Tal Cohen's Bookshelf: A Collection of Personal Opinions about Books

Fiction

Science Fiction

Non-Fiction

Computer Science

Book In-Jokes
The Fiction Collection
“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

The Science Fiction Collection
“A wild dream and a far one -- but no wilder and no farther than some of the dreams of man.”
Clifford D. Simak, City

The Non-Fiction Collection
“That's the reason they're called lessons: because they lessen from day to day.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The Computer Science Collection
“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 Log Book Reviews: Fiction Science-Fiction Book Reviews Non-Fiction Book Reviews Computer Science Book Reviews
[2022-07-28]

I’ve spent much of April to June making progress on the second volume of The Complete Greek Drama, but didn’t finish this hefty tome by the end of June. Of the five books that that I did complete during these three months, only two are Greece-related.
[Read Log]
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[2022-04-09]

Greek tragedies, and sci-fi, and manga, and decision-making theory, oh my. My 2022 January-March read log.
[Read Log]
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[2022-01-12]

Reading the Iliad twice doesn’t mean I can’t read it twice... again. Because new translations are often a real joy. Also, Graves on Greek mythology, the closure of The Expanse, human rights, fear of A.I., and more: my read log for the last three months of 2021.
[Read Log]
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[2021-10-29]

Over the past three months I found myself reading science fiction books in preparation for a sequel, science fiction books in preparation for a TV series, a children’s book that got me thinking about a new science fiction idea, an important translated book about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and a textbook about translation. My read log for July to September 2021.
[Read Log]
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[2021-08-15]

A few more Bildungsromane, in English, Hebrew, and German, and a great interview with a comic artist. My read log for May and June of 2021.
[Read Log]
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[See earlier reviews]
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