Oracle Night : A Novel (Auster, Paul) Paul Auster has the talent to wed ordinary, fantastic, impossible, and tragic events into the fabric of a story. He demonstrates this to varying degrees in a number of his books, some more fantastic and impossible than others. Oracle Night has fantastic elements but also contains, for me, [...]
I’m not sure why I picked up the The Mapmaker’s Wife, by Robert Whitaker, at our local library (The Central Rappahannock Regional Library), but I’m glad I did. He spins a tale of adventure, scientific exploration, bad decisions, bad luck, atrocious conditions, and perseverance. The book is set in 17th Century Peru (what is now [...]
A few stories are starting to appear about the new book “The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden” by Stanley Kunitz and, our friend Genine Lentine. In the NY Times: A Poet in Winter Relishes Spring in His Garden – New York Times Stanley Kunitz, Pulitzer Prize winner, poet laureate [...]
I just finished reading “The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World” by Michael Pollan. What an enjoyable book! Pollan’s writing is intelligent, witty, and just a pleasure to read. We correctly have the notion that we effect the plants in our environment. Not doubting that or diminishing our role in our environment, [...]
In his book “The Universal Computer The Road From Leibniz To Turing,” Martin Davis presents a history of the development of logic that focus on creating a system in which computation is purely symbolic . Starting with Leibniz’s ‘wonderful idea’ – a language based on an alphabet whose “elements represented not sounds, but concepts. A [...]
We’re leaving for a two-week trip in a few days and so we’ve go to return our books to the Library, because they can only be checked out for two weeks. We love our library – The Central Rappahannock Regional Library. It has a great collection and a very good online presence. It has been [...]
Once again, I’m working with a co-author, Karen Anewalt on a book project. It’s a text-book with working title “A Practical Introduction to Web Server Applications.” A book for students who want to know how to set up and use a Web server to provide applications on the Web. It deals almost entirely with tools, [...]
Tagged Books, TeachingI was reading a portion of Identity Theft by John R. Vacca. The book is nicely done with straightforward information and it is well organized. One of the sections of the book described some relatively easy ways to find information about someone and also mentioned some sites where you can get fake or ‘novelty’ ids. [...]
I found the book “A Shortcut Through Time” By George Johnson, published by Alfred A Knopf, 2003, ISBN 0-375-41193-3 on the recent additions shelf of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library. It was the subtitle, “The Path to the Quantum Computer” , that really got me interested. I teach computer science at Mary Washington College and [...]
Tagged Books, quantum computing, review