Xavier Noria's Reading
Ongoing
Author: Susan Cain
Progress: 26% (ebook)
Start:
Comment: An extraordinary book about introversion.
Author: Sam Ruby
Progress: 24% ((24+85)/(24+423))
Start:
Comment: I learned Ruby on Rails with the first edition of this book. That was 2005. Eager to see how it covers Rails 7 today.
Done
Author: Dr. Steven Laureys
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2023
Comment: Dr. Steven Laureys is a neuroscientist who has researched consciousness for over two decades. In this book, he explains the benefits of meditation from a scientific point of view. This is the Catalan translation of his bestseller The No Non-Sense Meditation Book.
Author: Jeremy Evans
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2023
Comment: In this book, Ruby core team member Jeremy Evans reflects about Ruby programming from different angles.
Author: Dr. David A. Sinclair
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2022
Comment: Spanish translation of Lifespan, linked above. A Christmas present. The author is a world-class authority on aging, professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.
Author: Andreas Rumpf
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2022
Comment: I am doing Advent of Code in Nim this year. This book is helping me learn the language.
Author: Joël Dicker
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2022
Comment: Spanish translation of La Disparition de Stephanie Mailer. I finished this novel, but was not particularly good for my taste. There were some weak dead ends, non-credible situations. The last 100 pages or so got some rhythm, though.
Author: Sanjay Gupta
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2022
Comment: Spanish translation of Keep Sharp, which gives guidelines to have a healthy lifestyle for the brain according to current science.
Author: Stephen Hendry
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2022
Comment: Autobiography of the snooker legend Stephen Hendry.
Author: Austin Current
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2022
Comment: This book was a gift. Covers strength training in a very accessible way, with nice, high-quality diagrams. Not all books about resistance training are as clear as this one.
Author: David M. Beazley
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2022
Comment: The stack of my current main client is Python and C++. Refreshing this nice programming language is a pleasure.
Author: Ken Follet
Progress: Halted
Start: December 2021
Comment: Spanish translation of Never, linked above. I had to rest my eyes for some days and picked this novel as an audiobook. I am liking the experience, but the novel did not really hook me, so I left it at 29%.
Author: Greg McKeown
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2021
Comment: In essence, this book describes how I am living my adult life. A recommendation from my friend Jorge Gómez Sancha.
Author: Jim Al-Khalili
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2021
Comment: Fascinating non-technical book about Physics I devoured as an audiobook while recovering from surgery.
Author: Jonas Salzgeber
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2021
Comment: Spanish translation of The Little Book of Stoicism. This book has two parts. The first one covers Stoicism in general and, in my view, could be drastically simplified. The second one consists of +50 short chapters dedicated to particular Stoic ways to look at things. I liked this last part better.
Author: Liu Cixin
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2021
Comment: Spanish translation of the first volume of the trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past. This book won a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015.
Author: Jacques Hadamard
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2021
Comment: This is a must-read about the psychology of invention in Mathematics, by the French mathematician Jacques Hadamard.
Author: David Bryant Copeland
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2021
Comment: This book covers a lot of aspects related to writing sustainable Rails applications. Things like project setup, design, mailers, logging, .... These are pragmatic advices coming from first-hand experience evolving a SOA architecture over years. Explains wise practical compromises, no blackboard theoretical bullshit. It's a great book every Rails programmer should read.
Author: Katsuki Sekida
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2021
Comment: Spanish translation of Zen Training. One of the few books that goes deep into breathing, kenshō, and samadhi. Half of it is kinda speculative, more interested in the other half.
Author: Colson Whitehead
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2021
Comment: Catalan translation of The Nickle Boys, which won the 2020 Pullitzer Prize for Fiction.
Author: John Ousterhout
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2021
Comment: This is a wise book about principles of software design from the professor that teaches CS 190 in Stanford. There's a related talk at Google.
Author: Siobhan Roberts
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2021
Comment: Biography of the genius mathematician John Horton Conway.
Author: Christopher Allen, Julie Moronuki
Progress: Halted
Start: February 2021
Comment: Learned Crystal and Nim recently and wanted to go for something different. Read +300 pages of this book, but it did not click to me. The language is neat, but this book is thought for readers with less background, and the pace is really slow (quite formal, however!). I might give Haskell a second try with a different book.
Author: Ken Follett
Progress: Paused
Start: January 2021
Comment: Catalan translation of The Evening and the Morning. A Christmas present.
Author: Malcom X
Progress: Halted
Start: October 2020
Comment: Picked this one for Black History Month 2020. I am not in UK, but any excuse is good for reading a great book :). Read about half of it, and watched the biopic for the rest.
Author: Katsuki Sekida
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2020
Author: P. D. Mangan
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2020
Comment: A book about the health benefits of strength training.
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Progress: Halted
Start: July 2020
Comment: Spanish translation of The Fifth Season, linked above. This is the first book of the Broken Earth trilogy, which won several Hugo awards. I read about 100 pages of it, I appreciated the quality of the writing, but the genre is not really my thing.
Author: Apple
Progress: Halted
Start: April 2020
Comment: I am learning Swift just for fun. Wanted to pick something mainstream and a bit different this time.
Author: Stephen Bussey
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2020
Comment: A new book about using WebSockets with Phoenix, the web framework for Elixir. Perfect timing, since I am writing a WS application with Phoenix for a client.
Author: Stephen King
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2020
Comment: Catalan translation of Night Shift, which is a collection of early short stories written between 1968 and 1977.
Author: Bhante Gunaratana
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2020
Comment: I liked Mindfulness in Plain English so much that I couldn't but purchase this continuation.
Author: Bhante Gunaratana
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2020
Comment: Among the best books I've read about awareness meditation. Covers vipassana practice with common sense and deep insight.
Author: Herbie Hancock
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2020
Comment: Autobiography of the legendary jazz musician.
Author: Rosa Parks
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2020
Comment: Spanish translation of Rosa Park's autobiography.
Author: Shunmyō Masuno
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2020
Comment: 100 reflections by Japanese Zen monk Shunmyō Masuno. This is a Catalan translation of The Art of Simple Living.
Author: Ted Naiman M.D. & William Shewfelt
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2019
Comment: This book covers nutrition and exercise. In the first part it explains macronutrients bottom-up, from their origin in the food chain up to their role in our metabolism. From this data it follows a diet rich in protein, with some carbs, some fats, but ideally not mixing these two. The second part covers the basics of resistence training and high-intensity workouts.
Author: Max Tegmark
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2019
Comment: This book by MIT professor Max Tegmark has two parts: The first one talks about the nature of the Universe as studied by Cosmology (macro scale) and Quantum Theory (micro scale). In the second one, the author speculates about his hypothesis that reality is literally a mathematical structure.
Author: Jordi Cuixart
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2019
Comment: Jordi Cuixart is a Catalan political priosioner that, as of this writing, has been in pretrial detention for more that 700 days. He is the president of Òmnim Cultural. A radically peaceful and democratic guy with an admirable integrity. A book written from prision mostly about nonviolent resistance.
Author: Fred Uhlman
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2019
Comment: Catalan translation of Reunion. A very well-written, short, and touching novel about two boys which become best friends in the 30s in Stuttgart (Germany). One is a jewish guy, and the other one a German aristocrat. Political events separate them forever.
Author: MJ DeMarco
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2019
Comment: I think this is a great book about creating wealth. What scales and what does not, simple math, mindsets, reflections, advices, experiences, etc. The title refers to an image on which the book is based: The Sidewalk to wealth (think people with regular jobs), the Slowlane (think successful professionals), and the Fastlane (think owners of businesses that scale).
Author: Anthony L.
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2019
Comment: Pearls of wisdom from a professional watchmaker. Anthony has a couple of online courses about watchmaking that I want to take.
Author: Wynton Marsalis & Geoffrey C. Ward
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2019
Comment: Spanish translation of the Pullitzer Price Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life.
Author: Neil Gaiman
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2019
Comment: Spanish translation of the fantasy novel American Gods, with illustrations by Dave McKean.
Author: Tim Peake
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2019
Comment: Spanish translation of Ask an Astronaut . Fascinating book in which astronaut Tim Peake shares all kind of information related to what does being an astronaut entails.
Author: Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche & Eric Swanson
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2019
Comment:
A book about meditation from master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
This master has very unique profile. He is a Tibetan Buddhist with decades of intensive practice. If regular men and women who meditate were amateur sporty people, Mingyur would be something like a world-class olympic athlete.
On the other hand, this guy has participated in scientific programs that investigate the effects of meditation in the brain and is genuinely open-minded and interested in science.
I knew about him in the book The Science of Meditation.
Author: Cal Newport
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2018
Comment: A book exploring the concept of deep work, defined as activities in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. The author claims the ability to perform at that level is becoming rare, and at the same time more valuable.
Author: Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2018
Comment: A productivity book Francesc Pla recommended to me. The book presents three core ideas. Each day, highlight something you are going to deliberately concentrate on. Learn to focus. Then reflect and fine-tune your techniques.
Author: Ryder Carroll
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2018
Comment: The Bullet Journal passed my radar long time ago, but my first impression was "too complicated and rigid" and I had forgotten about it. That changed when I saw the astonishing notebook of Iván Párraga. I am sold on this framework, and the book is excellent to really understand it, deeper than any video or blog post that you can read.
Author: Kenny Werner
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2018
Comment: This is a book about mastering abilities that require practice. Focuses on some psychological aspects like cultivating detachment, getting rid of fears and ego, and on some practical aspects in what I'd call extremely deliberate practice. The book frames its mindset around playing musical instruments, Kenny Warner is a world-class jazz pianist, but I believe its principles apply to many other fields.
Author: J. G. Ballard
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2018
Comment: This novel takes place in a brand new 40 story luxury high-raise with 1,000 tenants, two swimming pools, school, bank, supermarket, .... Starting with some complaints and first disagreements, life in the building follows a spiral down to chaos.
Author: Sarah Knight
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2018
Comment: Hilarious book that made me laugh and nod from cover to cover. This is a keepsake from Santorini, Greece. I purchased it while visiting Oia during holidays, in the unique bookshop Atlantis Books, which is an obligatory stop.
Author: Cédric Villani
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2018
Comment: The author is a world-class French mathematician, who among other things was awarded a Fields Medal in 2010.
This is a fascinating book I could not put down. It documents his day to day pursuing an open problem that was extremely difficult. Emails with his colleague, sustained hard work, highs and lows, errors, confidence and optimism, inspiration, dispair, clever tricks, dead ends, discarded paths, how the proof takes shape over time.... Of course, I didn't understand the math, but that doesn't matter.
Author: Bill Clinton & James Patterson
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2018
Comment: Catalan translation of the thriller The President Is Missing.
Author: Éric Rommeluère
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2018
Comment: Cool book about contemporary zen with a somewhat practical and historical way to look at things. It ends with an appendix in which mindfulness is critizized. Well-documented, this book has been a source of a good number of pointers to follow.
Author: Paolo Cognetti
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2018
Comment: Delightful novel. Originally written in Italian, this is the Catalan translation. There is also an English translation.
Author: J. M. Mulet
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2018
Comment: This is a book in Spanish about myths or dubious popular wisdom about food. The author has a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biotechnology professor, researcher, ..., this guy knows what he is talking about. At the same time, the vocabulary and style are very approachable, and there's a nice touch of humor here and there.
Author: Martin Kleppmann
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2018
Comment: This is a book about data-intensive software systems, densely packed with information. Reliabilty, scalability, and maintainability are discussed from different perspectives, such as data structures, distributed platforms, or batch and stream processing.
Author: Louis Nardin
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2018
Comment: This is a wonderful and beautifully edited book about watches. It covers a variety of topics, from some historical information, how to purchase, or how to take care of a fine watch, to the technical details about their parts, how they work, complications, etc.
Author: Barack Obama
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2018
Comment: Spanish translation of Barack Obama's memoir Dreams from My Father. I loved this book, it was a present from my wife.
Author: Marcus du Sautoy
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2018
Comment: Spanish translation of How to Count to Infinity. A very small book around the concept of infinity. Purchased it thinking in my daughter. I liked the intuitive flavor of the exposition, but at times it gets just a bit technical in a way that seems unbalanced for my taste. The overall impression didn't click, and I have actually not passed it to her.
Author: Loïc Hoguin
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2018
Comment: Ranch is a socket acceptor pool for TCP protocols used by Cowboy, the Erlang/OTP HTTP server. I am reading its documentation as part of groundwork for a talk, as well as personal interest.
Author: Stephen King
Progress: Halted
Start: December 2017
Comment: Spanish translation of The Stand. This was a Christmas gift. Stephen King says in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft that this is considered to be his best novel by his fans. I left this book after +300 pages read, did not actually like it.
Author: Paul Lockhard
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2018
Comment:
This book criticizes the way mathematics are taught.
It is mostly about K-12, but the same criticism is also applicable to the university in my experience. Creativity is not encouraged, lack of exploration and development of intuitions, lack of motivational historical context, excessive emphasis on notation, formalism, and sequences definition-lemma-theorem-corollary for which you have a formal understanding only, without a true and profound grasping.
I have a criticism for the book itself, though. The thesis of the author is quickly clear, and then repeated again and again. This essay is only 25 pages long, but could have been way shorter in my view.
This book is available as a PDF here.
Author: Francesco Cesarini & Steve Vinoski
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2017
Comment: An extraordinary book on OTP and distributed systems. This is not just a dry listing of APIs or principles, rather, the extensive practical knowledge of the authors in production systems permeates the exposition. The book is comprehensive and very well-written.
Author: Ben Marx, José Valim, Bruce Tate
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2017
Comment: Reviewed a draft of this book. Covers several aspects related to the adoption of Elixir in three blocks. The first one is about adopting Elixir in a team or company. Covers team building, people, training, etc. The second block covers several aspects of Elixir development. And the third block is about taking Elixir to production, deployments, benchmarking, etc.
Author: Stephen King
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2017
Comment:
Spanish translation of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
This book has three parts. In the first one Stephen explains a bunch of scattered memories from his youth, early steps, addictions, love, ..., I believe they kind of build who is he going to be, both as a writer, and as a person. In the second one, the raison d'être of the book, Stephen writes about his craft from different perspectives. The third part is more vital, reflects about an important accident.
This summary is 10% shorter than the first one.
Author: Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2017
Comment: The authors of this book are long-time meditators and scientists. They have studied meditators of different traditions and levels of expertise for a long time, and summarize here their most important findings.
Author: Ben Ratliff
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2017
Comment: Another keepsake from New York, also purchased at McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St. This book is not really a biography of Coltrane as such, but more of a story of his sound and evolution as musician.
Author: Arthur Braverman
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2017
Comment: Keepsake from New York, purchased at McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St.
Author: Harper Lee
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2017
Comment: Catalan translation of the Pulitzer-awarded novel To Kill A Mockingbird.
Author: Christian Keur and Aaron Hillegass
Progress: Paused
Start: July 2017
Author: Lluís Nansen Salas
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2017
Comment: I am really enjoying this book. Master Lluís Nansen studied theoretical physics and I believe that is reflected in the way topics are addressed. The text has clarity, and the style is straightforward. This book is the Catalan edition, there is a Spanish edition as well, but no English translation as of this writing.
Author: Kilian Jornet
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2016
Comment: I devoured Córrer o morir, so I purchased this second book by Kilian Jornet right away. I am reading the Catalan edition, there is no English translation by now.
Author: Kilian Jornet
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2017
Comment: Original Catalan version of this book by superhuman Kilian Jornet (who is Catalan). This is among the most authentic and inspiring books I have read, totally recommended. There is an English translation titled Run or Die.
Author: Taizan Maezumi & Bernie Glassman
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2017
Author: Albert Low
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2017
Comment: Father's Day present of this year. This is a Spanish translation of An Invitation to Practice Zen.
Author: Elixir Contributors
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2016
Comment: Going through the official Elixir docs, and leveraging the pass to contribute some patches since I am on it.
Author: Ryan Holiday
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2016
Comment: Trying Audible with this one.
Author: Thomas Farber & Edward Frenkel
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2016
Author: Alan A. A. Donovan & Brian W. Kernighan
Progress: Paused
Start: April 2016
Comment: I am solving the exercises of this book, check them out in this repo.
Author: Alex Stone
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2016
Comment: Spanish translation of Fooling Houdini. Fascinating book about the underground world of magicians.
Author: David McCullough
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2016
Comment: Extraordinarily well-written account of Wright Brothers' life, written by Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough. I purchased this book in the airport of Philadelphia, while waiting for my connection to Barcelona coming back from RailsConf.
Author: Oliver Sacks
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2016
Comment: This is a book with short essays written by Oliver Sacks knowing he was about to die due to some metastasis found in his body. In it, Oliver Sacks reflects about life. I purchased this book in the airport of Chicago while waiting for my conneciton to Kansas City for RailsConf.
Author: Carlo Robelli
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2016
Comment: Catalan translation of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.
Author: Norman Fischer & Susan Moon
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2016
Comment: This is very down-to-earth book about Zen. It is presented as a series of questions (by Susan), answered by Norman. The book covers a really broad set of topics. Norman Fischer is a Sōtō Zen roshi, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center among other things. Purchased this book in Ottawa, while visiting Shopify.
Author: Anders Ericsson
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2016
Author: Marie Kondo
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2016
Comment: Spanish translation of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. I got this one after seen it referenced online as something potentially life-changing, but would not recommend it. You could summarize this book in a tweet: "Throw stuff".
Author: Stan Britt
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2016
Comment: Biography of the legendary tenor saxophone Dexter Gordon. I finished this book during a trip to Ottawa and dropped it in the sculpture homage to Oscar Peterson. You can see it in this photo, to the right of the piano.
Author: Chris McCord, Bruce Tate, and José Valim
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2016
Comment: Second pass, reviewing the final draft of this book. Phoenix is going to be really big. Reading this book makes me very happy, I personally appreciate José a lot and remember his first steps with Elixir. The success of Elixir is inexorable!
Author: Chris Seaton
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2016
Comment: This is the PhD thesis behind JRuby+Truffle, a Ruby implementation based on the Truffle AST interpreter framework and the Graal dynamic compiler for the JVM. The performance of JRuby+Truffle is spectacular, I think it could be an inflection point in the history of Ruby.
Author: Edzard Ernst
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2015
Comment: Autobiography of a physician who did scientific research on alternative medicines for many years at the University of Exeter. His work often got controversy, hostility, and personal issues coming from alternative medicine advocates.
Author: Shunryu Suzuki
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2015
Comment: This month I visited San Francisco for the first time to attend the Google Summer of Code 2015 Mentors Summit at the Google headquarters. I leveraged the occasion to visit the San Francisco Zen Center, founded by master Suzuki. The temple was not open at that moment but they very kindly showed it to me, and I could do zazen (I am a Soto zen practitioner). They have a small bookstore where I bought this book.
Author: Andy Weir
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2015
Comment: Spanish translation of The Martian.
Author: Graham Farmelo
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2015
Author: Laia Montserrat
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2015
Comment: Second time I read this book.
Author: Lodro Rinzler
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2015
Comment: Spanish translation of Sit Like a Buda.
Author: Miyamoto Musashi
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2015
Comment: Spanish translation of the Japanese classic. Translated to English as The Book of Five Rings.
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Progress: Halted
Start: June 2015
Comment: Instant purchase after @sd's recommendation. The premise of the story is really interesting, but didn't finish it because it is a novel written in American English, which was hard to follow at a normal pace for me due to its idiomatic vocabulary, slang, ignorance of American context, culture, etc.
Author: Clifford A. Pickover
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2015
Comment: Spanish translation of The Math Book.
Author: Martin L. Abbot, Michael T. Fisher
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2015
Author: Robert T. Kiyosaki
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2015
Comment: This book clicked page after page. Financial independence through a fundamental mindset shift, get out of the vicious cycle "get a job, work hard to earn money to pay debts and buy more things." Emphasis on dedicated study of the involved topics: accounting, personal finances, taxes, law, etc. (English translation of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.)
Author: Emilio Ontiveros, David Cano
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2015
Author: Jacob Lund Fisker
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2014
Comment: This book talks about financial independence through frugality: hack your life to need a ridiculously small amount of money per month, and invest for a few years to be able to cover that amount.
Author: Albert Sánchez Piñol
Progress: Paused
Start: September 2014
Comment: Catalan translation of Victus: The Fall of Barcelona, a Novel (originally written in Spanish). This is a historical novel about the fall of Barcelona after its siege in the Spanish Succession War in 1714. Probably the single most important event in the history of Catalonia.
This summer, the Spanish goverment via its embassy censored the presentation of the translation to Dutch in Utrech. That created a Streisand effect, and I decided to buy the novel as a way to protest. Enjoying the protest indeed, the novel is well-written, having a great time.
Author: John Powell
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2014
Author: Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2014
Author: Jeffry S. Life, M.D., Ph.D.
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2014
Comment: Solid book. A doctor that is specialized in age management explains key stuff to fix ourselves and stay healthy as we age. Everything is backed up by research or professional knowledge of our body. He has tested all he preaches on himself, and has seen the plan at work on his patients.
Author: Paul Schmeling
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2014
Comment: Refreshing theory to complement my saxophone classes.
Author: Dick Couch
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2014
Comment: A book about the Navy SEALs: how they train, how's their life, war stories, what does it take. Written by a veteran SEAL who was the Honorman of class 45 (1969), and Commander with SEAL Team One in Vietnam.
Author: William B. Irvine
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2014
Comment: A book about the stoic philosophy of life. It matches a lot the way I see life since my 20s, but didn't know it had a name. DHH recommended this book in Twitter.
Author: Maceo Parker
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2014
Author: Jonathan Bailor
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2014
Comment: Well-researched book that explains why calories math or eating less, exercising more are not effective methods of weight control. The text refers to a lot of research lab studies its remarks are founded on, and based on all that known, proved science, develops a five week plan to fix hormonal clog and lower your set-point in a sustainable way.
Author: Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2014
Comment: I have been working remotely since 2006. This book is full of common sense and matches my personal experience.
Author: Drew Neil
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2013
Author: Michael C. Pierce and Robert K. Ware
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2013
Author: Julio Cortázar
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2013
Author: Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2013
Author: Michael S. Mikowski and Josh C. Powell
Progress: Paused
Start: November 2013
Author: Edward Frenkel
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2013
Author: Ted Gioia
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2013
Author: Jonas Jonasson
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2013
Comment: Catalan translation of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. A present from this year's Diada de Sant Jordi.
Author: James H. Austin, M.D.
Progress: Paused
Start: July 2013
Comment: This is a unique tome. The author is a scholar, a neurologist, who happens to have been practicing zen for about thirty years. This large work merges his scientific knowledge of the brain with his zazen experience.
Author: Susan Ottaway
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2013
Author: Bernard Faure
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2013
Comment: Spanish translation of Unmasking Buddhism. The book strips away some existing preconceptions about Buddhism.
Author: José Valim
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2013
Comment: The most advanced book about Rails in the market. Reading a draft of the new edition.
Author: Ken Follet
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2013
Comment: Spanish translation of Night Over Water, linked above.
Author: Rob Buckland
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2013
Comment: I started to play the alto saxophone last October. This is an extraordinaire book which covers playing the instrument in depth. Teaching style is profound. It covers a solid explanation of the techniques, how and why you build a strong foundation, together with a more transversal message about reflecting, consciously observing yourself, and in general taking an active approach to improve your playing. Awesome book.
Author: Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2013
Author: Shawn Levy
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2013
Comment: Spanish translation of Paul Newman's biography by Shawn Levy, linked above. Paul Newman was an extraordinaire man.
Author: Pat Shaughnessy
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2012
Comment: Amazing book about Ruby internals soon to be published. I am proofreading a draft.
Author: Ernest Cline
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2012
Comment: I am reading the Spanish translation.
Author: Sau Sheong Chang
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2012
Author: Taisen Deshimaru
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2012
Comment: This is the first book by Taisen Deshimaru, a Zen master who brought Soto Zen to Europe. He founded the dojo where I did zazen in Barcelona.
Author: General Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2012
Comment: Autobiography of General Chuck Yeager. Legendary test pilot, WWII flying ace, first man who broke the sound barrier.
Author: Richard West
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2012
Author: David Simon and Ed Burns
Progress: Halted
Start: June 2012
Comment: Spanish translation of The Corner, linked above. A nonfiction book about West Baltimore written as a novel that spawned the HBO series of the same title, and later The Wire. I read about 1/3 of the book, but once the day to day of the corner had been depicted I wasn't hooked enough to have other 400 pages of the same thing.
Author: Tom Wolfe
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2012
Comment: Spanish translation of The Right Stuff, linked above. Fascinating research story about test pilots engaged in U.S. postwar experiments with rocket-powered, high-speed aircraft, and the Mercury project.
Author: Laia Montserrat
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2012
Comment: Simple, authentic, unpretentious, a little jewel.
Author: Nicholas J. Radcliffe and Nicholas H. Tollervey
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2012
Comment: This book is not published yet. I am reading a practically final draft Nick (@njr) kindly gave me. I am the author of the Perl interface to Fluidinfo, and was involved in the project for some weeks in 2009. It has an enormous potential to become a world-wide database of everything.
Author: Laminar Research
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2012
Comment: I am getting into flight simulation these days. X-Plane 10 has been the first simulation I've tried. Also got FSX.
Author: David F. Anderson and Scott Eberhardt
Progress: Paused
Start: January 2012
Author: Stephen King
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2011
Comment: Catalan translation of Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales, linked above.
Author: John "The Penguin" Bingham
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2011
Author: Walter Isaacson
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2011
Comment: Hardcover edition, Catalan translation.
Author: Christopher Hadnagy
Progress: Paused
Start: October 2011
Author: Chad Pytel, Tammer Saleh
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2011
Comment: Excellent book about Rails best practices and refactorings to fix common AntiPatterns. A must read for any beginner/intermediate Rails developer.
Author: Haruki Murakami
Progress: Paused
Start: September 2011
Comment: Catalan translation of Murakami's acclaimed novel 海辺のカフカ, translated to English as Kafka on the Shore.
Author: Haruki Murakami
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2011
Comment: Spanish translation of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Fantastic book about... I don't know, it is supposed to be about running and writing novels, and it certainly covers those topics, but there's more in it, about life, endurance, little things, being oneself. I devoured it in two sittings.
Author: Jonathan Landaw, Stephan Bodian
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2011
Comment: Spanish translation of Buddhism for Dummies. Introduction to Buddhism using a clear language, its basis, history, practices, branches, etc.
Author: Arcadi Alibés
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2011
Comment: Arcadi Alibés is a known Catalan journalist who has done more than 100 marathons all over the world as an amateur runner. This book, written in Catalan, explains his experience. A really nice story that breaths simplicity, humbleness, and love for this sport. Recommended.
Author: Walter Lewin and Warren Goldstein
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2011
Author: Michael A. Covington, Donald Nute, André Vellino
Progress: Paused
Start: July 2011
Comment: Somehow lost this book. I was doing the exercises, check their GitHub repo.
Author: Tristan Needham
Progress: Paused
Start: May 2011
Comment: This book is a gem. It is a formal and rigorous math book, but it is full on drawings and intuitions that explain why things behave the way they do. You think math non-linearly using intuitions, symbolic manipulation and orderly exposition comes after that. IMHO the approach in this book should be the norm for books and classes.
Author: David Chelimsky
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2011
Comment: Test::Unit user over here, but worth reading about anyway.
Author: Donald E. Knuth
Progress: Paused
Start: May 2011
Comment: The source code of TeX. A masterpiece of literate programming.
Author: Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2011
Comment: Catalan translation of The Last Lecture. This is a wonderful book about life. Go read it.
Author: Dave Hoover, Adewale Oshineye
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2011
Comment: Really insightful. Recommended if you're into software development no matter your expertise level.
Author: Scott Chacon
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2011
Comment: Very clear introduction to Git. I read its online version in my iPad.
Author: Sam Ruby, Dave Thomas, and David Heinemeier Hansson
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2011
Comment: I learned Ruby on Rails with the first edition of this book. Still the best introduction in the market in my view. Good coverage, good pace, good exposition, superb editorial quality, with an extensive test suite that explains its overall correctness.
Author: Kiyohiro Miura
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2011
Comment: Spanish translation of He's Leaving Home.
Author: Mike Brown
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2011
Author: David Perlmutter and Alberto Villoldo
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2011
Comment: Really insteresting book with quite a lot of information about what modern neuroscience knows about brain health. With some incursions into shamanic practices I don't care about, buy anyway worth reading.
Author: Alberto Martín Costa, Edgar Tejedor García
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2010
Author: Zenkei Shibayama
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2010
Comment: Spanish translation of Sumiko Kudo's Gateless Barrier: Zen Comments on the Mumonkan.
Author: Francisco Álvarez
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2010
Comment: And introduction to the stock market in Spain, not very to the point though.
Author: José Valim
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2010
Comment: I read a draft of José's book. Superb, the most advanced Rails book in the market.
Author: John Allen Paulos
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2010
Comment: Spanish translation of A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market.
Author: Glenn Cooper
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2010
Comment: Marketed as Secret of the Seventh Son in USA, linked above.
Author: Dafydd Stuttard and Marcus Pinto
Progress: Paused
Start: October 2010
Comment: A second edition of this book is due by October 2011, will wait for that one.
Author: Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2010
Author: William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2010
Comment: Second time I read this little jewel.
Author: Dawn Griffiths
Progress: Halted
Start: September 2010
Comment: This book covers only the basics, but the Head First series is interesting in itself. Didn't read the +700 pages though.
Author: George Carlin and Tony Hendra
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2010
Author: Jason Robillard
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2010
Comment: I've been wearing Vibram FiveFingers for months now and am gonna give running a whirl, inspired by Born to Run.
Author: Christopher McDougall
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2010
Comment: Really fascinating, no matter whether you run or not (I don't). There's something fundamental in it, about running, authenticity, endurance, about we as human beings.... Totally recommended.
Author: Obie Fernandez
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2010
Comment: This book has not been yet published, I reviewed some chapters of it.
Author: Alessandro Baricco
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2010
Comment: Spanish translation of Senza sangue, also translated to English as Without Blood, linked above.
Author: Ezra Bayda
Progress: Halted
Start: June 2010
Comment: Bought in Barnes & Noble in Baltimore, during RailsConf 2010. Read like half of it, too much talk.
Author: Chad Fowler
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2010
Comment: Insightful and reflective about you and your career. Full of wisdom. This was the first book I read in the iPad.
Author: Richard Bausch
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2010
Comment: Spanish translation of Peace, linked above.
Author: Stephen G. Kochan
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2009
Author: Marc J. Rochkind
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2009
Author: Muhammad A. Ali
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2009
Author: Janwillem van de Wetering
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2009
Comment: Spanish translation of afterzen: Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear, linked above. A perspective of Janwillem's Zen experience, 40 years after he went to Tokyo as related in The Empty Mirror.
Author: Janwillem van de Wetering
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2009
Comment: Spanish translation of The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, linked above. This guy went to Japan to study in a monastery of the Rinzai school and explains his experience in a very honest way.
Author: Marc Eliot
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2009
Author: Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche
Progress: Paused
Start: October 2009
Author: David Foster Wallace
Progress: Paused
Start: August 2009
Comment: Spanish translation of Infinite Jest. I lost it in a bus, hope to retake it someday.
Author: Mike Gunderloy
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2009
Comment: A must-read, full of experience, balance, and reflection.
Author: Raquel Bouso
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2009
Comment: Short but very good overview of zen: practice, terminology, history, art, philosophy. In Catalan.
Author: Apple Inc.
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2009
Author: Seth Godin
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2009
Comment: Seth Goding deeply understands modern leadership.
Author: Jason Beaird
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2009
Author: Sam Ruby, Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2009
Comment: I read the first edition of AWDwR back in 2005. Still a must for any Rails developer.
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Progress: Halted
Start: January 2009
Comment: I liked The Tipping Point, but this one is unconvincing for me.
Author: Tobias Oetiker
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2009
Comment: I first read this intro circa 1995, nice little book.
Author: Travis Swicegood
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2009
Author: Andy Hunt
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2008
Comment: I received this book in PDF format as a gift from a user of my Rails plugin model_auto_completer. I am proud to read it to use for the first time my brand new shiny iRex DR 1000S ebook reader.
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2008
Comment: A revealing book. Must read. There's a short summary in the Wikipedia. (Check the "Criticism" section as well.) And another longer one at Wiki Summaries.
Author: Jon Erickson
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2008
Author: Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2008
Comment: Spanish translation of The Voynich Manuscript, linked above. I wrote summary (in Spanish)
Author: Ken Follet
Progress: Halted
Start: March 2008
Comment: Catalan translation of The Pillars of the Earth, linked above. I liked it a lot but some work interrumpts prevented me from following the story, parked until the right time comes.
Author: David Flanagan and Yukihiro Matsumoto
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2008
Comment: Prize for my 2nd in the Rails Hackfest of January 2008
Author: Joe Armstrong
Progress: Halted
Start: January 2008
Comment: I got the idea of the language, but the book itself didn't hook me enough to finish it.
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2008
Comment: Spanish translation of The Road.
Author: Obie Fernandez
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2007
Comment: This book is outstanding, Rails has now two must-reads.
Author: Ola Bini
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2007
Comment: I skipped a lot of material
Author: Steve Souders
Progress: Finished
Start: Novembre 2007
Author: Ryan Daigle
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2007
Author: Robert Goldblatt
Progress: Paused
Start: October 2007
Author: Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2007
Author: Moussa Ag Assarid
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2007
Comment: Spanish translation of Y a pas d'embouteillages dans le désert ! : Chroniques d'un Touareg en France
Author: chromatic, Damian Conway, Curtis "Ovid" Poe
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2007
Author: Richard P. Feynman
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2007
Comment: Spanish translation of Six Easy Pieces
Author: Steve Kemper
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2007
Comment: The first time I rode a Segway I knew I would buy one as soon as I could afford it (I did). I was really intrigued about the story behind such an extraordinarie invention, it promised genius and transpiration. This book explains it, thank you guys for documenting and sharing this.
Author: Pepper White
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2007
Author: Antoni Amengual Colom
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2007
Comment: AFAIK there's no English translation of this book
Author: Gaku Homma
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2007
Author: Paul Graham
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2007
Comment: My friend jao lent me this thought-provoking book, thank you dude!
Author: Martin Aigner, Günter M. Ziegler
Progress: Paused
Start: March 2007
Author: Bill Bryson
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2007
Comment: Spanish translation of A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Nina Barough
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2007
Comment: Spanish translation of Walking for Fitness. I've started to walk regularly and this book has been a good guide to better understand this sport
Author: Randall Hyde
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2007
Author: Albert Einstein
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2006
Comment: Spanish translation of The World As I See It, a present from my friend Jesús Cerquides
Author: James Adam
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2007
Author: Lucas Carlson, Leonard Richarson
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2006
Author: Ian Stewart
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2006
Comment: Spanish translation of Letters to a Young Mathematician, linked above
Author: John Derbyshire
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2006
Author: Jared Richardson, William Gwaltney Jr.
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2006
Author: Venkat Subramanian, Andy Junt
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2006
Author: Bruce Tate
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2006
Author: Torkel Franzén
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2006
Comment: I wrote a summary
Author: Paul Rogers, Bret Pettichord
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2006
Comment: That's Ruby source code
Author: Neal Stephenson
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2006
Comment: Roger Casaponsa lent me this book, I had a great time thank you dude!
Author: Julio Cortázar
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2006
Author: David A. Black
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2006
Author: Leonard Bernstein
Progress: Finished
Start: April 2006
Comment: Catalan translation of Leonard Bernstein - Young People's Concerts
Author: Ben Yandell
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2006
Author: 37signals
Progress: Finished
Start: March 2006
Author: Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2006
Author: Michael L. Scott
Progress: Paused
Start: January 2006
Author: Joel McIver
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2005
Author: Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2005
Author: Daniel N. Stern
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2005
Comment: Spanish translation of Diary of a Baby
Author: Andy James
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2005
Comment: Spanish translation of The Spiritual Legacy of Shaolin Temple, linked above
Author: Michael Cohen, Dennis Cohen
Progress: Paused
Start: November 2005
Author: Soko Morinaga
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2005
Author: C.J. Date
Progress: Halted
Start: November 2005
Comment: I was looking for something more formal
Author: Tim Jenness, Simon Cozens
Progress: Finished
Start: November 2005
Author: Neal Stephenson
Progress: Halted
Start: October 2005
Comment: First book (of three) of the Spanish translation of Cryptonomicon. It hasn't hooked me.
Author: Josep Pla i Carrera
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2005
Author: Doug Lea
Progress: Halted
Start: September 2005
Comment: Too dense and conceptual for what I wanted.
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2005
Comment: Catalan translation of The Shadow of the Wind
Author: David Allen
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2005
Author: Andy Hertzfeld
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2005
Editor: John Daido Loori
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2005
Comment: Spanish translation of The Art of Just Sitting
Author: Simon Cozens
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2005
Author: Douglas Adams
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2005
Comment: Catalan translation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag
Progress: Finished
Start: July 2005
Author: Dave Thomas, with Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2005
Author: Don Campbell
Progress: Paused
Start: June 2005
Author: Neil Fiore
Progress: Finished
Start: May 2005
Comment: I wrote a summary.
Author: Tom Stafford, Matt Webb
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2005
Author: Robin S. Sharma
Progress: Finished
Start: February 2005
Author: Apple Computer, Inc.
Progress: Finished
Start: January 2005
Comment: The original document is no longer available
Author: Frank McCourt
Progress: Halted
Start: January 2005
Comment: I didn't like the style. Declarative sentences in present tense.
Author: Ashley Kahn
Progress: Finished
Start: December 2004
Author: Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2004
Author: Rob Cross, Andrew Parker
Progress: Finished
Start: October 2004
Author: Taisen Deshimaru
Progress: Finished
Start: September 2004
Author: Grigoris Antoniou, Frank van Harmelen
Progress: Finished
Start: August 2004
Author: Robert B. Cialdini
Progress: Paused
Start: August 2004
Author: Aaron Hillegass
Progress: Paused
Start: August 2004
Author: Mark Lutz, David Ascher
Progress: Finished
Start: June 2004