A History of Pi – Petr Beckmann

 

A History of Pi

Petr Beckman

©1971, The Golem Press

1993 Ed. Barnes &Noble, Inc

ISBN  0-88029-418-3

Rating: 1 of 5  I will not finish reading this book.

I think this is a poorly written book.  His history is uneven. He often makes statements that I think demand explanation, and his explanations are weak (kind of like this sentence).  I do not follow his proofs.  Much of this may be due to a lack of definitions.  The figures do not help, because he refers to them in unclear (or even misleading) ways.  I think the editor had no understanding of the topic.  The editor was out of this league.

The author shows that this topic has the potential for an interesting book.  However, this is not it.  I have many other books to read, and will stop wasting my time on this one – right now.

Galactic Courier by A. Bertram Chandler

Books I didn’t finish

Galactic Courier
by A. Bertram Chandler

Rating: 2 of 5

http://www.baenebooks.com/p-1499-galactic-courier.aspx

I got about through the first story in this volume, started the second, and wondered “Why am I reading this?” I suppose some people view sex as entertainment. I don’t. And I often suspect authors use it to cover for the lack of a story, or at best to increase the word count. Are authors still paid by the word?.

It was taking me a long time to plow through this. It my age, I realize that the money I spent on the book is gone, but my “to read” pile is tall enough that there are other, more interesting books I could be reading. Life is to short to waste it reading boring books.

© David B Snyder 2013