January 9, 2009
Review, What to Read
No Comments
Why I chose it
This book is on my two favourite lists - 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (amazon)
, and 501 Must Read Books (amazon)
.
The Buzz
1001 books:
Neuromancer is an enduring work because it combines the pace and urgency of the best fiction, with the scope, invention and intellectual rigour of Orwell or Huxley. Perhaps its most compelling and disquieting feature, however, is Gibson’s refusal to make any clear-cut moral distinctions between virtual and organic life, between program and reality.
501 books:
Neuromancer is known as the first book of the Cyberpunk genre, the book that introduced the concept of Cyberspace. … The concept of cyberspace as a habitable place, far prefereable to reality was so perfectly thought out and worked so well it inspired a whole new generation of sci-fi writers.
What I reckon
This is reputed to be the first of the cyberpunk genre, and is always a genre I suspected I would enjoy (sci-fi computer geek). And I did.
Neuromancer is the story of a clapped out drug addicted loser who becomes a maestro when he is jacked in to cyberspace. He travels that world of non-physics and hyperreality with ease. However, the real world controls him as his body is manipulated by corporates and financiers who aim to use his skills for their benefit.
The book is more like an experience than a story. There is a plot, characters and a conspiracy, but it is much more about the ride.
I spent the whole time reading this book unable to believe it was written in 1984. It truely reads as a creative take on what the world be like in the near future, when cyberspace interactions are virtual. Unbelievable.
The copy of Neuromancer I read was registered with Bookcrossing and came to me via a bookring. I sent it on to the next ring participant.
What else to read?
When I raved about this book, a friend, tqd, suggested some other titles with mini reviews.
Any
other William Gibson, especially earlier ones eg. The Virtual Light trilogy (LibraryThing, Amazon
), Pattern Recognition (LibraryThing, Amazon
)
Neal
Stephenson (Snowcrash (LibraryThing, Amazon
) is a great read, but overall I like The Diamond Age
better (Libarything, Amazon
);
and Cryptomonicon (LibraryThing, Amazon
) is AWESOME, but a very weak ending, but still
recommended, if you have time for a 900+ page novel 
The Librarything Suggester top 10 recommendations are:
William Gibson: Mona Lisa Overdrive (LibraryThing, Amazon
), Count Zero (LibraryThing, Amazon
), All tomorrow’s Parties (LibraryThing, Amazon
, Burning Chrome (LibraryThing, Amazon
)
Bruce Sterling: Islands in the net (LibraryThing, Amazon
) or Globalhead (LibraryThing, Amazon
)
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (LibraryThing, Amazon
)
Pat Cadigan: Synners (LibraryThing, Amazon
)
Rudy Rucker: Software (LibraryThing, Amazon
)
December 29, 2008
Review, What to Read
No Comments
I enjoy the writing of Leo Babauta (Zen Habits) and came across his 50 favourite fiction and 20 favourite non-fiction books.
This guy is one of my favourite internet writers, so I am enticed by his recommendations.
Top Five Zen Habits Non-fiction books:
The nonfiction books are mainly self-help. This is a whole new genre beyond the non-fiction novel, which I am more familiar with. I have read a couple from this list, and they are excellent. If you have not read anything in this area, it is a whole different experience to reading fiction.
- Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robins.
- Slowing Down to the Speed of Life, by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey.
- Simplify Your Life, by Elaine St. James.
- The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama.
- Getting Things Done, by David Allen.
Top Five Zen Habits Fiction books:
The fiction list was inspired by the other classic must-read lists, and it contains a lot of old faithfuls, but also some unexpected gems.
- King Lear, by Shakespeare
- Hamlet, by Shakespeare.
- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Tender Is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, by James Joyce
August 26, 2008
Finding books, Review
2 Comments
I live in fear of a Mount TBR (to be read) avalanche, but I still can’t get enough book recommendations. One of my favourite tools for book recommendations is LibraryThing.
LibraryThing begins as a book cataloguing service - up to 200 books for free, and and your whole library for a small lifetime membership fee. You can do all the standard things - tag and search your books, add notes and reviews and select cover art for display. Fancy graphics let you visualize your library as a montage of covers. Maybe some readers would find that enough.
But the real value comes in leveraging crowd-sourced information through the libraries of others. You can select a user-uploaded cover, if Amazon doesn’t supply one to match yours. And you can see others with similar libraries, and get recommendations of what books you might like, based on the books you already have. This is a cool feature. I used to only enter books as I read them, and not my big pile of TBR’s. The recommendation feature would routinely serve me up a list of the unread books I had sitting on my bookshelf. So cool.
Other cool features include the inclusion of real libraries, and libraries of famous dead people, or current authors. They have a unique Early Reviewers program, that allocates books to those with the most appropriate library. And if you don’t like amazon reviews, this is an excellent source for book reviews.
