The river of books trickles in.
There once was an idea to buy some books. Some books became a few more books and suddenly there were a lot of books being bought. I don’t exactly want to check how many it ended up being, but there were a lot of them. The first one reached the door today, and I suppose there is some subtle irony that the first arrival was Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Commemorative Edition) (Princeton Classic Editions) by John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, Ariel Rubinstein, and Harold William Kuhn. The math will be a bit of a challenge, but most of the content seems quite approachable, and it was a book I really felt I should read and own.
On the other hand, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World by General Sir Rupert Smith is still upstream somewhere and is one of the first books I wish to devour once I finish my current reading list, which include Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, Permutation City by Greg Egan as well as a re-reading of Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter.
Somewhere in the river of books we also find I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by USMC, Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings (New Directions Paperbook) by Jorge Luis Borges, Andre Maurois, Donald A. Yates, and James E. Irby, as well as Two-Person Game Theory by Anatol Rapoport. Oh, and The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, and some more random stuff, like Feynman Lectures On Physics (3 Volume Set) by Richard Phillips Feynman, duh.
If you’re seeing a pattern to this I’d suggest you seek professional help, and welcome to the boat — the river of books is frothy today.
on August 10th, 2007 at 00:32
Funny, I read military books once in a while. I used to read a bunch of em when I was playing strategy sims when I was younger, but not lately. However here are two that I particularly like :
Ron Atkinson’s An Army at Dawn (won the pulitzer), i think he has the 2nd book out on his trilogy.
I am working through Erich Von Manstein’s Lost Victories, which i finally got my hands on after they reprinted it. This is a really awesome read, one of the most insightful and sharp memoirs to come out of the war. Better than anything I’ve read actually.
on August 10th, 2007 at 02:23
Thankies for the tips, both look quite interesting. I mostly wanted “The Sling and the Stone” and “The utility of force” to see what participants in the modern struggles see as the solution to our current wars, in whatever shape they might be.
The upside is that “The utility of force” arrived today!
on March 26th, 2009 at 16:09
The common theme of your river of books is, like mine, if I can’t get them all read, they will at least be close to me and I will thus absorb their contents. I own most of the ones you mentioned. And I find Military History gives an astonishing view of mankind. Great list.