Books 2026

Books, videos (and long articles) I am reading / watching in 2026:

Ananthaswamy, Anil. Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI (2024)
Banks, Iain M. Excession (1996)
Backman, Fredrik. A Man Called Ove (2014)
Bennett, Max. A Brief History of Intelligence: Why the Evolution of the Brain Holds the Key to the Future of AI (2023)
Bhattacharya, Ananyo. The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John van Neumann (2021)
Bird Steven, Klein Ewan, Loper Edward. Natural Language Processing with Python: Analyzing Text with the Natural Language Toolkit
Boldizar, Alexander. The Man who saw Seconds (2024)
Brenndoerfer, Michael. History of Language AI (2025)
Brooks, Rodney. Predictions Scorecard, 2026 January 01
Brooks, Rodney. Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity (September 2025)
Brooks, Rodney. Intelligence without Reason (1991)
Brooks, Rodney. Elephants Don't Play Chess (1990)
Curry, Judith. Climate Uncertainty and Risk (2023)
Dennett, Daniel. Intuition Pumps and other Tools for Thinking (2013)
Dennett, Daniel. From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (2017)
Disher, Garry. The Divine Wind (1998)
Eisenberg, David. SVG Essentials. (2002)
Epstein, Alex. Fossil Future (2022)
Goldstein, Rebecca. The Mattering Instinct (2016)
Haverbeke, Marijn. Eloquent JavaScript (Fourth Edition). (2024)
Holson, Benjie. Benjie's Humanoid Olympic Games (September 2025)
Lawhon, Ariel. The Frozen River (2024)
Larson, Erik. The Myth Of AI: Why Computers can't think the way we do (2021)
Larson, Erik. Benderland (2026)
Lee, Tim & Trott, Sean. A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work (2023)
Mearsheimer, John J. The Darkness Ahead: Where The Ukraine War Is Headed (June, 2023)
Mesbahi, Farzed. Abundance or Collapse (2026)
McKinney, Wes. Python for Data Analysis, 3E (2022-23)
North, Claire. Slow Gods (2025)
Pfarrer, Chuck and Brewer, Alan. Indications and Warnings | Day 1418 | Putin's Dubious Milestone (Jan 14, 2026)
Raeini, Mohammad Ghaseminejad. The evolution of language models: From N-Grams to LLMs, and beyond (2025)
Ramalho, Luciano. Fluent Python: Clear, Concise and Effective Progamming, second edition (2022)
Robinson, Kim Stanley. Blue Mars (2009)
Rowson, Jonathan. Understanding the Grünfeld (1998)
Rougier, Nicolas P. From Python to Numpy (2017)
Schoch, Richard. The Secrets of Happiness (2006)
Seth, Anil. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (2021)
Stewart, James. Calculus Fourth Edition (1999)
Stanley, Kenneth; Lehman, Joel. Why Greatness cannot be Planned: The Myth of the Objective (2015)
Akarsh Kumar, Jeff Clune, Joel Lehman, Kenneth O. Stanley. Questioning Representational Optimism in Deep Learning: The Fractured Entangled Representation Hypothesis (2025)
Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Children of Time (2015)
Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Children of Ruin (2019)
Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Children of Memory (2023)
Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Children of Strife (2026)
Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Shards of Earth (2021)
Torres, Jose. Sting Like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story (1971)
Trask, Andrew. Grokking Deep Learning (2019)
Whitehead, Colson. Underground Railroad (2016)
Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton. Deep Learning (2015)
Zahavy,Tom. LLMs can't Jump (2026)
CODING
Plotly Open Source Graphing Library for Python
Di Méo, Grace. Creating Interactive Visualizations with Plotly
kaizenkode, Python Programming Projects for Beginners (2026)
seaborn
pandas
matplotlib
NumPy: the absolute basics for beginners
Python NumPy For Your Grandma by Ben Gorman
NumPy tutorials
Machine Learning Crash Course
GAME OF LIFE
LifeWiki
The Game of Life
Conway's Game of Life
A Universal Turing Machine in Conway’s Game of Life
Golly

Previous: Books and articles 2025

books and articles I am reading in 2025

The list will include some significant online articles too:

Banks, Iain M. Consider Phlebas (1987)
Banks, Iain M. The Player of Games (1988)
Banks, Iain M. Use of Weapons (1989)
Blum, Hila. How to Love your Daughter (2023)
Capek, Karel. War with the Newts (2001)
Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World (2011)
Dalmaris, Peter. Maker Education Revolution: Learning in a high-tech society(2017)
Dynamic scripting with JavaScript https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Core/Scripting
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Gibson, William and Sterling, Bruce. The Difference Engine (2014)
Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011)
Haverbeke, Marijn. Eloquent JavaScript (Fourth Edition). (2024)
Hatch, Mark. The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the new world of Crafters, Hackers and Tinkerers (2013)
James, Mike. Programmer's Python: Everything is an Object. Something Completely Different. Second Edition (2022)
James, Mike. Programmer's Python: Everything is Data.Something Completely Different. (2022)
James, Mike. The Trick of the Mind: Programming and Computational Thought (2021)
James, Mike. JavaScript Jems: The Amazing Parts (2020)
Jordan, Bill. How to Write a JavaScript Chess Engine (2020)
Kahn, Ken. The Learner's Apprentice (2025)
Kosten, Tony. The Dynamic English (1999)
Noble, David. Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation (2011)
Pickering, Andrew. The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science (1995)
Smedely, Agnes. Daughter of Earth (1929)
Robinson, Kim Stanley. Red Mars (2009)
Robinson, Kim Stanley. Green Mars (2009)
Watson, John. Dangerous Weapons: The French (2007)
Weir, Andy. Project Hail Mary (2022)
Sunfounder ESP32 Learning Kit
SunFounder 3 in 1 IoT/Smart Car/Learning Kit
Hackerspace
Tech Explorations
TechSpace Learning

Previous: books and articles 2024

books I am reading in 2023

BOOKS and some articles 2023:

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2007)
Arthur, W. Brian. The Nature of Technology: What is is and How it Evolves (2009)
Blikstein, P., Zheng, Y., Zhou, K. Discourses of artificial intelligence in education through the lens of semiotic analytics (2022)
Boden, Margaret. Robot Says: Whatever (2018)
Brooks, Rodney. Machine Learning Explained (2017)
Brooks, Rodney. The Seven Deadly Sins of Predicting the Future of AI (2017)
Brooks, Rodney. What will the transformers transform? (March, 2023)
Burker, Josh. The Invent to Learn Guide to Fun. Constucting Modern Knowledge Press(2015)
Burker, Josh. The Invent to Learn Guide to MORE Fun. Constucting Modern Knowledge Press(2018)
Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World (2011)
Ingamells, Rex. Aranda Boy (1952)
Ives, Rob. Build It! Make It! Become a Super Engineer (2020)
Kurti, Peter & Mundine, Warren (editors). Beyond Belief: Rethinking the Voice to Parliament (2022)
Loukides, Mike. What are ChatGPT and its Friends (2023). O'Reilly
Marcus, Gary & Davis, Ernest. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can Trust (2019)
Maas, Pauline & Heldens, Peter. The Invent to Learn Guide to the micro:bit.(2023)
McWhorter, John. Woke Racism: How a New Religion Betrayed Black America (2021)
Mitchell, Melanie. Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (2020)
Schmidhuber, Juergen. Annotated History of Modern AI and Deep Learning (2022)
Riggs, Ransom. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.(2011)
Robinson, Kim Stanley. Antarctica (1997)
Smil, Vaclav. How the World Really Works: The Science Behind how we got here and Where We're Going (2022)
Shellenberger, Michael. SanFransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (2021)
Swaroop. A Byte of Python (online)
Tooley, James. The Beautiful Tree: a personal journey into how the world's poorest people are educating themselves (2009)
Topol, Eric. Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again (2019)
Wakelam, Darrell. ArtJumpStart (2023)
Widdowson, Frances. Fired for Asking Questions (2022)
Wolfram, Stephen. What is ChatGPT Doing ... and Why Does it Work? (February 2023)

Previous: Books 2022

books I am reading in 2022

BOOKS and some articles 2022

Arthur, Brian. The Nature of Technology (2011)
Bhattacharya, Ananyo. The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John van Neumann (2021)
Blikstein, Paulo. Travels in Troy with Freire: Technology as an Agent in Emancipation (2008)
Constructionism 2018: Constructionism, Computational Thinking and Educational Innovation: conference proceedings
Deutsch, David. The Beginning of Infinity (2012)
Disessa, Andrea. Computational Literacy and the "Big Picture" Concerning Computers in Mathematics Education (2017)
Gee, James Paul. Literacy from Writing to Fabbing (2012)
Harvey, Brian & Monig, Jens. SNAP! Reference Manual 7.0 (2020)
Kelly, Kevin. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces that will Shape our Future (2017)
Mahood, Kim. Kartiya are like Toyotas (2012)
Marcus, Gary and Davis, Ernest. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can Trust (2019)
Newell, Barry. Turtle Confusion: Logo Puzzles and Riddles (1988)
Ridley, Matt. How Innovation Works (2020)
Shellenberger, Michael. SanFranSicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (2021)
Smil, Vaclav. How the World Really Works (2022)
Cynthia Solomon, Brian Harvey, Ken Kahn, Henry Lieberman, Mark Miller, Margaret Minsky, Artemis Papert, Brian Silverman. History of Logo (2020)
Stager, Gary. 20 Things to do with a Computer: Future Visions of Education Inspired by Seymour Papert & Cynthia Solomon's Seminal Work (2021)
Thornburg, David. Learning to Code: An Introduction to Computer Science Through the Art and Patterns of Nature. Snap! Edition. (2021)
Topol, Eric. Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence can make Healthcare Human again (2019)
Upton, Eben and Halfacree, Gareth. Raspberry Pi User Guide 4th Edition (2016)

Previous: Books 2021

books I am reading in 2021

BOOKS 2021

Adams, Scott. LoserThink: How Untrained Brains are Ruining the World (2019)
Adeept Sensor Kit for the BBC micro:bit (34 Projects Tutorial Book)
Bell, Adam Patrick (editor). The Music Technology Cookbook: Ready Made Recipes for the Classroom (2020)
Blikstein, Paulo. Digital Fabrication and ‘Making’ in Education: The Democratization of Invention (2013)
Blikstein, Martinez, Pang. Meaningful Making (2016) free download creative commons
Blikstein, Martinez, Pang, Jarrett. Meaningful Making 2 (2019) free download creative commons
Buechley, Leah & Qiu, Kanjun. Sew Electric: A Collection of DIY Projects that combine Fabric, Electronics and Programming (2013)
Burker, Josh. The Invent to Learn Guide to Fun: Classroom Technology Project (2015)
Burker, Josh. The Invent to Learn Guide to MORE Fun: Classroom Technology Project (2018)
Cohen, Sahrye & Rodrigue, Hal. Make It, Wear It: Wearable Electronics for Makers, Crafters and Cosplayers (2018)
Eisenberg, J David. SVG Essentials (2002)
Frank, Thomas, Listen Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (2016)
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Goldstein, Rebecca. Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (2006)
Gurri, Martin. The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium (2018)
Kelly, Kevin. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces that will Shape our Future (2017)
Marcus, Gary and David, Ernest. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can Trust (2019)
Martinez, Sylvia and Stager, Gary. Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom. 2nd Edition (2019)
Powell, Sidney. Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (2014)
Riley, Erin. The Art of Digital Fabrication: STEAM Projects for the Makerspace and Art Studio (2019)
Wolfram, Conrad. The Maths Fix: An Education Blueprint for the AI Age (2020)

Previous: Books 2020

books I am reading in 2020

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2007)
Bruner, Jerome. The Culture of Education (1996)

Eglash, Ron and co., various articles:

• Automation for the Artisanal Economy: Enhancing the Economic and Environmental Sustainability of Crafting Professions with Human-Machine Collaboration (2019)
• Of Marx and Makers: an Historical Perspective on Generative Justice (2016)
• Culturally responsive computing as brokerage:toward asset building with education-based social movements (2016)
• Computer Science Education from Life (cSELF) (2013)
• From Ethnomathematics to Ethnocomputing: indigenous algorithms in traditional context and contemporary simulation (2012)
• Fractal Simulations of African design in pre-college Computing Education (2011)
• Teaching with Hidden Capital: Agency in Children’s Computational Explorations… (2009)
• Culturally_Situated_Design_Tools_Ethnocomputing from field site to classroom (2006)

Frank, Thomas, Listen Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (2016)
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Goldstein, Rebecca, The Mind-Body Problem: A Novel (1993)
Goldstein, Rebecca, Plato at the GooglePlex: Why Philosophy won't go Away (2014)
Graeber, David. Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2014 edition)
Graeber, David. Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2019)
Hudson, Michael. Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy (2015)
Hudson, Michael. J is for JUNK Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception (2017)
Kelly, Kevin. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces that will Shape our Future (2017)
Marcus, Gary and David, Ernest. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can Trust (2019)
Merlan, Francesca. Caging the Rainbow: Places, Politics and Aborigines in a Northern Australia Town (1998)
McLean, Ian. How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art: edited and introduced by Ian McLean (2011)
McLean, Ian. Rattling Spears: A History of Indigenous Australian Art (2016)
Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007)
Perkins, Rachel. Boyer Lectures 2019 (audio)
unique perspectives:PAPUNYA TULA ARTISTS AND THE ALICE SPRINGS COMMUNITY (2012)

Previous: 2019 books

books I am reading in 2019

This includes some articles too, not just books

Bailey, John. Mr Stuart's Track: The forgotten life of Australia's greatest explorer (2006)
Bardon, James. Revolution by Night or Katjala Wananu (The Son After the Father) (1991)
Bell, Tim; Tymann, Paul; Yehudai, Amiran. The Big Ideas of K-12 Computer Science Education (2018)
Boochani, Behrouz. No Friend But the Mountains: Writings from Manus Prison. Translated by Omid Tofighian (2018)
boyd, dana. It's Complicated (2014). Learn More. epub(scroll to bottom)
Brady, Frank. Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer (2011)
diSessa, Andrea. Computational Literacy and “The Big Picture” Concerning Computers in Mathematics Education (2018)
Crothers, Tim. The Queen of Katwe (2012)
Curthoys Ann. Freedom Ride: a freedom rider remembers (2002)
Dick, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle (2001)
Dougherty, Dale with Conrad, Ariane. Free to Make: How the Maker Movement is changing our schools, our jobs and our minds (2016)
Eglash,Ron; Bennett, Audrey; O'Donnell, Casey; Jennings, Sybillyn; Cintorino, Margaret. Culturally Situated Design Tools: EthnoComputing From Field Site to Classroom (2006)
Featherstone, Daniel. Connected, Creative and Cultural Communities: Developing an Integrated Approach to Policy and Evaluation for Remote Australian Indigenous Media and Communications (2015)
Finnane, Kieran. Trouble: On Trial in Central Australia (2016)
Jones, Philip. Gillen's Modest Record: His journal of the Spencer-Gillen anthropological expedition across Australia, 1901-02 (2017)
Gershenfeld, Neil; Gershenfeld, Alan; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution (2017)
Graves, Colleen and Aaron. 20 Makey Makey Projects for the Evil Genius (2017)
Graves, Colleen and Aaron. The Big Book of Maker Space Projects (2017)
Guenther, John. Evaluation of indigiMOB Year 2 (2019)
Kafai, Yasmin B and Burke, Quinn. Connected Code: Why Children Need to Learn Programming (2014)
Kimber, R.G. Man from Arltunga: Walter Smith Australian Bushman. 2nd edition (1996)
Livingston, Eric. Ethnographies of Reason (2016)
Margolis, Jane; Estrella, Rachel; Goode, Joanna; Holme, Jennifer Jellison; Nao, Kimberley. Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race and Computing (2017)
McCulloch, Susan and Childs,Emily McCulloch. Contemporary Aboriginal Art: the complete guide (2017)
McLean, Ian. How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art: edited and introduced by Ian McLean (2011)
McLean, Ian. Rattling Spears: A History of Indigenous Australian Art (2016)
Martinez, Sylvia and Stager, Gary. Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom. 2nd Edition (2019)
Morphy, Howard. Aboriginal Art (1998)
Moss, Rod. One Thousand Cuts: Life and Art in Central Australia (2013)
Murray, Les. Killing the Black Dog (2015)
Saujani, Reshma. Girls who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World (2017)
Silver, Jay. Lens X Block: World as Construction Kit (2014) PhD thesis
Smerdon, David. Smerdon's Scandanavian (2015)
Snowden, Edward. Permanent Record (2019)
Sorva, Juha. Visual Program Simulation in Introductory Programming Education. Thesis (pdf available)
Sorva, Juha. Notional Machines and Introductory Programming Education (2013) pdf available
Stager, Gary S. Papert’s Prison Fab Lab: Implications for the maker movement and education design (2013)
Tedre, Matti and Denning, Peter Computational Thinking (2019)
Tedre, Matti and Denning, Peter. The Long Quest for Computational Thinking (2016)
Vivian, Alison. Some Human Rights are Worth More than Others: The Northern Territory Intervention and the Alice Springs Town Camps (2010)
Weinberger, David. Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity and How We're Thriving in a New World of Possibility (2019)
Wolber, David; Abelson, Hal; Spertus, Ellen & Looney, Liz App Inventor 2: Create your own Android Apps free online
Wright, Alexis. Grog War, (2009)


Previous:
2018 books
2017 books
2016 books
2015 books

Some books I am reading in 2018

Broad, Neil. Eastern and Central Arrernte Picture Dictionary (2008)
Brooks, David. A town like Mparntwe: a guide to the Dreaming tracks and sites of Alice Springs (first published in 1991)
Bruner, Jerome. The Culture of Education (1996)
Clendinnen, Inga. Dancing with Strangers (2003)
diSessa, Andrea. Changing Minds: Computers, Learning and Literacy (2000)
Dobson, Veronica Perrurle and Henderson, John. Anpernirrentye: Kin and Skin: Talking about family in Arrernte (2013)
Gibson, Ross. Seven Versions of an Australian Badland (2002)
Hogan, Eleanor. Alice Springs (2012)
Graeber, David. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (2015)
Graves, Colleen and Aaron. The Big Book of Maker Space Projects (2017)
Green, John. Turtles All The Way Down (2017)
Ilyenkov, Evald. Dialectical Logic: Essays on its History and Theory (1977)
Karvinen, Tero;Karvinen, Kimmo; Valtokari, Ville. Make: Sensors: A Hands-On Primer for Monitoring the Real World with Arduino and Raspberry Pi (2014) pdf pp. 1-40
Kundera, Milan. Immortality (1992)
LeGuin, Ursula. The Telling (2000)
Leontyev, Aleksei Nikolaevich. Activity and Consciousness
Lewis, R. The Beginner's Guide to Australian Aboriginal Art: The symbols, their meanings and some Dreamtime stories (2009)
Livingston, Eric. Ethnographies of Reason (2016)
Livingstone, Sonia and Sefton-Green, Julian. The Class: Living and Learning in the Digital Age (2017)
Mahood, Kim. Craft for a Dry Lake (2000)
Manning Bancroft, Jack and others. Mentoring: The key to a fairer world (2018)
Mitchell, Euan. Your Book Publishing Options: How to Make and Market Ebooks and Print Books (2014)
Morrison, Glenn. Songlines and Fault Lines: Epic Walks of the Red Centre (2017)
Mundine, Warren. In Black and White: Race Politics and Changing Australia (2017)
Murdoch, Iris. Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (1999)
Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007)
Pearl, Judea & Mackenzie, Dana. The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect (2018)
Rennie, Ellie; Hogan, Eleanor; Gregory, Robin; Crouch, Andrew; Wright, Alyson; Thomas, Julian. Internet on the Outstation: The Digital Divide and Remote Aboriginal Communities (2016)
Rennie, Ellie; Yunkaporta, Tyson; Holcombe-Jones, Indigo. CyberSafety in remote aboriginal communities: final report (2018)
Reynolds, Henry. Forgotten War (2013)
Roberts, Tony. Frontier Justice: A History of the Gulf Country to 1900 (2005)
Robinson, Kim Stanley. Red Moon (2018)
Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017)
Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. Putting Movement Into Your Life: a beyond fitness primer (2014)
Smerdon, David. Smerdon's Scandanavian (2015)
Suchman, Lucy Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions (2007), link goes to free pdf
Upton, Eben and Halfacree, Gareth. Raspberry Pi User Guide 4th Edition (2016)
Wells. Linda. Still a Town Like Alice: Alice Springs 1986-2008 (2011)

Some books I am reading in 2017

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2007)
Dennett, Daniel. Intuition Pumps and other Tools for Thinking (2013)
Dixon, Bob. Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a Field Worker (1984)
Engelmann, Siegfried and Carnine, Douglas. Could John Stuart Mill have saved our schools? (2011)
Farrington, Benjamin. The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1964)
Hofstadter, Douglas R. Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern (1985)
Kenny, Robert. The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World (2007)
McIntosh, Dennis. Beaten by a Blow (2008)
Minsky, Marvin. The Society of Mind (1985)
Osborne, Barry (Editor). Teaching Diversity and Democracy (2001)
Monk, Ray and Raphael, Frederic (editors). The Great Philosophers (2000)
Putnam, Hilary. Ethics without Ontology (2004)
Putnam, Hilary. Words and Life (1994)
Roughsey, Dick (Goobalathaldin). Moon and Rainbow: the autobiography of an aboriginal (1971)
Sarra Chris. Good Morning, Mr. Sarra: My life working for a stronger, smarter future for our children (2012)
Shapin, Steven and Schaffer, Simon. Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life (1985)
Van Fraassen, Bas. The Empirical Stance (2002)
Widdowson, Frances and Howard, Albert. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation (2008)
Willingham, Daniel T. Why Students don't like School: A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom (2009)

books I've been reading in 2016

This turns out to be a mixture of indigenous issues, philosophical thinking, Australian history, science, maths instruction and other oddities.

Bennett, Ronan. Zugzwang (2007)
Blanchard, Ken. The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey (1990)
Brooks, Geraldine. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague (2001)
Canada, Geoffrey. Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun: A Personal History of Violence (1995)
Cohen-Solal. Sartre: A Life (2005)
Dawes, Glenn; Northfield, Peter; Wallace, Ken. Astronomy 2016 Australia: Your Guide to the Night Sky (2015)
Dixon, Robert. Words of our Country: Yidiny – The Aboriginal Language of the Cairns – Yarrabah Region (2015)
Farkota, Rhonda. Elementary Maths Mastery (2000)
FitzSimons Peter. Batavia (2011)
Gaita, Raimond. Romulus, My Father (1998)
Gaita, Raimond. The Philosopher's Dog: Friendships with Animals (2002)
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005)
Hooper, Chloe. The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island (2009)
Hooper, Judith. Of Moths and Men: Intrigue, Tragedy and the Peppered Moth (2002)
Jarrett, Stephanie. Liberating Aboriginal People from Violence (2013)
Jordan, Mary Ellen. Balanda: My Year in Arnhem Land (2005)
Kehlmann, Daniel. Measuring the World (2007)
Langton, Marcia. Well, I Heard It on the Radio and I Saw It on the Television… (1993)
Le Guin, Ursula. The Lathe of Heaven (1971)
McIntosh, Dennis. The Tunnel (2014)
McIntosh, Dennis. Volume One, Creative Work: Tunnelling (PhD thesis, 2013)
Michaels, Walter Benn. The Trouble with Diversity: How we Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (2006)
Mighton, John. Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child (2003)
Monteath, Peter and Munt, Valerie. Red Professor: The Cold War Life of Fred Rose (2015)
Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007)
Nussbaum, Martha. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2001)
Osborne, Barry, and Osborne, Elizabeth (2013) A Serious Dialogue with Noel Pearson's Radical Hope: education and equality in Australia.
Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? (2014)
Pearson, Noel. Radical Hope: Education and Equality in Australia (2012). Get the version which has replies to the author and the authors replies to those replies, better than the original Quarterly Essay version.
Petraitis, Vicky. The Dog Squad (2015)
Porter, Liz. Written on the Skin: An Australian Forensic Casebook (2007)
Porter, Liz. Unnatural Order (1995)
Reynolds, Henry. Why Weren't We Told? (1999)
Reynolds, Henry. North of Capricorn: The Untold Story of the People of Australia's North (2003)
Sutton, Peter. The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the end of the liberal consensus (2009)
Trudgen, Richard. Why Warriors Lie Down and Die (2000)
Yunkaporta, Tyson. Aboriginal Pedagogies at the Cultural Interface (2009)

Some books I read in 2015

I've been too busy to blog because of my new job. However, after 6 months, the pressure is beginning to lift a little and so I might be able to manage a blog or two.

I want to list the books I read (or reread) last year (2015) since good books play such an important part in my life and consciousness. This acts as a reminder of some of the places my mind has visited not so long ago, as a wandering wonderer.

NON FICTION
Berlin, Isiah. Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty (2002)
Berlin, Isiah. The Roots of Romanticism (1999)
Berman, Marshall. Everything Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (1982)
Berman, Marshall. The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the Emergence of Modern Society (1970)
Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained (1991)
Eagleton, Terry. Why Marx was Right (2011)
Greenwald, Glen. No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State (2015)
Harris, Sam. Free Will (2012)
Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (1972)
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
Hofstadter, Douglas. I am a Strange Loop (2007)
Murdoch, Iris. Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (1997)
Murray, Patrick. Marx's Theory of Scientific Knowledge (1998)
Ollman, Bertell. Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (1971)
Ollman, Bertell. Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method (2003)
Putnam, Hilary. Philosophy in an Age of Science: Physics, Mathematics and Skepticism (2012)
Strong, Anna Louise. The Stalin Era (1957)
Wills, Vanessa. Marx and Morality (2011)
Yalom, Irvin. Love’s Executioner (1968)

FICTION
Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)
Le Guin, Ursula. The Dispossessed. (1974)
Sobel, Dava. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (1995)
Sobel, Dava. A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos (2011)
Sobel, Dava. Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (1999)
Yalom, Irvin. The Schopenhauer Cure (2005)
Yalom, Irvin. The Spinoza Problem (2012)

some current reading by our politicians

Some of the reading our politicians claim to be doing over the holidays is interesting:

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," ... Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on."

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Carro

The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career — 1958 to 1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark. For the first time, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson’s eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks — grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery — he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy’s death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson’s finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Goodwin makes the case for Lincoln's political genius by examining his relationships with three men he selected for his cabinet, all of whom were opponents for the Republican nomination in 1860: William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates. These men, all accomplished, nationally known, and presidential, originally disdained Lincoln for his backwoods upbringing and lack of experience, and were shocked and humiliated at losing to this relatively obscure Illinois lawyer. Yet Lincoln not only convinced them to join his administration--Seward as secretary of state, Chase as secretary of the treasury, and Bates as attorney general--he ultimately gained their admiration and respect as well. How he soothed egos, turned rivals into allies, and dealt with many challenges to his leadership, all for the sake of the greater good, is largely what Goodwin's fine book is about. Had he not possessed the wisdom and confidence to select and work with the best people, she argues, he could not have led the nation through one of its darkest periods.

The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail but Some Don't by Nate Silver

People love statistics. Statistics, however, do not always love them back. The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver's brilliant and elegant tour of the modern science-slash-art of forecasting, shows what happens when Big Data meets human nature. Baseball, weather forecasting, earthquake prediction, economics, and polling: In all of these areas, Silver finds predictions gone bad thanks to biases, vested interests, and overconfidence. But he also shows where sophisticated forecasters have gotten it right (and occasionally been ignored to boot). In today's metrics-saturated world, Silver's book is a timely and readable reminder that statistics are only as good as the people who wield them

The above are a few of the non fiction titles extracted from an article by Troy Bramston in today's Australian: Summer Reading Speaks Volumes

Of the above the one I'd be most likely to buy would be Joe Hockey's choice, The Signal and the Noise