Books!

I like books. I have a little library in my front yard.

There has been drama lately about a book site that rhymes with FoodNeeds, and how it is now not what many readers want: useful book reviews and recommendation, without a bunch of ads. We independent bloggers and the Open Library can help fill that need.

So, here is a start of a list of books that I like.

The Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson. This is a large set of books, published in both three and seven volume versions.  Get the hardbound three volume version if you can (perhaps from your local library), as it has maps in color that help you orient to the complex, far ranging story lines. Alchemy, cryptography, mechanical computers, monads, freeing of slaves, economic and monetary theory (who ever would have thought that could be an entertaining plot element?), a pirate queen, natural (and unnatural) philosophy, sword fights, the invention of The Calculus, religious intolerance and freedom, useful words like mephitic and sizar, it has everything in the 3000+ pages. Events that seem to be small details in early chapters loom large in the end. It is also essential to the Stephenson Universe, as you will find allusions in this later works, such as the Waterhouse Computer in "Fall, or Dodge in Hell" (Hmm, that ambiguity of death theme keeps popping up...)