How about some variations on that theme, like "Not sober" or "Never outside the suicide ward."

Kind of like I guess I would respond if asked if I watched Britney Spears videos, "Not with my pants on."

There must be many creative variations.

Okay, let's see for Moby Dick.

"Not since I was five."

"Only in the Classic Comics version."

"With the thumbscrews set on eight."

"Yes, but I skipped the chapter on the whale's penis."

"In English or in the fine Polish translation?"

"I much prefer Clarel."

"Have you read Genoa by his great grandson, Paul Metcalf?"

How's that.

Bad example. I actually read Moby Dick cover to cover and enjoyed it, despite not doing much close analysis.

Better example personally would be "Have you read the Bible?"

Standard answer: "Yes, I read the King James Version circa 1611."

I'm closing in on the half way point of House of Leaves I'm enjoying it and parts of it have been incredibly haunting, to the point I have put the book down for a few minutes.

However, I also feel parts of the layout are over the top and are distracting to the very fasinating story that is being told. My annoyance with this has probably caused me to skim some of the sections and not get the full impact of all the details being presented.

I have no idea how this is going to end.

Ken

Or how about, "As literature, yes, but I've only really counted it as the Bible in Latin, Aramaic, and Greek."

Well, I have a book with 100 short stories by Bradbury. I checked last night if it had Sound of Thunder and it doesn't. I haven't read Sound of Thunder. I watched the movie, which was pretty bad, but not to the fault of the story.

What's the name of this collection? Or more precisely, anyone have a recommendation for Bradbury short stories?

Here's the book at google.
http://books.google.com/books?id=SzN...with-thumbnail

Been going through one of my chaotic periods where I'm reading through a ton of things and also seeing lots of movies all at the same time. Lately been circulating between Awakening Healing Light and also The Inner Structure of Tai Chi by Mantak Chia, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, an occasional short from The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories, and a big backlog of The Atlantic and Harpers' magazines that I've let pile up(even though I love those mags). Also, now that somebody besides me has heard of Italo Calvino on these forums, it's time for me to read a book I was really happy to see chosen for the book club, Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino.

I don't think you have to read ALL the footnotes - I know I didn't. Some of the list-like stuff was definitely perplexing. But it is an absolutely haunting book, you're right. Glad someone else is enjoying the book.

I just popped in here because you mentioned you are a math major.

Although this book is written to be accessible to the common idiot (me), it is still a fairly difficult read. I am truly enjoying it in bits. It if full of history, and explanations about how each mathemetician built on each other's knowledge.

I am in awe of how intelligent the pure mathemetician is. I prefer to use math in an applied sense (gambling). The brilliace of Gauss is nothing short of shocking. I would never be able to figure this stuff out. Spoiler, the book explains the gaussian triangle. I think it is a travesty that Gauss gave up on mathematics, and refused to publish anything that he couldn't prove.

I find it interesting how much math is interconnected. I am sure you are familiar with fractals and the triangle functions. The way to the Primes is just as fascinating, that so many mathemeticians have to sift through nearly two centuries of knowledge to find the one little, seemingly worthless bit of information to solve a proof. And then the impact of new numbers on math, and how it is applied to real use is interesting to read as well.

The journey has been long, and it would be really neat to see the Reimann hypothesis solved in my life-time.

Interestingly, the book connects well with The Nothing That Is. I find it impossible to believe the Greeks were able to discover so much about math without using the number zero, although that explains why much of their math was inaccurate.

I'm reading The Portrait of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde right now. I'm about half way through it and am blown away. I really like his prose, as well as the story.

daveT, I think the book mislead you on some things. Gauss didn't quit on mathematics, he kept publishing till his dying days. He wouldn't publish things he didn't deem worthy of publishing, but he still published a lot and his name is everywhere in mathematics (and in computer science and physics). An example of something he didn't publish was his research on non-Euclidean geometry, it was a bit frustrating for mathematicians fifty years later to find out their work had been done by Gauss but not published (kind of with Calculus, how Newton never published it).

I am familiar with fractals, but I don't know what you mean by triangle functions (do you mean Delta functions?).

If I was a betting man, I would bet against the Riemann Hypothesis being solved in my lifetime, but the advances in number theory have been great nonetheless. Enrico Bombieri and Montgomery gave us a theorem that is quite close in power to the Riemann Hypothesis and it is usually enough to prove very deep theorems in number theory.

There's a lot of fun stuff with the Riemann Hypothesis, but the problem is quite hard to understand. I am surprised that the 9 pages of work Riemann did in number theory were so influential (most of his work is in geometry). It is sad that he died so young.

If you are looking for other books to get you into math in an accessible way I recommend the following (in that order):
-Fermat's Last Enigma by Simon Singh (the most famous problem before the RH was Fermat's Last Theorem, this book is very well written),
-The Man Who Knew Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman (the biography of the eccentric Paul Erdos, this book is very fun to read and a very interesting biography).
-The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel (another very interesting biography, this is of Ramanujan, his story is incredible).

There's other math books I love, but those would be my recommendation for non-mathematicians. The three of them are quite entertaining and give a nice glimpse into pure mathematics.

One of my favorites.

Also, I encourage people reading Infinite Jest to give it some time. It really picks up steam about 1/4-1/3 through. I remember being like "ya so you can write well but why?" for the first 200 pages.

Just blazed through The Road last night. I thought it was really good. The emotions came through as very real. The suspense/the terror etc. I was looking out for some great philosophical debate between father/son or the like but ended up appreciating how there were no real answers but hope and love. When I sit and think about it though, the constantly getting lucky was kind of annoying.

Also finished Cosmicomics tihs week. Wasn't really blown away although I do appreciate the stories. On one hand, it was difficult to connect with any of the characters and on the other, they were not the Borges-Like stories I wanted them to be.

God is Not Great was good but not great. SKippable if youve already read Harris or Dawkins stuff although certainly a fresh voice.

Still unsure what to pick up next. Im stuck somewhere in Brother's Karamazov but will prob have to start over. Im a little into I, Claudius but I think its lost in my car or at my GF's. I read 10 pages of Love in the time of Cholera a couple nights ago while TV. Oh and I have A conspiracy of fools (enron thing) sitting on my desk.

I was thinking Isaacson's Einstein biography. I heard good things.

Any recs?

-JP

Yeah, finish what you started.

Philip Lopate's anthology American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now. It's a great book for skipping around, reading whatever you feel like. Gilbert Sedes 1929 article on Chaplin is terrific, and the anthology includes all the luminaries of American film writing, such as James Agee, Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Roger Ebert to lesser knowns (for film criticism) such as bell hooks and John Ashberry.

Just finished Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, it was entertaining. Not a book I would recommend, although I guess it's a good book to read on a flight.

I really hate giving up on books, so I'm still plugging along, at around 100 pages in so far. Couple that with your avatar being one of my favorite CDs and I will persevere.

After i rewatched Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (for the 1st time in like 5 years) and reading an article about it, i realized that i have a biography about Pier Paolo Pasolini lying around here so i started reading it. I'm not rly far so i cant tell if its good or not, but if anybody cares i can post a review once i'm done.

As I said, the book is full of facts and history. He found Ceres, and turned most of his focus to Astomony. He was still the head of the Math Department as Gottenberg. He didn't "give up," but he certainly slowed down.

I don't have any math books open, and I can't find an image, but I was referring to the Iscoseles triangle inside a triangle, inside a triangle, etc.

The Delta Functions gave me a headache.

As an aside, Trigonometry is the most confusing thing I have ever seen. I can't make any sense of that stuff.

Welcome to 2+2!

Oh right:

1+2+3+4+5+6.......+infinity = -1/2

Every one of his eqations reminds me that crack was not available at the time. No doubt his genius, for sure. Too bad he died at 33.

I was refering to the Sierpinski Gasket.



and how it relates to Paskal's Triangle:



and then how you can play "The Chaos Game."



I am slowly learning this stuff..... It is fascinating. I think it would be much easier if I was to start at the proofs, and work to the conclusions, because the conclusions make no sense, really.

even with knowing what fractals are, sometimes I feel as if i know nothing.

Dom, you want to color in the odd numbers, and then leave the even numbers white.

Portrait of Dorian Gray = awesome. In case anyone is looking for a nice short book to read.

I'm still working on The Selfish Gene, and have also started Into the Wild by Jon Krakaeur. So far The Selfish Gene is a bit of a dry read. I think it's a good book, and I am learning a alot, but I'm still having a tough time slogging through it.