Category: Reading List Page 1 of 8

10 books

As a follow up to the 10 movies challenge, there was also a 10 books in 10 days challenge.

1 Second Foundation

This was the book that sparked my interest in the Foundation, the related Galactic Empire and Robot series by Asimov, and, I might add, my interest in science fiction in general. Looking back, I have to say that I was very fortunate to have randomly picked up this novel from my school library (around Year 9 in high school) at a time when I was still struggling with my English, having migrated to Australia some 4 years ago. read more

Revisiting Citizen of the Galaxy

Just purchased Robert Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy to read on my Kindle.

Having first read this novel over 2 decades ago during my undergrad, I can still recall vividly identifying with the plight of the central character, the feeling of being lost and the drive to find meaning amidst the chaos in his universe. As a matter of fact I also just found out this was part of Heinlein’s “Juveniles” (teens) series, which is quite incredible since I seemed to resonate with the story all those years ago. This is still the only book I have read from Heinlein by the way.

Will I still feel the same sense of empathy? The longing for a purpose, fear of uncertainty? I suppose I will find out shortly.

Continual learning

I am always on the lookout for new things to learn. With proliferation of endless self-appointed experts (some excellent, some not so good) online and a number of prominent MOOC sites, I am inclined to subscribe to MOOC to make better use of my spare time.

Here is a couple of balanced comparisons for future reference:

Life lessons

Just finished reading A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned by Michael J. Fox which I gather is an expansion of the speech he delivered to college graduates(?). It’s a small volume that many can probably finish in a night. I had known about about his struggles with Parkinson’s Disease but really had no ideas what a remarkable character he is. Currently going through some trying times but his attitude is really uplifting and inspirational. Now I am looking forward to reading his memoir soon too.

Matchbook offer from Amazon

Given my recent series of purchases at Amazon and my preference for Amazon’s Kindle ebook offerings for the past 2 years, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw this announcement last night!

bookmatch

Basically if you have ordered any hardcopy book since 1995 when Amazon began, you can buy the corresponding ebook at a big discount. Unfortunately it seems that none of the books that I have purchased – even though ebooks do exist for some of the titles – don’t qualify. Anyway hopefully this situation will change sometime in the future.

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