I love to read books (actually love to BUY books). Some of the
books take me forever to read through (You know what I mean). Some of
the books were bought at the local bookstores, but most of them were
bought on the Internet, because
English books are super expensive in Japan (A dollar is still more
than 300 yen in bookstores in Japan. It is actually around 120 yen
now in the banks).
Some of the books I would like to recommend follow;
- Prelude to Foundation (Isaac Asimov) This book
was written after writing the final episode of this Foundation
series. It tells why Hari Seldon started to develop
psycho-history, a method to predict future in a statistical
manner. The discipline is like a statistical physics that tells
the behaviour of atoms in a mass. Dr. Seldon, a mathematician
cannot tell the future of individual, but tells the future of
Galactic Empire. While reading through this series, I feel some
resemblance of the present situation to that of Galactic Empire.
Dr. Asimov might have predicted the present situation and tried to
tell his view through the series. This series is my bible.
- Forward the Foundation (Isacc Asimov) Episodes during
the development of psycho-history. Dr. Asimov tried to merge his
Robot series and Foundation series. From Prelude to Foundation,
Dors who assisted Seldon in every aspect was a mysterious woman.
Was she a human being or a robot? One of the episodes in this book
revealed the truth of it.
- Foundation (Isaac Asimov) The first-written book of the
series. Compared to Prelude to Foundation, wording is rather
difficult. Hari Seldon predicted the future of the Galactic Empire
and found that the Empire was declining. To quicken the emergence
of the Second Empire, he created the First Foundation at the
periphery of Galaxy and the Second Foundation at "The Stars End."
- Foundation and Empire (Isacc Asimov) The Empire was
declining. But that was not important. Hari Seldon predicted the
future and made a short cut that would lead the First Foundation
to the Second Galactic Empire (Seldon Plan). Mule the mutant got
in the way and destroyed the Seldon Plan. Wow, what will happen to
the future of our galaxy?
- Second Foundation (Isacc Asimov) Who would stop Mule?
Oh, I am as old as Mule. The Second Foundation at "The Stars End"
stopped him. The First Foundation revived in wondering whether the
Second Foundation would try to destroy or control the First
Foundation. A great search of Second Foundation by the scholars of
the First Foundation started.
- Foundation's Edge (Isacc Asimov) Where did we come
from? There is a legend saying that we came from a plant called
Earth. Where is it? Why one day is 24 hours? Perhaps the earth
rotates once in 24 hours. Why a year is 365 days? Perhaps the earth
rotate around its sun once in 365 days. Can we find a plant that
fits this cycle? The survey of the galaxy started and found a
planet call Gaia. What is the relations of the Earth and Gaia?
- 2001 A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke) Now Reading.
Don't know when to complete.
- Hard Drive (James Wallace & Jim Erickson) Reading
this book make you realize what Bill Gates have made of.
- Complexity (M. Mitchell Waldrop) Still reading. This
book makes one realize how I am tied by a common sense. Why hands
of clock turn clockwise?
- Bioinformatics (Baldi & Brunak) Reading sometimes.
This book gives me good explanation of what neural network is and
what hidden Markov model is. Now I realized what bioinformatics
means in general. What I have in mind is quite different. I do not
believe that bioinformatics is limited to genome sequence
analysis, but include computational analysis of three-dimensional
structure of proteins, genome structures and interactions of those
molecules.
- Kasparov versus Deep Blue (Monty Newborn) The history
of computer chess from the beginning. How did the Deep Blue win
Mr. Kasparov. Is it only by brute force? Why not apply this power
to protein three-dimensional structure prediction?
- Audrey Hepburn (Barry Paris) Beautiful actress,
forever.
- Our Stolen Future (Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski &
John Peterson Myers) Just bought. Looks important.
- The Feminization of Nature (Deborah Cadbury) Just
bought. Looks important.
- The Meaning of It All (Richard Feynman) Deep.
- Distributed and Parallel Computing (Hesham El-Rewini &
Ted G. Lewis) All the recent total genome sequencing projects
make me learn parallel computing. I have to improve my programing
power to analyze those emerging data within a reasonable time.
Parallel computing is one of the ways.
- Beyond Star Trek
(Lawrence M, Kruss) I am treky.
- Sherlock
Holmes series (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) I love them. Just
read them.
I will update sooner or later.