Category: Reading List Page 1 of 8

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

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.

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:

• What’s the Best Online Learning Site?
• The Big Three, at a Glance (NY Times)

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!

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.