Comments on: winter book roundup plus sodoku

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 03:05:09 +0000

(making lists) Thank you for the reading suggestions. Currently I am working through the Complete Calvin and Hobbes, which is making me very, very happy. Although it is unfortunately very, very heavy which makes it difficult to read in bed.

I am astonished that Terry Pratchett was in Mt View and I didn’t hear about it. Chris Moore has been here like a dozen times and I never hear about that either until too late. I need some way of keeping up on these things, the equivalent of The List for geek book writer events. Darn it.

By: Eric Siebert

Eric Siebert — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 21:48:46 +0000

check out Sabriel by Garth Nix. yeah, yeah … so its “young adult”. but i thought the series was very nicely done.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 23:31:30 +0000

One book that I always heartily recommend to Sudoku fans is MENSA Math & Logic Puzzles by Tuller and Rios (ISBN 0806941995). It contains twenty different non-language logic puzzle types like Sudoku, Cross Sums, Solitaire Battleships, and plenty of more exotic things. It has a bit less variety than the World Puzzle Championship books, but offers much to someone whose mind is sharpened by Sudoku but wants more types of challenges. (And it doesn’t really have anything to do with Mensa.)

By: Andrew Pontious

Andrew Pontious — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 03:39:11 +0000

I had a similar reaction to Thud! And I'm a fan of the other Pratchett books you mentioned. Night Watch for me could be the high point of the Watch series. The deepest and saddest entry, but with a dollop of Pratchett's typical goofiness. (As an aside, I think Night Watch and Firefly/Serenity are kindred spirits.) But Thud! was the reason for him to make it out to California. I saw him at a talk/signing at Books Inc. in Mountain View, and he was wonderfully entertaining.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 17:39:39 +0000

Dale (devster@cox.net) posted this comment and then I promptly deleted it because I had 128 pharma spams and I got confused. I’m sorry, Dale.

—-
Probably not doing you any real favors here but if you go to the sudoku web page you can get a free trial of some really cool sudoku software that will let you create an almost infinite number of puzzles of either easy, medium or hard levels of difficulty. Also includes some really nifty tools that make solving the puzzles a little easier.
—-

By: rapier

rapier — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 04:52:33 +0000

If you are looking for good books I’d suggest Market Forces by Richard Morgan. The Takashi Kovacs novels he does are much more science fiction but really really bloody. Also, if you haven’t read Bellefleur yet by Joyce Carol Oates that would be another one.

By: Chris Hanson

Chris Hanson — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 02:55:18 +0000

Actually, there is math involved in Sudoku. When you fill in a puzzle, you’re really solving a system of many simultaneous equations with a large number of variables.

Mmm, math.