Reply to: Best Book Ever Read ?

[sasguru]

I'm afraid I don't know any IT role you can just learn yourself into - you seem to need recent experience in all of them. Sorry, old bean. If I knew of one I'd have bought the book and no longer be on the bench!

However you can twist the truth and learn something close to your past experience.

[MrMark]

Can you actually learn yourself into a data analyst role this way, just curious?

I'm afraid I don't know any IT role you can just learn yourself into - you seem to need recent experience in all of them. Sorry, old bean. If I knew of one I'd have bought the book and no longer be on the bench!

[sasguru]

On another note why does most sci fi have poor writing and characterisation (e.g. Dune.) and what does that say about the people who like it?

[DaveB]

Fiction : Dune - Frank Herbert
Non- Fiction : Diary - Samuel Pepys.

[DS23]

I'd put 100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez high up the list as when I read that aged 16 it was the first book given to me as part of a school course that had been written within my lifetime (just).

I read it in both English and Spanish and loved every moment of it.

I re-read it a couple of years back and while it brought back memories, the impact of the first reading is no longer there.

for me it was the other way around. i struggled a bit with it the first time. i didn't enjoy it. when i read it again, some ten years later - i absolutely loved it. stunning novel. i must read it again.

[xchaotic]

Non-Fiction: Data Analysis using SQL and Excel by Gordon S Linoff.

Can you actually learn yourself into a data analyst role this way, just curious?

[DS23]

i read flanagans run years ago. 1983 - the year it was published. it is about a marathon of marathons or something. i certainly enjoyed it though i can't remember much other than the cheating germans and a train that gets in the way.

[PorkPie]

For anyone that has done any serious running, Flanagan's Run by Tom McNab is pretty good. Also Trinity by Leon Uris.

Is that Andy's lesser known and slightly more boring brother?

[thunderlizard]

Catch 22

...makes some very good points and is laugh-out-loud in parts but I'd say it's a few steps off greatness. It retells the same joke over and over again (& some may argue that's the point of it) with varying success. Somebody (a lecturer) once told me that if you remember it was originally a newspaper serial, that goes some way to explaining its deficiencies. Unfortunately...it wasn't!

[sasguru]

For anyone that has done any serious running, Flanagan's Run by Tom McNab is pretty good. Also Trinity by Leon Uris.

Wot, no insults.
You cretinous nincompoop

[MrMark]

Fiction: Dune by Frank Herbert (2nd choice would be Catch 22)
Non-Fiction: Data Analysis using SQL and Excel by Gordon S Linoff.

[DS23]

just to balance out a little i think catch 22 is a truly great book.

by turns hilarious and horrifying. as it develops the hilarity lessens and the horror increases. a descent into hell.

war and peace is not better nor worse - just different (though it is like catch 22 a truly great book)

there are plenty of truly great books from 1001 nights to jonathan strange and mr norrel (and beyond) but if i was to choose one....

shardik by richard adams.

[shaunbhoy]

For anyone that has done any serious running, Flanagan's Run by Tom McNab is pretty good. Also Trinity by Leon Uris.

[sasguru]

How to Be a Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Be-Frien...4746111&sr=1-7

Cheers,

Sasguru.

I'm supposed to be polite, so I will politely tell you to go and perform some well dodgy acts on yourself.

[nomadd]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Calculus-Mic...4745173&sr=8-5

- Sasguru

How to Be a Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Be-Frien...4746111&sr=1-7

Cheers,

Sasguru.