What are you currently reading?

[karlhenning]

Just finished re-reading Waugh's Decline and Fall (many years since I read it last). Even richer than I remember it.

Next up:  A Handful of Dust, I think.

[AndyD.]

Richard Wagner: Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand

[Todd]

Never let it be said that I don't read popular books.  Right now, for instance, I am reading Robert W. Leopold's 1950s tome Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition, an all too brief biography of the great turn of the last century heavy hitter.  How popular is it?  Well, the 1960s soft cover edition was formerly at Whitman college and was checked out exactly once, in December 1974.  Anyway, the book is pretty good.  It's not as extensive or detailed as it ought to be or might be nowadays (it's only about 200 pages), it covers very little of Root's pre-McKinley Administration life, but it is concise and reasonably fair.  It offers a nice contrast to the Wilson biography I recently finished, and does a good job of conveying the conservative opposition to Wilson's big plans.  Since biographies of Root are not exactly thick on the ground, this will have to do.  Now if only I could find something even this slim on General Fox Conner . . .

[Mirror Image]

The Last of the Mohicans - by James Fenimore Cooper



I've always loved the 1992 movie, as I'm a huge Daniel Day-Lewis fan.  Yet in the movie, it wasn't Day-Lewis, but Wes Studi, who stole the show.  His performance as Magua was incredible.  How this guy didn't win or even get nominated for Best Supporting Actor, remains a mystery to me!

Wes Studi as Magua

I, too, loved the movie. I'm sure the book is great. Yes, Wes Studi made you believe the role he was playing. Obviously, I'm not going to go for the bad guy, but he took that villain persona to a whole new level. Thrilling movie.

[greg]

Finished this one.
If you can past the first 50 or so pages, you're in for a unique experience. It's just an all-out excellent book.

[Opus106]

Travails of the 19th Century Russian agrarian nobility...oops, no, it's a book on Quantum Field Theory.  I wanted to know what this QFT that Henning keeps mentioning is.  And wouldn't you know that as soon as I get around to reading this, I find out there's a 2nd edition.

Before seeing it used here, that was the only expansion of QFT that I was aware of.

[MN Dave]

I be reading this and it be quite fine.
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Ships-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590173465/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288447026&sr=8-1

[karlhenning]

After finishing Decline and Fall (and before I've quite finished with Patey's critical biography), I've had to plunge right in to re-reading A Handful of Dust.

[Scarpia]

After finishing Decline and Fall (and before I've quite finished with Patey's critical biography), I've had to plunge right in to re-reading A Handful of Dust.

A cheerful ending, to that book (sarcastic, unless you are reading the alternate ending the American publisher demanded).

[karlhenning]

A cheerful ending, to that book (sarcastic, unless you are reading the alternate ending the American publisher demanded).

Waugh wanted to bring Tony to a sad end.  I learnt from these biographies I've been reading that he had originally written a story ("Mr Loveday's Little Outing"), which he modified slightly to serve as the ending for A Handful of Dust. (Which I think works perfectly fine, even with the change in pacing from the earlier part of the novel . . . in much the same way that I think the coda to Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments works fine, 'even though' he had first composed it as an elegiac chorale in honor of Debussy.)

So the problem wasn't so much "happy ending syndrome," as that the story was already under a sort of contract in the States.

[Antoine Marchand]

I have begun this one today:



François-René de Chateaubriand - Memorias de ultratumba (Mémoires d'outre-tombe), 4 vols., Acantilado, Barcelona, 2006.

It's a major challenge! 

[Florestan]

I have begun this one today:



François-René de Chateaubriand - Memorias de ultratumba (Mémoires d'outre-tombe), 4 vols., Acantilado, Barcelona, 2006.

It's a major challenge! 

The reward should be commensurate, methinks...

[jlaurson]

Joy in the Morning
(Wooster & Jeeves)
P.G. Wodehouse
[Everyman Wodehouse]

[Brian]

Travails of the 19th Century Russian agrarian nobility...oops, no, it's a book on Quantum Field Theory.  I wanted to know what this QFT that Henning keeps mentioning is.  And wouldn't you know that as soon as I get around to reading this, I find out there's a 2nd edition.

The thing I can't get over, is that the author's name is "A. Zee." Heh.

[DavidW]

The thing I can't get over, is that the author's name is "A. Zee." Heh.

  Tony Zee's book is very good except that it gives you the illusion that you understand QFT, which can quickly dissolve if faced with absolutely any QFT problem.  It is a good primer if followed with a thorough text like Srednicki (which is free online).

[Opus106]

  Tony Zee's book is very good except that it gives you the illusion that you understand QFT, which can quickly dissolve if faced with absolutely any QFT problem.  It is a good primer if followed with a thorough text like Srednicki (which is free online).

Thanks for the info on Srednicki; I'd never heard of him nor of the book before. (I have Warren Siegel's text somewhere on the hard-disk which I hope to go through someday.)

Oh, and I can't believe that he's quoting a PF post as part of the blurb!

[DavidW]

I think that his book and Siegel's compliment each other since one will do what the other doesn't in several cases.  Here is the link:

http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~mark/qft.html

[Daverz]

  Tony Zee's book is very good except that it gives you the illusion that you understand QFT, which can quickly dissolve if faced with absolutely any QFT problem.  It is a good primer if followed with a thorough text like Srednicki (which is free online).

I have a gazillion QFT texts in dead tree format, including Srdnicki, which I agree is very good if supplemented (with, say, Ryder).  I like the broad overview and perspective that Zee gives, and some of his clever pedagogical techniques, but he does seem to pull fast ones now and then.

I don't think Zee is good as a very first exposure to QFT.  I think the Aitchison and Hey "Gauge Theories in Particle Physics" books, which are aimed at undergrads, are better for that (I only have volume 1).  They only cover the canonical quantization method.

Other books I've found useful are Ryder (very friendly) and Maggiore (very succinct).

[DavidW]

I think the Aitchison and Hey "Gauge Theories in Particle Physics" books, which are aimed at undergrads, are better for that (I only have volume 1).  They only cover the canonical quantization method.

I didn't know that!  I assumed from the title that it was an advanced book!   I'll remember your rec of Ryder, I had a roommate in college that also thought that book was a good un.

[Daverz]

Well, all this should have probably gone on physicsforums, not here.  Non-geeks please skip...

I didn't know that!  I assumed from the title that it was an advanced book! 

I think the level is meant to be a little above that of Griffith's particle physics book (another one I don't have). 

Comments on other books:

Brown: Another path integral only approach.  I find myself bouncing off his style of developing things, and the ugly typesetting, which looks like a mediocre Latex dump, doesn't help.  Lots of detailed exercises, though, which may be a reason to keep trying.

Greiner, Field Quantization.  Pedagogically very nice and detailed, but they don't get to Feynman diagrams until quite late since their only example is QED, and they don't bother with "toys" like phi^4 theory.  So all that machinery has to be developed first.  I'm not sure how this book fits in with the other Greiner books, which I don't have, but it seems self-contained to me.

Itzykson & Zuber: As a dilettante, I don't have patience with the semi-historical and rigorous approach.  Seems like an important reference for the serious, though, and it's inexpensive.

I haven't tried Weinberg's book since the 90s.  It seemed like a disappointment compared to his GR book.

I don't have Peskin & Schroeder, which still seems to be the "default" graduate text.  Waiting to snag a cheap copy.

Sidney Coleman's lectures from the 70s are also online, but the video quality is primitive, and I don't find this a very efficient way to learn things, so my initial excitement wore off by lecture 9 or so where I got lost.  I'll probably make antother attempt to push on at some later time.  The first few lectures are very useful as I haven't seen the necessity of field theory worked out in such detail before.  Books usually fob you off with a mention of E=mc^2 and pair creation.