Just as it is hard to clap with one hand, it's hard to develop mathematical algorithms only by reading technical articles. And so despite the fact that we regularly read and write about C++ and CAD (for instance, about constraint solvers and plugins), we have regular book club meetings at our company at which we read fiction and non-fiction.
Perhaps one day we'll make a list of our favorite technical books on designing complex and reliable systems and must-read articles on mathematical algorithms, but for today we'd like to share a list of the books that interest us.
Back in 2018, LEDAS Book Club meetings were held in person, but gradually we've come to realize that it's much more convenient to meet online. As of 2020, this became the norm for many events, of course. However, even without the distraction of global epidemics, there is a benefit to holding our book club online: After members move to another organization or another city, they can keep meeting with us. They find it almost impossible to break away from conversations about books with people who are close to them in spirit.
One of the founders, and the first president of our club, specialized in C# projects, and was seriously involved in digital medicine projects. The current president of our club is much closer to CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) projects, working on Human Machine Interface (HMI) applications with futuristic WPF/MVVM User Interfaces and tight connection to various controllers, where he must follow Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" obviously. Sometimes at our the LEDAS Book Club meetings, we end up discussing progress in our AI projects, because, for example, a similar plot line is taking place in the sci-fi story we're reading and talking about.
Here is a list of the books that we have discussed over the years:
- The End of Eternity – Isaac Asimov
- Cat Country (貓城記 / 猫城记) – Lao She
- One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
- Gateway – Frederik Pohl
- Beyond the Blue Event Horizon – Frederik Pohl
- Good Omens – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
- Mort – Terry Pratchett
- The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang Goethe
- At the Mountains of Madness – H. P. Lovecraft
- The Call of Cthulhu – H. P. Lovecraft
- Hopscotch – Julio Cortázar
- Solaris – Stanisław Lem (and also the movie of Andrei Tarkovsky)
- Different Seasons – Stephen King
- Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
- A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
- Christmas Eve (Ночь перед рождеством) – Nikolai Gogol
- In a Grove (藪の中) – Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
- Time in Advance – William Tenn
- Beyond the Aquila Rift – Alastair Reynolds
- Bears Discover Fire – Terry Bisson
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – Ken Kesey
- Blindsight – Peter Watts
- Eifelheim – Michael Flynn
- Extracts from Adam's Diary – Mark Twain
- Eve's Diary – Mark Twain
- The Last Wish – Andrzej Sapkowski
- Sword of Destiny – Andrzej Sapkowski
- Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie
- The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins
- Neuromancer – William Gibson
- For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone – J. K. Rowling
- Don Quixote (Don Quixote de la Mancha) – Miguel de Cervantes
- Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des Hommes) – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The Brothers Karamazov (Братья Карамазовы) – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Moscow-Petushki (Москва-Петушки) – Venedict Yerofeyev
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
- The Final Circle of Paradise (Хищные вещи века) – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
- Roadside Picnic (Пикник на обочине) – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
- Transhumanism Inc. – Victor Pelevin
- Never Talk To an Intensivist (Никогда не разговаривайте с реаниматологом) – Razia Volokhova
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! – Ralph Leighton and Richard Feynman
We always make a short summary based on our discussions in the LEDAS Book Club. Perhaps one day in the future we will publish some of these summaries here.
I don't want to say to you, “Read these books to develop the best algorithms,” but some key titles are on the list, and we see them as very important to our own work. Enjoy your time reading the best books!