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A Great Book on Partial Differential Equations

I've been studying up in preparation for commencing my astronomy studies at JCU.  I'm please to say that I've finally (finally!) found a book that's teaching me partial differential equations.  I have nothing but praise for Stanley J. Farlow's Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers.

Some of you may remember me struggling with this in the past.  The book I had was rigorous, but lacked examples and practical help.  Farlow provides all of this.  The book is broken into 47 lessons that take about an hour to complete each.  It's not the most exhaustive coverage, nor the most rigorous, but it has provided me with the visceral understanding that is needed to actually go out and solve problems.

I've been thumbing through that older, higher level, text now, and I must say that it makes much more sense.

Shake Hands with the Devil

I finished reading Roméo Dallaire's Shake Hands with the Devil.  This book covers Dallaire's personal experience as commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations peacekeeping mission present during the genocide.

The book is long, and seems much longer as it drags the reader through the horrors.  That being said, I'm very glad that I read it.  Dallaire's view of the crisis is unique.  What struck me most was the sheer amount of time he and his fellow soldiers spent filing reports and pushing UN paperwork.  It's enough to make one seriously question the usefulness and the ability of our world body.

Overall, well worth the read!

One of Toronto's Treasures

I've had the pleasure of using the Toronto Public Library quite a bit lately.  I've been very impressed.  The TPL has a wide selection of books, great online service and provides everything for free.  Furthermore, the Toronto Reference Library is first-class as far as providing a broad base of academic reading and a quiet environment to study.  For those who have not been there, it's a general reference collection about the size of the Cameron Library collection (although not as specialised).  It's definitely in the same class as one would expect from a university library.

Online Booksellers

As a few of my readers have pointed out, SixApart (the people who own TypePad and Movable Type, which run my blog) are a bunch of greedy little things.  The links to the books at left on my list of recent reading contain a SixApart affiliate ID.  Thus, if you buy one of those books (or a book that you found through that link), they'll get a small piece of the action.  Sadly, my only way to disable this feature is to set up my own affiliate ID, and I'm not really interested in that.

I've bought from Amazon many times before.  They're not the only bookseller in the game, though.  I also recommend chapters.ca, as they have a few advantages over Amazon.  First of all, I can use my 10% iRewards discount card there, as I can at their retail stores.  This often leads to a lower overall price, as they actively compete with Amazon.  Secondly, you can search the inventories of their stores.  This often lets you get a book sooner, and saves you the shipping cost.  Note that their sales online do not necessarily match their sales in-store, so pricing may be different.

My real favourite, though, is the Advanced Book Exchange.  This is a network of small bookstores around the world, mostly in used books, that works together to provide an online catalogue and online purchasing.  This is great, because you can track down rare, out-of-print, non-mainstream, used, signed and whatever other kind of books you want.  I've found them to be quite reliable in the past, and they're always my first stop when looking for a book.  One of their best features is the "Wants" list.  You can specify a search, and the catalogue will email you when a book matching it is added.

So if you're going to buy a book I read, try ABE first!