Vacation Reading

[bjarvis]

Tomorrow morning, I'm heading to the trailer for a ten day vacation. I'm sure I'll be spending some time working on square dance choreo but I'm planning to spend the bulk of my time catching up on some professional development, technical skills and pleasure reading.

Here's a quick list of some of the eBooks I'm taking to read:

• The Prehistoric Earth
  
• A World Undone: The Story of the Great War
  
• City of Fortune: How Venice Won & Lost a Naval Empire
  
• Deep Space Craft: An Overview of Interplanetary Craft
  
• False Economy: A Surprising Economic History
  
• History of Scotland
  
• Rabies
  
• Thames: The Biography
  
• The Ellipse: A Historical & Mathematical Journey
  
• 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
  
• Elements of Influence
  
• Effective Selling for the Small Business Owner
  
• Javascript: The Definitive Guide
  
• Mobile IPv6
  
• IPv6 Essentials
  
• IPv6 Security
  
• Hadoop Installation
  
• Programming Amazon EC2
  
• Programming Android
  
• The Ruby Programming Language
  
• Fundamentals of Python
  
• 4G LTE for Mobile Broadband

I have a few extras if time allows but this seems a pretty good list.

Comments

[rwgill.livejournal.com]

I admire the diversity of your selection and your ambition. I can clear through a good book in a couple of days if I have nothing else going on. That is usually fiction or light non-fiction though. I'm not sure I could stay focused enough to read through, and retain, a technical tome read over the course of a day or two.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I think the technical books will be tough slogging so I'll reward myself with one of the fun history books for each tech book I work through.

I'm trying to remember the last time I read fiction --and am utterly failing. There's always such a pile of non-fiction pieces to catch up on that I never quite find the time for an enjoyable novel. I should probably make more time for fiction.

[rwgill.livejournal.com]

Reading has always been an escape for me and so I almost turn to fiction when I'm looking for something to read. That has changed a bit in recent years with a fascination with well written writing about the craft of food, food service, etc. I can devour a book by Michael Ruhlman almost as quickly as a new Vlad story from Steven Brust.

Different strokes for different folks though. My better half reads and rereads books on math and science as regularly as I start a new novel.

[weekilter.livejournal.com]

You shouldn't have any problem going to sleep at night :)

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

The only way for me to learn a technical subject is to read a bit, then apply. I couldn't learn Ruby from a book for example, without being able to run examples. But that's just me.

I love the diversity of this reading list! I wish I was anywhere near this disciplined. But usually, when I have time, I fritter it away on other things. Enjoy your vacation!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I'm aiming for familiarization with these languages rather than programming expertise: like you, I learn more by doing than by just reading. That said, after the first 25-30 programming languages, they all start to look the same and I learn new ones by how they differ from ones I already know rather than as standalone languages in their own right. :-)