While home appending to family over the holidays, I was able to get deeper into my Book Stack, which sits by my Game Stack, which sits by my Movie Stack. It’s amazing how many entertainment options I have waiting for me in each stack – it’s almost a little stressful trying to figure out a) how to sort each of the 3 Stacks and b) how to choose which stack to consume.

Of the holiday book stack, here are the ones I recommend. Oh, and I finally read Snow Crash because Erik made me feel guilty for never reading it… that of course is a recommendation without saying.

The Geography of Thought – a great book analyzing cognitive theory, comparing the way Asians (Confusion-spawned) think versus the way Westerners (Plato-spawned) think. Thanks to Gordon Walton for that recommendation. He usually just recommends books on how to kill little helpless woodland creatures then sacrifice their bones to the dark lord.

The Singularity is Near – a compelling book by one of my favorite futurists. I pretty much agree with everything he says, so I am starting to network all my old 386s so that I can enter the Singularity as a behemoth of computing power. One of them even has a 33 mhz CPU, and I got it overclocked to 66 mhz. It runs a little warm, but the Singularity sounds like it might be a little chilly anyway – especially as we form our own black hole. Good times.

A New Kind of Science – I reread this book over the holidays. It’s a bit intense, and you would probably only like it if you are into math or want to find out more about Cellular Automata. I am writing a little paper comparing rule 110 with Gladwell’s Tipping Point theories.

Game of Thrones – I usually try to intersperse non-fiction with fiction, and lately I have been into this series. I just bought the fourth book and I am going to start ripping through it this week in Korea and the next in Montana. This is, hands down, the best fantasy fiction ever written.