The Liar
400 Seiten

A story that oscillates between small, entertaining anecdotes and a grander story that is told throughout the book. It's the first book I've read by Stephen Fry and I enjoyed its wit, sexual explicitness and plentiful cultural references to Alan Turing and the likes. A very British read that I've really enjoyed.

The Goldfinch
771 Seiten

A story about secrets that tear you apart, growing up and learning how to live even if you don't have much love left for life. All across the story: A painting that carries meaning across time.

At times, the story seemed directionless to me, but it slowly found direction throughout the book. Donna Tartt's atmospheric writing and situational poetry were very immersive. About some aspects of the story, I am still unsure; there are definitely some riddles left for me to think about.

I am unsure if I found the book too long or just right. The book felt like it told more than one story, and I’m still unsure if the end concluded every single of those stories for me. Maybe these stories will go on in my head for a while. An unusual, but good feeling.

The Greatest Show on Earth
470 Seiten

This is clearly a good book. Still, it wasn't for me personally.

The premise of the book is the huge amount of early-earth-creationists. The actual numbers of people believing in a world younger than 10,000 years baffles me (about 45% in the US, less in Europe, more in Islamic countries). In my surrounding though, I haven't met a single person who wouldn't believe in a million year history of evolution.

Dawkins really wants to drive the point home that evolution is a fact, so the books tends to get very repetitive in places. For some facts he gives three and more examples, stretching over several pages, where a simple "this is how it is, and here is a 2 sentence example" would have sufficed.

From the explictit overstating of examples and repetition of already mentioned facts I would have thought this to be targeted at ... less educated people? At the same time, Dawkins uses quite educated language. His sentences have this intellectual ring to them. It's as if you are hearing his British voice in your head.

The actual facts and pieces of evidence he presents are very interesting. Still, I am sure the same could have been done in a third of the book's volume.

This is a book offering ammunition to people who are surrounded by history deniers. Sadly - well, fortunately - that's not the case for me. So it was a quite a drag to read. Hopefully his other books are different, as I intend to read some more.

Die elektronische Welt mit Arduino entdecken
1080 Seiten

Teilweise ein wenig albern, aber wenn man sich darauf einlassen kann, ist das Buch eine gute und praktische Einführung in die Thematik. Gut: Alles wird in praktischen Projekten erklärt. Manchmal nicht so gut: Einige Projekte sind einfach Selbstzweck, um eine gewisse Sache zu illustrieren. Das ist okay - aber Projekte, die wirklich einzusetzen sind, sind schon cooler (gibt es aber auch im Buch). Ich habe übrigens die erste Ausgabe gelesen. Die war "nur" 600 Seiten lang. Ging aber erstaunlich schnell, da man mit Programmiererfahrung ungefähr ein Drittel einfach überfliegen kann.

Diesseits des Van-Allen-Gürtels
184 Seiten

Hatte mit einem Roman gerechnet, tatsächlich ist das hier eine Sammlung von lose miteinander verbundenen Kurzgeschichten. Jede aus einer anderen Perspektive und unterschiedlich wirr geschrieben.

Sprachlich super. Irgendwie fehlte mir aber noch der rote Faden, irgendein Rahmen der die einzelnen Geschichten besser verbindet. Bei jeder Geschichte hatte ich den Wunsch, den Charakter noch länger verfolgen zu dürfen. Stattdessen war dann plötzlich Schluss.

Habe das Buch unter Schlafmangel auf einer langen Zugreise gelesen. Vielleicht lag es daran, dass ich mich nicht auf alles perfekt einlassen konnte, aber mitgerissen hat das Buch mich nicht.

Theory and Practice of Juggling
59 Seiten

"You call juggling a sport, and people laugh. You call juggling an art, and people laugh. You show them there's a Juggle magazine, and people laugh a lot. You punch them in the face, and they stop laughing."

A short pamphlet by Jason Garfield, advocate of juggling as a sport and opposer of juggling as a hippie activity. Quite entertaining if you don't take him literally.