Member: tmcarthur

CollectionsYour library (195), Wishlist (14), All collections (195)

Reviews6 reviews

Tagsfiction (113), unread (84), sci-fi (51), non-fiction (41), computer science (37), reference (26), classic (24), wishlist (14), fantasy (14), philosophy (12) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsComputer Scientists, Early Reviewers, Mathematics, Philosophy and Theory, Purely Programmers, Science Fiction Fans, Science!, What Are You Reading Now?

Favorite authorsDouglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Michael Ende, Alan Dean Foster, Hermann Hesse, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Larry Niven, George Orwell, William Poundstone, William Shakespeare, Simon Singh, John Steakley, John Steinbeck, J. R. R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut (Shared favorites)

About meCollege student, math and computer science major. Interested in computers, artificial intelligence, genetic algorithms, emergence theory, philosophy, game theory, set theory, proof theory, psychology, probability, history, etc.

About my libraryWell, I'm currently living in a dorm so I have to ration what books I take with me and on every trip home make a swap out. Usually a trip home means a holiday, so I generally return with a healthy supply of new books. Some of those I haven't read because they've been in my overflowing queue and some of them are new books I've just received that seemed cool enough to jump the queue entirely (no wonder the queue remains so large!). These conditions mean sometimes I don't have time to add books when I receive them, being on holiday, so end up having to mass-add them on longer trips home.

Beyond this, my library is an eclectic collection of various books, a great deal of them on programming topics and science fiction, though increasingly this is ceasing to be true as I acquire more books to satisfy my diverse tastes.

In non-fiction I tend to like math history, general history, war history, psychology, philosophy, programming, and reference materials. From time to time I also pick up some political commentaries that I find interesting.

With fiction, I tend to like historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, alternative histories, and all sorts of other things. The one type of fiction that is anathema to me is pure romance novels. I don't mean sci-fi with a romantic sub-plot, or anything of that sort, but pure romance. So while one might find representatives from almost any other genre in my collection, one shouldn't expect to find anything of that sort.

Lots of my books are tagged unread, which isn't quite fair, since most of them I have read part way. At any given time I'm usually reading about six books, so hey. Besides this, I recently accepted my addiction to not just reading books, but collecting and possessing them, so I don't feel too bad about not having read them all yet.

There's some unique pleasure associated with acquiring a new or a used book. A new book has a particular new smell, there's a particular pleasure involved with hearing the spine first make a noise as you open it gently as to not hurt it. With used books the pleasure is all the more interesting, because you smell the book, see the coloring of the pages, and consider how it has been used in the past. I digress...

I review books usually when I finish reading but sometimes a great deal later, I only review books I feel like reviewing, and usually my reviews will be full of praise. If it's worth reviewing, it's probably going to be a great book.

Homepagehttp://travis.travisbsd.org

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Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

Real nameTravis McArthur

LocationNebraska

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

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

Common KnowledgeSeries (53), Awards (104), Characters (1016), Places (220)

Member sinceDec 4, 2006