Saturday, May 20, 2006

Why no book reviews?

I have been writing, just not here. Our church needs some material for introductory classes, so I wrote it. What with the many other things going on at the same time (writing DAQ software for one experiment, scrounging parts for a spark chamber demo, working on the silicon detector trigger for another experiment, trying to revamp a muon trigger, and puzzling through an astrophysics problem--not to mention family obligations) I've been a wee bit short of time.

I don't really think of them as book reviews so much as holding up my end of a dialog between the author and myself.

But I've read a few books along the way. Developing Talents by Temple Grandin is about how Aspergers folks can find jobs. I'm buying our own copy. Ten Questions to Diagnose your Spritual Health by Donald Whitney is just what it says: a set of questions and examples to set you trying to decide what is keeping you from growing as a Christian and how to get rid of it. Not perfect, but very much worth reading and thinking about. The Day of the False King by Brad Geagley is the second book (oops) in a series of detective stories about an ancient Egyptian detective. My wife says the first (The Year of the Hyena) is better, which doesn't surprise me. The False King tries very hard to give a flavor of the environment, but leaves out lots of details like what people ate--it left an unbalanced feel. The Insect Room was both a foolish plot-hole and not nearly so horrible as the real punishments the Babylonians had in store.

I still plan to write about Dogs of God.

I'm reading slowly through Prayer; re-reading Watership Down (we've got a new rabbit), reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Persian Mirrors, Reflections on the Psalms, From Babel to Dragomans, Exploring Java, and re-reading My Favorite Intermissions.

I don't think I'll be finished with any of them this week.

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