The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (P. Hoffman)

Admittedly, the life of a mathematician doesn’t quite make a likely beach reading. I was surprised by myself as I packed it in my backpack on the way to Kona, but surely do not regret it. Mathematicians, as the book quotes, are all a bit out of their mind. Their make wonderfully eccentric characters that charm you even where the subject matter of their work bores you. That was the case with Alan Turing (Enigma), John Nash (A Beautiful Mind), and a lot of other mathematicians. Continue reading

Baudolino (U. Eco)

There is something that always fascinated me about Umberto Eco: he manages to remain faithful to his main theme, to focus more and more on it, to become a better writer, to accomplish more and better things; and yet he is tied to trail his own success with his first novel. “The Name of the Rose” was an admirable exercise in medieval crime novel, and was so successful that it spawned an enormous following of second and third (and fourth) tier colleagues. Continue reading

Hawaii the Big Island Revealed

I am taking a week off in September to celebrate my birthday by myself and chose my favorite vacation spot: Hawaii. This time it’s going to be the Big Island herself, largest mass in the Central Pacific by far. And of course I needed a good guide book. Wizard Publishing has a wonderful set of books, created and written with care (if with a tiny bit too much enthusiasm) on three of the major Hawaiian islands. Continue reading

The C++ Programming Language (B. Stroustrup)

Sometimes the inventor of a specific thing is the best person to explain it. There is no better way to learn about relativity than to go back to the original article written by Einstein; how better could anyone explain the value of existentialism than Sartre; Kernighan and Ritchie did a wonderful job at explaining C. Stroustrup is not one of these. I recall the first time I read his book, back twenty years ago or so. Continue reading

Inside Intel

One would have thought it quite unnecessary to read yet another book on Intel after reading “Only the Paranoid Survive”. The latter, though, is written by exactly the person that is responsible for all the odd confrontationalism that is so typical of the company, so that I needed one more voice to get clarity. Well, as I expected to be true, Inside Intel is indeed much more objective about the company, relating very extensively how the bully nature of the CEO could mold the company into a litigious, litigant and confrontational work environment. Continue reading

A Short History of Byzantium (J.J. Norwich) - 2

I finally finished the History of Byzantium and feel compelled to add a few comments to the previous ones. Nothing changed in my assessment of the author’s capabilities: the final chapters are as intriguing as the initial ones, and at no time was the infinite list of names confusing. Norwich succeeds in making all the parties involved come to their own life, personalizing each appearance of any of them and thus making it possible to discern the infinite list of Constantines, Michaels, Johns, etc. Continue reading

A Short History of Byzanz

Midway through the abbreviated version of the history of Byzanz. The author started out with a three volume history that he had to abridge for the general public – and since I am general public, that’s what I chose to read. First things first: the history of Byzanz itself is immensely fascinating. We are talking about an empire that understands itself as the SOLE successor of Rome (with a certain appropriateness), but is actually not a real power player. Continue reading

Only the Paranoids Survive (Andy Grove)

That’s one book that came with high praise! Only the Paranoids Survive is the kind of book you have to have read to be able to keep up with everyone else that constantly talks about it. And like any required reading, I was a little uncomfortable with this one, trying to fend it off and push it away as long as I could. The first chapter than did it for me. Continue reading

Frederick II (Abulafia)

Closing in on the end of Abulafia’s famed biography of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Two Sicilies in the XIII century. Fascinating book, with all the factual accuracy that one could wish for, and a much more realistic view of the emperor than in any other book I have read so far. Frederick and I date back very far. Turns out his home town of Waiblingen is actually just a few commuter train stops from Ludwigsburg, where I (partially) grew up. Continue reading