Vlad's bookshelf: read en-US Mon, 05 May 2025 17:31:01 -0700 60 Vlad's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Seek 232997465
There’s no point. What hasn’t changed in the last four hundred years won’t change in our lifetimes.

There’s no point. We’ve solved it. Everything humanity needs, it has. We’ve reached the finish line.

There’s no point. Turn off the lights, close your eyes, and cover your ears, nightmares come manifest.

Three storylines from three individuals, worlds and eras apart.

Seek is Wildbow (J.C. McCrae’s) seventh web serial, started October 18th, 2024. It should update every five days.]]>
Wildbow Vlad 0 0.0 Seek
author: Wildbow
name: Vlad
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: currently-reading, fiction, science-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[The Wandering Inn: Volume 6 (The Wandering Inn, #6)]]> 45554269
So reads the sign outside of The Wandering Inn, a small building run by a young woman named Erin Solstice. She serves pasta with sausage, blue fruit juice, and dead acid flies on request. And she comes from another world. Ours.

It’s a bad day when Erin finds herself transported to a fantastical world and nearly gets eaten by a Dragon. She doesn’t belong in a place where monster attacks are a fact of life, and where Humans are one species among many. But she must adapt to her new life. Or die.

In a dangerous world where magic is real and people can level up and gain classes, Erin Solstice must battle somewhat evil Goblins, deadly Rock Crabs, and hungry [Necromancers]. She is no warrior, no mage. Erin Solstice runs an inn.

She’s an [Innkeeper].]]>
5341 Pirateaba Vlad 3 fantasy, magic, fiction 4.62 The Wandering Inn: Volume 6 (The Wandering Inn, #6)
author: Pirateaba
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/28
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: fantasy, magic, fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[The Wandering Inn: Volume 8 (The Wandering Inn, #8)]]> 56495997
So reads the sign outside of The Wandering Inn, a small building run by a young woman named Erin Solstice. She serves pasta with sausage, blue fruit juice, and dead acid flies on request. And she comes from another world. Ours.

It’s a bad day when Erin finds herself transported to a fantastical world and nearly gets eaten by a Dragon. She doesn’t belong in a place where monster attacks are a fact of life, and where Humans are one species among many. But she must adapt to her new life. Or die.

In a dangerous world where magic is real and people can level up and gain classes, Erin Solstice must battle somewhat evil Goblins, deadly Rock Crabs, and hungry [Necromancers]. She is no warrior, no mage. Erin Solstice runs an inn.

She’s an [Innkeeper].]]>
9311 Pirateaba Vlad 4 fantasy, fiction, web-serial 4.65 2022 The Wandering Inn: Volume 8  (The Wandering Inn, #8)
author: Pirateaba
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/04
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: fantasy, fiction, web-serial
review:

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<![CDATA[To Turn the Tide (Make the Darkness Light, #1)]]> 212121807 New time travel military adventure from New York Times best-selling novelist S.M. Stirling

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

Everyone could see it coming. But one man could do something about it. Oh, he couldn’t avert the nuclear holocaust, but a scientist in Austria, ruthlessly using billions of research dollars for his own purposes, set himself up an he created a time machine, and filled a warehouse with low-tech survival gear. Too bad he didn’t get to use it himself.

Instead, a team of American grad students, led by their professor, is sent back to the late Roman Empire. Even though they are experts in this time and place, they are about to realize that books and actual experience are very different things.

If they can survive, they hope to remake the world into a better place. But that’s a big “if."]]>
574 S.M. Stirling 1625799705 Vlad 0 4.49 2024 To Turn the Tide (Make the Darkness Light, #1)
author: S.M. Stirling
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, fiction, science-fiction, history, rome
review:

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<![CDATA[Energy and Civilization: A History]]> 31850765 A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization.

Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization.

Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.]]>
552 Vaclav Smil 0262035774 Vlad 0 4.10 2017 Energy and Civilization: A History
author: Vaclav Smil
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history, economics
review:

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<![CDATA[Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World]]> 18222843 272 Mark Miodownik 0544236041 Vlad 0 4.10 2013 Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
author: Mark Miodownik
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history, engineering, chemistry, physics
review:

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<![CDATA[The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur, #1)]]> 7562764
Indeed, in his many lives, the entity called Jean le Flambeur has been a thief, a confidence artist, a posthuman mind-burgler, and more. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his deeds are known throughout the Heterarchy, from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. In his last exploit, he managed the supreme feat of hiding the truth about himself from the one person in the solar system hardest to hide from: himself. Now he has the chance to regain himself in all his power—in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.

The Quantum Thief is a breathtaking joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people who communicate via shared memory, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as an MMORPG guild. But for all its wonders, The Quantum Thief is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, jealousy, and revenge.]]>
336 Hannu Rajaniemi 0575088877 Vlad 4 3.84 2010 The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur, #1)
author: Hannu Rajaniemi
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2017/12/24
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: fiction, transhumanism, science-fiction, audiobook, to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1)]]> 17333324
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.]]>
386 Ann Leckie Vlad 4 3.98 2013 Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1)
author: Ann Leckie
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2020/11/02
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: fiction, science-fiction, space, to-read
review:

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Super Supportive 219634436
But even if he's lucky enough to be one of the few humans granted magical abilities by the extraterrestrial System that's been running things on Earth for decades, his goal of being a battlefield support hero is still a long way off.

He's got determination on his side and maybe a murderous alien desk clerk, too.

The universe is a complicated place. Alden's about to meet it.

Updated weekly on Royal Road]]>
3400 Sleyca Vlad 0 4.62 Super Supportive
author: Sleyca
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, fiction, science-fiction, web-serial
review:

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Significant Digits 29241766
It's easy to make big plans and ask big questions, but a lot harder to follow them through. Find out what happens to Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, Hermione, Draco, and everyone else once they grow into their roles as leaders, leave the shelter of Hogwarts, and venture out into a wider world of intrigue, politics, and war. Not official.]]>
Alexander Deebus Vlad 3 fiction, fantasy, fanfic 3.99 Significant Digits
author: Alexander Deebus
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: fiction, fantasy, fanfic
review:

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<![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]> 10016013 2184 Eliezer Yudkowsky Vlad 5 4.39 2015 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
author: Eliezer Yudkowsky
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: favorites, toreread, science-fiction, science, fiction, psychology, rationality, philosophy, fantasy, thought-provoking, transhumanism, physical
review:

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<![CDATA[The Wandering Inn: Volume 7 (The Wandering Inn, #7)]]> 53298908
So reads the sign outside of The Wandering Inn, a small building run by a young woman named Erin Solstice. She serves pasta with sausage, blue fruit juice, and dead acid flies on request. And she comes from another world. Ours.

It’s a bad day when Erin finds herself transported to a fantastical world and nearly gets eaten by a Dragon. She doesn’t belong in a place where monster attacks are a fact of life, and where Humans are one species among many. But she must adapt to her new life. Or die.

In a dangerous world where magic is real and people can level up and gain classes, Erin Solstice must battle somewhat evil Goblins, deadly Rock Crabs, and hungry [Necromancers]. She is no warrior, no mage. Erin Solstice runs an inn.

She’s an [Innkeeper].]]>
6790 Pirateaba Vlad 4 fantasy, fiction 4.66 2022 The Wandering Inn: Volume 7  (The Wandering Inn, #7)
author: Pirateaba
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/26
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[American Zion: A New History of Mormonism]]> 150778681 512 Benjamin E. Park 1631498657 Vlad 0 4.17 American Zion: A New History of Mormonism
author: Benjamin E. Park
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history, religion
review:

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Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]>
544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Vlad 0 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy, history
review:

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<![CDATA[Азазель (Приключения Эраста Фандорина #1)]]> 1243554
Его первое расследование ведется вокруг странного самоубийства молодого московского повесы Петра Кокорина. Подробности дела весьма специфичны � female fatale, интернат для вундеркиндов, любовная интрига, завершившаяся дуэлью, � и заставляют Фандорина усомниться в том, что это именно самоубийство. Перед читателем разворачивается детальная панорама Москвы и Петербурга XIX века, где происходит заговор тайного общества.]]>
224 Boris Akunin 5815904945 Vlad 3 4.17 1998 Азазель (Приключения Эраста Фандорина #1)
author: Boris Akunin
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2019/05/05
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: mystery, fiction, history, russia
review:

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<![CDATA[Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)]]> 203578847 The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive―the iconic epic fantasy masterpiece that has sold more than 10 million copies, from acclaimed bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

Dalinar Kholin challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions with the future of Roshar on the line. The Knights Radiant have only ten days to prepare―and the sudden ascension of the crafty and ruthless Taravangian to take Odium’s place has thrown everything into disarray.

Desperate fighting continues simultaneously worldwide―Adolin in Azimir, Sigzil and Venli at the Shattered Plains, and Jasnah at Thaylen City. The former assassin, Szeth, must cleanse his homeland of Shinovar from the dark influence of the Unmade. He is accompanied by Kaladin, who faces a new battle helping Szeth fight his own demons . . . and who must do the same for the insane Herald of the Almighty, Ishar.

At the same time, Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain work to unravel the mystery behind the Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram and her involvement in the enslavement of the singer race and in the ancient Knights Radiants killing their spren. And Dalinar and Navani seek an edge against Odium’s champion that can be found only in the Spiritual Realm, where memory and possibility combine in chaos. The fate of the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.]]>
1344 Brandon Sanderson 1250319188 Vlad 4 fiction, fantasy 4.35 2024 Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: fiction, fantasy
review:

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<![CDATA[The Hidden Girl and Other Stories]]> 52163147 original cover of ISBN 9781982134037

From award-winning author Ken Liu comes his much anticipated second volume of short stories.

Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This collection includes a selection of his science fiction and fantasy stories from the last five years � sixteen of his best � plus a new novelette.

In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from the forthcoming book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, "The Veiled Throne".

Contents:
- Ghost Days (2013)
- Maxwell's Demon (2012)
- The Reborn (2014)
- Thoughts and Prayers (2019)
- Byzantine Empathy (2018)
- The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2014)
- Staying Behind (2011)
- Real Artists (2011)
- The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2014)
- Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2011)
- The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015)
- Memories of My Mother (2012)
- Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016)
- Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2020)
- A Chase Beyond the Storms: An excerpt from "The Veiled Throne", Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty
- The Hidden Girl (2017)
- Seven Birthdays (2016)
- The Message (2012)
- Cutting (2012)

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411 Ken Liu Vlad 0 3.93 2020 The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
author: Ken Liu
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read, fiction, short-story, science-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon]]> 18465875
Five months later, a seemingly unrelated event occurred. A computer security firm in Belarus was called in to troubleshoot some computers in Iran that were caught in a reboot loop—crashing and rebooting repeatedly. At first, technicians with the firm believed the malicious code they found on the machines was a simple, routine piece of malware. But as they and other experts around the world investigated, they discovered a virus of unparalleled complexity and mysterious provenance and intent. They had, they soon learned, stumbled upon the world’s first digital weapon.

Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or worm built before: It was the first attack that reached beyond the computers it targeted to physically destroy the equipment those computers controlled. It was an ingenious attack, jointly engineered by the United States and Israel, that worked exactly as planned, until the rebooting machines gave it all away.

And the discovery of Stuxnet was just the beginning: Once the digital weapon was uncovered and deciphered, it provided clues to other tools lurking in the wild. Soon, security experts found and exposed not one but three highly sophisticated digital spy tools that came from the same labs that created Stuxnet. The discoveries gave the world its first look at the scope and sophistication of nation-state surveillance and warfare in the digital age.

Kim Zetter, a senior reporter at Wired, has covered hackers and computer security since 1999 and is one of the top journalists in the world on this beat. She was among the first reporters to cover Stuxnet after its discovery and has authored many of the most comprehensive articles about it. In COUNTDOWN TO ZERO DAY: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon, Zetter expands on this work to show how the code was designed and unleashed and how its use opened a Pandora’s Box, ushering in an age of digital warfare in which any country’s infrastructure—power grids, nuclear plants, oil pipelines, dams—is vulnerable to the same kind of attack with potentially devastating results. A sophisticated digital strike on portions of the power grid, for example, could plunge half the U.S. into darkness for weeks or longer, having a domino effect on all other critical infrastructures dependent on electricity.]]>
406 Kim Zetter 077043617X Vlad 0 4.15 2014 Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon
author: Kim Zetter
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history, security
review:

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<![CDATA[How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion]]> 58188742
Not quite non-fiction, not quite self-help. It’s a work of art about conflicting philosophies.




Many books believe they know how you should live.
But each book disagrees with the next.
In “How to Live�, each chapter believes it knows how you should live.
And each chapter disagrees with the next.


One chapter makes a compelling argument for why you should be completely independent, keeping all options open. The next chapter argues why you should commit to one career, one place, and one person.


One chapter persuades you to be fully present, and experience each moment. The next, to delay gratification and invest for the future.


Which one is right? Which does the author believe? All of them. It's a philosophy of conflicting philosophies.


A very unique and thought-provoking book.
Meant for reflection as much as instruction.


113 incredibly succinct pages of profound insights.
No philosophers are quoted.
No -isms are named.
Only actionable directives.
The end result feels more like poetry than prose.

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115 Derek Sivers Vlad 0 4.16 2021 How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion
author: Derek Sivers
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, self-help, philosophy
review:

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<![CDATA[Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age]]> 205309521 How did a shaky startup that barely got its first rocket off the ground defy expectations to become the world’s leading spaceflight company? Get the untold story of the team of game-changers, led by a well-known billionaire, who are sending NASA astronauts to space—and just might carry the human race to Mars.In the 21st century, space travel has become a commercial venture. And one company dominates the modern space SpaceX, founded by controversial entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002, and now sending more payloads into Earth orbit than the rest of the world combined.But Musk didn’t do it alone. The saga of SpaceX is the story of a diverse cadre of true believers in the limitless potential of space travel. For the first time, Reentry relates the definitive chronicle of how this daring team of risk-takers was able to redefine what it takes to reach the stars.With Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Eric Berger, author of Liftoff, as your guide, you’ll accompany SpaceX’s innovative thinkers during their toughest trials and most audacious moments, Creating the first orbital rockets that can land by themselves and fly againTransporting a 120-ft rocket from Texas to Florida by truck via back roadsFixing a cracked engine nozzle using hand tools, just days before liftoffSending a wheel of cheese into orbitSearching the ocean for the first rocket that splashed down intactBeing in the room where it happened—when SpaceX nearly lost big to BoeingIdentifying the $4 part that led to a rocket exploding in flightModifying a Tesla to prevent implosion in spaceFrom launchpad explosions to a pernicious cricket infestation to the harsh management style of Musk himself, the rise of SpaceX was beset with challenges and far from inevitable. Find out how a start-up that no one thought could get off the ground flew high enough to outpace their rivals . . . and where they’re going next.]]> 450 Eric Berger 1637745273 Vlad 0 4.45 2024 Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age
author: Eric Berger
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history, business, technology
review:

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<![CDATA[The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life]]> 26530386 The Vital Question, award-winning author and biochemist Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a solution to conundrums that have puzzled generations of scientists.

For two and a half billion years, from the very origins of life, single-celled organisms such as bacteria evolved without changing their basic form. Then, on just one occasion in four billion years, they made the jump to complexity. All complex life, from mushrooms to man, shares puzzling features, such as sex, which are unknown in bacteria. How and why did this radical transformation happen?

The answer, Lane argues, lies in energy: all life on Earth lives off a voltage with the strength of a lightning bolt. Building on the pillars of evolutionary theory, Lane’s hypothesis draws on cutting-edge research into the link between energy and cell biology, in order to deliver a compelling account of evolution from the very origins of life to the emergence of multicellular organisms, while offering deep insights into our own lives and deaths.

Both rigorous and enchanting, The Vital Question provides a solution to life’s vital question: why are we as we are, and indeed, why are we here at all?]]>
368 Nick Lane 0393352978 Vlad 0 4.19 2015 The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
author: Nick Lane
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, biology, evolution
review:

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<![CDATA[The Steerswoman (The Steerswoman, #1)]]> 793297 279 Rosemary Kirstein 0345357620 Vlad 0 3.99 1989 The Steerswoman (The Steerswoman, #1)
author: Rosemary Kirstein
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy, science-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[The March North (Commonweal #1)]]> 21801573 297 Graydon Saunders 0993712606 Vlad 0 4.21 2014 The March North (Commonweal #1)
author: Graydon Saunders
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy, ratfic
review:

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Meditations 662925 Nearly two thousand years after it was written, Meditations remains profoundly relevant for anyone seeking to lead a meaningful life.

Few ancient works have been as influential as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and emperor of Rome (A.D. 161-180). A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. Marcus's insights and advice--on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others--have made the Meditations required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. For anyone who struggles to reconcile the demands of leadership with a concern for personal integrity and spiritual well-being, the Meditations remains as relevant now as it was two thousand years ago.

In Gregory Hays's new translation--the first in thirty-five years--Marcus's thoughts speak with a new immediacy. In fresh and unencumbered English, Hays vividly conveys the spareness and compression of the original Greek text. Never before have Marcus's insights been so directly and powerfully presented.

With an Introduction that outlines Marcus's life and career, the essentials of Stoic doctrine, the style and construction of the Meditations, and the work's ongoing influence, this edition makes it possible to fully rediscover the thoughts of one of the most enlightened and intelligent leaders of any era.]]>
256 Marcus Aurelius 0679642609 Vlad 0 to-read 4.35 180 Meditations
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.35
book published: 180
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Ballad of the White Horse 1160501 The Ballad of the White Horse is one of the last great epic poems in the English language. On the one hand it describes King Alfred's battle against the Danes in 878. On the other hand it is a timeless allegory about the ongoing battle between Christianity and the forces of nihilistic heathenism. Filled with colorful characters, thrilling battles and mystical visions, it is as lively as it is profound. Chesterton incorporates brilliant imagination, atmosphere, moral concern, chronological continuity, wisdom and fancy. He makes his stanzas reverberate with sound, and hurries his readers into the heart of the battle. This deluxe volume is the definitive edition of the poem. It exactly reproduces the 1928 edition with Robert Austin's beautiful woodcuts, and includes a thorough introduction and wonderful endnotes by Sister Bernadette Sheridan, from her 60 years researching the poem.]]> 41 G.K. Chesterton Vlad 0 4.27 1911 The Ballad of the White Horse
author: G.K. Chesterton
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1911
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: to-read, fiction, history, poetry
review:

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<![CDATA[Nine Lives: My time as the MI6's top spy inside al-Qaeda]]> 40199693 528 Aimen Dean Vlad 0 4.33 2018 Nine Lives: My time as the MI6's top spy inside al-Qaeda
author: Aimen Dean
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, biography, history, islam
review:

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<![CDATA[The Dragon's Path (The Dagger and the Coin, #1)]]> 8752885
Marcus' hero days are behind him. He knows too well that even the smallest war still means somebody's death. When his men are impressed into a doomed army, staying out of a battle he wants no part of requires some unorthodox steps.

Cithrin is an orphan, ward of a banking house. Her job is to smuggle a nation's wealth across a war zone, hiding the gold from both sides. She knows the secret life of commerce like a second language, but the strategies of trade will not defend her from swords.

Geder, sole scion of a noble house, has more interest in philosophy than in swordplay. A poor excuse for a soldier, he is a pawn in these games. No one can predict what he will become.

Falling pebbles can start a landslide. A spat between the Free Cities and the Severed Throne is spiraling out of control. A new player rises from the depths of history, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon's Path-the path to war.
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555 Daniel Abraham 1841498874 Vlad 0 3.79 2011 The Dragon's Path (The Dagger and the Coin, #1)
author: Daniel Abraham
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy, finance
review:

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The Dragon's Banker 49405286
But when a spell of bad fortune and bitter rivalry leaves him scrambling to turn a profit on little more than winds and whispers, one such whisper catches Sailor’s ear� a dragon has been seen in the west.

Sailor soon finds that the dragons are very real, and not at all what he expected. And they practice a very different sort of economy � one of subterfuge and fire.


With bonus novelette: Forego Quest

What if you were the hero of every song, story, and legend?
What if you didn’t want to be?
Find out in this hilarious fantasy short.]]>
255 Scott Warren 0578552922 Vlad 0 4.06 2019 The Dragon's Banker
author: Scott Warren
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves: to-read, fiction, finance, fantasy, humor
review:

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<![CDATA[The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win]]> 17255186
The company's new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced.

With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited.

In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they'll never view IT the same way again.]]>
345 Gene Kim 0988262592 Vlad 0 4.23 2013 The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
author: Gene Kim
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves: to-read, fiction, business, models, management, computer-science
review:

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<![CDATA[The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition]]> 52715562 The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt and David Thomas codify many of the truths they've discovered during their respective careers as designers of software and writers of code.

Some of the authors' nuggets of pragmatism are concrete, and the path to their implementation is clear. They advise readers to learn one text editor, for example, and use it for everything. They also recommend the use of version-tracking software for even the smallest projects, and promote the merits of learning regular expression syntax and a text-manipulation language. Other (perhaps more valuable) advice is more light-hearted. In the debugging section, it is noted that, "if you see hoof prints think horses, not zebras." That is, suspect everything, but start looking for problems in the most obvious places. There are recommendations for making estimates of time and expense, and for integrating testing into the development process. You'll want a copy of The Pragmatic Programmer for two reasons: it displays your own accumulated wisdom more cleanly than you ever bothered to state it, and it introduces you to methods of work that you may not yet have considered. Working programmers will enjoy this book. --David Wall

Topics covered: A useful approach to software design and construction that allows for efficient, profitable development of high-quality products. Elements of the approach include specification development, customer relations, team management, design practices, development tools, and testing procedures. This approach is presented with the help of anecdotes and technical problems.]]>
352 Dave Thomas 0135956919 Vlad 0 4.49 1999 The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition
author: Dave Thomas
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, computer-science, technology, software-development, productivity
review:

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<![CDATA[The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)]]> 944073
Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.

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515 Joe Abercrombie 0575079797 Vlad 3 fantasy, fiction, to-read 4.21 2006 The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2019/04/03
date added: 2024/09/19
shelves: fantasy, fiction, to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Exodus: The Archimedes Engine (Archimedes Engine, #1)]]> 205670068
Forty thousand years ago, humanity fled a dying Earth. Traveling in massive arkships, these brave pioneers spread out across the galaxy to find a new home. After traveling thousands of light-years, one fleet of arkships arrived at Centauri, a dense cluster of stars with a vast array of potentially habitable planets. The survivors of Earth signaled to the remaining arkships that humanity had finally found its new home among the stars.

Thousands of years later, the Centauri Cluster has flourished. The original settlers have evolved into advanced beings known as Celestials and divided themselves into powerful Dominions. One of the most influential is that of the Crown Celestials, an alliance of five great houses that controls vast areas of Centauri. As arkships continue to arrive, the remaining humans and their descendants must fight for survival against overwhelming odds or be forced into serving the Crown Dominion.

Among those yearning for a better life is Finn, for whom Earth is not a memory but merely a footnote from humanity’s ancient history. Born on one of the Crown Dominion worlds, Finn has known nothing but the repressive rule of the Celestials, though he dreams of the possibility of boundless space beyond his home.

When another arkship from Earth, previously thought lost, unexpectedly arrives, Finn sees his chance to embrace a greater destiny and become a Traveler—one of a group of brave heroes dedicated to ensuring humanity’s future by journeying into the vast unknown of distant space.]]>
928 Peter F. Hamilton 0593357663 Vlad 0 to-read, fiction, giveaway 4.15 2024 Exodus: The Archimedes Engine (Archimedes Engine, #1)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read, fiction, giveaway
review:

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The Night Circus 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]>
506 Erin Morgenstern Vlad 4 fiction, fantasy 4.00 2011 The Night Circus
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/16
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves: fiction, fantasy
review:

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Lent 41554680 From Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning Jo Walton comes Lent, a magical re-imagining of the man who remade fifteenth-century Florence—in all its astonishing strangeness

Young Girolamo’s life is a series of miracles.

It’s a miracle that he can see demons, plain as day, and that he can cast them out with the force of his will. It’s a miracle that he’s friends with Pico della Mirandola, the Count of Concordia. It’s a miracle that when Girolamo visits the deathbed of Lorenzo “the Magnificent,� the dying Medici is wreathed in celestial light, a surprise to everyone, Lorenzo included. It’s a miracle that when Charles VIII of France invades northern Italy, Girolamo meets him in the field, and convinces him to not only spare Florence but also protect it. It’s a miracle than whenever Girolamo preaches, crowds swoon. It’s a miracle that, despite the Pope’s determination to bring young Girolamo to heel, he’s still on the loose� and, now, running Florence in all but name.

That’s only the beginning. Because Girolamo Savanarola is not who—or what—he thinks he is. He will discover the truth about himself at the most startling possible time. And this will be only the beginning of his many lives.]]>
382 Jo Walton 0765379066 Vlad 0 3.98 2019 Lent
author: Jo Walton
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy, history
review:

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Polostan (Bomb Light, #1) 199793426 Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gunrunning and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C., during the depths of the Great Depression. When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB.]]> 303 Neal Stephenson 0062334492 Vlad 0 to-read, giveaway, fiction 3.70 2024 Polostan (Bomb Light, #1)
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read, giveaway, fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect]]> 60018618
Essential lessons in hospitality for every business, from the former co-owner of legendary restaurant Eleven Madison Park.

Will Guidara was twenty-six when he took the helm of Eleven Madison Park, a struggling two-star brasserie that had never quite lived up to its majestic room. Eleven years later, EMP was named the best restaurant in the world.

How did Guidara pull off this unprecedented transformation? Radical reinvention, a true partnership between the kitchen and the dining room—and memorable, over-the-top, bespoke hospitality. Guidara’s team surprised a family who had never seen snow with a magical sledding trip to Central Park after their dinner; they filled a private dining room with sand, complete with mai-tais and beach chairs, to console a couple with a cancelled vacation. And his hospitality extended beyond those dining at the restaurant to his own team, who learned to deliver praise and criticism with intention; why the answer to some of the most pernicious business dilemmas is to give more—not less; and the magic that can happen when a busser starts thinking like an owner.

Today, every business can choose to be a hospitality business—and we can all transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Featuring sparkling stories of his journey through restaurants, with the industry’s most famous players like Daniel Boulud and Danny Meyer, Guidara urges us all to find the magic in what we do—for ourselves, the people we work with, and the people we serve.]]>
288 Will Guidara 0593418573 Vlad 0 4.42 Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
author: Will Guidara
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, business, food
review:

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<![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Vlad 0 3.95 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

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Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]>
384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Vlad 4 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2019/09/10
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: fiction, science-fiction, toreread, consciousness, alien
review:

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The Hacker's Guide to Python 21796023
Most of the books you read about Python teach you the language basics. But once you've learnt them, you are on your own designing your application and discovering best practices.

In this book, we'll see how to leverage Python to efficiently tackle your problems and build great Python applications.]]>
287 Julien Danjou 1304819248 Vlad 0 3.95 The Hacker's Guide to Python
author: Julien Danjou
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: non-fiction, python, computer-science, software-development, i-thought-i-want-to-read
review:

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The Call of Cthulhu 15730101 The Call of Cthulhu is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world.]]> 43 H.P. Lovecraft Vlad 0 3.97 1928 The Call of Cthulhu
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read, horror, classics, fiction, short-story, fantasy
review:

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<![CDATA[How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together]]> 38124688 Hard-hitting divorce lawyer James Sexton shares his insights and wisdom from the front lines of divorce to keep you out of his office and improve your relationship.

If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late. James Sexton knows this. After dealing with more than a thousand clients whose marriages have dissolved over everything from an ill-advised threesome with the nanny to the uneven division of carpool duties, he also knows all of the what-not-to-dos for couples who want to build—and consistently work to preserve—a lasting, fulfilling relationship. Described by former clients as a “courtroom gunslinger� and “the sociopath you want on your side,� Sexton tells the unvarnished truth about relationships, diving straight into the most common marital problems. These usually derive from dishonest—or nonexistent—communication. Even when the alleged reason for separation is one spouse’s new “personal trainer,� there’s likely a communication problem that predates the fitness kick. Symptom and root cause get confused all the time.

Sexton has spent his career working with spouses-to-be-no-longer. Reverse engineering a relationship can help to identify and fix what does not work. Ever feel like you’re holding back criticism of your spouse because you just can’t have that fight right now? Sexton will tell you to “Hit Send Now.� Maybe you aren’t as adventurous as you used to be, or need some "you time," but for some reason it seems weird or exhausting to change up the routine now. Sexton knows where that mentality leads and offers viable alternative paths to take. Though he deals constantly with the heartbreak of others, he still believes in romance and the transformative power of love. This book is his opportunity to use what he has learned to help couples that aren’t so far gone get back on track.]]>
318 James J. Sexton 1250130786 Vlad 0 4.25 2018 How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together
author: James J. Sexton
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, relationships
review:

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The Most Boring Book Ever 207974153 48 Brandon Sanderson 1250843669 Vlad 0 to-read 3.92 2024 The Most Boring Book Ever
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences]]> 186749 180 John Allen Paulos 0809058405 Vlad 0 to-read, non-fiction 3.79 1988 Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
author: John Allen Paulos
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/26
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger]]> 944652 512 Charles T. Munger 157864366X Vlad 0 4.38 2005 Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
author: Charles T. Munger
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves: non-fiction, finance, biography, philosophy, economics, 2, currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Taking Root to Fly: Articles on Functional Anatomy]]> 672595 96 Irene Dowd 0964580500 Vlad 0 4.59 1990 Taking Root to Fly: Articles on Functional Anatomy
author: Irene Dowd
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.59
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, dance, anatomy
review:

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<![CDATA[Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World]]> 208707460 A greyhound catching the mechanical lure—what would he actually do with it? Has he given this any thought?

Bostrom’s previous book, Paths, Dangers, Strategies changed the global conversation on AI and became a New York Times bestseller. It focused on what might happen if AI development goes wrong. But what if things go right?

Suppose that we develop superintelligence safely, govern it well, and make good use of the cornucopian wealth and near magical technological powers that this technology can unlock. If this transition to the machine intelligence era goes well, human labor becomes obsolete. We would thus enter a condition of "post-instrumentality", in which our efforts are not needed for any practical purpose. Furthermore, at technological maturity, human nature becomes entirely malleable.

Here we confront a challenge that is not technological but philosophical and spiritual. In such a solved world, what is the point of human existence? What gives meaning to life? What do we do all day?

Deep Utopia shines new light on these old questions, and gives us glimpses of a different kind of existence, which might be ours in the future.]]>
536 Nick Bostrom 1646871642 Vlad 0 to-read 3.78 Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World
author: Nick Bostrom
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Vlad 0 to-read, mystery, classics 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves: to-read, mystery, classics
review:

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East of Eden 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]>
601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Vlad 0 to-read, fiction, history 4.41 1952 East of Eden
author: John Steinbeck
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/04
shelves: to-read, fiction, history
review:

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<![CDATA[Style: Toward Clarity and Grace]]> 63054870 For courses in English and Writing. Emphasizes the importance of style in writing for a global audience Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace asserts that style is a matter of making informed choices in the service of one's readers. While writers know best what they want to say, readers ultimately decide if they've said it well. This flagship text builds on that premise, with updates on subjects such as gender-neutral writing and writing for global audiences. It brings the authors' innovative approach to the needs of today's students, while maintaining that writing with style is a civic and ethical virtue. Also available with Pearson Writer Pearson Writer is a revolutionary digital tool for writers at all levels. Built for mobile devices, it streamlines the tedious and time-consuming aspects of writing, so that students can focus on developing their ideas. Pearson Writer makes it easy to stay organized, track tasks, and stay on top of writing projects. Students can set milestones prior to the due date, manage their sources, organize their notes visually in the Notebook, and even get automatic feedback on their prose. Pearson Writer is now available with Noteclipper, which allows students to save online sources quickly and easily. Features of Pearson Writer:
Writing, Grammar, and Research Guide is a go-to resource any time students have a question or need help.
Automatic Writing Review checks prose for possible spelling, grammar, and style errors, while offering grammar lessons and suggestions for revising and editing.
Citation Generator keeps track of every source throughout students' research process and builds a bibliography in the background, taking care of those formatting details.
Research Database and NoteClipper make searching for and managing source materials easier.
Project Manager and Notebook help students stay on top of multiple projects and make organizing ideas and sources less cumbersome. Note: You are purchasing a standalone product; Pearson Writer does not come packaged with this content. Students, if interested in purchasing this title with Pearson Writer, ask your instructor for the correct package ISBN and Course ID. Instructors, contact your Pearson representative for more information.
If you would like to purchase both the physical text and Pearson Writer, search for:
013415083X / 9780134150833 Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace Plus Pearson Writer -- Access Card Package Package consists of: 032197235X / 9780321972354 Pearson Writer -- Standalone Access Card 0134080416 / 9780134080413 Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace]]>
Joseph M. Williams Vlad 0 0.0 1981 Style: Toward Clarity and Grace
author: Joseph M. Williams
name: Vlad
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/28
shelves: non-fiction, writing, currently-reading
review:

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The Midnight Library 102189586 The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon

Winner of the ŷ Choice Award for Fiction A Good Morning America Book Club Pick Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year

The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.]]>
304 Matt Haig 0525559493 Vlad 0 to-read 4.01 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Stories]]> 58085210 432 H.P. Lovecraft 1631498398 Vlad 0 to-read 3.59 The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Stories
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.59
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)]]> 28187 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse - Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena - Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.]]>
377 Rick Riordan 0786838655 Vlad 0 4.31 2005 The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)
author: Rick Riordan
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/23
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy, young-adult, mythology
review:

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The Gentle Seduction 761141 277 Marc Stiegler 0671698877 Vlad 5 4.30 1989 The Gentle Seduction
author: Marc Stiegler
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1989
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/10
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: fiction, science-fiction, short-story
review:

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Shōgun (The Asian Saga) 201855946 The classic epic novel of feudal Japan that captured the heart of a culture and the imagination of the world, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author and unparalleled master of historical fiction, James Clavell

After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen--Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne's loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed.

Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, Shōgun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but also one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan. Shakespearean in both scope and depth, Shōgun is, as the New York Times put it, "...not only something you read--you live it." Provocative, absorbing, and endlessly fascinating, there is only one: Shōgun.]]>
1301 James Clavell Vlad 0 to-read 4.40 1975 Shōgun (The Asian Saga)
author: James Clavell
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

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Utopia, LOL? 39098457 10 Jamie Wahls Vlad 4 3.72 2017 Utopia, LOL?
author: Jamie Wahls
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/07
shelves: fiction, science-fiction, short-story
review:

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The Overstory 40180098 The Overstory is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

A New York Times Bestseller.]]>
502 Richard Powers 039335668X Vlad 0 to-read, fiction, nature 4.10 2018 The Overstory
author: Richard Powers
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves: to-read, fiction, nature
review:

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Art and Fear 187633 122 David Bayles 0961454733 Vlad 0 3.77 1994 Art and Fear
author: David Bayles
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, art, self-help, creativity
review:

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The 48 Laws of Power 1303 Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control � from the author of The Laws of Human Nature.

In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling� and “fascinating,� Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum.

Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master�), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness�), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally�). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.]]>
452 Robert Greene 0140280197 Vlad 0 4.11 1998 The 48 Laws of Power
author: Robert Greene
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves: non-fiction, politics, 2, to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace]]> 11300085
Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks.

In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them.

She explains how to smarten up simple food and gives advice for fixing dishes gone awry. She recommends turning to neglected onions, celery, and potatoes for inexpensive meals that taste full of fresh vegetables, and cooking meat and fish resourcefully.

By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.]]>
272 Tamar Adler 143918187X Vlad 0 to-read, non-fiction, cooking 4.18 2011 An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
author: Tamar Adler
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/21
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, cooking
review:

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Elon Musk 122765395 From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,� he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?]]>
688 Walter Isaacson 1982181281 Vlad 4 4.28 2023 Elon Musk
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/08
date added: 2023/12/14
shelves: non-fiction, biography, business
review:

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Best Served Cold 2315892
There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.

War may be hell, but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Barbarian who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...

Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.]]>
534 Joe Abercrombie 0575082453 Vlad 0 to-read, fiction, fantasy 4.24 2009 Best Served Cold
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/09
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy
review:

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Three Trips in Time and Space 872980
Flash Crowd by Larry Niven
You'll Take the High Road by John Brunner
Rumfuddle by Jack Vance

Silverberg writes a 2-page forward.

The series editors were Professor M. Jerry Weiss of Jersey City State College and Professor Charles F. Reasoner of NYU.]]>
234 Larry Niven 0440988276 Vlad 0 to-read 3.57 1973 Three Trips in Time and Space
author: Larry Niven
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work]]> 15798078
Research in psychology has revealed that our decisions are disrupted by an array of biases and irrationalities: We’re overconfident. We seek out information that supports us and downplay information that doesn’t. We get distracted by short-term emotions. When it comes to making choices, it seems, our brains are flawed instruments. Unfortunately, merely being aware of these shortcomings doesn’t fix the problem, any more than knowing that we are nearsighted helps us to see. The real question is: How can we do better?

In Decisive, the Heaths, based on an exhaustive study of the decision-making literature, introduce a four-step process designed to counteract these biases. Written in an engaging and compulsively readable style, Decisive takes readers on an unforgettable journey, from a rock star’s ingenious decision-making trick to a CEO’s disastrous acquisition, to a single question that can often resolve thorny personal decisions.

Along the way, we learn the answers to critical questions like these: How can we stop the cycle of agonizing over our decisions? How can we make group decisions without destructive politics? And how can we ensure that we don’t overlook precious opportunities to change our course?〶

Decisive is the Heath brothers� most powerful—and important—book yet, offering fresh strategies and practical tools enabling us to make better choices. Because the right decision, at the right moment, can make all the difference.]]>
336 Chip Heath 0307956393 Vlad 4 3.94 2013 Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
author: Chip Heath
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/29
date added: 2023/12/05
shelves: non-fiction, decision-making, science, psychology, self-help, leadership, 2
review:

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Light Bringer (Red Rising #6) 61423693 Darrow returns as Pierce Brown’s New York Times bestselling Red Rising series continues in the thrilling sequel to Dark Age.

The measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.”—Virginia au Augustus

The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains.

But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend.

The worlds once needed the Reaper. But now they need Darrow. Because after the dark age will come a new age: of light, of victory, of hope.]]>
683 Pierce Brown 0425285979 Vlad 0 to-read 4.76 2023 Light Bringer (Red Rising #6)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.76
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen]]> 101255 On Food and Cooking is a kitchen classic. Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment.

On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques.

Among the major themes addressed throughout this new edition are:




Traditional and modern methods of food production and their influences on food quality
The great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredients
Tips for selecting the best ingredients and preparing them successfully
The particular substances that give foods their flavors and that give us pleasure
Our evolving knowledge of the health benefits and risks of foods
On Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.]]>
896 Harold McGee 0684800012 Vlad 0 4.46 1984 On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
author: Harold McGee
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/08
shelves: non-fiction, cooking, currently-reading
review:

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Zenith of Sorcery 201612961
After years of exile, Marcus is coming back home. A powerful mage with few equals, Marcus lives in a world full of monsters and powerful adepts, many of which have bad histories with him. But he has not come back to pursue vengeance or start a fight. All Marcus wants to do is reconnect with old friends, build himself a house, and maybe train a successor or two.

Alas, the world didn’t stop just because Marcus went into exile, and not everyone is content to let go of old grievances. Strange things are happening in the world at large, too, hinting at a looming disaster of unknown nature. Still, where there is a will, there is a way.

If nothing else, Marcus has a lot of magical power to throw at problems.

+++

Zenith of Sorcery is set in its own original setting and isn’t related to Mother of Learning� beyond being written by the same person, of course. This is a more classical fantasy story than my previous one, with a lower level of technology and stuff like elves and dwarves, but it has a lot of worldbuilding effort put into it and its own complex magical system. The story has significant xianxia influences, but isn’t meant to be a xianxia story.

For those of you not familiar with my previous work, I write relatively slowly. I intend to publish chapters at the rate of one chapter every three or four weeks, subject to further delays as life intervenes.]]>
Domagoj Kurmaić Vlad 0 4.47 Zenith of Sorcery
author: Domagoj Kurmaić
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/05
shelves: currently-reading, fiction, fantasy
review:

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<![CDATA[Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon]]> 149105520 The Big Short and Flash Boys, the story of FTX’s spectacular collapse and the enigmatic founder at its center.

When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?

In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system. Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, Going Infinite is Michael Lewis at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own―until it all came undone.]]>
272 Michael Lewis 1324074337 Vlad 4 ea, biography, non-fiction 3.72 2023 Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
author: Michael Lewis
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/31
date added: 2023/11/05
shelves: ea, biography, non-fiction
review:

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Tress of the Emerald Sea 60531406 #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson expands his Cosmere universe shared by The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn with a new standalone novel for everyone who loved The Princess Bride.

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?]]>
443 Brandon Sanderson Vlad 0 to-read, fiction, fantasy 4.35 2023 Tress of the Emerald Sea
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/05
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy
review:

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All the Light We Cannot See 135462712
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.]]>
560 Anthony Doerr 1668017342 Vlad 0 to-read 4.13 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Yumi and the Nightmare Painter]]> 60531416 #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us a gripping story set in the Cosmere universe told by Hoid, where two people from incredibly different worlds must compromise and work together to save their worlds from ruin.

Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and nightmares. When their lives suddenly become intertwined in strange ways, can they put aside their differences and work together to uncover the mysteries of their situation and save each other’s communities from certain disaster?]]>
480 Brandon Sanderson 1938570375 Vlad 4 fiction, fantasy 4.45 2023 Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/23
date added: 2023/10/23
shelves: fiction, fantasy
review:

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<![CDATA[Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini, #3)]]> 540359 165 John Fante 0876854439 Vlad 0 to-read, fiction 4.21 1939 Ask the Dust (The Saga of Arturo Bandini, #3)
author: John Fante
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/22
shelves: to-read, fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right]]> 6667514 The New York Times bestselling author of Better and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist

We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.

In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.

An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.]]>
208 Atul Gawande 0805091742 Vlad 3 4.00 2009 The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
author: Atul Gawande
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/25
date added: 2023/09/25
shelves: non-fiction, medicine, management, self-help, 2
review:
Story to idea ratio is rather high, would recommend people mostly listen to this as an audiobook
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<![CDATA[Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World]]> 52300107 Listening time = 2h 2m

Pollan takes us on a journey through the history of the drug, which was first discovered in a small part of East Africa and within a century became an addiction affecting most of the human species. Caffeine, it turns out, has changed the course of human history - won and lost wars, changed politics, dominated economies. What's more, the author shows that the Industrial Revolution would have been impossible without it. The science of how the drug has evolved to addict us is no less fascinating.]]>
2 Michael Pollan Vlad 0 3.72 2020 Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World
author: Michael Pollan
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/30
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history, food
review:

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The Timeless Way of Building 106728 The Timeless Way of Building Christopher Alexander presents a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which has at its core that age-old process by which the people of a society have always pulled the order of their world from their own being.

He writes, “There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way. And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.�

The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume to Alexander’s other works, A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment, in the Center for Environmental Structure series.
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552 Christopher W. Alexander 0195024028 Vlad 0 4.38 1978 The Timeless Way of Building
author: Christopher W. Alexander
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/27
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, architecture
review:

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<![CDATA[Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software]]> 85009
The authors begin by describing what patterns are and how they can help you design object-oriented software. They then go on to systematically name, explain, evaluate, and catalog recurring designs in object-oriented systems. With Design Patterns as your guide, you will learn how these important patterns fit into the software development process, and how you can leverage them to solve your own design problems most efficiently.

Each pattern describes the circumstances in which it is applicable, when it can be applied in view of other design constraints, and the consequences and trade-offs of using the pattern within a larger design. All patterns are compiled from real systems and are based on real-world examples. Each pattern also includes code that demonstrates how it may be implemented in object-oriented programming languages like C++ or Smalltalk.

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416 Erich Gamma 0201633612 Vlad 0 4.19 1994 Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
author: Erich Gamma
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/21
shelves: design, non-fiction, software-development, computer-science, technology, toreread, 2, to-read
review:

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The Wright Brothers 22609391 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?

David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly American story of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.

When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.

In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers' story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.]]>
320 David McCullough Vlad 3 4.14 2015 The Wright Brothers
author: David McCullough
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/31
date added: 2023/08/21
shelves: non-fiction, innovation, biography
review:

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Metaphors We Live By 34459 The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by", metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.

In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.]]>
276 George Lakoff 0226468011 Vlad 0 4.10 1980 Metaphors We Live By
author: George Lakoff
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/21
shelves: non-fiction, language, philosophy, psychology, science, classics, 2, 3, did-not-finish
review:

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<![CDATA[The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)]]> 1232 487 Carlos Ruiz Zafón Vlad 0 4.26 2001 The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/18
shelves: to-read, fiction, fantasy, history
review:

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<![CDATA[The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World]]> 35068671 New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.

The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools—machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses, and cameras—and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips, and the Hadron Collider.

Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today’s cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia.

As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?]]>
416 Simon Winchester 0062652575 Vlad 0 4.12 2018 The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
author: Simon Winchester
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/14
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, history, engineering
review:

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I.E. Demon 22988214 41 Dan Wells Vlad 0 to-read, fiction, short-story 3.48 2014 I.E. Demon
author: Dan Wells
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/09
shelves: to-read, fiction, short-story
review:

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<![CDATA[Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language]]> 248193
Le ton beau de Marot� literally means ”The sweet tone of Marot�, but to a French ear it suggests ”Le tombeau de Marot”—that is, ”The tomb of Marot�. That double entendre foreshadows the linguistic exuberance of this book, which was sparked a decade ago when Hofstadter, under the spell of an exquisite French miniature by Marot, got hooked on the challenge of recreating both its sweet message and its tight rhymes in English—jumping through two tough hoops at once. In the next few years, he not only did many of his own translations of Marot's poem, but also enlisted friends, students, colleagues, family, noted poets, and translators—even three state-of-the-art translation programs!—to try their hand at this subtle challenge.

The rich harvest is represented here by 88 wildly diverse variations on Marot's little theme. Yet this barely scratches the surface of Le Ton beau de Marot, for small groups of these poems alternate with chapters that run all over the map of language and thought.

Not merely a set of translations of one poem, Le Ton beau de Marot is an autobiographical essay, a love letter to the French language, a series of musings on life, loss, and death, a sweet bouquet of stirring poetry—but most of all, it celebrates the limitless creativity fired by a passion for the music of words.

Dozens of literary themes and creations are woven into the picture, including Pushkin's Eugene Onegin , Dante's Inferno, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye , Villon's Ballades, ǰDZ’s essays, Georges Perec's La Disparition, Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate, Horace's odes, and more.

Rife with stunning form-content interplay, crammed with creative linguistic experiments yet always crystal-clear, this book is meant not only for lovers of literature, but also for people who wish to be brought into contact with current ideas about how creativity works, and who wish to see how today’s computational models of language and thought stack up next to the human mind.

Le Ton beau de Marot is a sparkling, personal, and poetic exploration aimed at both the literary and the scientific world, and is sure to provoke great excitement and heated controversy among poets and translators, critics and writers, and those involved in the study of creativity and its elusive wellsprings.]]>
632 Douglas R. Hofstadter 0465086454 Vlad 0 to-read, non-fiction 4.25 1995 Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/06
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2)]]> 226004 A Fire Upon The Deep, this is the story of Pham Nuwen, a small cog in the interstellar trading fleet of the Queng Ho. The Queng Ho and the Emergents are orbiting the dormant planet Arachna, which is about to wake up to technology, but the Emergents' plans are sinister.]]> 775 Vernor Vinge 0812536355 Vlad 5 4.31 1999 A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2)
author: Vernor Vinge
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2018/04/02
date added: 2023/08/01
shelves: favorites, fiction, space, science-fiction, toreread
review:

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<![CDATA[The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone (Wiley Trading)]]> 42818098 304 Agustin Lebron 1119574218 Vlad 0 to-read, non-fiction, finance 3.97 The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone (Wiley Trading)
author: Agustin Lebron
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, finance
review:

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The Myth of Sisyphus 91950 The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.]]> 192 Albert Camus 0141182008 Vlad 0 4.25 1942 The Myth of Sisyphus
author: Albert Camus
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/26
shelves: to-read, philosophy, non-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto]]> 11972889
Learn Michael Ruhlman's twenty key cooking concepts for the contemporary home kitchen.

20 techniques, 100 recipes, a cook's manifesto: Ruhlman's Twenty distills Michael Ruhlman's decades of cooking, writing, and working with the world's greatest chefs into twenty essential ideas—from ingredients to processes to attitude—that are guaranteed to make every cook more accomplished. Whether cooking a multi-course meal, the juiciest roast chicken, or just some really good scrambled eggs, Ruhlman reveals how a cook's success boils down to the same twenty concepts. With the illuminating expertise that has made him one of the most esteemed food journalists, Michael Ruhlman explains the hows and whys of each concept and reinforces those discoveries through 100 recipes for everything from soups to desserts. If you liked The Food Lab: Better Cooking through Science , you'll love the game-changing cookbook, Ruhlman's Twenty .]]>
368 Michael Ruhlman 0811876438 Vlad 0 4.14 2011 Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto
author: Michael Ruhlman
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/23
shelves: to-read, cooking, non-fiction, practical
review:

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<![CDATA[Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World]]> 23848393 As every day brings urgent reports of growing water shortages around the world, there is no time to lose in the search for solutions.

The U.S. government predicts that forty of our fifty states—and 60 percent of the earth's land surface—will soon face alarming gaps between available water and the growing demand for it. Without action, food prices will rise, economic growth will slow, and political instability is likely to follow.

Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also had an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors—the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan—every day.

Based on meticulous research and hundreds of interviews, Let There Be Water reveals the methods and techniques of the often offbeat inventors who enabled Israel to lead the world in cutting-edge water technology.

Let There Be Water also tells unknown stories of how cooperation on water systems can forge diplomatic ties and promote unity. Remarkably, not long ago, now-hostile Iran relied on Israel to manage its water systems, and access to Israel's water know-how helped to warm China's frosty relations with Israel.

Beautifully written, Let There Be Water is an inspiring account of the vision and sacrifice by a nation and people that have long made water security a top priority. Despite scant natural water resources, a rapidly growing population and economy, and often hostile neighbors, Israel has consistently jumped ahead of the water innovation-curve to assure a dynamic, vital future for itself. Every town, every country, and every reader can benefit from learning what Israel did to overcome daunting challenges and transform itself from a parched land into a water superpower.

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352 Seth M. Siegel 1250073952 Vlad 0 4.19 2015 Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World
author: Seth M. Siegel
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/20
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, technology, climate
review:

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<![CDATA[The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves]]> 7710102 � Gregg Easterbrook, author of Sonic Boom

Exploring a number of trends in our popular culture—from Sarah Palin to Antiques Roadshow, organic food to the indignation over James Frey’s memoir—Andrew Potter follows his successful Nation of Rebels with a new book that argues that our pursuit of the authentic is fraught with irony and self-defeat. Readers of The Paradox of Choice or Bowling Alone will find many enlightening insights in The Authenticity Hoax, which is, in the words of Tom de Zengotita (Mediated), “the kind of criticism that changes minds.”]]>
296 Andrew Potter 006125133X Vlad 0 to-read, non-fiction 3.33 2010 The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves
author: Andrew Potter
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/15
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

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<![CDATA[Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology]]> 60321447
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything� from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market � runs on chips. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower. Now, America's edge isslipping, undermined by competitors in Taiwan, Korea,Europe, and, above all, China. Today, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money each year importing chips than it spends importing oil,is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America's military superiority and economic prosperity.

Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America's victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand.America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap.

Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War shows that, to make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips.]]>
464 Chris Miller 1982172002 Vlad 4 4.38 2022 Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
author: Chris Miller
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/11
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: non-fiction, technology, history
review:

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<![CDATA[Beware of Chicken 3 (Beware of Chicken, #3)]]> 61046990 A laugh-out-loud, slice-of-life martial-arts fantasy about . . . farming????

Jin Rou wanted to be a cultivator. A man powerful enough to defy the heavens. A master of martial arts. A lord of spiritual power. Unfortunately for him, he died, and now I’m stuck in his body.

As Jin, I’m a man of the earth. A wielder of shovels and lord of rice and wheat. And sure, I also had to die and get pulled into another universe to end up here. But guess what? I’m starting to think it was worth it.

I’ve somehow managed to get away from it all. Finally free of the bloodshed of cultivator fights, I figure I’ll live in the slow lane from here on out, my only real concern the rain—or lack thereof.

Unfortunately, I’ve suddenly got a shady organization looking for me, my cat has gone off to fight in a martial arts tournament, and my chicken has uncovered an ancient crystal containing portents of doom. You know, the usual stuff.

I’m not worried though. Sometimes trouble finds you. And while I may not be a master cultivator . . . trouble should know better than to mess with a farmer.

The third volume of the blockbuster progression-fantasy series—with more than 20 million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible! ]]>
785 CasualFarmer Vlad 3 fantasy, fiction, web-serial 4.49 2023 Beware of Chicken 3 (Beware of Chicken, #3)
author: CasualFarmer
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: fantasy, fiction, web-serial
review:

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<![CDATA[Beware of Chicken 2 (Beware of Chicken, #2)]]> 81360229 A laugh-out-loud, slice-of-life martial-arts fantasy about . . . farming????

Jin Rou wanted to be a cultivator. A man powerful enough to defy the heavens. A master of martial arts. A lord of spiritual power. Unfortunately for him, he died, and now I’m stuck in his body.

And you know what? Things ain’t actually all that bad.

I mean, last year was pretty hectic. I died, got reborn, ran away from my sect and ultimate power, started a farm, made some friends, awakened all my animals into Spirit Beasts so now they’re running around talking and getting into life-and-death battles with super-powered bandits . . .

Oh! And I got married. Pretty neat, huh?

Well, this year, after the Spring Planting season, I’m really gonna relax and put down roots. It’s the slow life for me. Sure, the talking animals and cultivators coming to live with me are a bit weird, but this year everything is gonna be basically normal.

There definitely won’t be any Heavenly Tribulations, ancient formations, or cultivator issues to deal with . . .

The second volume of the blockbuster progression-fantasy series—with more than 20 million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible! ]]>
685 CasualFarmer 1039415717 Vlad 4 fiction, fantasy, cultivation 4.59 2023 Beware of Chicken 2 (Beware of Chicken, #2)
author: CasualFarmer
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: fiction, fantasy, cultivation
review:

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<![CDATA[Body by Science: A Research-Based Program for Strength Training, Body Building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week]]> 4642174 Building muscle has never been faster or easier than with this revolutionary once-a-week training program

In Body By Science, bodybuilding powerhouse John Little teams up with fitness medicine expert Dr. Doug McGuff to present a scientifically proven formula for maximizing muscle development in just 12 minutes a week. Backed by rigorous research, the authors prescribe a weekly high-intensity program for increasing strength, revving metabolism, and building muscle for a total fitness experience.]]>
312 John Little 0071597174 Vlad 3 4.07 2008 Body by Science: A Research-Based Program for Strength Training, Body Building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week
author: John Little
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2021/07/24
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: sport, health, non-fiction, science, exercise, 2, 3
review:

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<![CDATA[Beware of Chicken (Beware of Chicken, #1)]]> 60888209 A laugh-out-loud, slice-of-life martial-arts fantasy about . . . farming????

Jin Rou wanted to be a cultivator. A man powerful enough to defy the heavens. A master of martial arts. A lord of spiritual power. Unfortunately for him, he died, and now I’m stuck in his body.

Arrogant Masters? Heavenly Tribulations? All that violence and bloodshed? Yeah, no thanks. I’m getting out of here.

Farm life sounds pretty great. Tilling a field by hand is fun when you’ve got the strength of ten men—though maybe I shouldn’t have fed those Spirit Herbs to my pet rooster. I’m not used to seeing a chicken move with such grace . . . but Qi makes everything kind of wonky, so it’s probably fine.

Instead of a lifetime of battle, my biggest concerns are building a house, the size of my harvest, and the way the girl from the nearby village glares at me when I tease her.

A slow, simple, fulfilling life in a place where nothing exciting or out of the ordinary ever happens . . . right?

The first volume of the blockbuster progression-fantasy series—with more than 16 million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!]]>
485 CasualFarmer 1039413994 Vlad 4 4.53 2022 Beware of Chicken (Beware of Chicken, #1)
author: CasualFarmer
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/30
date added: 2023/06/30
shelves: fiction, fantasy, web-serial, cultivation
review:

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<![CDATA[Mate: Become the Man Women Want]]> 24396873
Whether they conducted their research in life or in the lab, experts Tucker Max and Dr. Geoffrey Miller have spent the last 20+ years learning what women really want from their men, why they want it, and how men can deliver those qualities.

The short become the best version of yourself possible, then show it off. It sounds simple, but it's not. If it were, Tinder would just be the stuff you use to start a fire. Becoming your best self requires honesty, self-awareness, hard work and a little help.

Through their website and podcasts, Max and Miller have already helped over one million guys take their first steps toward Ms. Right. They have collected all of their findings in Mate , an evidence-driven, seriously funny playbook that will teach you to become a more sexually attractive and romantically successful man, the right No "seduction techniques," No moralizing, No bullshit. Just honest, straightforward talk about the most ethical, effective way to pursue the win-win relationships you want with the women who are best for you.

Much of what they've discovered will surprise you, some of it will not, but all of it is important and often misunderstood. So listen up, and stop being stupid!]]>
375 Tucker Max 0316375365 Vlad 3 4.05 2015 Mate: Become the Man Women Want
author: Tucker Max
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/14
date added: 2023/06/29
shelves: psychology, relationships, non-fiction, self-help, 2
review:

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Shōgun (Asian Saga, #1) 52382796
Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, Shōgun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but also one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan. Shakespearean in both scope and depth, Shōgun is, as the New York Times put it, "...not only something you read--you live it." Provocative, absorbing, and endlessly fascinating, there is only one: Shōgun.]]>
1152 James Clavell 1982603844 Vlad 0 4.42 1975 Shōgun (Asian Saga, #1)
author: James Clavell
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/27
shelves: to-read, fiction, history, asia
review:

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Mr. Midshipman Hornblower 84748 310 C.S. Forester Vlad 0 to-read, fiction, history 4.15 1950 Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
author: C.S. Forester
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/27
shelves: to-read, fiction, history
review:

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<![CDATA[The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity]]> 615570 The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.]]> 237 Julia Cameron 1585421464 Vlad 0 3.93 2002 The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
author: Julia Cameron
name: Vlad
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/20
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, art, creativity
review:

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Waybound (Cradle, #12) 173338910
Years ago, Lindon left his home as a powerless Unsouled. Now, he goes to war with the most powerful beings in the world over the future of Cradle itself. The Weeping Dragon has a grudge to settle, and Lindon intends to take out the Dreadgod with his friends by his side. But rival Monarchs know his plans, and they won’t let things end so easily. If Lindon does win, he will ascend to the heavens. But he may not find a safe haven there either. In the worlds above, Suriel and Ozriel face off against the Mad King to determine the new shape of the cosmos. The victor will decide the fate of countless universes. Whether he wins or dies, Lindon will soon leave this life behind. The time has come to say goodbye to Cradle.]]>
518 Will Wight Vlad 3 fiction, fantasy 4.63 2023 Waybound (Cradle, #12)
author: Will Wight
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/08
date added: 2023/06/20
shelves: fiction, fantasy
review:

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Crafting Interpreters 58661468
That fearsome reputation belies a field that is rich with useful techniques and not so difficult as some of its practitioners might have you believe. A better understanding of how programming languages are built will make you a stronger software engineer and teach you concepts and data structures you'll use the rest of your coding days. You might even have fun.

This book teaches you everything you need to know to implement a full-featured, efficient scripting language. You’ll learn both high-level concepts around parsing and semantics and gritty details like bytecode representation and garbage collection. Your brain will light up with new ideas, and your hands will get dirty and calloused.

Starting from main(), you will build a language that features rich syntax, dynamic typing, garbage collection, lexical scope, first-class functions, closures, classes, and inheritance. All packed into a few thousand lines of clean, fast code that you thoroughly understand because you wrote each one yourself.]]>
640 Robert Nystrom 0990582930 Vlad 0 4.70 2021 Crafting Interpreters
author: Robert Nystrom
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.70
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves: non-fiction, software-development, programming-languages, computer-science, 2, to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs]]> 43713 657 Harold Abelson 0262510871 Vlad 0 4.47 1984 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
author: Harold Abelson
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves: non-fiction, technology, computer-science, software-development, 2, 3, to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity]]> 61153739 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert

Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.

For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.

This is not “biohacking,� it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:

� Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
� That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
� Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.�
� Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
� Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.

Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.]]>
496 Peter Attia 0593236599 Vlad 3 4.33 2023 Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
author: Peter Attia
name: Vlad
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/07
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves: longevity, non-fiction, health
review:

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