Monday, June 9, 2014

Books I've Read This Week

Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey is my new favourite space opera. I'm glad there is two more books in the series with a fourth one coming out soon. Anyway, in the future humanity has colonized Mars as well as the outer asteroid belt. In this universe where tension between Earth, Mars and the belt, the ice mining ship, Scopuli, responds to a distress signal. Now XO James Holden is in possession of a huge secret that multiple forces are pursing while he attempts to keep himself and his crew alive. At the same time Detective Miller is looking for a missing girl who's investigation will cause him to cross paths with the Scopuli.

Can they figure out what the hell is going on an advert an inter-planetary war?
Think Like A Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner is the third book in their Freakonomic's series. This book is a bit of a departure from the first two. Instead of diving deep into a number of different topics the author's instead try to teach the reader how to think like a freak. There is some good stuff in this book especially the chapters on how to admit "I don't know", how to think like a child and the upside of quitting.

The bad is the book is pretty short clocking in at just over 200 pages. The actual book is 256 pages but I'm only counting the actual content and not all the Notes and Index sections. That's not a lot of content for $34. Additionally if you are a listener of the Freakonomic's podcast, and you should be it's great, you will find much of the content of this book is a rehash of the podcast.

If you want to save the cash you can get the book from the library or listen to the episodes on How to Think Like a Child and The Upside of Quitting.


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