Jack Reacher Novels

In my last post I mentioned how dissatisfied I was with the "wimpy" character of Hari Sheldon in Asimov's Foundation novels.

In a direct response to this, I decided to try reading a Jack Reacher novel (having seen, in the movie with Tom Cruise, that Reacher is not a wimpy character).

I started (as you do) with the first novel in the series. I really enjoyed it. Reacher is indeed a great antidote to Sheldon.

As I write I am nearly finished the tenth novel (isn't Kindle great!)

I read novel nine ("One Shot") on which the movie was based. I enjoyed the movie and then I enjoyed the book. Surprisingly the movie ends with a more "Jack Reacher" climax than the book does! Kudos to Christopher McQuarrie who wrote the screenplay).

It is an absolute pleasure to read about a character who is so capable and in control (almost) all of the time. And I love the way he constantly analyses everything going on around him. And he is so critical of himself when he doesn't figure everything out right away (even though he's much smarter than all of the people around him).

I see that Tome Cruise will be working on a second Reacher novel, apparently based on book 18, "Never Go Back". I know that fans of the series were upset when it was announced that Cruise was to play Reacher in the first movie (because of his stature if nothing else). Probably because I saw the movie first, I had no such reservations and I am looking forward to seeing the second movie. I hope I will have read the novel first but, at the rate I am going through them, I can't imagine that will be a problem.

To show just how little problem I have with Cruise's portrayal, I'll finish this post with a still from the movie:

Looking Back: Asimov's Foundation Series

I mentioned in a previous post that I read Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy" when I was a kid and that I had decided to read all (15!) books in the series.

In September of last year I blogged that I was on the last book in the order in which I decided to read them: "Forward the Foundation".

The last two book, Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, were, unfortunately, was the weakest books in the series in my opinion.

I was surprised to find the character of Hari Seldon very annoying. He seemed to spend the whole novel moaning and not knowing what to do.

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, the other main character,  Dors Venabili, was even more annoying. I couldn't elaborate on what I thought of her without getting into spoilers.

So for me the last two books I read ended the series on a very low note. If you are planning to read the series then I would advise you to read these book in the right place in the chronology rather than leaving it for the end. You don't want to finish up that way.

So I read the 15 novels as I planned. And, to be frank, they did not live up to my expectations.I think the original three novels were actually the best.

Last Book of Asimov's Foundation Series

In December of last year I blogged that I was going to read all 15 of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. In July I blogged that I was on book eleven.

Well it has taken some time, but I am now reading the final novel: "Forward the Foundation".

I should finish it in the coming days and I'll record some of my thoughts on the series here.

BookCrossing.com

I heard about bookcrossing.com years ago from my friend Alex.

The idea, as I understand it, is that you register a book, get a unique ID from the site, write that ID on the book, release the book "into the wild", and then (if you're lucky) you get to track that book as it moves from person to person.

A a lover of books this seems like a great idea to me!

I guess this would work best with a book you bring on holiday and leave in a hotel/resort: that would give the best change of the book ending up somewhere interesting/exotic.

Anyway today I registered 11 books which I will be releasing (to my local St Vincent de Paul shop) at the weekend.

I'll post if I ever hear about them again!

Incident at Twenty-Mile

I was in the St Vincent de Paul charity shop in Malahide village at the weekend, dropping off some old clothes and shoes.

I took a peek at the second-hand books (my son Andrew is looking for the Lord of the Rings books) and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a hardback edition of "Incident at Twenty-Mile" by my favourite author, Trevanian!

Now obviously I already had the book at home (I have all of his books) but as I only had the paperback edition I decided that I had to buy it!

So the photo below shows my new acquisition beside my old one.

As I think back on it, I suspect that my first exposure to Trevanian was buying a second-hand copy of "Shibumi" in a shop in Templebar, many, many moons ago.

Anyway, this is a nice excuse for me to re-read the book (if I can take a break from my Asimov books!).

Reading The Three Investigators

I mentioned my love of "The Three Investigators" books in previous posts and how I was going to read them to/with my son.

In July 2012 I mentioned that we had finished the first book.

In November 2012 I mentioned that we had finished the first three books.

Well we are now on book 22.

We had to skip a couple that I didn't have, mind you. Here is the list:

• The Secret of Terror Castle (1964, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot (1964, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Green Ghost (1965, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (1966, by Robert Arthur)
• The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Fiery Eye (1967, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Silver Spider (1967, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Screaming Clock (1968, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Moaning Cave (1968, by William Arden)
• The Mystery of the Talking Skull (1969, by Robert Arthur)
• The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow (1969, by William Arden)
• The Secret of the Crooked Cat (1970, by William Arden)
• The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon (1970, by Nick West)
• The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints (1971, by M. V. Carey)
• The Mystery of the Nervous Lion (1971, by Nick West)
• The Mystery of the Singing Serpent (1972, by M. V. Carey)
• The Mystery of the Shrinking House (1972, by William Arden)
• The Secret of Phantom Lake (1973, by William Arden)
• The Mystery of Monster Mountain (1973, by M. V. Carey)
• The Secret of the Haunted Mirror (1974, by M. V. Carey)
• The Mystery of the Dead Man's Riddle (1974, by William Arden)

The ones we skipped are in red. I intend to go back and infill them soon.

I am still enjoying them (and I think Andrew is too!)

Here is the cover from my edition of book 22:

Asimov's Foundation Series

I mentioned in a post back in December that I was going to read the 15 books of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.

Well I have finished 10 books and I am half way through book 11 (the last book of the original trilogy).

I am enjoying the series very much so far.

But I need to point out 3 areas where (IMHO) Asimov's vision of the future is going to prove very erroneous.

The first is the fact that lots of people smoke. Cigarettes and cigars. That can't be true. I never see anyone smoking in Star Trek or Star Wars. It seems unlikely that this will be commonplace thousands of years in the future.

The second is the delivery of messages by canister: people receive important messages delivered to them in canisters which travel through tubes. Now the canisters themselves are very high-tech apparently (they can be keyed to the recipient's DNA to prevent others from accessing the content) but the idea of messages arriving in a physical format seems crazy.

The third is in relation to the importance of microfilm in the future. Asimov mentions this in a number of his books.

So, in summary, Asimov did not see that smoking was something which would (hopefully) die out and he missed the whole area of the Internet and digital storage.

Well, of course, nobody's perfect!

Asimov's Foundation Series

I read (and very much enjoyed) the "The Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov when I was a kid.

I heard, years later, that the "trilogy" was expanding.

I decided recently to read the full series. I was amazed to discover that the series now consists of 7 books.

When looking into the best order in which to read the "trilogy", I discovered that opinions differ. But all agree that more than 7 books are involved!

Follow this link to find some conflicting opinions/advice.

Asimov himself set out (in "Prelude to Foundation") an order in which the books should be read. But then he went on to add "Forward the Foundation" to the series!

So the order I am going to use is neither the order in which they were published nor the order recommended by Asimov himself. Instead it is the one set out by a user named "Ojisan642" at the link above. It is:

• I, Robot
• The Elijah Baley series
• The Caves of Steel  
• The Naked Sun
• The Robots of Dawn 
• Robots and Empire 
• The Galactic Empire trilogy
• The Currents of Space 
• The Stars, Like Dust 
• Pebble in the Sky
• The original Foundation Trilogy:
• Foundation
• Foundation and Empire
• Second Foundation
• Foundation's Edge
• Foundation and Earth
• Prelude to Foundation
• Forward the Foundation

So 15 novels in all! I just completed the fourth book this morning. Enjoying them very much so far.

And if I want to read more after that, he claims (at the end of the fourth book) to have "published over 260 books."

And WikiPedia goes further to claim that he has "written or edited more than 500 books."

What an unbelievable achievement!

Turbo C Memory-Resident Utilities, Screen I/O and Programming techniques by Al Stevens

My last post talked about Borland Sidekick and Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) programs.

In the late eighties I bought a book by Al Stevens which provides some of the information you would need to write your own version of Sidekick.

Specifically it dealt with writing programs which could generate on-screen windows (stacked, layered, etc,) and also how to create TSR programs.

I liked the book so much that I still have it after all these years. I learned a lot about writing C code from this book.

I searched on the web and I couldn't find an image for it so I scanned the front and back covers of my own copy and you can see them below.

I did see on the web that you can but the book from Amazon. The price which is printed on the back of the book is $24.99. One of the listings gave the condition as " Used - Very Good. Very nice Copy - almost no wear". The price quoted was $369.98 plus shipping!

So if anybody would like to send me $400 or so then I would be happy to give you my copy, which is also in very good condition!

Trevanian's Daughter

I have previously mentioned my favourite author and book: Shibumi by Trevanian (Rob Whitaker).

Whitaker's daughter Alexandra is also an author. Here is a link to her website.

Alexandra collaborated with Trevanian on his last 2 books: Incident at Twenty-Mile and Crazy Ladies of Pearl Street.

The really good news is that she is going to complete his unfinished work: Street of the Four Winds.

The only bad news (as a Trevanian fan) is that she seems to be working on another novel ("set in Spain") in the interim.

Hopefully we will see SOTFW before too long.

Best Christmas book: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

I blogged last year about the best Christmas book ever: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.

I read it again this year with my (now) 8 and 10 year olds. Again there were tears. Again they were mine.

The difference this year was that my 8 year old, Andrew, read it this time. He did a great job.

At the end he asked me if they all got married and lived happily every after. Obviously I told him that they did. How else could a great book like that end!

Reading "The Three Investigators"

I mentioned "The Three Investigators" series of books in a previous post.

I have now read books 1-3 (The Secret of Terror Castle, The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, and The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy) to my eight-year old son and we are half way through book 4 (The Mystery of the Green Ghost).

He seems to be enjoying them. I am too.

Great to get to spend time with Jupiter, Pete and Bob again after all these years.

When I read them as a kid, I seem to remember finding them scary. The surprising thing is that my son doesn't seem to find them so.

Mistaken by Neil Jordan

I finished the book "Mistaken" by Neil Jordan the other day.

I really enjoyed it.

It's the story of a Northside boy called Kevin Thunder growing up in 1960s Dublin who discovers that there is a Southside boy called Gerald who bears him an uncanny resemblance (more-so in smell than looks apparently).

The story deals with how their paths cross repeatedly over their live and the impact this has on their own lives and the lives around them.

It's not a happy book (I don't think there are any humorous passages) but it is a compelling read. I guess it's a book that looks at actions and their consequences. And it also tackles the theme of loss, as Jordan himself says in this interview.

Some people have criticised the level of detail Jordan uses in relation to Dublin but I enjoyed recognising the various locations and liked that aspect of the novel.

I recommend it.

Just how many copies were sold?

If you go into a second-hand book store, or if you go to a place where you can swap books (the picture below was taken at my local golf range where you can take a book as long as you bring one in exchange) then my experience is that you will see many more copies of one book than any other.

Mr Brown must be a very, very wealthy man.

Maybe this differs in other countries and in other languages?

This picture shows the six copies that were available when I was there yesterday:

Sudden Books by Oliver Strange

Until recently, I had only ever read 2 books set in the "wild west".

The second was "Incident at Twenty-Mile" by all-time favourite writer, Trevanian. I didn't read the book because it was a western - I read it because I was reading all of Trevanian's books.

The first was a book called "Sudden Outlawed" by Oliver Strange. This was one of my father's books and was probably the only book he owned which I read. The book was originally published in 1935 and I guess I read it when I was in my teens (late 70s).

I remember enjoying the book at the time. The hero of the stories is Jim Green but he earns the nickname "Sudden" because of how fast he is on the draw. The first book deals with how he comes to find himself on the wrong side of the law, through no real fault of his own. The remaining books follow him as he travels from town to town righting wrongs while looking for the two men who crossed the man who was like a father to him.

The writing and the dialogue is a joy. Here is the passage where Jim hears about the wrongs done by these two men:

The other was silent awhile, fighting for breath, and then, "Peterson stole my li'l gal an' broke my heart," he said slowly. "An' when yu was East, gettin' some larnin', that houn' Webb stripped me." His voice was harsh, pregnant with passion; hatred gave him a last spasm of strength. "Yo're the fastest fella with a gun I ever see, an' I've knowed some o' the best ; I'm leavin' them two skunks to yu.”

I remembered the series recently and I discovered the following from the web:

1. The books are out of print
2. Oliver Strange was an English man who apparently never travelled to America
3. Sudden Outlawed was not the first book Strange wrote, but is the first in story order
4. After Strange's death,  another author named Frederick H. Christian added 5 more stories to Strange's 10
5. The books are available to read on the web. I assume this is because the copyright has expired (Strange passed away in 1952) but I don't claim to be a copyright expert! 

Having re-read the first book, I kept going and am now reading book 6: "Sudden TakesThe Trail".

The only warning I would issue is that the books are far from politically correct. I assume that the overt racism which many of the characters display is supposed to represent life in the wild west as opposed to any beliefs held by the author.

So if you are interested in stories of outlaws, law-men, gamblers, saloon-keepers, cattleman, rustlers, and prospectors then follow the link above.

The Three Investigators

When I was a kid, my favourite series of stories was The Three Investigators.

I can't remember how I got the first book (The Secret of Terror Castle) but I loved it and I went on to get many more from the series.

It's hard to remember, from this vantage point, what exactly I found so special about the books.

The three boys (Jupiter, Pete, and Bob) lived in the (imaginary) town of "Rocky Beach" in California. This was close to LA and Hollywood. So this would have made it exotic for me.

And Jupiter lived in a salvage yard, and had a secret "headquarters" hidden by piles of junk, with cleverly disguised entrances with strange code names. I know I loved this.

And the stories were scary. Another big plus. And they were clever and well written.

And my 3 sisters had no interest in them. Again this would be a big plus for me.

The characters were created by Robert Arthur, who wrote 10 of the original 43 books, between 1964 and 1969.

The edition I bought was by Armada Books and seem to have been published in the 70's.

Anyway, I kept the books all these years and I have just finished reading the first book to my own son, who is now 7. He seemed to enjoy it and I have now started the second book. It's quite possible that I am getting a bigger kick out of reading them than he is!

Here is a link to an official website, created by Robert Arthur's daughter, Elizabeth.

Here is the cover of the first book as it appears on my copy:

Stephen Covey - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Last week, on the 16th of July to be precise, Stephen Covey passed away at the age of 79.

He was the author of a number of books, the most famous being The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.




To remind us all, here is a list of those 7 habits:

• Be Practive
• Begin with the End in Mind
• Put First Things First
• Think Win/Win
• Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the Saw

A fantastic book and a fantastic legacy.

Meeting a hero: Sugar Ray Leonard in Dublin

I met of hero of mine on Friday.

On Friday morning I was in Eason's book-store in Dublin and I saw a sign saying that Sugar Ray Leonard would be signing his book that afternoon.

I was back at 5 PM and joined a long queue to meet the man who I believe was the best fighter I ever saw.

He was a fast, intelligent, skilful boxer and not afraid to play to the crowd (or play mind-games with his opponent). He had courage and determination. He had what fighters refer to as "heart".

After queueing for an hour I got him to sign my book and I got to shake his hand. He got on very well with everyone and seems to be real gentleman.

I've never been to a book signing before, and I never met a personal hero before. It was a great experience.

He appeared on the Late Late Show that evening. This was a surprise as he told one of the other guys who was getting the book signed that he wasn't and that he was heading home. Not sure if (a) it was a last minute thing or (b) Sugar Ray didn't know or (c) he thought he was supposed to keep the appearance secret. In any event, you can see the interview here.

Note: I looked though the official RTE recording of the programme (on "Player") and they have cut out the part with Sugar Ray. I'm sure there's an interesting story there!

The following evening he appeared on the Jonathan Ross show. Jonathan is a self-confessed boxing fan and described him as "the best boxer, pound for pound, of any boxer in the history of the sport". Obviously I would concur with that analysis. You can see it here.

Interestingly, although Tubridy knows a lot less than Ross about boxing, his interview provides much more insight into the man.

Sugar Ray's book is called "The Big Fight: My Autobiography"

Best Christmas book ever: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

The best Christmas book ever written is The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.

The book was written by Susan Wojciechowski and illustrated by P.J. Lynch. It was first published in 1996.

For a number of years now I have read it to my kids every Christmas. And every time I have had to pause as inevitably something would cause my eyes to water for some unknown reason.

The story is beautifully written and very moving.

This year my daughter Ruth (9) read it aloud instead and again there must have been dust particles in the air because I found myself having to wipe my eyes again.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

In preparing this posting, I discovered that:

• Susan Wojciechowski has a website 
• P. J. Lynch is actually Patrick James Lynch and he is Irish, born in Belfast and, according to his website, currently living in Dublin.
• The book was made into a movie in 2007. It stars Tom Berenger and Joely Richardson. I see that our own Saoirse Ronan also has a role in the movie. It currently has a rating of 6.6 on IMDB. The movie is available here. Might be worth taking a look.

So many more Irish connections than I was expecting.

Data, Information and Knowledge

As a result of a project I am doing in work, and some study I am doing for college, I have been thinking about the distinction between data, information and knowledge. I have come up with an example which helps to distinguish them for me and I would like to share it.

Data is the lowest level of these three concepts. Data consists of simple “facts and figures”. For the purpose of this example, the following is a piece of data: 914 baby boys who were born in Ireland in 2010 were given the name Jack. While this fact might (or might not!) be interesting, it is not very informative.

Aside: Intellectually I know that data is the plural of datum. This means that you should use phrases such as “the data tell us”, “the data indicate” and “the data are”. Many phrases such as “entering the data” and “validating the data” are unaffected by this distinction. But I myself find it must more natural to write “once the data has been validated” rather than the correct version of “once the data have been validated”. But maybe that’s just me!

The next level up is Information. Information is gleaned from data by asking questions of it.

Aside: I am reminded of the part of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books where a supercomputer (“Deep Thought”) is built to answer “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything”. The answer turns out (after 7.5 million years of computation) to be 42 and then the people have to build an even bigger supercomputer to discover the question. So they were looking for knowledge (ultimate knowledge in fact) and they end up with a datum!

In the case of boys’ names, you might want to know where Jack ranked in terms of popularity during 2010 (particularly if you wished to avoid using one of the most popular names). The answer to this question is that Jack ranked number one in terms of popularity. A supplemental question might reveal that the second most popular name (Sean) has 812 occurrences. This is over 100 less which indicates that Jack is the overwhelming favourite. This information would be a red flag for parents who didn’t want to send their son to school with 2, 3 or 4 other Jacks.

So in our example data has fed into information. But does knowing this information equate with having knowledge? I would argue that this is not knowledge because the value of this piece of information decays over time. The information will be less relevant with each passing year. In 5 or 6 years’ time this information (about 2010) may have very little value to people selecting names.
Knowledge is the level above information because it has a much longer shelf-life. Rather than facts and figures, it concerns itself with truth and understanding.

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner wrote an entertaining and thought-provoking book called Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything in which they try to extract knowledge from data by asking questions of it (or should I say “them”!).

In relation to baby names, they conclude that the evidence indicates that names move through the population from a higher socioeconomic level to a lower level. They further concluded that when a particular name has been widely adopted then the "high-end parents begin to abandon it," and the whole process starts again with a new crop of names.

You can read the opening of this chapter online on their website here.

Another interesting piece of nascent knowledge in relation to baby names is described on their website. This is that the rate at which a name gains popularity will be mirrored by the rate at which it loses it. You can read it here.

Postscript

Douglas Adams was a genius and the Hitchhiker books are hilarious, full of fun and invention.
But my favourite single quote from Adam is this:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.