Saturday, January 22, 2011

Reading List Again

Owen decided to get up at 3:30 this morning, so I thought I might as well write a post while I watch him play. It's a little early to try to write anything complicated, so I'll just do a reading list again.

Currently Reading:

The Drunkard's Walk, Leonard Mlodinow
This is a nice non-mathematical discussion of randomness and probability. It has a good description of a few of the common counterintuitive probability questions, like the Monty Hall Problem and the Two Child Problem.

Anton, Dale Eisler
See the previous entry.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics
Ditto.

Recently Read:

American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Great. I really enjoyed this one.

Gödel's Proof, Ernest Nagel and James Newman
Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is a great landmark in mathematical thought. While Gödel's actual paper is quite technical, the ideas are not too difficult to understand without getting too deep into the technical details. This book is a nice explanation of Gödel's proof and its implications.

In the "To Read" Pile:

A Spark at the End of Summer, David Glen Kerr
This is the first book in the Creation Myth series. I went to school with the author, and I'm looking forward to getting into this one.

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
Room, Emma Donoghue
Full Dark No Stars, Stephen King
Lisey's Story, Stephen King
Shalimar the Clown, Salman Rushdie
A Mathematical Nature Walk, John Adam

Also, recently I've been reading a lot of Curious George for some reason :).