More books

[alias_sqbr]

Continuing my mystery streak, I just read Devil in a Blue Dress which was very good for what it is (noir), longer review here.

I also read The Lady Tasting Tea, a history of the way statistics has affected society and vice versa. It was an interesting topic not quite as well written about as I would have liked: the author is a statistician, which means he has a personal connection with and understands his story, but it was a bit clunky and unclear in parts. I would have preferred either less wordy explanations or more maths, as it was he gave just enough information that I felt like I should understand what he was saying on a deeper level, but not enough that I actually could (there was not one single equation. Yes, that is a bad thing! To me, anyway :)). I may have to go and read an actual stats textbook now(*).

(*)Further evidence of what a bad influence sanguinity is on me.

Comments

[havocthecat]

Ooh, The Lady Tasting Tea looks PERFECT for my dad's birthday gift (and then I can read it before I give it to him).

What do you think of Devil in a Blue Dress for people who aren't primarily mystery readers? I thought your review was interesting, but I'm not generally a mystery sort of person myself.

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm. I'd say you would need to be willing to read noir, it's very noir-ish, but it's a good drama even if you're not into mystery.

[sanguinity]

Oh, come now. I can't be that bad of an influence -- you blew through those recs lickety-split!

So, has my recs-credibility net gone up or down, now that you've read the recs?


Re the lack of equations, etc. -- yeah, I can see that. I read it after having had a year of mathematical stats (as opposed to applied stats) under my belt, and so I might very well have misjudged how accessible it was. "Oo, that's a good summary of that idea!" was the sort of thing I thought, which is nice if you know the idea, but doesn't say how useful it's going to be if you don't know it.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, come now. I can't be that bad of an influence -- you blew through those recs lickety-split!

Exactly! I could have been..uh..writing fanfic! Or gardening!

Your recs-cred is pretty high. I'm currently reading "Stuffed and Starved" which is slow going just because I keep stopping to think about it.

I think the problem was that I'm used to more advanced pure maths with lots of equations while simultaneously knowing very little about stats in particular :)