Time to say goodbye

... it has come ...

Bye bye Blogger, I've moved to Tumblr:

(http://tariel.tumblr.com)

Sophie's World

Still reading, I am. I started with a long book series, of which I'll write more in near future, when a friend of mine asked me if I can borrow him my Kindle to see whether it is something he wants or not. But I wanted something in exchange, something to read while I am separated from the book series I was reading. I borrowed a book I should have read in high school but I haven't - Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder.

It is a book that offers great introduction into Philosophy science and offers young mind new perspectives of how to look at the world around us through a great adventure of a teenage girl. It is a great reading that just drags you in and pushes you to read more and more. It's not a short novel but it encourages you to finish it as soon as possible.

I can't say I learned much new, but it was a great wrap up of what I have already known in a completely different tone. The book gives you challenges and riddles to solve while you are reading. It's a great way to inspire a reader to continue reading to see if he solved them properly and to see weather one agrees with the solution presented in a book.

If you haven't yet touched the Philosophy and would like a gentle intro, than this is the book for you. It gives a great chronological progress and development of Philosophical science through time, from its beginnings to the modern time.

Happy holidays

I try to put together a holiday card each year by myself. This year I decided to try and make my own snow crystals with some help of math and Java. I think I got quite nice result (for time spent), enhances in some image processing software and composed with a nice thought that might make us all think for some time.

...
Be who you want to be,
go where you want to go,
love who you want to love
...
-Santana

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Feast for Crows

Yes. I did it. I've finally managed to finish all the published books from series A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin. He promised three more books from the series but they were not yet published. I must say I can hardly wait to get my hands on them once they appear in this realm. The timeth book tells a lot more about few characters and their story.

You really get to know why things are as they are and what drives certain individuals to do what they are doing. However the book concentrates on the characters that, at least for me, are less interesting and I miss the dragons a lot. I really do hope they will play some major role in events that are yet to be. Also some of great villains (if they really are that) had no part in this book. And this is one more reason why the next book is so anticipated. It should air soon and I really hope that's true.

Kindle

Yes. It's true what I said in my previous post. I've got one. I have to say so far I like it a lot. I have it for 3 weeks now and I have finished reading my first book on it. Like you can read in previous post, it was not a thin book, but a book of almost a thousand pages. I just had to try it out very thoroughly and that's why I wanted to finish reading a decent book, before evaluating the usability of it.

I had a very hard time choosing the right e-book reader for myself. I usually think things through and do my research before I spend such amount of money on something. It was a hard choice to make, but I think I made the right one. I was weighting between the original Kindle and it's larger brother (the DX version) as well as Sony's readers. The tests and reviews on the internet made my choice easier. I would like a touch interface of Sony's readers but the trade of between less shiny display screen and touch screen goes to better readability and that's why I've choose Kindle. Now decisions between smaller and bigger brother was the matter of price as well as size. If the DX model would have much smaller edges and the touch screen for the price I would have chosen that one.

Kindle proved a great way for reading books and even browsing the web, reading news and more. I will use it mostly for reading books and much less for anything else. And that is the thing that work awesome. The contrasts are great, the font sharpness is great and the build in English dictionary does a great job. It is all I need of such device and love it. It even fits in my pockets (I do have to say my pockets are quite big) and it is light enough to take it almost everywhere.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords

It took me a bit longer to finish the third book (The Storms of Swords) from A song of Ice and Fire series. Like first two parts (1st and 2nd) I must say this one is at least as good if not better, but that might be because I've read this one in original - english language, as well as waiting to get it in my hands. The story is so fascinating that one can hardly stop reading even if he must. It took me longer to finish this one because I have even more things to do now that I had just month ago.

The story drags very hard and it is hard to resist it's depth and richness. G. R. R. Martin proves that he is a great novelist and this series surely puts him very high on my list of favorite writers. I can hardly wait to finish the whole series, once it will be done. There are still many other books and series waiting to be read, hopefully at least half as good as this one. Again, if you haven't started reading the yet, and you are a Fantasy lover, I really do not know what you are wanting for. Go grab it and you won't be sorry.

This was also first book that I've read on my very own and brand new Kindle, but more on that in the next post.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings

Just two weeks ago I completed  a really great book from A Song of Ice and Fire. It was the first book from series and it was so good that I just had to get the second one (A Clash of Kings) in my hands as soon as possible. The story finally starts coming together and characters that were at different parts of the world started to meet and their life-stories began to merge into one really interesting mixture. But even here the events are not really directed and there are many ways that story can go from here. It still runs very slowly but has it's magical touch to it. Still the story of dragons is masked and I hope they will get much bigger part in overall picture. But I'll just have to wait and see where the third part takes me.

If you haven't started to get excited about this fictional book series, now would be the time for me to tell you: "It's good! Hell, it's awesome." I just hope I won't be dissapointed some time in the future. Go grab it.