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jimh posted 02-04-2013 04:53 PM ET (US)
With the Winter season here and boating not a possibility any more, I have turned to reading to provide a diversion. I thought I might pass along a few suggestions for titles. All are non-fiction. As I am getting older I find I have less interest in fiction and much prefer non-fiction. And, as the old saying suggests, often non-fiction is stranger than fiction. Let me give a few quick comments on some recent books I have read, in no particular order. I will just give the title and author; if you want to find these in your library system that should be enough information
What Do You Care What Other People Think?:
Further Adventures of a Curious Character
Richard P. Feynman
For a long time I have admired Richard Feynman. He was the youngest Physicist to be involved in the Manhattan Project (which is another favorite subject of mine). This book is a memoir of various incidents. The most interesting subject is Mr. Feynman's role in the investigation into the cause of the Space Shuttle CHALLENGER explosion. Here is a sample from the book that I found to be particularly interesting:

quote:
The only way to have real success in Science--the field I'm familiar with--is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In Science you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.
In other fields, such as business, it's different. For example, almost every advertisement you see is obviously designed in some way or another to fool the customer. The print that they don't want you to see is small. The statements are written in an obscure way. It is obvious to anybody that the product is not being presented in a scientific and balanced way. Therefore in the selling business there's a lack of integrity.
My father had the spirit and integrity of a scientist, but he was a salesman. I remember asking him the question: "How can a man of integrity be a salesman?"
He said to me: "Frankly, many salesmen in the business are not straightforward. They think it's a better way to sell. But I've tried being straightforward and I find it has its advantages. In fact, I wouldn't do it any other way. If the customer think at all, he'll realize he has had some bad experiences with another salesman, but hasn't had that kind of experience with you. So in the end, several customers will stay with you for a long time and appreciate it."
My father was not a big, successful, famous salesman; he was the sales manager for a medium-sized uniform company. He was successful, but not enormously so.
When I see a Congressman giving his opinion on something, I always wonder if it represents his real opinion, or if it represents an opinion he's designed in order to be elected. It seems to be a central problem for politicians. So I often wonder: what is the relation of integrity to working in the government?
ASIDE: It so happened that I listened to this book as an audio-book. I was able to electronically check out a copy of the audio book from an electronic library that I was able to access by virtue of having a local brick-and-mortar library borrowing card. This gave me instant gratification of my desire to obtain this book. I was also hoping to find the audio-book narrator was Mr. Fenyman himself, but that was not to be. I am familiar with Fenyman's voice--and his classic New York accent--because I have a copy of some of his famous lectures on fundamental Physics that were recorded in the 1960's when he was teaching a special two-year sequence of introductory Physics to undergraduates at Cal Tech. I have the "six easy pieces" lectures: See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physics#Six_Easy_Pieces_.281994.29
Listening to these is also very highly recommended.
As an adjunct to the above, I also read:
Feynman's Lost Lecture:
The Motion of Planets Around the Sun
David Goodstein
This is a bit too technical for casual reading, but it was fascinating.
jimh posted 02-04-2013 04:56 PM ET (US)
I also recently read a wonderful account of how the length of the meter was determined. This is a fascinating and extremely well written narrative that reads like a spy novel:
The Measure of All Things:
The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World
Ken Adler
jimh posted 02-04-2013 05:04 PM ET (US)
I found this somewhat obscure title in the credits of a cable TV documentary which covered the same subject. The book, as usual, was much better than the movie. The topic here is the background and logistics of the British RAF bomber attack on the airport at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands in the earliest days of the Falkland Islands War back in 1982. The story of how much planning and effort was required to permit a single plane to drop a single bomb on the runway is astonishing.
Vulcan 607:
The Epic Story of the Most Remarkable British Air Attack Since WWII
Roland White
jimh posted 02-04-2013 05:08 PM ET (US)
This title came as a sort of adjunct to the shuttle disaster reading. This is not really a book so much as a college textbook. However it presents a series of engineering problems which ended up as disasters. Many are well known, such as the HINDENBURG explosion. I found it quite readable and full of interesting insight:
Engineering Disasters:
Lessons to be Learned
Don Lawson
jimh posted 02-04-2013 05:11 PM ET (US)
By now you are probably wondering what possible relationship to boating any of these books might have, so let me give you one that is right on target. This book was recently listed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top-ten best non-fiction books of 2012. That is how I happened to hear of it.
A Man and His Ship:
America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the S.S. United States
Steven Ujifusa
This is a wonderful account of William Francis Gibbs and the famous liner SS UNITED STATES. I guarantee you will find this to be fascinating reading. I could not put it down.
jimh posted 02-04-2013 05:16 PM ET (US)
Also on the WSJ list of top-ten best non-fiction was this book:
The Signal and the Noise:
Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't
Nate Silver
Mr Silver is perhaps best known these days for the remarkable accuracy of his political election predictions. I found his comments about the accuracy of weather forecasting and long term trends like climate change to be very interesting. They changed my mind on some of those topics.
jimh posted 02-04-2013 05:26 PM ET (US)
I also just read this book--I am probably the last person on Earth to get around to it:
Freakonomics:
A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt
My interest in this book was piqued when I learned that the CEO of the company I (used to) work for had made it required reading for all the senior managers. I did not find it to be especially insightful. It was a very fast read. I think I got through it in a couple of hours. Maybe that is why it was so popular with management. It also seems to be very flattering to our industry. I think I understand why it became required reading on the executive office floor.
I wanted to mention this title because I read it as a PDF download. This was another case of borrowing from an electronic library and getting an electronic copy. It was instant access. I did not have to go the library and get a copy. In a few clicks I had a copy on my laptop to read. There is a whole system of public library electronic books like this. I don't understand why people pay $10 to get a book on their Kindle. You can get a lot of titles for free from your public library as a PDF.
jimh posted 02-04-2013 05:44 PM ET (US)
So far you may have noticed that all the books I have been reading were written by men. Here is one written by a woman, but it is also non-fiction, and she has a Ph.D in Chemistry from Cambridge University.
Antarctica--An Intimate Portrait of a Mysterious Continent
Gabrielle Walker
I just happened to find this book laying on a table at my local library near the "new books" section. It just came out. First-edition USA and copyright 2013. I will confess that my initial thinking was a bit strange: it has been really cold here, and I thought that reading about Antarctica--where obviously it is much, much colder--would be a way to bring some warmth to my aching cold body.
Ms. Walker gives a really wonderful account of what it is like to work as a scientist in Antarctica. About 50-pages into this account you start to think about trying to visit there to see some of the things she describes for yourself. She has been able, over a number of years, and because of her science background and academic work, to cadge and cajole her way into all sorts of remote places that the average person will never be able to access. It is really a fascinating story. She does a great job of getting into the science and the milieu of the South Pole.
I suppose I should give the publisher a break because of the first edition, but I have never seen a book from a major publishing house with such awful typography and editing. I have to resist using a blue pencil to correct errors on almost every page. Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt must have rushed this into print before anyone with any knowledge of the rules of punctuation and typesetting had a chance to look over the galley proofs. But despite these distractions, it is an extremely interesting book. I really highly recommend this.
jimh posted 02-04-2013 06:06 PM ET (US)
I have found reading these non-fiction, mainly science or engineering oriented books to very enjoyable. When someone writes a book and gets it published, it generally represents a rather substantial effort. So much of what I read on the web these days is just complete blather and written in a style that would have caused most of the writers to have to repeat the third grade. It just seems necessary to actually read something which someone has put some thought into. It feels good to know that people are still writing books and can say something more eloquent than LOL followed by two dozen exclamation points.
I also wanted to mention that I have discovered a great resource of electronic catalogues that allow me to order books from many libraries besides my own. Many of the books i have mentioned were not on the shelf at my local library, but were sent to me through the library systems of our state, from various other public or university libraries. The searching and request method is based on a web interface, and it has become extremely simple to order rather odd books from perhaps the dusty shelves of some library 100-miles away with a few clicks. This has expanded the scope of what I can find to read, and I have been taking advantage of it.
ASIDE: At our last political election, our little village voted to assess each resident several hundred dollars in fees to remain as part of the local brick-and-motor library system in the next town--we are too small to have our own library. It was gratifying to see that this proposal was supported. If it had not passed, I'd be a man without a public library--an awful situation to be caught in.
pcrussell50 posted 02-04-2013 09:24 PM ET (US)
Ah yes, Dr. Feynman. Placed the final piece in the the quantum physics puzzle-- quantum electrodynamics, along with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. I own one of his biographies, in addition to my college physics textbooks from 1990.
I will add that another very good read for the scientifically inclined is James Gleick's book on non-linearity, "Chaos, The Making of a New Science". Gets a little heavy toward the end if you have not studied fractals, topology and field theory, but still plenty of good reading in between the tough slogs. Dates back to the early 90's or before.
-Peter
jimp posted 02-04-2013 10:37 PM ET (US)
jimh mentions a lot of historical events in his readings ("Oh, the humanity!" and the Falklands War). I've gone with historical fiction this winter and am currently on page 1,026 of the 1,317 page "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy.
I find historical fiction fun reading when I match it up with research on the Internet. For instance in "War and Peace", the Battle of Borodino (70 miles west of Moscow), between the French (Napoleon) and the Russians on September 7, 1812 (August 26, 1812 old calendar) is covered extensively. Estimates of 69,000-80,000 dead, wounded and captured in the one day battle (combined French and Russian casualties). By comparison, 51 years later, Gettysburg had approximately 46,000 total casualties in three days.
Cross reference the book and Internet with GoogleEarth and the reading of the book becomes very slow as you keep on verifying history.
To further set the time in your mind, the Siege of Detroit occurred August 15-16, 1812, three weeks before Borodino and the USS Constitution defeated the HMS Guerriere on August 19, 1812.
JimP
AaronMN posted 02-08-2013 11:16 AM ET (US)
Are there any good books written about small boats 16'-30'?
Not looking for a "how to", rather the history of, or biagraphy of, a small boat architect.
jimh posted 02-08-2013 12:24 PM ET (US)
Heart of Glass: Fiberglass Boats and the Men Who Built Them
Daniel Spurr
jimh posted 02-08-2013 02:50 PM ET (US)
Also see http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/021451.html
Mambo Minnow posted 02-09-2013 09:03 AM ET (US)
Guess I will be able to catch up on my book reading list during the blizzard!
AaronMN posted 02-09-2013 11:47 AM ET (US)
Thanks Jim, that book sounds exactly what I am looking for. Unfortunate it commands such a high price online.
Binkster posted 02-09-2013 06:53 PM ET (US)
I will sell my copy of Iron Fist. Its in very good condition. $20 includes shipping US. E-mail me.
rich
floridaboy2053@yahoo.com

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Author	Topic: Books for Winter
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 04:53 PM ET (US) With the Winter season here and boating not a possibility any more, I have turned to reading to provide a diversion. I thought I might pass along a few suggestions for titles. All are non-fiction. As I am getting older I find I have less interest in fiction and much prefer non-fiction. And, as the old saying suggests, often non-fiction is stranger than fiction. Let me give a few quick comments on some recent books I have read, in no particular order. I will just give the title and author; if you want to find these in your library system that should be enough information What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character Richard P. Feynman For a long time I have admired Richard Feynman. He was the youngest Physicist to be involved in the Manhattan Project (which is another favorite subject of mine). This book is a memoir of various incidents. The most interesting subject is Mr. Feynman's role in the investigation into the cause of the Space Shuttle CHALLENGER explosion. Here is a sample from the book that I found to be particularly interesting: quote: The only way to have real success in Science--the field I'm familiar with--is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In Science you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty. In other fields, such as business, it's different. For example, almost every advertisement you see is obviously designed in some way or another to fool the customer. The print that they don't want you to see is small. The statements are written in an obscure way. It is obvious to anybody that the product is not being presented in a scientific and balanced way. Therefore in the selling business there's a lack of integrity. My father had the spirit and integrity of a scientist, but he was a salesman. I remember asking him the question: "How can a man of integrity be a salesman?" He said to me: "Frankly, many salesmen in the business are not straightforward. They think it's a better way to sell. But I've tried being straightforward and I find it has its advantages. In fact, I wouldn't do it any other way. If the customer think at all, he'll realize he has had some bad experiences with another salesman, but hasn't had that kind of experience with you. So in the end, several customers will stay with you for a long time and appreciate it." My father was not a big, successful, famous salesman; he was the sales manager for a medium-sized uniform company. He was successful, but not enormously so. When I see a Congressman giving his opinion on something, I always wonder if it represents his real opinion, or if it represents an opinion he's designed in order to be elected. It seems to be a central problem for politicians. So I often wonder: what is the relation of integrity to working in the government? ASIDE: It so happened that I listened to this book as an audio-book. I was able to electronically check out a copy of the audio book from an electronic library that I was able to access by virtue of having a local brick-and-mortar library borrowing card. This gave me instant gratification of my desire to obtain this book. I was also hoping to find the audio-book narrator was Mr. Fenyman himself, but that was not to be. I am familiar with Fenyman's voice--and his classic New York accent--because I have a copy of some of his famous lectures on fundamental Physics that were recorded in the 1960's when he was teaching a special two-year sequence of introductory Physics to undergraduates at Cal Tech. I have the "six easy pieces" lectures: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physics#Six_Easy_Pieces_.281994.29 Listening to these is also very highly recommended. As an adjunct to the above, I also read: Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun David Goodstein This is a bit too technical for casual reading, but it was fascinating.
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 04:56 PM ET (US) I also recently read a wonderful account of how the length of the meter was determined. This is a fascinating and extremely well written narrative that reads like a spy novel: The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World Ken Adler
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 05:04 PM ET (US) I found this somewhat obscure title in the credits of a cable TV documentary which covered the same subject. The book, as usual, was much better than the movie. The topic here is the background and logistics of the British RAF bomber attack on the airport at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands in the earliest days of the Falkland Islands War back in 1982. The story of how much planning and effort was required to permit a single plane to drop a single bomb on the runway is astonishing. Vulcan 607: The Epic Story of the Most Remarkable British Air Attack Since WWII Roland White
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 05:08 PM ET (US) This title came as a sort of adjunct to the shuttle disaster reading. This is not really a book so much as a college textbook. However it presents a series of engineering problems which ended up as disasters. Many are well known, such as the HINDENBURG explosion. I found it quite readable and full of interesting insight: Engineering Disasters: Lessons to be Learned Don Lawson
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 05:11 PM ET (US) By now you are probably wondering what possible relationship to boating any of these books might have, so let me give you one that is right on target. This book was recently listed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top-ten best non-fiction books of 2012. That is how I happened to hear of it. A Man and His Ship: America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the S.S. United States Steven Ujifusa This is a wonderful account of William Francis Gibbs and the famous liner SS UNITED STATES. I guarantee you will find this to be fascinating reading. I could not put it down.
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 05:16 PM ET (US) Also on the WSJ list of top-ten best non-fiction was this book: The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't Nate Silver Mr Silver is perhaps best known these days for the remarkable accuracy of his political election predictions. I found his comments about the accuracy of weather forecasting and long term trends like climate change to be very interesting. They changed my mind on some of those topics.
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 05:26 PM ET (US) I also just read this book--I am probably the last person on Earth to get around to it: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Steven D. Levitt My interest in this book was piqued when I learned that the CEO of the company I (used to) work for had made it required reading for all the senior managers. I did not find it to be especially insightful. It was a very fast read. I think I got through it in a couple of hours. Maybe that is why it was so popular with management. It also seems to be very flattering to our industry. I think I understand why it became required reading on the executive office floor. I wanted to mention this title because I read it as a PDF download. This was another case of borrowing from an electronic library and getting an electronic copy. It was instant access. I did not have to go the library and get a copy. In a few clicks I had a copy on my laptop to read. There is a whole system of public library electronic books like this. I don't understand why people pay $10 to get a book on their Kindle. You can get a lot of titles for free from your public library as a PDF.
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 05:44 PM ET (US) So far you may have noticed that all the books I have been reading were written by men. Here is one written by a woman, but it is also non-fiction, and she has a Ph.D in Chemistry from Cambridge University. Antarctica--An Intimate Portrait of a Mysterious Continent Gabrielle Walker I just happened to find this book laying on a table at my local library near the "new books" section. It just came out. First-edition USA and copyright 2013. I will confess that my initial thinking was a bit strange: it has been really cold here, and I thought that reading about Antarctica--where obviously it is much, much colder--would be a way to bring some warmth to my aching cold body. Ms. Walker gives a really wonderful account of what it is like to work as a scientist in Antarctica. About 50-pages into this account you start to think about trying to visit there to see some of the things she describes for yourself. She has been able, over a number of years, and because of her science background and academic work, to cadge and cajole her way into all sorts of remote places that the average person will never be able to access. It is really a fascinating story. She does a great job of getting into the science and the milieu of the South Pole. I suppose I should give the publisher a break because of the first edition, but I have never seen a book from a major publishing house with such awful typography and editing. I have to resist using a blue pencil to correct errors on almost every page. Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt must have rushed this into print before anyone with any knowledge of the rules of punctuation and typesetting had a chance to look over the galley proofs. But despite these distractions, it is an extremely interesting book. I really highly recommend this.
jimh	posted 02-04-2013 06:06 PM ET (US) I have found reading these non-fiction, mainly science or engineering oriented books to very enjoyable. When someone writes a book and gets it published, it generally represents a rather substantial effort. So much of what I read on the web these days is just complete blather and written in a style that would have caused most of the writers to have to repeat the third grade. It just seems necessary to actually read something which someone has put some thought into. It feels good to know that people are still writing books and can say something more eloquent than LOL followed by two dozen exclamation points. I also wanted to mention that I have discovered a great resource of electronic catalogues that allow me to order books from many libraries besides my own. Many of the books i have mentioned were not on the shelf at my local library, but were sent to me through the library systems of our state, from various other public or university libraries. The searching and request method is based on a web interface, and it has become extremely simple to order rather odd books from perhaps the dusty shelves of some library 100-miles away with a few clicks. This has expanded the scope of what I can find to read, and I have been taking advantage of it. ASIDE: At our last political election, our little village voted to assess each resident several hundred dollars in fees to remain as part of the local brick-and-motor library system in the next town--we are too small to have our own library. It was gratifying to see that this proposal was supported. If it had not passed, I'd be a man without a public library--an awful situation to be caught in.
pcrussell50	posted 02-04-2013 09:24 PM ET (US) Ah yes, Dr. Feynman. Placed the final piece in the the quantum physics puzzle-- quantum electrodynamics, along with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. I own one of his biographies, in addition to my college physics textbooks from 1990. I will add that another very good read for the scientifically inclined is James Gleick's book on non-linearity, "Chaos, The Making of a New Science". Gets a little heavy toward the end if you have not studied fractals, topology and field theory, but still plenty of good reading in between the tough slogs. Dates back to the early 90's or before. -Peter
jimp	posted 02-04-2013 10:37 PM ET (US) jimh mentions a lot of historical events in his readings ("Oh, the humanity!" and the Falklands War). I've gone with historical fiction this winter and am currently on page 1,026 of the 1,317 page "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. I find historical fiction fun reading when I match it up with research on the Internet. For instance in "War and Peace", the Battle of Borodino (70 miles west of Moscow), between the French (Napoleon) and the Russians on September 7, 1812 (August 26, 1812 old calendar) is covered extensively. Estimates of 69,000-80,000 dead, wounded and captured in the one day battle (combined French and Russian casualties). By comparison, 51 years later, Gettysburg had approximately 46,000 total casualties in three days. Cross reference the book and Internet with GoogleEarth and the reading of the book becomes very slow as you keep on verifying history. To further set the time in your mind, the Siege of Detroit occurred August 15-16, 1812, three weeks before Borodino and the USS Constitution defeated the HMS Guerriere on August 19, 1812. JimP
AaronMN	posted 02-08-2013 11:16 AM ET (US) Are there any good books written about small boats 16'-30'? Not looking for a "how to", rather the history of, or biagraphy of, a small boat architect.
jimh	posted 02-08-2013 12:24 PM ET (US) Heart of Glass: Fiberglass Boats and the Men Who Built Them Daniel Spurr
jimh	posted 02-08-2013 02:50 PM ET (US) Also see http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/021451.html
Mambo Minnow	posted 02-09-2013 09:03 AM ET (US) Guess I will be able to catch up on my book reading list during the blizzard!
AaronMN	posted 02-09-2013 11:47 AM ET (US) Thanks Jim, that book sounds exactly what I am looking for. Unfortunate it commands such a high price online.
Binkster	posted 02-09-2013 06:53 PM ET (US) I will sell my copy of Iron Fist. Its in very good condition. $20 includes shipping US. E-mail me. rich floridaboy2053@yahoo.com