Sabbatical Reading

I'm taking sabbatical from work for the last two months of this year---hurrah! Something I'm hoping to do a lot is read; I've accumulated a large stack of unread books on my nightstand (for the English: that's a bedside table) and I need to catch up. Here's what lies before me.

Reading at the moment:

• The Goal - despite the moronic and desperately tacky marketing and cover, actually so far a good book full of allegorically packaged business insights.

Top surface of nightstand:

• Don't Bump the Glump - really more traditional nightstand bedtime reading than anything else.
• Marketing That Works - I was given this when I presented at Wharton. Looks interesting.
• The Art of the Start - loaned to me by Matt. Paradoxically, I've not started it yet...
• Presentation Zen - an Amazon recommendation. One to flip through and digest rather than read cover-to-cover, I think.
• Processing - as someone who loves tinkering, math and graphics I've always wanted to spend some time playing with Processing. I'm hoping the book will inspire me.
• Thinking with Type - another addition to the "obsession with typography" section of the library.
• Gödel Escher Bach - I strongly suspect that when I first read this I wasn't old enough to be able to really appreciate it.
• I Am A Strange Loop - probably an Amazon recommendation because I bought the one above...

Next nightstand shelf down

• The Road to Reality - any book subtitled "A complete guide to the laws of the universe" is going to take a while to get through, I feel.
• Against Depression - as a depressive, I appreciate Kramer's work. I liked his concept of "cosmetic psychopharmacology" and even own the domain thymoleptic.com.
• Watching the English - deep but trashy but amusing but deep but trashy. I've been trying to finish this for years.
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb - my ex-boss recommended this to me before just before I left my last job. He raved about it but it's 886 incredibly dense pages. I get daunted.
• Dive into Python - bought before I had my kick-ass one-day Google training on Python. It's there when I feel the need.
• The Stories of English - file this under "fascinated by linguistics". Plus I'm a fan of David Crystal generally.
• Secrets and Lies - of course like me you read his blog. The books have a similar appeal. Did you know he works at British Telecom? Weirdness!
• Python in a Nutshell - a freebie from Google long long ago. I've never written anything serious in Python but I'm certainly Python-curious.
• Designing Interactions - Amazon tells me I bought this 16 months ago. Rats.
• Effective C++ - Google freebie. I've never programmed C++, which probably makes me uniquely odd for someone who started coding 20 years ago. I don't think I'll ever feel the urge to use the language, but studying it would surely be interesting.

Bottom shelf of nightstand

• The Selfish Gene - another Matt recommendation, pointing me at a Dawkins classic because I didn't like The God Delusion.
• Java Generics and Collections - old hat by now.
• Beyond Bullet Points - I think I get it, but figure a flick through is in order before it goes shelfwards.
• Code Complete - shameful that I haven't read this. Don't tell anyone.
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - I browse this all the time. We're back to bedtime reading again.