Cryptonomicon: Spying, Codes, Romance, War, Suspense and More. Reviews of This and Other Books

Now reading

Washington: A life which I am reading on my new Kindle 2 (my old Kindle broke). So far, it's living up to the hugely favorable reviews, although the beginning was a bit repetitive about some aspects of Washington's personality. I've now been reading this again, and am impressed. It's still a bit repetitive (how many times do we need to read how big, tall, erect and strong Washington was?) but good. Chernow doesn't skip over the negative stuff, in particular how Washington dealt with slavery.

Charming Proofs. A book of beautiful (or charming) proofs in mathematics, nearly all of which require no advanced math.

The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst and the rush to empire, 1898 by Evan Thomas.

Very well written history covering the end of the 19th century in America and the Spanish-American war, which has parallels with the Iraq invasion (based on lies, led to torture, jingoistic .....). This is biography-history. It portrays three proponents of war: Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst and Henry Cabot Lodge, and two opponents of the war: House Speaker Tom Reed and philosopher/psychologist William James. I love this way of writing history through biography, and Thomas has five excellent subject for biography. I knew next to nothing about Reed.

(restarted) The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2010 by Mircea Pitici. This is a collection of articles about mathematics: Mathematics education, philosophy of mathematics, the practice of mathematics, and so on. The articles are all good, your interest may vary.

Just started
A re-read of Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. This huge novel (over 1000 pages) is really three novels in one, in two time periods. Two strands occur during WW II, one in the present day (1999). I think this is my favorite of Stephenson's novels. It reads faster than The Baroque Cycle, and it has lot of the digressions that I like in Stephenson's works. Plus, it's so geeky that it feels like science fiction, even though it is hard to say that it really IS science fiction. It's not alternate history (the parts that take place in WWII are either accurate or at least possible). There's computer stuff (both old and (relatively) new), cryptography, spying, romance, heroism, war.... and sidelines including a very funny cameo by a very young Ronald Reagan and a not-at-all-funny cameo with Herman Goerring. And a short essay on the right way to eat Captain Crunch.