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Book: Gates of Fire

Historical fiction recounting the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Pretty good stuff.

Book: Madman: Oddity Odyssey

Very strange comic about an insane super hero.

Book: The Books of Magic: Bindings

More stories set in the Books of Magic milieu created by Gaiman.

Book: The Mind's I

A wonderful collection of essays and short stories about mind, consciousness, and the possibility of machine intelligence. Each selection is followed by commentary by either Hofstadter, Dennett, or both. Includes pieces by Borges, Rudy Rucker, Alan Turing, and the amazing, inimitable Stanislaw Lem.

Book: Dog Moon

An odd little story written by a Grateful Dead lyricist in monosyllabic verse.

Book: Preludes & Nocturnes

Book: The Doll's House

Book: World's End

Book: The Computational Beauty of Nature

An introduction to several strands of mathematics and computer science which have parallels in nature and biology. The topics covered include:

+ Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

+ Fractals

+ Chaos

+ Cellular Automata

+ Genetic Algorithms

Because of the breadth of topics, the subject matter is sometimes treated fairly lightly. Although this sort of introductory treatment was exactly what I wanted, I occasionaly found the explanations to be too hand-wavy, especially some of the philosophical asides.

Book: Getting to Yes

This is an excellent book on good negotiation techniques. The techniques described here have a lot in common with current practices in mediation.