“I wonder... What's in a book while it's closed... Because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventure and deeds and battles... All those things are somehow shut up in a book. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.”
Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
“A wild dream and a far one -- but no wilder and no farther than some of the dreams of man.”
“That's the reason they're called lessons: because they lessen from day to day.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
“Think of a computer program. Somewhere, there is one key instruction, and everything else is just functions calling themselves, or brackets billowing out endlessly through an infinite address space. What happens when the brackets collapse? Where's the final “END IF”? Is any of this making sense?”
Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Book In-Jokes
Here I try to maintain a list of book in-jokes: little jokes that most readers won't notice, hidden in otherwise serious books (for more about
what "in-jokes" are, see at the end of the list).
I'll need your help: if you find any such in-jokes, let me know. Please include the word “injoke” in the subject.
The books are listed in no particular order.
Book Reviews / Read LogBook Reviews: FictionScience-Fiction Book ReviewsNon-Fiction Book ReviewsComputer Science Book Reviews
[2012-08-16]
The practice of programming (as opposed to the theory of computer science) is a favorite topic of mine. Good guidebooks for practicing programmers are rare. Is The Pragmatic Programmer up to the task?
George, Nicholas and Wilhelm were three cousins. It seems like they mostly liked each other, but that clearly wasn’t enough to avoid one gruesome fight.
I don’t usually do this, but here’s a super-short, one-word review of Steven E. Landsburg’s The Big Questions: nonsense. You want a two-word review? Dangerous nonsense. Read the details inside.
Thirty-five years ago, Fred Brooks brought some order to the world of software project management, and software engineering in general, with his now-classic The Mythican Man-Month. Now, with The Design of Design, he attempts to do the same with with regard to design — not just for computing-related projects, but design in general. How good is the result?
When your first novel is a runaway success, the second novel is a daunting challenge. Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, braved this challenge with Her Fearful Symmetry. But is it as good?
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