BOOKS: I've been on a history kick with my audiobooks recently, mostly from getting them all via the library rather than renting them. I just finished a "biography" of the equation E=mc^2 which everyone knows and nobody really understands outside of physics students and physics fans like me. Not that I really understand it, mind you, but I'm a phyiscs fan. I'll definately have to listen to the book again when I can really concentrate on it. I listened to good chunks of it while at work and while I can listen and do some of my work at the same time, with a book like this it doesn't help comprehension. I did get a lot out of it though, such as an excellent description of the nature of light as a process, not an object. If you're a phyiscs fan, I recommend it.

I just checked out a new book about the craziness surrounding the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, which for a word person like myself is one of the Holy Grail’s that I hope someday to be able to afford. I’ll listen to that one soon, it sounds interesting.

I haven’t started Beowulf as of this writing but I’m looking forward to it, mostly. I saw mostly because I can’t determine if it’s the whole book or not. The back of the CD says ‘Unabridged selections’ which to me means they cut parts out and those parts are unabridged. Not exactly what I’m looking for. But then Amazon says [UNABRIDGED] very clearly so I’m confused. The 2.5 hour length of the reading is my biggest indication that it isn’t in fact the whole book. We’ll see.

I also just finished reading ‘Mind Wide Open,’ a brain book by the guy who wrote Emergence, a book about emergent behavior that I really recommend. I’m a fan of both topics and while Emergence didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know, Mide Wide Open was filled with interesting stuff. The new brain scanning technology such as the fMRI scan that can show your brain actually working rather than just static pictures makes me agog at the possibilities.

Tried to read Palomar a few weeks ago and I’m probably going to be kicked out of comics for saying this but I just couldn’t get into it. Not that it isn’t a supreme achievement and if the slice-of-life, small town story is your thing definately get it. The library edition I read was a giant beautiful hardcover that if I were a Love & Rockets fan I would covet as if it were gold. I’m just not in the mood for that type of story right now and couldn’t make myself go through more than the first half. Someday when I’m in less of a science/ideas/fast-moving story mood I’ll definately check it out again.

The constant shifting of my reading “moods” is the reason I have 3 or 4 very interesting looking biographies sitting on my To Be Read shelf. At the time I bought them I had probably read a couple of biographies and then I moved on to something else. I always come back around though so I’ll get to them. Someday.