What we’re reading at Art+Logic (maybe also last-minute gift ideas?)

As we near the end of the year, we thought it might be fun to share with you a list of the books we’re reading at Art+Logic.
So here, in no particular order, is what we’re reading:
Paul Hershenson is reading
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam by Stephen W. Sears.
Bradley Macomber
We just had a baby, so, right now I’m reading, a mere half-page per day of King Arthur Pendragon RPG, 4th Edition. This is the rulebook for a game in which you pretend to be a knight in the world of King Arthur.
Christopher Keefer
I just re-read Neuromancer, by William Gibson. Still a classic, although I always chuckle a little at Case’s plans to fence three whole megabytes of ram. Before that, I read Farley Mowat’s And No Birds Sang, an exception to my mostly fiction diet. It has some of his trademark humour, but the subject matter is heavy, and it ends very somberly.
Ben Stevens
Right now, I’m reading Private Government by Elizabeth Anderson. It reviews the way that society talks about government and how many corporations operate as governments over their employees.
Kendall Wyman
The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma – Dr. Bessel van der Kolk.
Much of my outside reading centers around Trauma and Survival. Ostensibly, this is because I need to take classes, go to conferences, and read books to keep up my certification as a CASA GAL. In reality, these two subjects, as well as approaches to healing from trauma and recovering from survivorship, have been key interests of mine for years and I find a lot of the learnings here invaluable in understanding people.
Chris Macksey
I almost always have a few books on the go, in various categories. Right now, it’s:
Fiction: The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Non-fiction: What Language Is (and What It Isn’t and What It Could Be) by John McWhorter
Slogging through very slowly: Deep Learning by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville
Food & drink: The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer by Ron Pattinson
Laura Spenke
I just finished The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green and Tim Gallwey. It’s about the psychology of performing under pressure. This one is about music and dance, but the concepts can apply to anything. The original one was about tennis and athletics.
Chris Penney
I’ve just gotten a bunch of books out of the library to catch up with my sci-fi over the holiday break. Currently, I’m reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which I attempted once before; it gets off to a slow start for me but once I got further into it I find myself driven to finish it.
Jason Bagley
I finished Cosey Fanni Tutti’s autobiography Art Sex Music a bit ago then moved on to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Next in line is either a Henry James novel or a book on Japanoise. Oh, a stack of some 80s Frank Miller Daredevils and 90s Warlock comics also are here to fill in some gaps.
Brett g Porter
The tail end of my tracking spreadsheet (recently finished/actively in progress/not declared as abandoned):
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Computers as Theater by Brenda Laurel
Destroy All Monsters by Jeff Jackson
Dare to Lead by Brenè Brown
Artful Design by Ge Wang
Michael Stone
Currently reading (when I can find the time)…
The Bible, for inspiration, and also the scriptural work, “The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”
And our family is currently reading Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, which is a historical work documenting the incredibly struggling but inspirational beginnings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which we are members.
I’m also reading Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler and The Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
Kevin Horn
I’m about halfway through Mike Shepherd’s Kris Longknife series which is military science fiction. It’s fun.
I’m also partway through Rhialto the Marvellous, which is one of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth books. Vance is probably most well known these days for the fact that the original D&D magic system is based on his work (specifically the idea of “memorizing” spells).
Amy Cox
Like others, I have bookmarks in about 17 books at the moment. But I’m successfully sinking my teeth into:
Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper.
Absolutely delightful read as a linguist and lexophile. Non-fiction, an excellently written account of how dictionaries are crafted, and stories about the people that write them/the entries.
Greg James
On the little table next to my chair are lots of Civil War history books, some I’ve already read, which are there for reference. I have an extra copy of Bob Birmingham’s book about Aztalan. Anyone need a copy?
Rich Zuris
Currently/always reading: Bible
Recent:
Devil at My Heels by Louis Zamperini
Churchill’s Trial by Larry Arnn
Jefferson: the Blood of Patriots by Alexander Kennedy
We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young by Harold G Moore
Beren and Luthien by JRR Tolkien
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Just As I Am by Billy Graham
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Bob Bajoras
The most recent book I read was John Doerr’s Measure What Matters.
My wife just got me a copy of Dave Asprey’s Game Changers. I’ll read it over break and you can all tell me how much better a person I am next year. 🙂
I also have a copy of David Maraniss’ Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero queued up.
Andrew Vogan
Like others, I have nice memories of when I used to read. 🙂 These days any spare time is more often spent on home improvement (meh) and spending time with family (well worth it).
I re-read C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra recently. Other works I’ve recently browsed or read in earnest include The Geeks of War, some miscellaneous essays by Jonathan Swift (I want to write like him when I grow up), and The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians.
Robert Devitt
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow by Aurélien Géron.
I feel like I should probably read both 3-4 times all the way through, including all the exercises, to get a full understanding
William McMaster
The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through are a two-book Series by Stephen R. Donaldson that I would recommend. The Covenant Chronicles are BY FAR my favourite books . . . ever!
Bridgette Stokes
For pleasure, I just finished Neil Gaiman’s American Gods not all that long ago – I think about a month or so ago. I enjoyed it, but it did make me want to pick up some coin sleight-of-hand skills. 😀 (I have Norse Mythology on my “to read” list, too.) More recently finished The Handmaid’s Tale. I can say that I haven’t seen the series for either of them, but I am interested.
J. Carlos Perez
I’m reading Milkman: A Novel by Anna Burns. I always try to read the Man Booker Prize winners and tend to enjoy the lyricism of Irish writers. This book has been no exception — took me a while to adjust to the dialect, but it’s a fascinating read. Just finished Washington Black, which was remarkable, and recently picked up a copy of The Long Take.