Aspies For Freedom

I've seen threads like these on other forums, and being aspies I'm sure we have an interesting reading list. I'll start

Achtung Panzer! By Heinz Guderian
Its the book that changed the course of modern warfare.

Right now, I'm reading ZERO: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by Charles Seife.

It's about the struggle mathematicians had accepting the ideas of zero and the void, and infinity and the infinite, and how the church tried to stifle the idea for so long.

My history notes.
I rarely read books nowadays actually, just news articles and stuff. and mostly discussion posts.

Guderian's book is good. But alot of the concepts seem like common sense today, but in fact were quite radical at the time. For example anyone who studies tank combat knows the most effective anti-tank weapon is another tank, which Guderian stated in his book, but at the time tank combat was supposedly not going to happen in the next war, and it was british 2 pdr. guns that the Panzers had to worry about :wink: Still a good summary of basic strategic knowledge.

heh.  Roman numerals are the best </sarcasm>

Right now I have to read the drivers handbook for tennessee, but since it is written in l337 sp34k for some bizarre reason, I often turn to Wheelock's Latin for solace.  Just started on the Latin though, and I've still got to finish with Teach Yourself Irish, so after I've passed the knowledge test, I think I'll work out a rotation with all my languages so I'll finally get something done. :lol:

I love Kurt Vonnegut, he says a lot of things that make sense.

I finished the Zero book. I enjoyed it. I has me wanting to dig out my old textbooks from university. I figure I'm still in so much debt from the student loans, and the books were $80 to $150 each, I should actually know the stuff inside them.

I also read things when I was young that was considered strange for my age. I had no interest in "children's" books, and I read adult stuff even if I didn't understand it all. I read a lot of Stephen King growing up, but also Kurt Vonnegut and Lord of the Flies. I love Vonnegut.

I'm not sure what I'll read next.

I was obsessed with Stephen King for a long time.  Don't remember when, but I started with Four Past Midnight--I found the picture on the cover fascinating, and the pictures I formed from the text were pretty nice as well, so I went on to Insomnia and The Stand (complete and uncut).  There was a time when I had two copies of every Stephen King book in print besides Carrie, one hardback, one paperback, organized according to release date.  Got them at this place, McKay's used books and CD's, not a thing there that cost more than five dollars, and most of it was in really good condition.  When my family moved to Indiana then back to Kville, several of them were lost, but I still remember the plots of every one of them up to and including Dark Tower 7.  

Back then, after finishing every Stephen King book I could get my hands on, I devoured any kind of story or story-like writing; like a door into a sound proof room, a book could be opened, I could go in, and nobody could bother me, even in class.  

Many of the things I read, I don't even remember anymore; there is a plot in my head from my elementaray school library, sixth grade level they told me, and I was only in third or fourth.  The title is lost to me forever.  I remember Lord of the flies was also good, and I also read The old man and the Sea in seventh grade.  I fondly remember reading the Black Cauldron series back in Elementary school.  Made me extremely angry when they made a (poorly done, of course) movie out of it; I considered it an affrontery.  

Before moving to South Bend, IN, I even remember trying to read Albert Camus, but by then my literary diet was beginning to specialize, as I could get new Stephen King books at any time.  This was also in Middle School, .  South Bend, however, I couldn't get rides to any book stores, so I had expand again.  Arthur Conan Doyle, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell were already available, however.  My mom was into Jeffery Deaver at the time, so he was there too.

Back in Knoxville, unfortunately, I got more into music and video games, although video games could never form a collectable with me.  Jefferey Deaver makes an occasional appearance, but most of the writing I was exposed to was politics on the internet.  

Now I'm reading non-fiction.  

I have worked out a weekly schedule for all of the seven language books I have purchased, and I'm also working on Martin Gilbert's The Holocaust.  Made some nice progress with that over the past few days, the rest of the week was spent on Uta Frith's Autism and Asperger Syndrome, languages and trying to get some damn sleep.  Not necessarily in that order.  Did badly with both sleep and languages, for that sunday was the worst, huge headache, and not even in what in what I was studying, which was Welsh.  Monday much better, I got three chapters of Latin, started on Holocaust, tuesday continuing with Frith, Holocaust and did two chapters of Irish.  Now I'm looking at Russian.  Tomorrow is Italian, Friday Scottish, then to finish off the week, Hebrew.  

Couple chapters a day, I guess, really isn't much, but it's better than my previous policy of "a word or phrase whenever I get distracted from Might and Magic."  

[reads over post] Sorry, I didn't mean to write my autobiography here.  Thinking about books just does that to me.

Certain discussions recently have inspired me to re-read the Chrysalids.

I have now added The Princes of Ireland to the list of books I am reading.  Do you think I need to learn how to concentrate?   :lol:

I will finish all of it, however

"Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America"  by James Webb, the guy who famously lost a boxing match to Ollie North when they were both midshipmen, and later won a Navy Cross, and was Secretary of the Navy before resigning on a point of principle.

I'm one, m'self; I bought an orange t-shirt to wear on St. Patrick's Day.

What's funny, though, is that I seem to get my autistic qualities from Dad's, that is the Saxon, side of the family.

My updated reading list

Wheelock's Latin
Teach Yourself Irish
Ultimate Russian
Signing: how to talk with your hands
Teach yourself ancient Greek
Teah Yourself Modern Hebrew
Iron Sunrise (almost to the end)
Signularity Sky
Princes of Ireland (sorta--finished the first chapter, haven't paid much attention to it since)
The Holocaust (halfway through that now)
Our Final Hour (according to the prologue, an analysis of lesser known threats to our our existence in the 21st century.  Actually, it's quite amuzing)

I WAS learning Scottish, Welsh, and italian, but my italian book was loaded with factual errors and perseverated on loanwords--hard for me to learn that way--and Scottish and Welsh can wait until I'm done with Latin and/or Irish.

The Blue Eyed Salaryman (From world traveller to lifer at Mitsubishi) By Niall Murtagh

Last book I read was The Suicide Kit by David L. Hayles. It's a pretty funny book. The humour reminds me a lot of Monty Python especially the really absurd situations in some of the chapters.

Speaking of Python, I'm reading The Pythons' autobiography written by the Pythons themselves.

Have now started reading Crash by J.G. Ballard. Pretty interesting so far. I still haven't seen David Cronenberg's film adaptation. I'm hoping it will get a special edition DVD release.

I have just finished reading Applied Metacognition, Cambridge University press.

I have also been reading on and off The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.

I am about to start reading again, Thinking Syntactically, A guide to Argumentation and Analysis, Blackwell Publshing. I started reading it a while ago but just did not get into it.