It’s Earnings That Count by Hewitt Heiserman, Jr.

Hewitt is a regular on the Fool discussion boards, and many people have written highly of his book.

I think there’s some good stuff in it, but it is by all accounts a book written for the novice. He poses a good way of rewriting an income statement into “defensive” and “enterprising” incomes (terms borrowed from Benjamin Graham) to give you insight into the quality of their earnings (how durable are they?).

He also offers a good 5-minute (though I wager more like 10-15) test to see if a company is worth investigating further. I’m going to bring that to our investment club… it could help us generate more ideas with less effort.

The last few chapters are of little utility… he poses some general philosophy for better investing and personal finance, much of which is naive or simplistic. “How can you save more money a month? Consider moving to a different part of the country where things cost less!” Um… okay.

Also, he does a short bit on valuation that is just a pile of hooey. In his defense, it’s similar to the pile of hooey that Tom Gardner of the Fool uses. And I guess it’s better than nothing, but I don’t trust valuation methods that depend on constant P/E rates.

This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman

I had actually read this several months ago, as part of the Great galbinus_caeli Book Loan of ’06, but for some reason forgot to log it.

This was a very cool story, with Space Dragons, altered humans, political intrigue, a schizophrenic heroine and all sorts of other good stuff. I probably would have had more to say about it had I struck while the spaceiron was hot, but alas I did not.

I remember that I read this in between (and a little bit simultaneously with) two Vernor Vinge books and got the two universes confused in my head at times.

Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear

Thanks to galbinus_caeli for the loaner.

An interesting hard-science-fiction piece concerning DNA and evolution (an extremely punctuated equilibrium brand of evolution, though not necessarily one you want to read if you’re expecting. Much of the plot revolves around diseased pregnancies, and some of it takes place in Atlanta, with stops at local hospitals (Northside, for one, though thankfully Piedmont was not mentioned) and the CDC.

I think I’d like to check out the sequel, Darwin’s Children, because the ending of this book left room for exploration of the consequences.

Confessions of a Recovering Slut : And Other Love Stories by Hollis Gillespie

For non-locals, Hollis is a column writer for the local alternative weekly, Creative Loafing. She is buddies with one of the improvisors at Dad’s Garage, Lucky Yates, who has a couple mentions in this autobiographical work, essentially the second collection of her columns.

I believe I’ve read her column a couple times, I saw her once on the now-defunct The Lucky Yates Show, where she was a guest along with my nephew. My nephew was there because it was his birthday, she was there because her first book was coming out. There was also a psychic.

I also saw her in the Inman Park parade one year, riding in a car with a sign that said “Hollis Gillespie is a BITCH”.

So, that’s the extent of what I knew of her. But she seemed charming on the show, so I picked up her book before vacation on an impulse.

I’m awful glad I did. It’s a very entertaining and wittily written collection of essays. She lives a life hellbent on not being normal, and surrounds herself with people with the same objective.

I enjoyed it for the same reason I enjoy listening to the Keith and the Girl or The Dawn and Drew Show podcasts… glimpses into lives almost entirely unlike my own. I don’t long to live those lives, but I do like to hear about them.

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon

It took me a while to realize this was a science fiction novel. Largely because it’s not one of those SciFi novels where the Sci drives the Fi, but rather the reverse.

Told mostly from the POV of an autistic person (as was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time), I was once again struck with the feeling of being autistic after reading it. The pattern and the rhythm of the words sink into my brain, and I have to fight off talking or thinking similarly. I can’t help but think I’m a few bad neurons away. Of course, that’s part of the theme of the book, so perhaps mission accomplished on Elizabeth Moon’s part.

There are four classifications of (fictional) books for me.

1) Books I actively search out time to continue reading because I feel a certain amount of psychic pain at being separated from the storyline¹.
2) Books I read when time is available and enjoy, but don’t go out of my way to make the time.
3) Books I want to have read, but don’t necessarily look forward to reading.
4) Sucky books. May they die, die, die!

This book fell comfortably into category 1, though I thought the antagonists were a bit cartoonish at times.

I wonder if it is easier to write a book with an autistic narrator, since you don’t have to avoid stilted language. Perhaps, though, it is more difficult to make stilted language readable.

Regardless, I’m definitely off to buy some underwear at KMart. Definitely.

Next on the Reading list: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

¹ Note that this is not necessarily a sign of superior quality; I experienced psychic pain from having to leave in the middle of watching School of Rock.

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge (Zones of Thought series)

My fourth Vernor Vinge novel (on loan from ), and a good read.

A mindrot disease, a strange star cluster, a race of intelligent spiders, interstellar traders, dustmote computers… good stuff.

Somewhat of a jillion-year prequel to A Fire Upon The Deep. One of the characters in Fire was a god/computer-reincarnatation of a character from Deepness.

Good page-turner.

A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

A loan from .

This was a really good read for sci-fi fans. There’s lots of fun ideas,
and it’s pretty well written.

Some concepts:

-Lupine creatures that are an entity made up of 4-8 wolf-like things.
Independantly, they’re scarce smarter than a standard wolf, but when close
enough, their minds work together (communicating through high-frequency
sound) to form a single personality.

-The Zones of Thought. The milky way is divided into several zones, from
the Unthinking Depths up to the Transcend. The closer to the galactic
core you get, the poorer technology works. So, faster than light travel
is possible at the level called the Beyond, but not in the Slowness (where
Earth is supposed to be). In the High Beyond and above that (the
Transcend) races can “evolve” into Powers… god-like things, but the
god-like things can’t exist in slower zones.

All good fun.

What I came to realize halfway through was that I had read a couple Vernor
Vinge novels back in high school: Across Realtime and Marooned
in Realtime. Both of which I had loved, and recently had tried to
locate again (I couldn’t remember the title or author). But seeing the
titles in the Other Books By page brought it all back.

The Realtime novels play with a concept called “Bobbles”, which are
basically frozen-time spheres. You can create a Bobble around yourself,
and basically time stops for you until the Bobble dissolves. To people
outside the Bobble, it just looks like an impenetrable, indestructable
mirrored sphere.

So, if you want to travel through time (forwards, at least), you Bobble
yourself for however many years, and whammo, you’re in the Future.

Also good fun.

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman

I finished this a while back, but for some reason never logged it. Better
late than never.

This is a transcription (with editing) of a 4-lecture series Mr. Feynman
did in Australia (I think) for the layman.

It’s really pretty accessible, absolutely fascinating and fairly witty.

The biggest thing that has my head spinning is the concept of
anti-matter being backwards-in-time traveling matter. At least, that’s
what the Feynman diagrams indicate; I’ve been searching around the web to
see if that’s actually what everyone believes these days and I haven’t
figured that out, yet.

But it’s still pretty cool.

Also, all along I was still thinking this wave/particle duality thing
still meant something, but turns out it’s definitely particles. No one
understands why, but it’s definitely particles. So there’s that.

Also, I have a better understanding of what holds atoms together, and what
electrical current is at the fundamental level. Though, I’d be loath to
have to explain it myself.

The Onion’s Finest News Reporting, Volume 1 by Scott Dickers and
others

Such a mind-candy quick read, I hesitate to call it a book, but it
is in book form, so there you go.

It cost me $1.00. It was about $2.00 worth of silly, so I’m ahead.

The Fabulous Riverboat: Book 2 of the Riverworld Saga by Philip Jose’ Farmer

The second book was fine, but there was not a lot addressed regarding What Is Going On with the Riverworld. (Why is everyone who lived on earth reincarnated along a hugely long river?)

This one features Mark Twain in his efforts to build a riverboat to make it to the headwaters of the River and solve some mysteries.

Among the things I found strange was the people’s ability to build some fairly extensive technology from raw materials, including, most amazingly, video screens.

An okay read.

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On the Reading Table: Nothing! Arg!