Random books from cshalizi's library

About my library This is (or will be, when I finish adding books) the union of what I own with what I've read since 1994 or so. Some of what I've returned to libraries, sold, given away, etc., is marked as such. It's now fairly complete, except for the ton of old science fiction paperbacks my parents are holding for me...

Rating is sporadic and approximate. Roughly: 5 = "personal favorite; you must read this, at least if you're me"; 4 = very good (either for entertainment or instruction). 3.5 = good but not very good. 3 = OK, not painful. 2 = bad. 1 = horrible.

Most of my longer book reviews are now linked in, but the shorter evaluations are still mostly in my weblog. I'll get around to this eventually.

Tagging is sporadic, not particularly consistent, and opinionated.

Reading and purchase dates are only sporadically entered. Many are approximate, because I only recorded month or academic year. (Yes, it's probably OCD-spectrum to record the date in the first place.)

Homepagehttp://bactra.org/

Also ondel.icio.us, Dopplr, Facebook, Flickr

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Real nameCosma Shalizi

LocationShadyside, Pittsburgh, PA

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/cshalizi (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/cshalizi (library)

Member sinceJun 5, 2006

Comments from other LibraryThing-ers

(Leave a comment.)

Hello - I was interested to read your review of Knowledge of angels
by Jill Paton Walsh. However the link to the review was not working and I wondered if I could find it elsewhere? Many thanks.

posted by juliette07 at 2:41 am (EST) on Jul 7, 2008

Cosma,

I notice that your vast library contains some New Mexico books. Ever read any Tony Hillerman?

CIP

posted by CapitainImperio at 12:28 am (EST) on Feb 25, 2008

You induce me to greater variety while the algae grows in my fur, and I am grateful. Also, since your blog doesn't have comments, I'll express gratitude here for introducing this particular math major who spent all of his classes on analysis and logic to a rich practice of statistics.

posted by rmm4pi8 at 8:22 pm (EST) on Oct 29, 2007

You might be interested in a recent piece I had on Zellig Harris in Language --
John Goldsmith

posted by JohnAGoldsmith at 6:58 pm (EST) on Oct 12, 2007

Hi Cosma,

Nice library. Good to see you here.
Been a few years -

Paco
(from FringeWare)

posted by ceteri at 1:51 am (EST) on Aug 31, 2007

To amend my previous comment:

Hello again - since I posted my previous note to you, I've discovered your blog, and I'm a great admirer.

But I didn't make the connection between "Three-Toed Sloth" and "LibraryThing" until I wondered who else had 'favorited' John M. Ford, and I finally recognized your name.

posted by AsYouKnow_Bob at 11:44 pm (EST) on Aug 19, 2007

Hi. I was wondering who was the other person who holds Cipolla's "Fighting the plague in seventeenth-century Italy", so I stopped by to read your profile page: I must say, I enjoy your tagging philosophy.

So I suppose now I should look to see if there's any overlap between my own "wingnuttery" tag and your "psychoceramics"....

posted by AsYouKnow_Bob at 11:22 pm (EST) on Apr 4, 2007

Hi, I am a great fan of your Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur. Glad to see you have a library thing account. Perhaps you could cross post some of those reviews here?

posted by stsullivan at 8:29 pm (EST) on Feb 21, 2007

I have a recommendation for you. Karl Popper and the Social Sciences by William A. Gorton (State University of New York Press, 2006). Makes the claim that the best Popperian social science is being done by the analytical Marxists (Jon Elster, in particular)! It is not perfect--I found the discussion of Popper's views on the ontology of social institutions and free will/determinism sort of irrelevant to the really interesting parts.

P.S. The "publisher's description" up at Powells is obviously of another book.

posted by red_apple_falls at 12:22 pm (EST) on Jan 27, 2007

Dear Cosma,

I wonder if you will ever getting around to reading my Common Causes and the Direction of Causation? It's on your list -- but I know that is a very, very big list... if you do, do let me know what you think.

Nice library,

Brad.

posted by etcetera at 12:58 am (EST) on Jan 10, 2007

Mr. Shalizi, over the years I've dipped into your notebooks on line and have enjoyed your thoughts and recommendations. Like you, I wish that the dross could be burned away and only the really good books would remain. How to weed out the Junk? You have helped. Thanks, and Happy Holidays.

posted by jayqq1953 at 12:08 pm (EST) on Dec 22, 2006

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