List of books I’ve read in 2022

  • 2022-12-27 Stephen Cole Kleene: Recursive predicates and quantifiers - 1943
    Used it to clarify some points in Kleene’s Introduction to Metamathematics. Good summary of the state of affairs in recursion.
  • 2022-12-01 George & Weedon Grossmith: The Diary of a Nobody
    Lovely funny insight into human nature
  • 2022-09-10 Benjamin Graham: The Intelligent Investor - 1973
    There are many superficial “get rich quick” books on investing. This is nothing like that. Full of wise advice. 10 out of 10. Revised in a separate article in more details.
  • 2022-09-10 Benjamin Graham and Charles McGorlic: The Interpretation of Financial Statements
    Once you have an idea of accounting, this is a good intro on how to look at the financial statements in a critical (i.e. careful) way.
  • 2022-08-13 Lucian Boia: Cum s-a românizat România
    Lovely re-read of a history book that demystifies the nature of the “national state” for Romania in particular. Funny comment about the current country president: “In a country that talks a lot, he does not talk just a bit, he talks less then just a bit, he barely talks at all”. As usual, there are two levels of reading the book: the factual info on the subject and the deeper approach to history.
  • 2022-07-17 Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and son: The Great Human Disaporas - The History of Diversity and Evolution
    Followed from the bibliography of “Guns, Germs & Steel”. Presents a lot of the ideas from there (but not all) in a much more clearer style. He does repeat himself though, and rightly so, on the issue of IQ and race. He covers why IQ tests are a bad measurement and that the skin colour consistency is simply due to selection based on environment, sun exposure in particular.
  • 2022-07-11 Ken Thompson: Reflections on Trusting Trust
    Classic article. Short. Shows how symbols like \n had to be bootstrapped. I re-read the article because I recently encountered the question: what does L"<<insert Unicode character here" gets compiled into.
  • 2022-05-14 Frank Partnoy: Fiasco, the inside story of a Wall Street trader
    Interesting story about usage of derivatives largely to allow asset managers to place bets that they should not (using other people money of course).
  • 2022-05-07 Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs & Steel
    Very interesting and stimulating book, full of ideas. The theme is looking at underlying advantages that societies gain based on the environment. In particular the rise of the agriculture, due to the availability of domesticable plants and animals, a east-west axis making easier to spread food production compared to north-south axis that slows down adoption due to climate differences, a larger land mass available. The Austonesian expansion from Taiwan to the islands from Philippines, Indonesia, Pacific Islands, Madagascar. The Bantu expansion in Africa. The chapter “From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy” was also interesting. Some things not convincing: the story about oak and acorns not being domesticated does not tally: how about walnuts? Also while some societies have environment advantages over others, probably even within the advantaged society some inhabitants will benefit and others will perish. A bit repetitive. 9.5 out of 10.
  • 2022-01-16 R. Dedekind: The Nature and Meaning of Numbers (1888)
    Paper that explores the set theory around the definition of the natural numbers. It also explores the definition by induction of the basic operations of addition, multiplication and exponentiation.
  • 2022-01-07 R. Dedekind: Continuity and Irrational Numbers (1872)
    The paper that introduced the Dedekind cut as a definition for real numbers that avoid the recurse to geometric interpretations
  • 2022-01-04 Scott Jurek: Eat & Run
    Runner’s book in the spirit of Born to Run. This one is more auto-biographical, it was an easy pleasant read.