The reading list...

[cheeni]

You're buying me brewskies for making me do this, aren't you sriramb? ;-)

1) Total number of books owned?

I'd guess my personal cache is about 400++. I have about 450 non-technical books on my laptop (not including audio-books), and about 2 GB of technical books (45,506 files, 1,393 folders) - that's I'd say about 1,000 or so technical / quasi-technical books.

2) The last book bought?

'Piece of Cake' by Derek Robinson - a very realistic look at the young lives of RAF pilots in a fictional RAF bomber squadron maturing through the course of WWII.

Piece of Cake (Cassell Military Paperback)
By Derek Robinson
Amazon.com Price: $9.95
Average Amazon rating: 4.5
ISBN/ASIN: 0-304-36312-X

Amazon also recommends:

3) The last book you read?

His Dark materials trilogy by Philip Pullman - enthralling read about a little girl who travels between many worlds, and challenges the creator.

His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)
By Philip Pullman
Amazon.com Price: $14.26
Average Amazon rating: 4.5
ISBN/ASIN: 0440238609

Amazon also recommends:

4) 5 books that mean a lot to me

i) The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage, by Clifford Stoll.

A review and excerpts from this book that appeared in a Reader's Digest issue more than a decade ago implanted the idea of the cyber age in my head.

I greatly admire the hacker lifestyle of Cliff Stoll's generation - when technology was still complex enough to be geeky, and yet computers were far removed and obscure enough to not be burdened with bureaucracy. Sort of like the Wild West!

I'm still so in love with the 80's computer geek lifestyle, when computers were just for the geeks!

The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
By Clifford Stoll
Amazon.com Price: $11.16
Average Amazon rating: 4.5
ISBN/ASIN: 0-7434-1146-3

Amazon also recommends:

ii) Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution

I'm trying hard to find a single book or source that stands for The open source revolution. This comes the closest. One of the many books that convinced me that I was on the right path.

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source)
By Chris Dibona, Open Source (Organization), Mark Stone, Sam Ockman, Brian Behlendorf, Scott Bradner, Jim Hamerly, Kirk McKusick, Tim O'Reilly, Tom Paquin
Amazon.com Price: $16.47
Average Amazon rating: 4.0
ISBN/ASIN: 1-56592-582-3

Amazon also recommends:

iii) The Wooden Horse, by Eric Williams

Absolutely the best prison-breakout story ever, and it all happened. I remember this book mainly because it was among the earliest books I can remember reading. It was my sister's copy. It was my favorite form of procrastination, along with 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. I would read it everytime I was supposed to be in my room working on my homework, or preparing for a test. I guess I was about 10 or 12 then.

The Wooden Horse
By Eric Williams
Amazon.com Price:
Average Amazon rating: 5.0
ISBN/ASIN: 0-14-007030-3

Amazon also recommends:

iv) The Great Indian Novel, by Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor is one of my favorite writers. This is a nifty description of modern India via the Mahabaratha, and I find myself gifting this book to many friends. It's not easy to choose among his books, but I'm trying to align my favorite books with my interests, and this wins.

The Great Indian Novel
By Shashi Tharoor
Amazon.com Price: $10.17
Average Amazon rating: 4.5
ISBN/ASIN: 1-55970-194-3

Amazon also recommends:

v) Swami and Friends, by R.K. Narayan

The book is a well written funny account of the heavy burdens that are carried by a 10 year old boy in 1930's India. This book won't win any prizes, but Narayan is a good story teller. Another book that I remember reading as a kid; this time from my father's collection.

Swami and Friends (Phoenix Fiction Series)
By R. K. Narayan
Amazon.com Price: $11.20
Average Amazon rating: 4.5
ISBN/ASIN: 0-226-56831-8

Amazon also recommends:

5) Passed on to

Since I enjoyed this so much, I will pass this on; with no strings attached:
madrasi
dleed
sunson
vigneshvg
skarra
karbak
yogini
crabbycool

Comments

[sriramb.livejournal.com]

You're buying me brewskies for making me do this, aren't you [info]sriramb? ;-)

yes. brewskies with lots of tannine, for now.

[sunson.livejournal.com]

Since I enjoyed this so much, I will pass this on; with no strings attached:

Sorry, I won't do that. Whats up with Memes being passed around?

[sriramb.livejournal.com]

Ok, so don't call it a meme. I don't like/pass on memes either, but this one is more about knowing the reading habits of your friends. I, for one, have added a few books to my reading list based on what i've read in some of the responses. This is not one of those "Which love sign are you compatible with?" or "Which LJ friend will you marry, and who will be your bridesmaid?" memes.

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

The no strings attached comment I included in the text meant you were free to opt out.

[jace.livejournal.com]

I'm curious... does Amazon have a REST call that returns either the book cover or the 'No image available' image? Because they seem to return a blank image, which is messing up my book pages (border around image, but no image).

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

Nope. The code base I used to generate this is more than a year old, and I haven't looked at it since. I hand replaced the dead image link with the no image link.

I think it should be possible to analyze the size of the image by fetching it and placing a 'no-image' image instead. But, it's time consuming and not ideal for a real time SOAP request based service.

[kalyan.livejournal.com]

Any good place to download audio books ?

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

IRC!

[kalyan.livejournal.com]

I'll just steal it from you when I meet you next :)

[jace.livejournal.com]

So I've posted my somewhat long version here.

Egad !

[vigneshvg.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I never even noticed that you tagged me for the book meme ! I usually check your moblog, so... oops... will get around to it soon !

[bhuvanbk.livejournal.com]

Hope, http://producingoss.com/ might mender your interest.