Hi folks! Another week is gone surprisingly fast. I've been so involved in my work I had no chance - and no spirit - to read this week. I usually read a bit in the morning having breakfast and in the evening.
At the moment, I'm reading TED Talks: The official TED guide to public speaking.
It's the first time I read something like that.. And it's not so bad I have to say! I recommend.
In past, I used to be a big fan of Stephen King's work. Novels like The Green Mile, The Shining and 11.22.63 are unforgettable. I stopped reading his works tho, with no reasons. And believe me, not because of nightmares.
I started reading manga. You know, the japanese "comic book", black and white, readable from the last page, from the right to the left.
Manga I enjoyed the most:
- The Death Note - A high school guy finds a notebook which gives him the power to kill people just writing their names on it
- Naruto - The story of a young ninja with the hidden power of the Nine Tails Fox daemon
- Dragon Ball - A kid with an incomparable strength and pure heart defends the world against the evil
Top comments (2)
I just yesterday finished reading Anthony C. Yu's translation of Journey to the West. It's a rather long novel (2000+ pages over four volumes in the most recent print of the above-mentioned translation) that occupies a place in Chinese literature similar to some of the works of Shakespeare or Charles Dickens in the English speaking world. The story is good, and despite being published in 16th century China, the humor at times has a rather modern feel to it. If you're a fan of Dragon Ball and Naruto, I would recommend reading it, as a number of the story arcs and some of the characters provided inspiration for both (in fact, Son Goku is the Japanese reading of the Han characters for Sun Wukong). Dragon Ball is actually the next big thing on my watch list now that I've finished this (though it's waiting until I finish Bleach).
As far as my current reading list, I just started re-reading Isuna Hasekura's Spice and Wolf. It's a light novel series (there's also a manga series and an (incomplete and not entirely faithful) anime series too) set in a world reminiscent of 1500's Europe and follows the exploits of a traveling merchant named Kraft Lawrence and a homesick regional harvest god named Holo who becomes his traveling companion (and of course, because it's Japanese, takes on the form of a young lupine kemonomimi most of the time). It's technically low fantasy, but focuses on the travel itself, the business dealings that occur along the way, and the slow evolution of a romantic relationship between the two main characters instead of the usual high-action swords and sorcery type stuff normally associated with fantasy.
I'm "reading" the SICP (I'm not sure it's really reading, it's more 10% of the time reading and 90% of the time doing exercises). I really like it! Especially since I didn't have so much experience with FP before.
If you try it, I recommend doing it via the Berkeley course of spring 2011, otherwise it can be seriously math heavy.