5 Great sci-fi novels

Wow - it has been a long time since I have posted to my books blog. Time to recommend some great sci-fi books:

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A Heinlein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress)

This is an awesome book - it deals with social revolution, what it means to be human, strong characters, really interesting plot and well paced!

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash)

Love this light hearted take on sci fi - very forward thinking for its day!

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon)

This is like a sci-fi/history bridge novel - another fantastic read with strong characters (across two timelines). If you are interested in cryptography or computer security - this book is for you!

The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age)

Another forward thinking book - in this age of kindles and ipads I think it weaves an intriguing story (also if you have kids, you tend to think twice leaving them alone with the ipad!).

Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon)

Loved the pace and concepts explored in this book - the premise is that humans can "resleeve" into bodies - simply amazing sci-fi!

OK - yep I am an official fan of Neal Stephenson!

The Tipping Point: How little things make a big difference

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (ISBN 0-316-31696-2) is a book by Malcolm Gladwell, first published by Little Brown in 2000.

A really interesting book that looks at factors that make a product (or disease) suddenly explode and become popular.

The author has a very readable style - and I enjoyed thinking about people in terms of connectors, mavens and salesmen (the three categories of people who comprise the "Law of the few").

The concepts of stickiness were interesting - as my son starts watching childrens programs, I found it fascinating to read about the research that went into Sesame Street and Blues Clues. As James is watching Baby Einstein, I constantly find myself thinking of this section of the book.

The power of context draws together both the law of the few and stickiness nicely, demonstrating (with a number of case studies) how the combination of these three factors can create a tipping point.

The wikipedia page has a good synopsis worth reading (well, better than mine anyway!).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point

This book complements Freakonomics nicely (I'll write a review of this one soon).

Highly recommended reading 4.5/5.

Welcome to my new book blog!

I've decided to split my blog up a little bit into broader categories. This blog will host my book reviews and random ramblings.