I recently started reading a book about improving your memory It's pretty cool but I left it in Japan so I'll have to wait until my mom comes over here. She might just remember to bring it
Before that, I read "Free as in Freedom" by Sam Williams. Although it does not deal with writing code directly, it's a pretty techy book as you might suspect

fabs

Is that the book about RMS? Is it good? I nearly bought in some days ago, but decided to read "The Cathedral" before... [addsig]

moxx: yeah, that's the ones i read.. in german tho. somehow the translation of the first one seemed a LOT better to me, the others weren't quite as fun to read... Dunno, maybe I should get them in english someday, but I've got a lot of psychedelic literature waiting

As for the "cathedral and the bazaar", I don't think I want to reead that, cause it's by ESR, and, bah, I don't like him.. Dunno, he's antipathic to me Of course I don't know him eprsonally, so that's just my subjective opinion from posts of him i have read and stuff...
Besides, that book is about "Open Source software", not "Free Software".. and as i finally understood the difference (lol ) I decided I didn't like open source

Maybe I did not get the difference perfectly, but doesn't free software require to be OpenSource? And I still like OpenSource much more than closed source...

I'm reading the book, because it describes OpenSource development as superior to closed source (at least I think it does so, I have only read the first few pages, so far). I'd like to work in a OpenSource software industry later on, so I need to know if it is really possible. [addsig]

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Maybe I did not get the difference perfectly, but doesn't free software require to be OpenSource?

Indeed. But Free Software is something more general, it's about Freedom, not "efficient development through public sourcecode". The ideas behind Free Software can be applied to a lot of things besides Software. An open source is just one of the requirements for Free software.
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And I still like OpenSource much more than closed source...

100% agree

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I'd like to work in a OpenSource software industry later on, so I need to know if it is really possible.

So, did you find out, yet?

Books that I read:
"Marketting Management", Philip Kotler
"Competing on Internet Time" (a study on netscape)
"Virtual Corporations"
Autobiography of Lee Iacocca

Programming Books? I get programming information off the web because you just can't but enough books ...

I guess that's what the initial post was about, right?

Hehe...

Some people are going straight for their job [addsig]

yeah. well, me too. i think i'm going to be a smuggler... you see the world, know a lot of people, you earn a lot of money, it's an easy job, yet interesting and exciting...

Yeah, I remember. We talked about our little business. I'm still interested! [addsig]

What if the Empire comes along, you're forced to dump your load, and are in trouble with Jabba the Hutt until the day he dies? When you get that far, say hi to Luke for me. [addsig]

Ive read 1984.

I never read 1984... I should tho, it sounds really cool

Read it, it's good [addsig]

Apart from the bible, its like the only book ive ever read from cover to cover.
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sacah: You read the bible...from cover to cover? [addsig]

Once, half way through my second time.
Im a christian, so its like a valuable book for me.
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I'm christian, too...And I read in the bible sometimes.

It's not that valuable for me, I think. [addsig]

I've been doing a bunch of bible reading lately. It's quite interesting. [addsig]

sorry, said the 2 things one after the other, just because your a christian does not mean the bible is a valuable book, the
Im a christian and , so its a valuable book to me was meant to be 2 statments.
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Yes the bible is very interesting book.