This section contains some reviews and other information on books I've read. Send comments, suggestions and/or flames to spapadim+@cs.cmu.edu. Some of the reviews are edited version of older ones I submitted to Amazon.com.

Jacques Hadamard was one of the best known analysts during the turn of the century. This is one of his books for a wide audience, about the processes ocurring in the course of invention in general, and in mathematics in particular. It is definitely interesting to read what a well-known mathematician has to say on this. The author makes frequent references to a talk given by Henri Poincaré about the same topic, which is also particularly interesting to read (and gives a glimpse of thought processes not frequently occuring among mere mortals ;-). I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in the topic, regardless of their mathematical background. Hadamard's writing is in a conversational style, which makes the book quite pleasant and easy to read.

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Philosophy of the science of probability
This book, originally written around 1920, presents the foundations of probability in a very simple and clear way. It is not concerned so much with the formal aspects, but with the basic ideas and intuition behind the concept of probability. It also provides a brief view of the historical development of these concepts, as well as misconceptions and wrong turns of the past. If you aren't mathematically... retarded (can you divide, add and multiply? :-), this book should be very easy to follow, but that does not necessarily make it uninteresting. Besides, a possibly important feature of the book is that it is simple enough to read in bed, when (at least) my brain operates with almost marginal efficiency. ;-) Given the little time it took to read, I think it was well worth it.

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A chorus of views...
If the OpenSource movement intrigues you, then this book is definitely for you. This book is a collection of essays from some of the most prominent figures in the OpenSource movement and all of them are interesting. From Michael Tiemann's pragmatic essay to Richard Stallman's highly political and ethical one, and from Larry Wall's wacky essay to Linus Torvald's matter-of-fact presentation of Linux and its history, all are worth reading, maybe for different reasons each. I could also mention Eric Raymond's "ethnographic" essays about hackers and Tim O'Reilly's short but interesting article on today's software (or "infoware"). I think that whichever one you pick, you'll find it at least interesting (whether you agree or not is a different issue, of course).

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Easy reading, yet very interesting!
I picked up this book out of a longstanding curiosity about the English language and I cannot put it down! I am not a native speaker of English -- although I had my first contact with (Brittish) English at the age of six -- and this book was a pleasant surprise! It reveals the multitudinous forces that have shaped the English language and its numerous variants since the very beginning, until today. It also presents the relation between language and culture quite eloquently; the story of English is very interesting precisely because the story of its speakers throughout the world is so rich!

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Good... entertainment value (at least)
Well, okay, I didn't exactly read the entire book; I just came across it (a friend had it and was practically raving about it) and I've read a little less than a third of the book. I agree with someone who said that the book asks you about adjectives (ten times each, just in case you don't know the definition of an adjective, or the various possible gradations of the attribute it describes) and then tells you what adjectives you chose. Yes, this is an oversimplification, but not by much... Those things that are not "by definition" true in the descriptions (there are some), are often not very well justified (instead the authors go about rephrasing the same things). However, it is still better to read these explanations, rather than jump directly to the 2-page description of one of the 16 categories.

However, the book was at least quite entertaining (more so than those silly "tests" in, um, Cosmo and such mags, I guess --- hopefully the authors have nothing to do with those...? ;-) and although not extremely profound (in the sense I described above), was not all that uninteresting.

I'm also a bit lenient in my rating, since I haven't read it entirely. Oh, in case you're wondering... I'm an INTP according to the book...

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Highly recommended introduction to the world's religions
I decided to read this book mainly out of curiosity, and because I heard that it treats religions as human. Myself being an avowed atheist, I must admit that the book changed my attitude towards religion (although I still remain an atheist, in case you are wondering, but that is not my point). The author's exposition of his subject is brilliant, to say the least. Full of well-chosen and instructive examples, the book communicates clearly the basic ideas of the most important religions. The author is not particularly concerned with historical details, religious institutions and social settings (though he doesn't completely omit them). An alternative title, according to the author, might be "The World's Greatest Wisdom Traditions." The book examines "pure" religion; maybe the worst mistake religion ever made was to get mixed up with people... but then again, maybe not?

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Raises some valid issues, but...
I began reading this book a long time ago (and I was mistaken for an Objectivist at some point). Well, I should tell you that I never managed to finish it (I quit about 2/3 of the way). The book does raise some valid and interesting issues and presents them in the form of an "heroic epic" (not exactly dispassionate and maybe not the best way to introduce a "philosophy", but this is a novel after all). I've seen exaggerated judgements about the latter, that, I have to admit, do not really apply. However, from a literary perspective, it is true that the books does get monotonous after some point.

More importantly, ethics may be a not-so-bad pastime, however I'm personally more interested in how things are and not how they should be, especially if suggestions about the latter do not take the former seriously under consideration. Of course I do not proclaim to know how things are (on the contrary, I'm a poor clueless geek :-), but Ayn Rand's objectivism is no less utopian than socialistic theories (which one of the two you may prefer is, to a great extent, besides the point here).

Maybe if the book was shorter and/or less boring (after a point) I would have finished it; you, however, may have an entirely different opinion...

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