I bought this book in a local bookshop yesterday and just started reading it, considering it as a structured idea-centered overview compliment to a history-centered idea development book I’m finishing soon: Ideas and Modern Mind (Modern Mind is still on my reading list):
Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
I bought this book in a local bookshop just before finishing Young Stalin and started reading it 2 weeks ago. I must say it is a breathless read. I’m very curious about the real story of communism in Russia and other countries because I only remember official USSR communist party interpretation from my school years in 80s. In Moscow University we also had a subject called the History of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (KPSS) and the textbook was called “kirpich” (a brick).
Comrades: Communism: A World History
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
I bought a handsome hardcover Richard Evans’s Third Reich history trilogy recently and started reading the first volume in parallel to Michael Burleigh’s The Third Reich: A New History. I would say it is a very smooth historical narrative, in a simple and clear language and it is very detailed and not Hitler-centered like Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich. It has plenty of maps and this is very important to me because I can’t always recall where a rive or a region is located. Looking forward to reading next volumes when I finish this one. I put a link to the paperback edition of the first volume here because bounded hardback trilogy is very expensive and hard to find:
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
Interested in Stalin and Stalinism since Perestroika I bought this as a hardback as soon as it were published and then last year I got the same book in paperback as a present. The pressure of two books forced me to make a decision to start reading and now I’m more than two-thirds through it. I must say this is a very interested read. In Russia, during Brezhnev era, before Perestroika, I only heard whispers about Stalin epoch and, of course, didn’t now anything about Stalin youth and his involvement in the revolution, for example, the fact that most of all officials in 1917 - 1953 were his friends and acquaintances, and historical and personal factors that contributed to the development of Terror, like Conspiratia, banditry and murky world of double Okhrana agents. I also have the book by the same author “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar” that seems to be the follow-up although was written published earlier and I’m looking forward to reading it as soon as I finish “Young Stalin” book.
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
This book I bought some time ago to learn more about biology. I’ve just finished it and found it very good explaining what the science is, what is the difference between physical and life sciences. It also provides great overview of the subject, its history and philosophy, including taxonomy, evolution, ecology and ethics. I now adapt some ideas from biology to the science of memory dump analysis. There are some structural book organization deficiencies that would have made the book better. There are notes and the end of the book but I would prefer to have them to be footnotes. Also there is a very useful glossary at the end of the book too but for the beginner in any science it is useful to have definitions in footnotes ready to read when they are first encountered.
This Is Biology: The Science of the Living World
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
Because I plan my own engineering autobiography I now started reading various biographies and autobiographies to see what people write there. This month I started reading the biography of P. A. M. Dirac. I usually read a chapter or two during my lunch time and so far progressed to the page 184. The book is very interesting and I’m looking forward for the next lunch to read next chapter every day.
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
I encounter plenty of references to theology and its terminology in many books. My atheistic school education in communist Russia resulted in the lack of any knowledge of religion that I noted already in the review of Breaking the Spell book. A few months ago I saw this book in a local bookshop and immediately bought it to widen my views on religious and theological matters. I’ve read it and it explained lots of terminology very clearly. Highly recommended. One cautious note though: it only surveys key ideas and theologians from Western theology. For Orthodox worldview you need to look elsewhere.
A Brief History of Theology: From the New Testament to Feminist Theology
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
OpenTask plans to publish the extended and edited version of this blog as a book:
Literate Scientists and Their Books: An Independent Guide to Understanding Reality (ISBN: 978-1906717520)
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
I bought this book last year after my family asked me a few questions about whether it was safe to buy and eat chicken and I decided to educate myself on this subject. However only this month I had a chance to start reading it. Very informative on avian influenza viruses, how they interact and spread. I liked the history of the search for 1918 flu pandemic virus. I’ve read almost 60 pages so far but one advise I got is not to wash meat before cooking: I’ve done the opposite so far. Keep reading for the moment.
Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
I finished reading Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich a few weeks ago and started reading this book. Because it was written 40 years after William Shirer’s book it provides fresh insight and analysis into why things happened certain way. The book is not focused on Hitler but more on a Nazism as a political religion in a totalitarian society. I’ve read about 140 pages so far and still not disappointed. I have a few books on the same topic to read after I finish this book next year.
The Third Reich: A New History
- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -
