h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How far along are you?

Schrodingers cat . brain hurts.

Coincidentally I've started John Gribbin's In Search of Schrodinger's Cat. So far he's covered (in more-or-less historical order) the model of the atom and wave-particle duality up to about 1920. This is stuff I generally understood, but it's good to go over it again and there's some useful stuff, like telling you to try not to think of electrons orbiting the nucleus, because it's the picture most people have and unhelpful in understanding quantum theory.

He also did a sequel "In search of Schrodinger's kittens" about the consequences of the quantum models and the further and continuing paradoxes of reality.

Hard going, I agree but as a science populariser, it's where I was first introduced to these concepts when I found his books on a discarded shelf at college. There I began my own re-education in this subject. I've a stack of John Gibbon's "in search of" books on my shelf now (the big bang, the edge of time..) as well as the Birth of Time which has a useful summary about geological dating methods at the beginning Hutton through Lord Kelvin, Rutherford etc..

iv read bill brysons - it goes on for a while, personally i found the geology swtuff a bit boring, though i didnt know that contour lines cae from the same experiment as finding the mass of every large body in the known solar system

Edit: John Gribbins not Gibbons.

Just read "The Island" by Victoria Hislop. Don't normally go for contemporary fiction, and nearly stopped after I found myself welling up during chapter 3, but returned to it (and polished it off) tonight. Enjoyed the backstory, but not the present-day subplot it was sandwiched in.

Mol

having finished what will probably be my only Stieg Larsson book (turned out to be The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in English)

I'm now reading Lonely on the Mountains by Louis L'Amour which is the last novel about the Sackett family.

So I finished with my cowboys and am now about to start on The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax - Irreverent essays on the study of language by Geoffrey K. Pullum. Looks interesting.

I'm 2/3 through Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett at the moment.

Just ripped the packaging off Joann Sfar's "Vampire Loves"

No, not some bodice-ripper; it's a comic.

Reading "Batavia's Graveyard", about Dutch seafarers, mutiny, heretics and murder. The author infers a lot of things from evidence that's a bit - well, highly - shaky and tenuous, but the history he does have hard evidence for is very interesting.

That sounds great, KB.

I've just laid aside Reading Lolita in Tehran in favour of The Crowded Shadows by Celine Kiernan instead. 2nd in the Moorhawke Trilogy and jogging along nicely thank you very much.

Just had a bit of a Banks binge. I've finished Transition - his latest. Still not sure what to think about it...it's not quite a return to form, more of a return to the conspiranoia theories of The Business. But it has some good bits. I'll give it another read in a few months' time.

Then I picked up The Algebraist again - not read this since I bought it when it was first published. It really is good, and much better than any of the more recent Culture novels that he's written (Inversions, Look To Windward, Matter). I recommend it to all lovers of Iain Banks at his best, and all sci-fi readers generally.

RF

Right now 1/4 of the way through Dance Of Death, another Preston-Child collaboration( http://www.prestonchild.com ).

Just finished "The Stars, my Destination", one the the Sci-Fi masterworks series. It was pretty good actually.

I've also read "I luv Halloween", a graphical collection showing the Halloween antics of some kids in a town called Turgid Meadows. I loved it, which probably says something about my sense of homour.

Finished and re-read most of Marx for Beginners last night (couldn't sleep..). Quite interesting I suppose, but more light than heat I think.

(Note to Ed, he's wrong about the labour theory of value, so all those 'and logically it follows..' bits are wrong)

Well, I'm still working my way through Rebels and Traitors, and In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, but I've gone and picked up And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer. It's a sequel to a little-known series of books by some guy named Adams. We get a bit of a reference when the Guide Mk 2 (that's the evil bird thing from Mostly Harmless) is referred to as H2G2-2.

Just finished "The Death of Grass" (thankyouthankyouthankyou, Thatprat!). Good stuff! I loved the way the author managed to get across each person's actions, and the changes in them that happened over just a few days, without moralizing about it.

This morning on my way to work, I started one of the books I picked up Friday, "The Order of Odd-Fish". It's by a local author and I guess it's written for teenagers, but after just 50 pages or so in, holy crap is it entertaining already. A bit surreal for 6 AM, but such is life.

Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole - Dr. Jerri Nielsen with Maryanne Vollers