It's impossible to create a definitive guide to the best books around, so this page is purely intended as a personal opinion of the books that either I have enjoyed and want to say as much, or books that I believe are so good that if you haven't seen them, then you don't know what you're missing. Of course this is a purely subjective opinion, but that's what personal home pages are all about!
Books are group into general categories. Some categories may have links crossing into other categories. If the list is still short, but the subjects interest you, then be sure to bookmark this page and keep coming back every now and then to see if any more have been added.
Having ordered books myself from Amazon.com, then I can thoroughly recommend them for great discounts and good service. Books available from Amazon.com have links which you can follow directly to their website for more information.
Mike Wilks is a painter popular
for his extremely detailed and stylistic pictures. I saw this book in a
bookshop a few months ago and just had to have it. Every page in
the book is duplicated with a few differences between the left and right
pages, and that means inside the front and back covers. However, this is
no ordinary spot the difference. The reader is not told how many differences
there are in each of the surreal images or accompanying text - only that
there are a maximum of 250 differences. This is a book to be poured over
in the utmost detail if you are to find all the differences - a challenge
for even the hardiest of puzzle solvers. A great present, and meanwhile
get a copy for your own coffee table.
This book rates as a 
Link here to go to amazon.com's page on this book for more info, or to order possibly at a discounted price.
Christian Riese Lassen is
an incredibly talented and prolific artist, popularized by posters and
postcards for his colorful hawiian scenes depicting sea/land/sky scenes
full of life and action. The 182 pages of this book are filled with over
100 full page prints of his best paintings. Although this is essentially
a coffee table book, it does discuss the life and work of the artist in
some detail giving an insight into the hand behind the brush. I've been
a Lassen fan ever since I saw a shop on Key West dedicated to his work,
and this book is definitely a must for other fans of his work.
This book rates as a 
Link here to go to amazon.com's page on this book for more info, or to order possibly at a discounted price.
ORBIT has the quality one
comes to expect from the National Geographic Society (NGS). 224 high quality
glossy pages are crammed with amazing photos of our planet taken by NASA
astronauts from space. From major parts of the continents to small islands
and individual geographic features, and from giant swirling weather systems
to river deltas, these pictures show the incredible complexity of the planet
Earth, and unfortunately in many ways the way in which mankind has affected
it due to damming and deforestation.
With many of the images, there are adjacent, and more traditional aerial photos showing typical features of the landscapes photographed from space. Volcanoes, rivers, mountains, islands, weather systems are all displayed with the beauty of nature's ordered chaos that can only be fully appreciated when seen from such a distance.
The text accompanying the pictures gives the reader an explanation where necessary, and a background to the scenes, and also gives a little history behind the regions in question. This is more than just a quality coffee table book.
Link here to go to amazon.com's page on this book for more reviews, or to order this book, possibly at a discounted price.
This book rates as a
A Photomosaic is, as the
name suggests, a mosaic of photos. Hundreds or thousands of images reduced
in size and placed on a grid so as to create an impression of a larger,
overall image. The 'tiles' used are selected for their color, shapes and
shading within the image so as to most truthfully represent the relevant
section of the larger image. What's more, the descriptive content of the
'tiles' is usually relevant to the larger image.
Some of the best examples of this are the widescreen stills used from George Lucas's Star Wars in generating larger images of Darth Vader, and Yoda, and civil war photographs used to create an image of Abraham Lincoln.
The book contains 28 full page images, and in addition often has enlarged sections of each image to show the smaller image content. Interspersed with the images are thought provoking quotes relating to the pictures, and an all too short introduction briefly describes how photomosaics came about. (Not technical enough in my opinion). The images in this 96 page book are printed in a 6 color printing process for exceptional quality, and there is an included fresnel strip to magnify the finer detail of the images.
This is is one of those ideas where I think to myself - 'I wish I'd been involved in this'. As the artist/creator Robert Silvers says - 'This is for lovers of pictures'.One of my main interests in computing is the generation of images by use of computers, whether it be popular methods such as fractals, ray-tracing or any other form of computer art. Even the 3D Eye auto-stereogram pictures are computer generated.
This concept of using pictures to create pictures seems simple on the surface and sounds like another easy money maker for someone along the line. Maybe it is, but the technology behind creating such pictures is leading edge and was performed by Rob Silvers as part of his Masters at MIT Media Lab. The amount of work involved in collating tens of thousands of images from all sorts of sources, and then analyzing each image as to color and shading content, underlying shapes within the image, and descriptive content of the images is immense, and all sorts of tricks were used to speed up and improve the quality of the photomosaics produced.
If I were to have this as a coffee-table book at a party, I would need one per visiting guest, and I would get a quiet thirty seconds whilst people got the gist of the book and then it would be the talk of the evening.
I would dearly have loved to have been involved at that exciting development stage of the (patent pending) technology, but sadly this book is likely to be as near to being involved as I ever get. Mind you it is hard not to get involved with this fascinating book. I shall be putting an order in for my 1999 photomosaics calender as soon as it comes out.
This book rates as a
Link here to go to amazon.com's page on this book for more reviews, or to order this book, possibly at a discounted price.
Link here to order next year's photomosaics calender.
Link here to go to the photomosaics home page to discover more about this book and the work involved in creating photomosaics.
A must for the bookshelf
of anyone who declares themselves to be in anyway well read in the areas
of philosophy and paradox. To have this on one's shelf says to the visitor
'I am an intellectual', although the visitor is to be more impressed if
you have read this book from cover to cover, for this is no mean feat.
The book is written on many levels which is appropriate for so many times
in the book the subject dwells on the existence of many intertwining levels
in M. C. Eschers drawings and lithographs, Godels mathematical theorums,
and Bachs playful musical scores.
This was one of the earliest books on any related subject that I can remember reading. It was too deep for me at the time, but I liked the fugue-ish nature of the conversations between Achilles and the Tortoise and their companions. The book is much more than this - it is an exploration of the symmetry, meaning, relation, and interpretation of the truth and beauty of mathematics, philosophy, biology, physics, art and music. It is an insight into three important people's work as well as Hofstadter's own which is not inferior by any means.
This is not a book to take lightly, but it is a damn good read. If this book doesn't get ragged round the edges, then you haven't understood all of the contents, nor will they have seen the meta-meta-meanings which are abound, (unless of course this is a replacement copy, but I fear no true fans would be without their original copy).
I, myself have read this book twice, both times were borrowed copies - I'm about to order my own copy, since Amazon.com's prices are so good (currently discounted 20%).
Link here to go to amazon.com's page on this book for more reviews, or to order this book, possibly at a discounted price.
This book rates as a
As a sequel to this book is the equally rewarding read - The Mind's I, which I do happen to have bought some time ago, and Metamagical Themas : Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern both by Douglas Hofstadter.
This is a semi-autobiography
of one of the most charismatic and important physicists of the century.
Richard Feynman, a Nobel prize winner, was involved in many projects,
most controversially the Los Alamos project, and became one of the best
loved and best respected scientists in recent history.
The book is pieced together from stories mostly told by Feynman himself (hence semi-autobiographical), and from stories told by his colleaugues of his never-ending inquisitiveness and humour in all things. This is a fun read, and yet a well written glorious insight into the travels, the life and the character of a man who is sorely missed today.
This is not a technical book by any means - it is truly one of those books you won't want to put down. Some parts will make you laugh out loud, others will give fellow physicists, students and professors alike, a warm glowing feeling inside. Whatever your background - this is not to be missed - it's too much of a good read. Look at the other reviews on the Amazon.com page and you'll see I'm not the only one who thinks this.
This book rates as a
Link here to go to amazon.com's page on this book for more reviews, or to order this book, possibly at a discounted price.
And there's an equally unmissable follow up book in a similar style: 'What Do You Care What Other People Think?' : Further Adventures of a Curious Character
What can I say? And does
it make any difference if I do say it? This book is full of all those big
Questions Of Life you might have ever asked yourself, but for a change
this wonderful book attempts to discuss if not actually answer those questions.
Discussions as to whether the universe is a figment of our imagination
or are our minds figments of reality.
This is one book to make you step back away from everything and view the universe from a different perspective - one where we are not placing ourselves at the centre of our parochial little world, but one where we cannot give rhyme nor reason as to why things are the way they are, how things have evolved to such an incomprehensible complexity, and indeed as to why we exist at all.
Written as a popular science book for scientists and the layman alike, this book is thought provoking in the extreme, every page invoking in one's own mind a train of thought that I found can last for days before you continued reading. I looked forward to every new page with intrepidation as to where my mind was to be taken next!
This book rates as a
Link
here to go to amazon.com's page on this book for more reviews,
or to order this book, possibly at a heavily
discounted price.
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