Fermat's Last Theorem

I read The Code Book by Simon Singh and really enjoyed it; it was a very easy going life history of cryptography. Fermat's Last Theorem does the same thing with Maths. Although the title sounds very specific, it is actually a brief history of Mathematics. The style of writing is very much the same as The Code Book; it is very easy going, yet a very interesting read.

The Spanish Game

The Spanish Game is the sequel to a book that I quite enjoyed: A Spy By Nature. I actually slightly preferred this one to the prequel, but they are worth reading in sequence. The main character has now been living in Spain for many years and the book details a series of events that bring him back to his spying days. There are lots of twists, some obvious, some not so much: The ending could have been painful, if it wasn't for the final (obvious) twist. Hopefully there will be more books in the series.

Agile Web Development with Rails

Agile Web Development with Rails made for very inspiring reading. Ruby on Rails goes in the opposite direction of where most people are taking web development these days: simplifying development as much as possible.

Although it is certainly designed around commercial reliability and scalability, whether or not Rails will really take off in the commercial world is open to speculation: Rails itself could be a nicer programming language, a lot goes on at runtime behind the scenes that it would be nice to know about.

That doesn't matter though, I still recommend reading this book, it is really relaxing and enjoyable to read and it makes you want to use Rails.

My opinion of where Rails will go? Well it should definitely be a seriously considered framework for people currently programming web applications in PHP!

Funny book

I was passing the time away in Waterstones the other day and started flicking through a copy of Code Complete.

The extract shown below actually made me laugh out loud... twice:

Freakonomics

Each chapter presents a question that lends itself to an answer using a fun application of "economics".

The latest version of the book also contains some extra content: Columns by the one of the authors that were published in the New York Times and selected articles from the authors' blog. Each one of these extra mini-chapters is as interesting as those contained in the book itself.

This is a really fun and interesting book that I would definitely recommend.

Casino Royale

After being so impressed with the film I decided to read the original novel by Ian Flemming.

The book was good. It was also interesting to see how the 1953 story had been expanded and adapted to make a film; I think the filmmakers did a very good job.

The Trojan Files

The Trojan Files is about mobile armed police units in London. Most of the book consists of individual stories involving these armed police (the remainder is history about both armed police and the author presented in quite a dull way). The real life stories were gripping at times, but overall they are quite uneventful: You could probably count on one hand the amount of non-training rounds fired during the entire book.

Overall, it was not the action book that I expected but I was probably expecting to much -- we are talking about regular armed police officers in England here!

A Spy By Nature

A Spy by Nature is a story unwound in a very interesting way. Hints were dropped about each of the characters real intentions and affiliations. These hints were then unwound in a way that made the book hard to put down.

The flaws in the main character were at times frustrating but I supposed justified by his life trapped inbetween different pillars of secrecy.

Overall: A fun read.

The Computer and the Brain

The Computer and the Brain by John von Neumann, a pioneer of computing is a very interesting historical read.

The book is essentially divided into two sections. The first is an overview of what a "computer" is and how it works, the second a comparison of computing technology with the brain.

It is amazing how relevant the first section of the book is in relation to computing today. Von Neumann's account is only tainted by slight changes in technical vocabulary and major improvements in performance over the past 50 years; the fundamental theory is all there and it is fascinating to hear it in his own words.

The second section raised some very interesting comparisons in a very clear and concise manor. However I did feel that the coverage could have been a lot deeper, the reason for this is probably the authors ill health at the time of writing though. I would be interested in reading a more modern approach at the same comparison, both to see if it has changed at all (are Von Neumann's biological facts still sound and complete according to modern day Biology?) and to delve further into the subject.

Lima 3

The sequel to Kilo 17, Lima 3 tells the story of Harry Ferguson's work "taking on the heroin traffickers" in his new position at the Customs and Excise Investigation Division.

This book was also a very exciting read and almost impossible to put down in much the same style as the first one. Unfortunately the end of the book ends with quite a depressing twist. Again, the story is based on real-life events, and this twist is politically very interesting, Harry even recommends a book by a different author for further reading on the matter.

Harry seems to be on the way to getting his marriage back on track. Health reasons have caused him to move to a different, less stressful job -- hopefully it will be exciting enough to be worthy of another book.

Kilo 17

A while ago the BBC made a brilliant program called SPY which unfortunately only lasted for one series. It involved a set of candidates being trained in espionage by three ex-intelligence officers, one of them was ex-MI6 and Customs and Excise officer Harry Ferguson. I have also seen Harry speak at the Oxford Union and he was very interesting to listen to so I was encouraged to read his book.

Kilo 17 is the story of Harry's first job in the Customs and Excise Investigation Division. The book is action packed and left me constantly wanting to continue to the next chapter; I pretty much read the entire book non stop. Knowing that it is based on real-life investigations makes the story even more exciting.

The main plot is intertwined with description of the changes Harry made because of his new job and how this effected his personal life. The book ends with Harry being promoted to a new team; a more exciting yet possibly deadly role that could also be the breaking point for his marriage. No doubt I will read this soon.

1984

In high school English classes I would have been critical about being tasked with reading a book like George Orwell's 1984. However, the subject did seem interesting and I had seen it referenced in recent more technical writings so I thought I would give it a try.

I actually very much enjoyed it. Although slow off the ground at the beginning from when Winston had met Julia onwards it was more engaging. I found it hard to put the book down, always wanting to know what happens next and always intrigued by the bigger picture, wondering how the story could possibly end.

Towards the end I started to realise that there probably was not enough pages left to reach a happy ending; I was correct. Unfortunate, but maybe necessary because of the authors political agenda.

Programming C#

Programming C# was a reasonable introduction to the C# language.

At the beginning the book was very slow moving for someone coming from Java. Despite this the description of some important language features was very fluffy. For example in Chapter 4 the notion of properties were introduced; we are told that the set accessor is analogous to a void method but this contradicts the point made earlier in the book about the result of evaluating an assignment being the value that is assigned. I am assuming that this point still applies and the value as evaluated before executing the set accessor is used for the overall result (as in many cases it would be inefficient to call the get accessor directly afterwards to provide a value for the assignment expression). A another example from Chapter 4; readonly members are introduced but we are not given a clear description of the semantics. I suppose the containing class is the unit of protection here but we are not told.

The later chapters of the book whose content was more .NET specific were at a better pace. They allowed for a very easy going read to introduce yourself to the various features. Some of the code examples were unnecessary but these can be easily skipped over.

The coverage of ASP.NET was very brief and has left me intrigued enough to find a book that just covers that topic.

Eric Meyer on CSS

Eric Meyer on CSS provides a very easy going introduction to the capabilities and application of CSS. Each chapter walks you through a typical project and the creation of the appropriate CSS then ends with some extra features for you to add as exercises.

As a non-artistic web developer I found this approach very enjoyable to read, and I felt that it gave a sound description of how the various CSS properties relate to design principles. However the book is not sufficient as a CSS reference, it lacked a complete description of how cascading and precedence works and there is no consistent method for introducing new attributes to the reader. This book will make a good companion to a reference text for someone who is starting out with CSS.

My Book Shelf

Last updated: 21 June 2007

Programming

Agile Web Development with Rails Review Dave Thomas

Programming C# Review Jesse Liberty

Eric Meyer on CSS Review Eric A. Meyer

Learning the vi Editor Lamb & Robbins

Java Cryptography Jonathan Knudsen

Java Security Scott Oaks

Linux Server Hacks Flickenger

Swing Robinson & Vorbiev

Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell Richard Bird

Teach Yourself C++ Programming in 21 Days Liberty

Teah Yourself Visual Basic in 21 Days Gurewich & Gurewich

Security

The Art of Deception Mitnick

Rootkits Hoglund & Butler

Modelling and Analysis of Security Protocols Ryan, Schneider, Goldsmith, Lowe and Roscoe

Business

Boo Hoo Malmsten

Direct From Dell Dell

Bloomberg by Bloomberg Bloomberg

Mathematics

Mathematical Techniques Jordan & Smith

Discrete Mathematics Chetwynd & Diggle

Popular Science

Fermat's Last Theorem Review Simon Singh

Freakonomics Review Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

The Computer and the Brain Review John von Neumann

The Infinite Book Review Barrow

The Code Book Singh

Fiction

The Spanish Game Review Charles Cumming

Casino Royale Review Ian Flemming

A Spy By Nature Review Charles Cumming

1984 Review George Orwell

Digital Fortress Dan Brown

Other

The Trojan Files Review Roger Gray

Lima 3 Review Harry Ferguson

Kilo 17 Review Harry Ferguson

Living in the U.S.A. Lanier & Davis

Spy Catcher Peter Wright

The Infinite Book

I just enjoyed reading The Infinite Book by John D. Barrow.

It was overall an interesting read, I really enjoyed the beginning chapters that were more mathematically focused. The latter chapters related more to physical infinities and the Universe; In my opinion this stretched on a little too much but that may just be because it is not where my interest lies.

For anyone who wants an amusing introduction to the infinite I especially recommend Chapter 3: "Welcome to the Hotel Infinity". Unfortunately the book is not indexed by Google Print or Amazon Search Inside! though so this will involve a trip to your local book shop.