David's bookshelf: read en-US Fri, 17 Jan 2025 11:05:05 -0800 60 David's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Blindsight 6726267 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 the fainter one she'll do any good if she is. 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...]]> 274 Peter Watts David 0 to-read 3.81 2006 Blindsight
author: Peter Watts
name: David
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions]]> 29632790 An exploration of how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mind. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of the new and familiar is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not. Computers, like us, confront limited space and time, so computer scientists have been grappling with similar problems for decades. And the solutions they’ve found have much to teach us.In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths show how algorithms developed for computers also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one’s inbox to peering into the future, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.]]> 410 Brian Christian 1627790373 David 3 read-2016, non-fiction 4.24 2016 Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
author: Brian Christian
name: David
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/11/26
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: read-2016, non-fiction
review:
Very interesting book about many CS concepts that are pervasive beyond the CS courses and are in our daily lives.
]]> <![CDATA[Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That's a Good Thing)]]> 196848520
Whether we like it or not, the AI revolution is coming to education. In Brave New Words , Salman Khan, the visionary behind Khan Academy, explores how artificial intelligence and GPT technology will transform learning, offering a roadmap for teachers, parents, and students to navigate this exciting (and sometimes intimidating) new world.

An insider in the world of education technology, Khan explains the ins and outs of these cutting-edge tools and how they will revolutionize the way we learn and teach. Rather than approaching the sea of change brought on by ChatGPT with white-knuckled fear, Khan wants parents and teachers to embrace AI and adapt to it (while acknowledging its imperfections and limitations), so that every student can complement the work they're already doing in profoundly new and creative ways, to personalize learning, adapt assessments, and support success in the classroom.

But Brave New Words is not just about technology—it's about what this technology means for our society, and the practical implications for administrators, guidance counselors, and hiring managers who can harness the power of AI in education and the workplace. Khan also delves into the ethical and social implications of AI and GPT, offering thoughtful insights into how we can use these tools to build a more accessible education system for students around the world.]]> 272 Salman Khan 0593656954 David 0 to-read 3.57 Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That's a Good Thing)
author: Salman Khan
name: David
average rating: 3.57
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Power And Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence]]> 60623908
Banking and finance, pharmaceuticals, automotive, medical technology, retail. Artificial intelligence (AI) has made its way into many industries around the world. But the truth is, it has just begun its odyssey toward cheaper, better, and faster predictions to drive strategic business decisions--powering and accelerating business. When prediction is taken to the max, industries transform. The disruption that comes with such transformation is yet to be felt--but it is coming.

How do businesses prepare? In their bestselling first book, Prediction Machines, eminent economists Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb explained the simple yet game-changing economics of AI. Now, in Power and Prediction, they go further to reveal AI as a prediction technology directly impacting decision-making and to teach businesses how to identify disruptive opportunities and threats resulting from AI. Their exhaustive study of new developments in artificial intelligence and the past history of how technologies have disrupted industries highlights the striking phase we are now in: after witnessing the power of this new technology and before its widespread adoption--what they call "the Between Times." While there continue to be important opportunities for businesses, there are also threats of disruption. As prediction machines improve, old ways of doing things will be upended. Also, the process by which AI filters into the many systems involved in application is very uneven. That process will have winners and losers. How can businesses leverage, or protect, their positions?

Filled with illuminating insights, rich examples, and practical advice, Power and Prediction is the must-read guide for any business leader or policy maker on how to make the coming AI disruptions work for you rather than against you.]]> 256 Ajay Agrawal 1647824192 David 0 to-read 4.23 Power And Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence
author: Ajay Agrawal
name: David
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Fugitive 6463421 127 Georges Simenon David 3 read-2014, cop-crime 3.46 1954 The Fugitive
author: Georges Simenon
name: David
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1954
rating: 3
read at: 2014/12/25
date added: 2023/08/29
shelves: read-2014, cop-crime
review:
A classic of intense reading. great Simenon.
]]> Atomic Design 35496817
Atomic Design details all that goes into creating and maintaining robust design systems, allowing you to roll out higher quality, more consistent UIs faster than ever before. This book introduces a methodology for thinking of our UIs as thoughtful hierarchies, discusses the qualities of effective pattern libraries, and showcases techniques to transform your team's design and development workflow.]]> 189 Brad Frost 0998296600 David 0 to-read 4.01 2016 Atomic Design
author: Brad Frost
name: David
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Modern Operating Systems 18762100 1136 Andrew S. Tanenbaum 013359162X David 0 4.12 1992 Modern Operating Systems
author: Andrew S. Tanenbaum
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/12/04
shelves: currently-reading, programming, non-fiction
review:

]]> O Livro de Areia 6395662 -O outro
-Ulrica
-O congresso
-There are more things
-A seita dos trinta
-A noite das mercĂŞs
-O espelho e a máscara
-Undr
-Utopia de um homem que está cansado
-O suborno
-Avelino Arredondo
-O disco
-O livro de areia]]> 143 Jorge Luis Borges David 4 read-2012 4.11 1975 O Livro de Areia
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1975
rating: 4
read at: 2012/03/04
date added: 2018/07/20
shelves: read-2012
review:
Não será o melhor de Borges, mas tem duas ou três histórias muito interessantes e os temas são sempre de se ficar a pensar para lá da leitura.
]]> <![CDATA[Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us]]> 6452796 The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.]]> 242 Daniel H. Pink 1594488843 David 0 to-read 3.94 2009 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
author: Daniel H. Pink
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The European Identity: Historical and Cultural Realities We Cannot Deny (Haus Curiosities)]]> 30736730 What—if anything—do the twenty-eight member states of the European Union have in common? Amidst all the variety, can one even speak of a European identity? In this timely book, Stephen Green explores these questions and argues for the necessity of the European voice in the international community.



Green points out that Europeans can readily define the differences that separate them from others around the globe, but they have yet to clearly define their own similarities across member states. He argues that Europe has something distinctive and vitally important to offer: the experience of a unique journey through centuries of exploration and conflict, errors and lessons, soul-searching and rebuilding—an evolution of universal significance.



Coming at a time when the divisions in European culture have been laid bare by recent financial crises and calls for independence, The European Identity identifies one of the biggest challenges for all of the member states of the European Union.
]]> 96 Stephen Green 1910376299 David 0 to-read 3.31 2016 The European Identity: Historical and Cultural Realities We Cannot Deny (Haus Curiosities)
author: Stephen Green
name: David
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful Users: Designing for People]]> 20706907 142 Ellen Lupton 1616892919 David 3 design, read-2017 3.52 2014 Beautiful Users: Designing for People
author: Ellen Lupton
name: David
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2017/08/09
date added: 2017/08/09
shelves: design, read-2017
review:
Some cool case studies, but in the end, it is mostly a kind of exhibition catalog.
]]> <![CDATA[Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop]]> 218062
Text reveals top designers' work in process and rationale. Projects with similar characteristics are linked through a simple notational system that encourages exploration and comparison of structure ideas. Also included are historical overviews that summarize the development of layout concepts, both grid-based and non-grid based, in modern design practice.]]> 208 Timothy Samara 1592531253 David 0 to-read 3.87 2003 Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
author: Timothy Samara
name: David
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, and Students]]> 69736
Thinking with Type is divided into three sections: letter, text, and grid. Each section begins with an easy-to-grasp essay that reviews historical, technological, and theoretical concepts, and is then followed by a set of practical exercises that bring the material covered to life. Sections conclude with examples of work by leading practitioners that demonstrate creative possibilities (along with some classic no-no's to avoid).]]> 176 Ellen Lupton 1568984480 David 0 to-read 4.09 2004 Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, and Students
author: Ellen Lupton
name: David
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[User-Centered Design: A Developer's Guide to Building User-Friendly Applications]]> 17152745 154 Travis Lowdermilk 1449359809 David 4 3.76 2013 User-Centered Design: A Developer's Guide to Building User-Friendly Applications
author: Travis Lowdermilk
name: David
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2017/08/06
date added: 2017/08/06
shelves: design, programming, read-2017
review:
A quick and useful book on the practice of user centred design. Fun and with examples.
]]> <![CDATA[Smashing Book 5: Real-Life Responsive Web Design � Part 1]]> 25820078
The Smashing Book 5: Real-Life Responsive Web Design is Smashing Magazine’s brand new book with smart front-end techniques and design patterns derived from real-life responsive projects. Part 1 features 7 chapters on responsive workflow, SVG, Flexbox, content strategy, and design patterns � just what you need to master all the tricky facets and hurdles of responsive design.

Written by Daniel Mall, Ben Callahan, Eileen Webb, Sara Soueidan, Vitaly Friedman and Zoe M. Gillenwater.

Please note that the corresponding Part 2 is also available with even more responsive web design tips and tricks � among others on web fonts, responsive images, email design, performance, debugging and optimizing for offline.


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

•A Responsive Way Forward � written by Vitaly Friedman
•The Modern Responsive Designer’s Workflow � written by Dan Mall
•Responsive Process � written by Ben Callahan
•Responsive Design Patterns And Components � written by Vitaly Friedman
•Content Choreography In RWD � written by Eileen Webb
•Mastering SVG For Responsive Web Design � written by Sara Soueidan
•Building Advanced Responsive Modules With Flexbox � written by Zoe M. Gillenwater]]> 446 Smashing Magazine 3945749271 David 0 to-read 4.36 2015 Smashing Book 5: Real-Life Responsive Web Design — Part 1
author: Smashing Magazine
name: David
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought, #1)]]> 77711 Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.

A Fire upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.

Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.]]> 613 Vernor Vinge 0812515285 David 3 sci-fi, read-2017 4.14 1992 A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought, #1)
author: Vernor Vinge
name: David
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2017/08/01
date added: 2017/08/01
shelves: sci-fi, read-2017
review:
If not for the length of this book and the rating would be higher. It is well written with vivid details in the language, both in descriptions and in action, but the book could be shorter. Sometimes you find repetition almost of the same sentences and wonder is it wasn't easier to just edit the book short.
]]> <![CDATA[Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Color Works: Right Ways of Applying Color in Branding, Wayfinding, Information Design, Digital Environments and]]> 21419175 194 Eddie Opara 1306474329 David 4 3.93 2013 Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Color Works: Right Ways of Applying Color in Branding, Wayfinding, Information Design, Digital Environments and
author: Eddie Opara
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2017/07/20
date added: 2017/07/20
shelves: non-fiction, read-2017, design
review:
A nice set of examples with discussion about colour. Some previous knowledge is helpful.
]]> Smerdon's Scandinavian 26591064 *A complete repertoire for Black after 1 e4 d5
*Examines the Portuguese and Icelandic Gambits
*Packed with new ideas and critical analysis]]> 496 David Smerdon 1781942943 David 4 chess, read-2017 3.95 2015 Smerdon's Scandinavian
author: David Smerdon
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2017/07/19
date added: 2017/07/19
shelves: chess, read-2017
review:
Want a crazy opening that will put a smile on players faces? And that will give you some quick games? Try this.
]]> <![CDATA[The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People]]> 125270 The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People is a comprehensive program based on developing an awareness of how perceptions and assumptions hinder success - in business as well as personal relationships. Here's an approach that will help broaden your way of thinking and lead to greater opportunities and effective problem solving.

Be Pro-Active: Take the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

Begin With an End in Mind: Start with a clear destination to understand where you are now, where you're going and what you value most.

Put First Things First: Manage yourself. Organize and execute around priorities.

Think Win/Win: See life as a cooperative, not a comprehensive arena where success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others.

Seek First to Understand: Understand then be understood to build the skills of empathetic listening that inspires openness and trust.

Synergize: Apply the principles of cooperative creativity and value differences.

Renewal: Preserving and enhanving your greatest asset, yourself, by renewing the physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional dimensions of your nature.

Stephen R. Covey is the most respected motivator in the business world today. Learn to use his 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People - and see how they can change your life.]]> 370 Stephen R. Covey 0684858398 David 0 to-read 4.07 1989 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
author: Stephen R. Covey
name: David
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/07/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Play the Classical Dutch 984943 128 Simon Williams 1901983889 David 0 currently-reading, chess 4.00 2003 Play the Classical Dutch
author: Simon Williams
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/07/09
shelves: currently-reading, chess
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Black Ice (Harry Bosch, #2; Harry Bosch Universe, #2)]]> 24244 Working the case, LAPD detective Harry Bosch is reminded of the primal police rule he learned long ago: don't look for the facts, but the glue that holds them together.

Soon Harry's making some very dangerous connections, starting with a dead cop and leading to a bloody string of murders that wind from Hollywood Boulevard to the back alleys south of the border. Now this battle-scarred veteran will find himself in the centre of a complex and deadly game - one in which he may be the next and likeliest victim.

]]> 439 Michael Connelly 0446613444 David 4 read-2017, cop-crime 4.07 1993 The Black Ice (Harry Bosch, #2; Harry Bosch Universe, #2)
author: Michael Connelly
name: David
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2017/06/09
date added: 2017/06/09
shelves: read-2017, cop-crime
review:
Another great lonely cop story. Very entertaining.
]]> <![CDATA[The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #1)]]> 32508 482 Michael Connelly 0446612731 David 4 read-2017, cop-crime 4.11 1992 The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #1)
author: Michael Connelly
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2017/05/22
date added: 2017/05/22
shelves: read-2017, cop-crime
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari David 4 read-2017, non-fiction 4.33 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2017/05/11
date added: 2017/05/12
shelves: read-2017, non-fiction
review:
A great book to read lightly and to reflect upon later--even if some passages are a bit dull due to the use of repetition as a figure of style.
]]> Traveling on One Leg 816476
Ěý


Irene is a fragile woman born to a German family in Romania, who has recently emigrated from her native country to West Germany. Politically and socially isolated, Irene moves within the orbit of three troubled men, while simultaneously embarking on an inner exploration of exile, homeland, and identity.]]> 149 Herta MĂĽller 0810116413 David 2 club37, read-2017 3.26 1989 Traveling on One Leg
author: Herta MĂĽller
name: David
average rating: 3.26
book published: 1989
rating: 2
read at: 2017/03/05
date added: 2017/03/05
shelves: club37, read-2017
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies]]> 23316526 Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.
In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.


Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.


Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.


A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age alters how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.]]> 336 Erik Brynjolfsson 0393350649 David 4 read-2017
The author argues that the Second Machine Age is upon us in the form of the crescent digitisation of everything. This is reshaping most of the fundamental aspects of our economies where the cost structures of the digital goals are becoming negligible.

There are many ideas in the book (alongside with some advice) that are food for thought, and this is probably the books best-selling point. The only negative aspect I found is that it focuses mostly on America in the latter chapters of the book.

A curiosity spoiler is that the book addresses some issues in the bounty-spread dichotomy that have been fundamental in recent elections (Brexit and Trump), so they acquire some prophetic aspect when reading the book in 2017.

I also enjoyed the chapters on education, although I found myself wanting more chapters on the topic. Naturally, education is not a "sexy" theme for everybody, but I believe it will become the fundamental tool to reshape the human side of the XXI century man-machine equation.

Highly recommended. ]]> 3.86 2014 The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
author: Erik Brynjolfsson
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2017/01/10
date added: 2017/01/10
shelves: read-2017
review:
This is a book the reflect upon. Well, not the book, but the ideas in it. The topics covered claim that we are living alongside a transformative force that will change the shape of the world as we know it.

The author argues that the Second Machine Age is upon us in the form of the crescent digitisation of everything. This is reshaping most of the fundamental aspects of our economies where the cost structures of the digital goals are becoming negligible.

There are many ideas in the book (alongside with some advice) that are food for thought, and this is probably the books best-selling point. The only negative aspect I found is that it focuses mostly on America in the latter chapters of the book.

A curiosity spoiler is that the book addresses some issues in the bounty-spread dichotomy that have been fundamental in recent elections (Brexit and Trump), so they acquire some prophetic aspect when reading the book in 2017.

I also enjoyed the chapters on education, although I found myself wanting more chapters on the topic. Naturally, education is not a "sexy" theme for everybody, but I believe it will become the fundamental tool to reshape the human side of the XXI century man-machine equation.

Highly recommended.
]]> <![CDATA[A Grande Guerra pela Civilização: A Conquista do Médio Oriente]]> 16162902 Note-se que, neste caso, Médio Oriente deve ser entendido em sentido lato, pois os relatos do autor vão desde a invasão soviética do Afeganistão em 1980, até à(s) guerra(s) da Argélia. Por outro lado, o fio da História que percorre a obra permitirá ao leitor perceber as causas dos conflitos que grassam na região, seja na Palestina ou no Iraque: e Fisk mostra-nos que não se aprendeu com os erros do passado.
A Grande Guerra pela Civilização é, pois, uma obra compósita, misto de crónica, relato de correspondente de guerra, evocação memorialista, de alguém que vive e noticia sobre a região há mais de 30 anos]]> 1230 Robert Fisk 9724414574 David 2 read-2017, club37
As an information source it shows how the west has f**ked up the situation in the middle east, and in part the mess of the world we live in is also our own fault. But all it tells us could be written in a non-mammoth way. It took me almost one year to make this go into the [club37]() shelve. My rating is just 2â� because of the size. Otherwise it could have been a 3 or 4 star book. ]]> 4.50 2005 A Grande Guerra pela Civilização: A Conquista do MĂ©dio Oriente
author: Robert Fisk
name: David
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2017/01/07
date added: 2017/01/07
shelves: read-2017, club37
review:
This book could have been very interesting if it was reduced to one third of its size. At more than 1000 pages it becomes very boring to read through. My advice? don't bother with this one, or just skim through the most important chapters.

As an information source it shows how the west has f**ked up the situation in the middle east, and in part the mess of the world we live in is also our own fault. But all it tells us could be written in a non-mammoth way. It took me almost one year to make this go into the [club37]() shelve. My rating is just 2â� because of the size. Otherwise it could have been a 3 or 4 star book.
]]> The Soul of A New Machine 19188077 Tracy Kidder's "riveting" (Washington Post) story of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech industry. Computers have changed since 1981, when The Soul of a New Machine first examined the culture of the computer revolution. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations.The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the twentieth century. "Fascinating...A surprisingly gripping account of people at work." --Wall Street Journal]]> 297 Tracy Kidder David 4 non-fiction, read-2016 4.29 1981 The Soul of A New Machine
author: Tracy Kidder
name: David
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2016/12/24
date added: 2016/12/25
shelves: non-fiction, read-2016
review:
Although the book tells a story of a reality that existed 36 years ago and from a technology point of view is outdated, Kidder is a master at telling the story and for anyone interested in the history of computing is a pleasure to read. If you are a geek (an old school geek) you'll love it.
]]> <![CDATA[How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed]]> 13589153
Ray Kurzweil is arguably today’s most influential—and often controversial—futurist. In How to Create a Mind , Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization—reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines.

Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence in addressing the world’s problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional and moral intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical possibilities of our merging with the intelligent technology we are creating.

Certain to be one of the most widely discussed and debated science books of the year, How to Create a Mind is sure to take its place alongside Kurzweil’s previous classics which include Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and The Age of Spiritual Machines .]]> 336 Ray Kurzweil 0670025291 David 0 to-read 3.95 2012 How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed
author: Ray Kurzweil
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Age of Spiritual Machines 83533 388 Ray Kurzweil 0140282025 David 0 to-read 3.90 1998 The Age of Spiritual Machines
author: Ray Kurzweil
name: David
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are]]> 257106 312 Frans de Waal 1594481962 David 0 to-read 4.17 2005 Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are
author: Frans de Waal
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World]]> 25744928 One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.]]> 296 Cal Newport 1455586692 David 3 read-2016, non-fiction 4.16 2016 Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
author: Cal Newport
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/12/15
date added: 2016/12/15
shelves: read-2016, non-fiction
review:
I was expecting a bit more from this book. The writing is too structured, like a formula. It is as if the autor is writing a big scientific paper with all its formal rules. Every topic is broken down into a list of 2 or 3 things "you should pay attention". The feeling is that you are reading a giant blog post and some times it becomes repetitive. The ideas could probably be summarised on a one-page flowchart.
]]> <![CDATA[To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism]]> 13587160 The award-winning author of The Net Delusion shows how the radical transparency we've become accustomed to online may threaten the spirit of real-life democracy.

In the very near future, technological systems will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions into many more areas of public life: politics, culture, public debate, even our definitions of morality and human values. But how will these be affected once we delegate much of the responsibility for them to technology? The temptation of the digital age is to fix everything—from crime to corruption to pollution to obesity—by digitally quantifying, tracking, or gamifiying behavior. But when we change the motivations for our moral, ethical, and civic behavior, we may also change the very nature of that behavior itself. Technology, Evgeny Morozov proposes, can be a force for improvement—but only if we abandon the idea that it is necessarily revolutionary and instead genuinely interrogate what we are doing with it and what it is doing to us.

From urging us to abandon monolithic ideas of “the Internet� to showing how to design more humane and democratic technological solutions, To Save Everything, Click Here is a dazzling tour of our technological future, and a searching investigation into the digital version of an enduring struggle: between man and his machines.]]> 415 Evgeny Morozov 1610391381 David 0 to-read 3.68 2013 To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism
author: Evgeny Morozov
name: David
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction]]> 22580997
Hannibal, an award-winning writer and emerging emissary from scientists to the public, sets out to become a citizen scientist herself. In search of vanishing species, she wades into tide pools, follows hawks, and scours mountains. The data she collects will help environmental research—but her most precious discovery might be her fellow citizen scientists: a heroic cast of volunteers devoting long hours to helping scientists measure—and even slow—today’s unprecedented mass extinction.

A consummate reporter, Hannibal digs into the origins of the tech-savvy citizen science movement—tracing it back through centuries of amateur observation by writers and naturalists. Prompted by her novelist father’s sudden death, she also examines her own past and discovers a family legacy of looking closely at the world. Her personal loss only fuels her quest to bear witness to life, and so she ultimately returns her gaze to the wealth of species still left to fight for.

Combining research and memoir in impassioned prose, Citizen Scientist is a literary event, a blueprint for action, and the story of how one woman rescues herself from an odyssey of loss—with a new kind of science.]]> 432 Mary Ellen Hannibal 1615192433 David 0 to-read 3.66 2016 Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction
author: Mary Ellen Hannibal
name: David
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong]]> 15819274 192 Laurence J. Peter 0062096702 David 2 read-2016 meh 3.50 1969 The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
author: Laurence J. Peter
name: David
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1969
rating: 2
read at: 2016/12/02
date added: 2016/12/08
shelves: read-2016
review:
meh
]]> <![CDATA[The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History]]> 17910054
In prose that is at once frank, entertaining, and deeply informed, The New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. Interweaving research in half a dozen disciplines, descriptions of the fascinating species that have already been lost, and the history of extinction as a concept, Kolbert provides a moving and comprehensive account of the disappearances occurring before our very eyes. She shows that the sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy, compelling us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.]]> 336 Elizabeth Kolbert 0805092994 David 4 read-2016, science 4.13 2014 The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
author: Elizabeth Kolbert
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2016/12/08
date added: 2016/12/08
shelves: read-2016, science
review:
Very interesting read. Makes you think about our role in the world and that is always a good thing.
]]> <![CDATA[Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World]]> 8267287 744 David Easley 0521195330 David 0 to-read 4.19 2010 Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World
author: David Easley
name: David
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Microeconomics of Complex Economies: Evolutionary, Institutional, Neoclassical, and Complexity Perspectives]]> 24415362
Written so chapters can be used independently, the book includes an introduction to computer simulation and pedagogical supplements. Its formal, accessible treatment of complexity goes beyond the scopes of neoclassical and mainstream economics. The highly interdependent economy of the 21st century demands a reconsideration of economic theories.

Describes the usefulness of complex heterodox economics Emphasizes divergences and convergences with neoclassical economic theories and perspectives Fits easily into courses on intermediate microeconomics, industrial organization, and games through self-contained chapters]]> 556 Wolfram Elsner 0124115993 David 0 to-read 4.00 2014 The Microeconomics of Complex Economies: Evolutionary, Institutional, Neoclassical, and Complexity Perspectives
author: Wolfram Elsner
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X]]> 26240780
Based on previously untapped sources, from Malcolm's personal papers to FBI records, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. Acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith reconstruct the worlds that shaped Malcolm and Clay, from the boxing arenas and mosques, to postwar New York and civil rights-era Miami. In an impressively detailed account, they reveal how Malcolm molded Cassius Clay into Muhammad Ali, helping him become an international symbol of black pride and black independence. Yet when Malcolm was barred from the Nation for criticizing the philandering of its leader, Elijah Muhammad, Ali turned his back on Malcolm-a choice that tragically contributed to the latter's assassination in February 1965.

Malcolm's death marked the end of a critical phase of the civil rights movement, but the legacy of his friendship with Ali has endured. We inhabit a new era where the roles of entertainer and activist, of sports and politics, are more entwined than ever before. Blood Brothers is the story of how Ali redefined what it means to be a black athlete in America-after Malcolm first enlightened him. An extraordinary narrative of love and deep affection, as well as deceit, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the public and private lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.
]]> 392 Randy W. Roberts 0465079709 David 0 to-read 4.17 2016 Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X
author: Randy W. Roberts
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness]]> 25664449
Johnson argues that learning to see the world afresh, like a child, shifts the way we think about Instead of something distant and abstract, nature becomes real—all at once comical, annoying, and beautiful. This shift can add tremendous value to our lives, and it might just be the first step in saving the world.

No matter where we live—city, country, oceanside, or mountains—there are wonders that we walk past every day. Unseen City widens the pinhole of our perspective by allowing us to view the world from the high-altitude eyes of a turkey vulture and the distinctly low-altitude eyes of a snail. The narrative allows us to eavesdrop on the comically frenetic life of a squirrel and peer deep into the past with a ginkgo biloba tree. Each of these organisms has something unique to tell us about our neighborhoods and, chapter by chapter, Unseen City takes us on a journey that is part nature lesson and part love letter to the world’s urban jungles. With the right perspective, a walk to the subway can be every bit as entrancing as a walk through a national park.]]> 224 Nathanael Johnson 1623363853 David 0 to-read 4.02 2016 Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness
author: Nathanael Johnson
name: David
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War]]> 26530320 Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them.

Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds.

At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.]]> 285 Mary Roach 0393245446 David 0 to-read 3.90 2016 Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War
author: Mary Roach
name: David
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?]]> 26530322 Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition―in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos―to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal―and human―intelligence.]]> 340 Frans de Waal 0393246183 David 0 to-read 3.91 2016 Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
author: Frans de Waal
name: David
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City]]> 25852784 Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.]]> 418 Matthew Desmond 0553447432 David 0 to-read 4.47 2016 Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
author: Matthew Desmond
name: David
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business]]> 25733966 how you think—rather than what you think—can transform your life.]]> 400 Charles Duhigg 081299339X David 0 to-read 3.88 2016 Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business
author: Charles Duhigg
name: David
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/12/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Number: The Language of Science]]> 145291 Number is an eloquent, accessible tour de force that reveals how the concept of number evolved from prehistoric times through the twentieth century. Tobias Dantzig shows that the development of math—from the invention of counting to the discovery of infinity—is a profoundly human story that progressed by “trying and erring, by groping and stumbling.� He shows how commerce, war, and religion led to advances in math, and he recounts the stories of individuals whose breakthroughs expanded the concept of number and created the mathematics that we know today.

]]> 416 Tobias Dantzig 0452288118 David 0 to-read 4.09 1930 Number: The Language of Science
author: Tobias Dantzig
name: David
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing]]> 299652 257 Martin D. Davis 0393047857 David 0 to-read 4.17 2000 The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing
author: Martin D. Davis
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Vou Ser Pai 18170917
Os 9 meses da gravidez são tempos intensos, de grande alegria e expectativa, mas também de grande mudança na vida de um homem - e de medos, apreensão e inquietações. Ter a responsabilidade sobre outro ser humano, que vai nascer, transforma-nos e faz-nos olhar o mundo de outra maneira, refazendo as prioridades. Pensar que esse bebé é nosso filho, nosso prolongamento, nossa paixão é quase «demolidor».

Vou Ser Pai é um «manual de sobrevivência» para todos aqueles que vão ser pais. Aqui vai encontrar as respostas às suas maiores angústias, dúvidas e perplexidades sobre a paternidade e sobre a gravidez - sim, porque os pais também ficam grávidos.

O guia de gravidez para os homens que as mulheres também vão querer ler.]]> 376 Mário Cordeiro 9898470836 David 2 read-2016, non-fiction 3.36 2013 Vou Ser Pai
author: Mário Cordeiro
name: David
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2016/01/24
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: read-2016, non-fiction
review:
Um livro um pouco chato, com meia dúzia de mensagens importantes empacotadas no meio de banalidades e citações de estrelas de Hollywood -- de gosto um pouco duvidoso.
]]> <![CDATA[Agent-Based Models (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)]]> 1856951
In Agent-Based Models , Nigel Gilbert reviews a range of examples of agent-based modeling, describes how to design and build your own models, and considers practical issues such as verification, validation, planning a modeling project, and how to structure a scholarly article reporting the results of agent-based modeling. It includes a glossary, an annotated list of resources, advice on which programming environment to use when creating agent-based models, and a worked, step-by-step example of the development of an ABM.

This latest volume in the SAGE Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences series will have wide appeal in the social sciences, including the disciplines of sociology, economics, social psychology, geography, economic history, science studies, and environmental studies. It is appropriate for graduate students, researchers and academics in these fields, for both those wanting to keep up with new developments in their fields and those who are considering using ABM for their research.

Key Features Learn more about "The Little Green Book" - QASS Series!]]> 112 Nigel Gilbert 1412949645 David 4 4.30 2007 Agent-Based Models (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)
author: Nigel Gilbert
name: David
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/14
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: read-2016, science, social-science, non-fiction
review:
Highly recommended to anyone wanting to start building/publishing their own agent-based models. A good introductory book to any graduate class on the subject.
]]> <![CDATA[Six Memos for the Next Millennium]]> 195536 Six Memos for the Millennium is a collection of five lectures Italo Calvino was about to deliver at the time of his death. Here is his legacy to us: the universal values he pinpoints become the watchwords for our appreciation of Calvino himself.

What should be cherished in literature? Calvino devotes one lecture, or memo to the reader, to each of five indispensable qualities: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. A sixth lecture, on consistency, was never committed to paper, and we are left only to ponder the possibilities. With this book, he gives us the most eloquent defense of literature written in the twentieth century as a fitting gift for the next millennium.]]> 124 Italo Calvino 0679742379 David 5 read-2016, non-fiction Recommended. 4.21 1988 Six Memos for the Next Millennium
author: Italo Calvino
name: David
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2016/10/02
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: read-2016, non-fiction
review:
Recommended.
]]> Runaway: Stories 14280 Runaway is a book of extraordinary stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from the title story about a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband, to three stories about a woman named Juliet and the emotions that complicate the luster of her intimate relationships.

In Munro’s hands, the people she writes about–women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children–become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own. (back cover)

Runaway
Chance
Soon
Silence
Passion
Trespasses
Tricks
Powers]]> 335 Alice Munro 1400077915 David 4 read-2016, nobel, chess Recommended. 4.00 2004 Runaway: Stories
author: Alice Munro
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/24
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: read-2016, nobel, chess
review:
Recommended.
]]> Red Sorghum 894154 Red Sorghum is a book in which fable and history collide to produce fiction that is entirely new and unforgettable.]]> 359 Mo Yan 0140168540 David 4 read-2016, nobel, chess 3.81 1987 Red Sorghum
author: Mo Yan
name: David
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2016/11/13
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: read-2016, nobel, chess
review:
A marvelous book. I've seen the Film early in my youth and the film made a big impression. It is still one of my all-time best. Now, finally, I've read the book and everything gets "closure" and I recommend both (book and film) to everybody.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship]]> 18176747
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, draws on his own story of founding, running, selling, buying, managing, and investing in technology companies to offer essential advice and practical wisdom for navigating the toughest problems business schools don't cover. His blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet's first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, including demoting (or firing) a loyal friend;
whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;
if it's OK to hire people from your friend's company; how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you; what to do when smart people are bad employees; why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one; whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.

Filled with Horowitz's trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.]]> 304 Ben Horowitz 0062273205 David 3 read-2016, non-fiction 4.20 2014 The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship
author: Ben Horowitz
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2016/11/17
date added: 2016/11/28
shelves: read-2016, non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Swarm (The Second Formic War, #1)]]> 33003136
The first invasion of Earth was beaten back by a coalition of corporate and international military forces and the Chinese army. China has been devastated by the Formic's initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear into the other nations of the planet; that fear blossomed into drastic action when scientists determined that the single ship that wreaked such damage was merely a scout ship. There is a mothership out beyond the solar system's Kuiper Belt, and it's heading into the system, unstoppable by any weapons that Earth can muster.

Earth has been reorganized for defense. There is now a Hegemon, a planetary official responsible for keeping all the formerly warring nations in line. There's a Polemarch, responsible for organizing all the military forces of the planet into the new International Fleet. But there is an enemy within, an enemy as old as human warfare: ambition and politics. Greed and self-interest. Will Bingwen, Mazer Rackam, Victor Delgado, and Lem Juke be able to divert those very human enemies in time to create a weapon that can effectively defend humanity in the inexorable Second Formic War?

Full cast of narrators includes Susan Hanfield, Emily Rankin, Orson Scott Card, and Aaron Johnston.]]> Orson Scott Card David 0 to-read 3.96 2016 The Swarm (The Second Formic War, #1)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect]]> 64341 175 Roger Williams 1411602196 David 0 to-read 4.08 2006 The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
author: Roger Williams
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks]]> 26245038
The Seventh Sense is the story of what all of today's successful figures see and the forces that are invisible to most of us but explain everything from explosive technological change to uneasy political ripples. The secret to power now is understanding our new age of networks. Not merely the Internet, but also webs of trade, finance, and even DNA. Based on his years of advising generals, CEOs, and politicians, Ramo takes us into the opaque heart of our world's rapidly connected systems and teaches us what the losers are not yet seeing -- and what the victors of this age already know.]]> 352 Joshua Cooper Ramo 0316285064 David 0 to-read 3.63 2016 The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks
author: Joshua Cooper Ramo
name: David
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Irrational Knot 2956994 424 George Bernard Shaw 142183958X David 3 read-2015, nobel 3.60 1880 The Irrational Knot
author: George Bernard Shaw
name: David
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1880
rating: 3
read at: 2015/08/14
date added: 2016/09/25
shelves: read-2015, nobel
review:
Jane Austen? Jane Austen? Bernard Shaw has a nicer (and ironic) view of the world.
]]> <![CDATA[HistĂłrias Maravilhosas do Oriente]]> 2613834 127 Pearl S. Buck David 3 read-2015, nobel 3.00 1965 HistĂłrias Maravilhosas do Oriente
author: Pearl S. Buck
name: David
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/09
date added: 2016/09/25
shelves: read-2015, nobel
review:
the translation is not to my taste.
]]> <![CDATA[Six Memos for the Next Millennium]]> 9812 128 Italo Calvino 0099730510 David 0 to-read 4.25 1988 Six Memos for the Next Millennium
author: Italo Calvino
name: David
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/09/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> O Islão é Charlie? 24909582 88 Slavoj Žižek 9898775289 David 3 read-2015 3.20 2015 O Islão é Charlie?
author: Slavoj Žižek
name: David
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/17
date added: 2016/07/07
shelves: read-2015
review:
As pressas nunca foram boas conselheiras e embora o Zizek defenda esta escrita de supetĂŁo no inĂ­cio, do livro ficam 2 ou 3 ideias interessantes e o resto Ă© â€enchidosâ€� para encher as prateleiras dos tops das livrarias. Consegue ainda o â€milagreâ€� de ter a primeira edição marcada de 11 meses antes ao mĂŞs dos factos que originaram o livro.
]]> <![CDATA[The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty]]> 1105345 late Soetsu Yanagi was the first to fully explore the traditional Japanese appreciation for "objects born, not made."

Mr. Yanagi sees folk art as a manifestation of the essential world from which art, philosophy, and religion arise and in which the barriers between them disappear. The implications of the author's ideas are both far-reaching and practical.

Soetsu Yanagi is often mentioned in books on Japanese art, but this is the first translation in any Western language of a selection of his major writings. The late Bernard Leach, renowned British potter and friend of Mr. Yanagi for fifty years, has clearly transmitted the insights of one of Japan's
most important thinkers. The seventy-six plates illustrate objects that underscore the universality of his concepts. The author's profound view of the creative process and his plea for a new artistic freedom within tradition are especially timely now when the importance of craft and the handmade
object is being rediscovered.]]> 232 Soetsu Yanagi 0870119486 David 0 to-read 4.45 1972 The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty
author: Soetsu Yanagi
name: David
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/06/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> As Três Vidas 20359498 Passando pelo Alentejo, por Lisboa e por Nova Iorque em plenos anos oitenta - época de todas as ganâncias - e cruzando a história sangrenta do século XX com a das suas personagens, As Três Vidas é, simultaneamente, uma viagem de autodescobertas através do «outro» e a história da paixão do narrador por Camila, a neta mais velha de Milhouse Pascal, e do destino secreto que a aguarda; que estará, tal como o do avô, inexoravelmente ligado à sorte de um mundo que ameaça, a qualquer momento, resvalar da corda bamba em que se sustém.]]> 444 João Tordo 9724245489 David 3 read-2016 3.00 2008 As Três Vidas
author: JoĂŁo Tordo
name: David
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/12
date added: 2016/06/12
shelves: read-2016
review:
Começa lento, até um pouco chato, mas a partir do meio as personagens começam a fazer-nos companhia e a trama torna-se mais interessante. Não é brilhante, mas também não merece ser posto de parte à primeira contrariedade.
]]> <![CDATA[Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition: Key Moves and Motifs in the Middlegame]]> 22118550 301 Arthur van de Oudeweetering 905691538X David 0 4.10 2014 Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition: Key Moves and Motifs in the Middlegame
author: Arthur van de Oudeweetering
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/02/20
shelves: currently-reading, chess, games
review:

]]> Cada Homem é uma Raça 497859
Excerto:
"Inquirido sobre a sua raça, respondeu:
� A minha raça sou eu, João Passarinheiro.
Convidado a explicar-se, acrescentou:
� Minha raça sou eu mesmo. A pessoa é uma humanidade individual. Cada homem é uma raça, senhor polícia."]]> 181 Mia Couto 9722100718 David 4 to-read 3.87 1990 Cada Homem é uma Raça
author: Mia Couto
name: David
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2016/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Alice Munro's Best: Selected Stories]]> 13531679 Carried Away is a dazzling selection of stories–seventeen favorites chosen by the author from across her distinguished career.

Alice Munro has been repeatedly hailed as one of our greatest living writers, a reputation that has been growing for years. The stories brought together here span a quarter century, drawn from some of her earliest books, The Beggar Maid and The Moons of Jupiter, through her recent best-selling collection, Runaway.

Here are such favorites as “Royal Beatings� in which a young girl, her father, and stepmother release the tension of their circumstances in a ritual of punishment and reconciliation; “Friend of My Youth� in which a woman comes to understand that her difficult mother is not so very different from herself; and “The Albanian Virgin," a romantic tale of capture and escape in Central Europe that may or may not be true, told by an elderly married woman to her younger friend who is on a desperate adventure of her own..

Munro’s incomparable empathy for her characters, the depth of her understanding of human nature, and the grace and surprise of her narrative add up to a richly layered and capacious fiction. Like the World War I soldier in the title story, whose letters from the front to a small-town librarian he doesn’t know change her life forever, Munro’s unassuming characters insinuate themselves in our hearts and take permanent hold.

Carried Away, Alice Munro's Best and My Best Stories contain the same 17 works: Royal beatings -- The beggar maid -- The turkey season -- The moons of Jupiter -- The progress of love -- Miles City, Montana -- Friend of my youth -- Meneseteung -- Differently -- Carried away -- The Albanian virgin -- A wilderness station -- Vandals -- Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage -- Save the reaper -- Runaway -- The bear came over the mountain.]]> 536 Alice Munro 1551993937 David 0 to-read 4.38 2006 Alice Munro's Best: Selected Stories
author: Alice Munro
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective]]> 25670869
Controversial at its heart, yet refreshingly provocative, this book challenges readers to consider life without a destination and discovery without a compass.]]> 154 Kenneth O. Stanley 3319155245 David 0 to-read 4.00 2015 Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective
author: Kenneth O. Stanley
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Um Circo que Passa 24791695 A polícia, os bares duvidosos e as ruas de uma cidade simultaneamente amiga e inimiga - é nesta Paris dos anos 60 que acompanhamos a fuga e as deambulações de um casal à procura do amor. Uma história que tem como narrador Jean, e em que toda a ação gira em torno do seu relacionamento, aos dezassete anos, com a misteriosa Gisèle. Ambos têm muito a esconder um do outro. Partilham, porém, os mesmos sonhos.]]> 133 Patrick Modiano 9722056255 David 2 nobel, read-2016 3.40 Um Circo que Passa
author: Patrick Modiano
name: David
average rating: 3.40
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2016/02/13
date added: 2016/02/13
shelves: nobel, read-2016
review:
A non-story without great interest. Don't know if something was lost in the Portuguese translation, but the book doesn't capture any ambience that the french version might have. It looks like an enumeration of addresses in Paris that don't mean anything to anyone not living there.
]]> For Whom the Bell Tolls 840230
For Whom the Bell Tolls is Hemingway's finest novel, a passionate evocation of the pride and the tragedy of the Civil War that tore Spain apart.]]> 490 Ernest Hemingway 0099908603 David 5 3.88 1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: David
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1940
rating: 5
read at: 2014/08/11
date added: 2016/02/07
shelves: read-2014, to-read-again, nobel
review:
Hem. is a master. A must read and if you are interested in Europe History this is a highly vivid testimony of the Spanish civil war. Brilliant.
]]> Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira 19182702 274 José Saramago 9722122339 David 4 read-2014, nobel 4.51 1995 Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira
author: José Saramago
name: David
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2014/09/27
date added: 2016/02/07
shelves: read-2014, nobel
review:

]]> Os Cadernos de Dom Rigoberto 7623637 257 Mario Vargas Llosa David 3 read-2012, nobel 3.51 1997 Os Cadernos de Dom Rigoberto
author: Mario Vargas Llosa
name: David
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2012/05/14
date added: 2016/02/07
shelves: read-2012, nobel
review:
Um livro bem escrito, mas onde não há propriamente uma história, um fio condutor. Apenas um relato de episódios sequenciais, contrapostos por outros escritos que vão revelando D. Rigoberto, mas que por vezes são um pouco enfadonhos.
]]> <![CDATA[Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster]]> 357486 Written by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown—from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster—and their stories reveal the fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live. Composed of interviews in monologue form, Voices from Chernobyl is a crucially important work of immense force, unforgettable in its emotional power and honesty.]]> 236 Svetlana Alexievich 0312425848 David 5 nobel, read-2016 4.39 1997 Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
author: Svetlana Alexievich
name: David
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2016/02/07
date added: 2016/02/07
shelves: nobel, read-2016
review:
A great book about the feelings of those that live in the Zone. A great testimony that helps understand life and death in the aftermath of Chernobyl.
]]> <![CDATA[O Jardim do Éden (Colecção Mil Folhas, #6)]]> 6480875
David Bourne começa a receber cartas do editor com boas críticas ao seu segundo romance. Está ansioso por recomeçar a escrever, mas, afinal, ainda se encontra em lua-de-mel.

Catherina, sua mulher, encoraja-o a escrever, mas, na verdade, ressente-se com a separação. As tentações que lhe coloca à frente culminam numa ligação com outra mulher mais jovem e mais sensual, num jogo erótico e perigoso entre os três.

Hemingway revela aqui muita da ternura e vulnerabilidade geralmente obscurecidas pela sua imagem pĂşblica. Catherine Bourne Ă© uma das suas mais complexas e convincentes heroĂ­nas.

O Jardim do Éden é um livro provocador e surpreendentemente actual.]]> 222 Ernest Hemingway 8481305189 David 5 read-2015, nobel
This Portuguese translation has some translation problems. ]]> 3.32 1986 O Jardim do Éden (Colecção Mil Folhas, #6)
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: David
average rating: 3.32
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 2015/02/02
date added: 2016/02/05
shelves: read-2015, nobel
review:
Very few authors are able to write dialogs like Hemingway does. Although the book as some flaws (it was published after his death) it still is a brilliant piece of Hemingway writing. Highly recommended.

This Portuguese translation has some translation problems.
]]> As Intermitências da Morte 3234210 Assim começa este novo romance de José Saramago.
Colocada a hipótese, o autor desenvolve-a em todas as suas consequências, e o leitor é conduzido com mão de mestre numa ampla divagação sobre a vida, a morte, o amor, e o sentido, ou a falta dele, da nossa existência.]]> 216 José Saramago David 5 read-2015, nobel 4.31 2005 As Intermitências da Morte
author: José Saramago
name: David
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2015/02/25
date added: 2016/02/05
shelves: read-2015, nobel
review:
Este homem é um génio, não há muito a dizer, de uma ironia bestial que nos enovela enquanto o lemos, mesmo que em momentos se perca em divagações ou devaneios, mas não tem pressa de chegar, que tudo chegará a seu destino levando-nos pela pena da mestria. Recomenda-se vivamente.
]]> Rue des Boutiques Obscures 192377 250 Patrick Modiano 2070373584 David 0 to-read 3.72 1978 Rue des Boutiques Obscures
author: Patrick Modiano
name: David
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption & Death in Putin's Russia]]> 534686
A Russian Diary is the book that Anna Politkovskaya had recently completed when she was murdered in a contract killing in Moscow. It covers the period from the Russian elections of December 2003 to the tragic aftermath of the Beslan school siege in late 2005. The book is an unflinching record of the plight of millions of Russians and a pitiless report on the cynicism and corruption of Vladimir Putin’s presidency.]]> 400 Anna Politkovskaya 1400066824 David 0 to-read 4.19 2006 A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption & Death in Putin's Russia
author: Anna Politkovskaya
name: David
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Morte Sem Mestre 22472483 Herberto Helder tem por hábito encadernar os seus livros com papel de embrulho castanho, escrevendo por fora com caneta de feltro vermelha o título e o nome do autor. A sobrecapa da presente edição evoca esse hábito, reproduzindo a sua caligrafia. É ainda incluído um CD, com cinco poemas lidos por Herberto.]]> 64 Herberto Helder 9720046686 David 3 poesia, read-2016
Claro está que o parágrafo anterior tem uma grande probabilidade de ser um autêntico disparate -- ou não. ]]> 4.33 2014 A Morte Sem Mestre
author: Herberto Helder
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2016/01/18
date added: 2016/01/18
shelves: poesia, read-2016
review:
Um livro desigual, que me deixa com pensamentos ambivalentes em relação aos poemas nele contidos. Alguns, poucos, são uma estopada. Outros deixam-me indiferente. Por fim um ou dois sobressaem e fazem-me sorrir. Não fosse assim e o número de estrelinhas seria diferente. O mal destas é que não reflectem uma qualidade média como poderá dar a entender uma nota singular, mas entre o bom e o mau, o inspirado e o chouriço, mais ou menos estrelinhas e estaria sempre a cometer uma injustiça.

Claro está que o parágrafo anterior tem uma grande probabilidade de ser um autêntico disparate -- ou não.
]]> O Fio da Navalha 5995422 UM ROMANCE IMORTAL.
UM GRANDE CLĂSSICO DO SÉCULO XX!

Quando um amigo e colega de combate morre ao tentar salvá-lo, a vida de Larry Darrell muda para sempre. Para o jovem aviador americano, a morte passa então a ter um rosto. O inexorável mistério da morte leva-o a questionar o significado último da frágil condição humana e a embarcar numa obstinada e redentora odisseia espiritual.

Ao recusar viver segundo as convenções impostas pela sociedade, para buscar o sentido da vida (que encontrará, certa manhã, algures na Índia), Larry torna-se simultaneamente uma frustração para os que o rodeiam � principalmente para Isabel, a namorada, e Elliott, tio desta, que cultivam acima de tudo a aceitação e o prestígio sociais � e a personificação de um ideal de espiritualidade e não-compromisso.

"O Fio da Navalha" foi originalmente publicado em 1944, num mundo muito diferente do actual. Contudo, algumas das suas ansiedades e dúvidas permanecem: continuamos até hoje a buscar um sentido para a nossa existência, mas não queremos apenas deter esse conhecimento, queremos senti-lo no mais fundo de nós. Para encarnar essa luta contra o destino, Somerset Maugham criou uma das mais fascinantes personagens do seu vasto legado literário. Da Primeira à Segunda Guerra Mundial, passando pela Grande Depressão, ele leva-nos, através das sociedades francesa, americana e inglesa, à verdade mais recôndita da alma e do sentimento dos homens.]]> 276 W. Somerset Maugham David 4 read-2016, classics 4.30 1944 O Fio da Navalha
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: David
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1944
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/13
date added: 2016/01/13
shelves: read-2016, classics
review:
With a slow start -- that in the XXI century can be dangerous -- this is a book that grows in you as you engage with the characters and the style of the author.
]]> Walking on Glass 567667 344 Iain Banks 0349101787 David 4 read-2016, sci-fi 3.72 1985 Walking on Glass
author: Iain Banks
name: David
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/11
date added: 2016/01/11
shelves: read-2016, sci-fi
review:
Another master piece of one of Britain's most imaginative writers. Three entangled narratives about the absurdity of hour days in the 80's.
]]> <![CDATA[The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal]]> 20568711 500 Mihails Tals 1857449053 David 0 currently-reading 4.38 1978 The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal
author: Mihails Tals
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/01/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grand Prix Attack: f4 Against the Sicilian]]> 6263371 89 Julian Hodgson 0713445904 David 0 to-read 5.00 1985 Grand Prix Attack: f4 Against the Sicilian
author: Julian Hodgson
name: David
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/11/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 David 0 to-read 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Espedair Street 567668 368 Iain Banks 0349102147 David 4 read-2015 3.80 1987 Espedair Street
author: Iain Banks
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2015/09/09
date added: 2015/09/09
shelves: read-2015
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Various Haunts of Men (Simon Serrailler, #1)]]> 37040 438 Susan Hill 1585678767 David 4 read-2015, cop-crime 3.80 2004 The Various Haunts of Men (Simon Serrailler, #1)
author: Susan Hill
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2015/08/28
date added: 2015/08/28
shelves: read-2015, cop-crime
review:

]]> <![CDATA[O LadrĂŁo que Estudava Espinosa]]> 11984451 224 Lawrence Block 9727953042 David 3 read-2015, cop-crime 3.70 1980 O LadrĂŁo que Estudava Espinosa
author: Lawrence Block
name: David
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1980
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/20
date added: 2015/07/20
shelves: read-2015, cop-crime
review:
Funny and interesting but not the most engaging Cop/Crime/Thriller ever. Entertaining for a summer read.
]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 816815
One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, served as the basis of an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country.

A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father � a crusading local lawyer � risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.]]> 309 Harper Lee 0099419785 David 4 read-2015 4.32 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: David
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/19
date added: 2015/07/19
shelves: read-2015
review:

]]> I Am Pilgrim (Pilgrim, #1) 18395043
A father publicly beheaded in the blistering sun of Saudi Arabia.

A man's eyes stolen from his living body as he leaves a secret Syrian research laboratory.

Smouldering human remains on a mountainside in the Hindu Kush.

A plot to commit an appalling crime against humanity.

One thread that binds them all.

One man to take the journey.

Pilgrim.]]> 894 Terry Hayes 0552160962 David 4 cop-crime, read-2015 4.24 2013 I Am Pilgrim (Pilgrim, #1)
author: Terry Hayes
name: David
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2015/05/23
date added: 2015/05/23
shelves: cop-crime, read-2015
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)]]> 1048424 Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom, Co-Winner of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009!

The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr. Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways--both successful and unsuccessful--of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.]]> 298 Elinor Ostrom 0521405998 David 3 4.20 1990 Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
author: Elinor Ostrom
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/24
date added: 2015/03/24
shelves: complex-systems, read-2015, science, social-science
review:

]]> Factotum 497199
Charles Bukowski's posthumous legend continues to grow. Factotum is a masterfully vivid evocation of slow-paced, low-life urbanity and alcoholism, and an excellent introduction to the fictional world of Charles Bukowski.]]> 205 Charles Bukowski 0876852630 David 5 read-2015 3.95 1975 Factotum
author: Charles Bukowski
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 2015/03/03
date added: 2015/03/03
shelves: read-2015
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries]]> 10822774 Based on deep and extensive research, including more than 200 interviews with leading innovators, Sims discovered that productive, creative thinkers and doers—from Ludwig van Beethoven to Thomas Edison and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos—practice a key set of simple but ingenious experimental methods—such as failing quickly to learn fast, tapping into the genius of play, and engaging in highly immersed observation—that free their minds, opening them up to making unexpected connections and perceiving invaluable insights. These methods also unshackle them from the constraints of overly analytical thinking and linear problem solving that our education places so much emphasis on, as well as from the fear of failure, all of which thwart so many of us in trying to be more innovative.
Reporting on a fascinating range of research, from the psychology of creative blocks to the influential Silicon Valley–based field of design thinking, Sims offers engaging and wonderfully illuminating accounts of breakthrough innovators at work, including how Hewlett-Packard stumbled onto the breakaway success of the first hand-held calculator; the remarkable storyboarding process at Pixar films that has been the key to their unbroken streak of box office successes; the playful discovery process by which Frank Gehry arrived at his critically acclaimed design for Disney Hall; the aha revelation that led Amazon to pursue its wildly successful affiliates program; and the U.S. Army’s ingenious approach to counterinsurgency operations that led to the dramatic turnaround in Iraq.
Fast paced and as entertaining as it is illuminating, Little Bets offers a whole new way of thinking about how to break away from the narrow strictures of the methods of analyzing and problem solving we were all taught in school and unleash our untapped creative powers.]]> 224 Peter Sims 1439170428 David 0 to-read 3.76 2011 Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
author: Peter Sims
name: David
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life]]> 50461 309 Howard Sounes 0802136974 David 0 to-read 4.21 1998 Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life
author: Howard Sounes
name: David
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pulp 141526 208 Charles Bukowski 0876859260 David 5 read-2015 Great Buk, as always. 3.71 1994 Pulp
author: Charles Bukowski
name: David
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2015/02/18
date added: 2015/02/18
shelves: read-2015
review:
Great Buk, as always.
]]> Dr. Bloodmoney 756969 304 Philip K. Dick 185798952X David 4 read-2015, sci-fi
It's only fiction and a lovely written one from one of the classic masters of it! Recommended reading! ]]> 3.52 1965 Dr. Bloodmoney
author: Philip K. Dick
name: David
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2015/02/12
date added: 2015/02/12
shelves: read-2015, sci-fi
review:
In the afterword of my copy, Philip Dick escuses himself for the errors in his `predictions' at the time of writting. I think he shouldn't because those "errors" are not really important, but one thing that puzzled was not the a prediction but a logic inconsistency: If at the time they were able to build radios/transmitters (AM radio) to talk to and back the satellite why couldn't they use them to communicate between the different post WW3 communities that had them? why did global communication rely solely on the Satellite? Why couldn't they re-invent the telegraph (much simpler than any kind of modulation). Argh Ham Radio enthusiasts must have gone mad with this book because of this. But...

It's only fiction and a lovely written one from one of the classic masters of it! Recommended reading!
]]> <![CDATA[Simply Complexity: A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory]]> 6076145
Complexity is considered by many to be the single most important scientific development since general relativity and it promises to make sense of no less than the very heart of the Universe. Using it, scientists can find order emerging from seemingly random interactions of all kinds, from something as simple as flipping coins through to more challenging problems such as the patterns in modern jazz, the growth of cancer tumours, and predicting shopping habits.]]> 256 Neil Johnson 1851686304 David 0 to-read 3.41 2007 Simply Complexity: A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory
author: Neil Johnson
name: David
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Chess Combination (Dover Chess)]]> 85203 The great modern teacher begins by examining the games of master players, including Capablanca, Alekhine, Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Tarrasch, Reti, Mason, Morphy, Bird, Euwe, Emanuel Lasker, etc. The games are grouped according to common features, and perceptively analyzed to determine what conclusions may be drawn. Znosko-Borovsky shows that every combination, however complicated, begins in a simple idea, such as an undefended piece, the bad position of the hostile king, the promotion of a pawn, or a discovered check.
The Art of Chess Combination will improve the game of anyone who knows how to move individual pieces but finds it hard to plan many moves ahead to make the pieces work together. The exposition is easily understood; technical terms are almost completely avoided but clarity and precision remain.
"In the teaching of chess he may claim to have no superior." � Philip W. Sergeant.]]> 240 Eugène Znosko-Borovsky 0486205835 David 0 to-read, chess 3.74 1959 The Art of Chess Combination (Dover Chess)
author: Eugène Znosko-Borovsky
name: David
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/02/06
shelves: to-read, chess
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Perfect Swarm: The Science of Complexity in Everyday Life]]> 7193520 The Perfect Swarm will delight anyone who wants to understand the complex situations in which we so often find ourselves.]]> 288 Len Fisher 046501884X David 0 to-read 3.45 2009 The Perfect Swarm: The Science of Complexity in Everyday Life
author: Len Fisher
name: David
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software]]> 2296 Being Digital and The Tipping Point, Steven Johnson, acclaimed as a "cultural critic with a poet's heart" (The Village Voice), takes readers on an eye-opening journey through emergence theory and its applications. Explaining why the whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its parts, Johnson presents surprising examples of feedback, self-organization, and adaptive learning. How does a lively neighborhood evolve out of a disconnected group of shopkeepers, bartenders, and real estate developers? How does a media event take on a life of its own? How will new software programs create an intelligent World Wide Web?

In the coming years, the power of self-organization -- coupled with the connective technology of the Internet -- will usher in a revolution every bit as significant as the introduction of electricity. Provocative and engaging, Emergence puts you on the front lines of this exciting upheaval in science and thought.

]]> 288 Steven Johnson 0684868768 David 0 to-read 3.95 2001 Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
author: Steven Johnson
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> O Físico Prodigioso 6172750 No castelo, o jovem prepara um banho com o seu próprio sangue, onde se deverá banhar a dama, para terror dos físicos e do capelão. Estes, após o restauro da beleza e da saúde da dama, são apanhados na mesma banheira, esperando o mesmo resultado e, depois de os expulsar, o jovem destrói o líquido. Quando resolve confirmar o resultado do tratamento, envolve-se com a dama. Mas será esta a personagem inocente e perdida que faz crer?

Autor:
Jorge de Sena não ganhou o prémio Nobel por não ser reconhecido internacionalmente.
O poeta, crítico, ensaísta e professor universitário nos EUA morreu com 58 anos.
Considerado um dos maiores intelectuais portugueses do séc. XX, não viu a sua obra divulgada, possível razão para a não atribuição do prémio.Finisterra]]> 137 Jorge de Sena 9724114376 David 5 read-2015 Pure Genius. 3.85 1977 O Físico Prodigioso
author: Jorge de Sena
name: David
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at: 2015/01/27
date added: 2015/01/27
shelves: read-2015
review:
Pure Genius.
]]> The Wasp Factory 230066
]]> 184 Iain Banks 0708825362 David 4 read-2015 Great. 3.77 1984 The Wasp Factory
author: Iain Banks
name: David
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2015/01/24
date added: 2015/01/24
shelves: read-2015
review:
Great.
]]> Carl Sagan - Vida e Obra 13618013 San Francisco Chronicle, aims to explain this complicated man in his biography. One thing is clear: Sagan was an extremely difficult man to love, a scientist whose passion for astronomy and biology was unparalleled, but who had little ability to express basic emotions to his wives and children. Davidson looks for reasons for this emotional distance in Sagan's childhood, when his relationship with his mother was intense and sometimes difficult. She encouraged her bright young son to be an "intellectual omnivore," to be passionate about knowledge, but she didn't give him the tools to relate to humans as individuals.

As his stellar science career developed, Sagan built a reputation as a leftist who believed that "science could serve liberal ideals," and as an arrogant man with an unshakable confidence in his own brain. Davidson writes that Sagan developed his famous skepticism as an undergraduate. Sagan suffered from a "troubling mix of intense emotion and stark rationalism," writes Davidson. He succeeded (mostly) in balancing passion with reason, a balance that made him a perfect popularizer of science, a trustworthy authority who preached that an open mind was the most valuable scientific tool. Davidson was influenced personally by Sagan's writings, and he sometimes works a little too hard at puncturing the myths surrounding Sagan, but this biography is one that deserves to be read by Sagan's fans and detractors alike. It's a compelling, very real assessment of an all-too-human god of science. --Therese Littleton

]]> 624 Keay Davidson 9725300823 David 0 currently-reading 4.00 1999 Carl Sagan - Vida e Obra
author: Keay Davidson
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/01/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]> 89724 Shirley Jackson's beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family's dark secret.

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features an afterword by Jonathan Lethem.]]> 152 Shirley Jackson 0143039970 David 4 read-2014 3.93 1962 We Have Always Lived in the Castle
author: Shirley Jackson
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2014/12/29
date added: 2014/12/29
shelves: read-2014
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Uma Existência De Papel, Com Uma Fotografia Do Autor]]> 24106866 Colecção Pedra de Canto / 4 53 Al Berto David 3 poesia, read-2014 4.50 1985 Uma Existência De Papel, Com Uma Fotografia Do Autor
author: Al Berto
name: David
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 2014/12/26
date added: 2014/12/26
shelves: poesia, read-2014
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Winning with the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation (Subtitle: Fischer's Weapon)]]> 23154814 147 Andrew Soltis 0875681972 David 3 4.00 1992 Winning with the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation (Subtitle: Fischer's Weapon)
author: Andrew Soltis
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2014/12/20
date added: 2014/12/20
shelves: chess, to-read-again, read-2014
review:

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