Book recommendations from 2011

Last year's highlights in books:

• On the Philosophy front is Brian Barry's Culture and Equality. Well written, clear, and compelling.
• On the Human-Computer Interaction front is Universal Principles for Design by Lidwell, Holden, and Butler. I've not managed to give this book the attention it deserves yet as it is sitting on my desk at work, and I've been working elsewhere for a couple of months. Good examples, a clear layout, and overall good design principles for interaction design.
• On the Fiction front my highlight was the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which starts with Gardens of the Moon and culminates in The Crippled God. Sitting on my desk screaming out to be read is Orb Sceptre Throne by Esslemont, who is writing within the Malazan setting.
• Honourable mention must be given to Christopher Hitchen's final work Arguably.

August's Reading

Fiction
I've recently finished Dance with Dragons, the latest instalment of A Song of Ice and Fire by George Martin. Quick summary: great book, long time coming.

Fantasy Flight Games' Deathwatch role playing book.

HCI
A bit lacklustre here, I am currently re-reading Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for mobile devices.

Philosophy
I've just started on David McFarland's Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs: The Question of Alien Minds. I'm also part way through Brian Barry's Equality and Culture, which is a great book and essential reading for anyone interested in multiculturalism. Barry is an entertaining read, with compelling arguments, clarity of writing, and less restraint than most to sticking in the intellectual boot when he disagrees with someone.

February's reading...

Fiction
Dust of Dreams, book 9 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Yup, I'm slowly trawling through the series still and getting a big backlog of books waiting to be read.

Philosophy
I'm currently reading A Very Short Introduction: The Philosophy of Science. I 'do' science at work, and am generally interested in science. I like to think that I'm good at it and understand the principles, but somewhere along the way I don't think I've ever been explicitly taught the underlying philosophy and about what chaps like Popper and Kuhn have been talking about. Maybe I slipped through the cracks, maybe it just isn't generally taught any longer, maybe my university level education hasn't been sufficiently sciencey, or maybe they don't try to squeeze all that stuff into your brain until you get around to doing an MPhil.


HCI
More of a reference text this one, but I picked up a copy of Experimental Design and Analysis for Psychology that was on sale at Oxford University Press. 

January's reading..

Fiction
Toll The Hounds, book 8 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. This is my current favourite fantasy series and I'm part way through reading the series again in anticipation of the release of book 10 in February. Large, weighty, rambling, complex, jarring, and endearing. The biggest let down is that I don't know anyone else reading the series, and the series is difficult to get into as the first book isn't as good and can be a bit of a confusing slog at times. It's definitely worth the effort of getting through.

HCI
I'm just finishing up Colin Ware's Visual Thinking for Design. This book provides some of the theory and science behind our our visual processing works, and then goes on to provide advice on how to support visual cognitive tasks, sketch prototyping, and various other bits and pieces including a dictionary of visual relationships.

Philosophy
Kymlica's Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction covers utilitarianism, liberal equality, libertarianism, Marxism, communitarianism, citizenship theory, multiculturalism, and feminism. If you're not sure what all of these things are, then this may be the book for you. By providing a grounding in these areas this book has helped to clarify my thinking, and helped me to spot the arguments and underpinnings behind many current political issues.


I'm also growing a little more aware of political issues, and slowly coming around to the notion that as much as I'm not particularly interested in taking part in political life (beyond voting etc) that perhaps I can't rely on others to be. Though the mainstream in the UK is (more or less) moderate and sensible, there are pressure groups and the like that wield disproportionate influence due to their use of the media, organised responses to consultations, etc.