Best Reading in 2009
A few of the best of the books I read during 2009...
Alan Lenton
The Little Ice Age by Brian Fagan. Basic books
Roughly speaking, the Little Ice Age lasted from 1300 through to around 1850. This fascinating little book looks at the consequences of that event, without being at all deterministic. It also explains, in layman's terms, the hydrodynamics of the oceans as we currently understand them.
The result is a fascinating synthesis of climatology, history, sociology, and politics. It also sets the current extended warm period in rather more context than it normally gets in the press. I really enjoyed reading this book, which although about climate, sets people at the center of its story. I know quite a lot about European history, especially social and political history in the later part of the period covered. However, this book gave me a completely new perspective on the events of that period, giving me a much more rounded picture.
Recommended
Intel Threaded Building Blocks by James Reinders. O'Reilly
First the disclaimer - the book was one of a number that the author gave away to participants, after giving a short seminar at the 2009 ACCU Conference.
That said, I found the book fascinating - hard but fascinating. There's nothing wrong with the writing. The subject matter is just difficult for anyone used to sequential programming (that's most programmers). Intel's threaded building blocks are a C++ library for parallel, using parallel algorithms, rather than threads.
You won't find much here to help you with multi-threaded programming, but you will find a whole new way of thinking, which, if you apply the methods to your program right from the start, will simplify programs that want (or need) to take advantage of the new generation of multi-core processors.
This book really stretched the way in which I think about programming, while allowing me to continue building on my existing core of C++ skills, something I haven't encountered in many books recently.
Highly recommended!
The Tiger that Isn't by Michael Blastland & Andrew Dilnot. Profile Books
This nifty little book is a gem. Using dodgy statistics from politicians, newspapers and the UK government, it teaches the reader how to figure out what all those numbers really mean. I'm pretty much into numbers myself, but I learned a massive amount from reading this entertaining book.
The book covers the gamut of techniques used to bamboozle the public on a daily basis - size, counting, chance, averages, risk, data and causation, to mention only a few. Along the way readers will learn why most people have more legs than average, why targets distort work processes, and how sampling affects the immigration figures.
I really enjoyed reading this book, and I'd happily recommend it to anyone who wants to find out what the numbers behind the headlines really mean.
Highly recommended.
Nemesis by Max Hastings. Harper Perennial
This account of the 1944-45 World War II battles against Japan is something of a tour de force by Max Hastings. Drawn from interviews and the papers of those who participated, it presents both sides of the story, but without falling into moral ambivalence. Even more importantly, it does not look at the decisions made at the time solely from hindsight - it looks at them within the context in which they were made.
Many of the things that happened then become more explicable - not necessarily condonable, but certainly explicable, including Japanese atrocities against those they conquered, and the much debated decision to drop the atom bomb.
Two things which I hadn't previously understood became clear from a reading of this book. The first was that all of the people involved at a high level with the dropping of the bomb failed to understand the qualitative difference between conventional and nuclear explosive. They all thought it was just a bigger and better version of what the B-29 bombers were already doing to Japanese cities.
The second was the extent to which high ranking Japanese military and civilians privately knew the war was lost, but because of the warrior cult of bushido, were unable to express this publicly.
The B-29 bombing campaign and the submarine blockade had already massively reduced the ability of the Japanese to produce war materiel. However, Hasting's conclusion is that the Russian invasion of Japanese occupied China and Korea, and the dropping of the atom bomb were necessary to force the Japanese surrender. The atom bomb was necessary to convince the civilians in government that they should surrender, the Russian invasion to force the army to face the fact that it had lost.
Not everyone will agree with this idea, but it is well argued, and cannot be ignored.
Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers. Prentice Hall
The biggest single problem I had when I moved from working for myself as a programmer back to the mainstream was dealing with other people's code. For nearly twenty years I only had to deal with my own code. Suddenly I had to understand and change other people's code. It was quite a culture shock, and one of the most difficult things I've done.
I wish I'd found Michael's book earlier, it would have helped ease the transition. Of course, not everyone else's code is legacy code, but even if you are not handling true 'legacy' code, this book will help you deal with the problems you face.
The book is in three parts. The first is a discussion of how you go about changing software that is badly structured and has complex interactions and side effects. Where do you start, and how do you make sure that you don't break things further down the convoluted chain of dependencies. The answer to the latter, of course, is testing, testing, testing, and the author makes a good enough case to persuade even the most sloth like to get into the testing mode.
The second part of the book is organised almost like an FAQ with chapters devoted to common problems like 'I don't understand the code well enough to change it'. This one crops up all too often, and is an excellent example of how the author doesn't avoid difficult questions. The final part of the book is a useful catalog of mostly pattern based techniques that can be used to break dependencies.
The book is well written and features clear examples that are written in either C++, Java, C and C#, and the problems caused by the different features, or lack of them, available to the different languages are discussed and work arounds suggested. I enjoyed reading this book.
Highly recommended!
Useless Arithemtic by Orrin H Pilkey & Linda Pilkey-Jarvis. Columbia University Press
Sub-titled 'Why environmental scientists can't predict the future', this book is a devastating survey of the consequnces of relying on quantative mathematic modelling to make environmental predictions.
The bulk of the book is a series of case studies covering the collapse of the Grand banks fishery (once the world greatest fish supply), Yucca mountain proposed nuclear waste repository, the rise in sea level, predictions of beach geology, open cast mine pollution predictions, and invasive plants.
The results make for a terrifying indictment of our attempts to predict futre events from mathematical model of past events. Time and again the models have been proved wrong, but with fudge factors added to get the politically 'correct' predictions, the reasons for the glaring failures are never analysed.
The discussions and explanations are easy for the non-mathematicians to follow, and for those with a maths bent there is a section at the end which gives the mathematics of the models.
Highly recommended.
Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark, Penguin
Christopher Clark's history of Prussia is, to say the least, comprehensive. It's also interesting, covering as it does the whole period from 1600 until the end of World War II. Occasionally, it gets a little dry, but most of the time it is a well written portrayal of not just the royal court, but also of peasants, burgers, aristos, merchants and the emerging of the working class.
Although the book charts the rise and eventual fall of the Hohenzollern dynasty, it does so within the framework of the geopolitics of a state that was peculiarly vulnerable to attack for most of its existence. It also traces the two influences that defined the Prussian state - militarism and a progressive and enlightened liberalism.
Fascinating, and fundamental to understanding the 20th Century history of Europe.
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Penguin
The art of the sustained polemic is not dead! In an age where bland agreement with the current fad is 'in', Nicholas Taleb has written a book that not only takes apart the pretensions of the market traders and other would-be oracles, but also reintroduces robustness into debate.
Some people won't like the style, of course. That's sad, because they will also be missing a very informative book. It really does tell you a lot about randomness in life, what it means, and possible strategies for dealing with it.
As a computer programmer I was particularly struck by the discussion of how easy it is to mistake noise for signal by looking at phenomena at the wrong scale. That's a small part of the discussion though, others will find nuggets relating to their own experience as they read through the book.
I liked this book. I liked the irreverence - arrogance even - with which Taleb dispatches his enemies, and turns 'common sense' upside down.
Highly recommended.
The Lion and the Unicorn by Richard Aldous. Pimlico (Random House)
This magnificent account of the rivalry between Gladstone and Disraeli is a revelation for anyone who, like me, thought history was a boring list of kings and queens. The book brings to life the role and functioning of the British parliament in the 19th century, which was, in general, dominated by the wealthy, and run in their interests.
And who 'won'? Well Gladstone outlived Disraeli, and became prime minister several times after Disraeli's death. Disraeli's legacy was the idea that the job of the opposition should be to oppose the government, and he laid down the foundations of the modern Conservative Party, and developed the 'One Nation' ideology that kept it as the natural party of government for near a hundred years.
Gladstone left a Liberal Party severely split over the issue of Irish Home Rule, and doomed within twenty years to be squeezed out between the confident Conservatives and the growing electoral power of the Labour party. On the other hand he did give his name to the gladstone bag!
Queen Victoria survived them both. She adored Disraeli and despised Gladstone. In fact her comment on the two of them makes a fitting epitaph: 'When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr Gladstone I thought he was the cleverest man in England, but after sitting next to Mr Disraeli I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.'
A really good read.
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