Books that changed my life
The Contemporary American Organ
My first book about pipe organs – given to me by Pastor Miles Bruemmer.
William Barnes, 1952, J. Fisher & Brothers.
What Color is Your Parachute
Fabulous way to formulate your career with positive energy.
Richard Bolles, 2008, Ten Speed Press.
FORTRAN IV with Watfor and Watfiv
My first programming book – inspired a life-long love of coding.
Cress, Paul, Dirksen, Paul, and Graham, J. Wesley, 1970, Prentice-Hall.
Outliers: the Story of Success
Enlightening aspects of what makes an extraordinarily successful person.
Malcolm Gladwell, 2011, Back Bay Books.
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music –audio lectures
Fantastic musical insights by Prof. Greenberg.
Robert Greenberg, 1998, The Teaching Company.
The Street Lawyer
We can make a difference with our profession.
John Grisham, 1998, Bantham Doubleday.
Time Power –audio lectures
Time is the only thing we have. Tools to use it well.
Charles Hobbs, 1987, Gold Star Audio.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Money doesn’t grow on trees, but opportunity is all around you.
Robert Kiyosaki, 2007, Warner Business Books.
Digital Signal Processing
I still refer to this book for signal processing details.
Alan Oppenheim and Ronald Schafer, 1975, Prentice Hall.
Analytic Geometry, 2nd Ed.
Love this for coordinate rotations, and descriptions of lines, hyperbolas, etc.
Smith, Edward, Salkover, Meyer, and Justice, Howard, 1954, John Wiley & Sons.
The Science of the Singing Voice
This book captivated my imagination about musical acoustics and the singing voice.
Johan Sundberg, 1987, Northern Illinois University Press.
Over the Top
Everything by Zig is entertaining, inspirational and uplifting.
Ziglar, Zig, 1997, Thomas Nelson.
Business/Inspirational/Life skills books
Dr. Deming the American Who Taught the Japanese About Quality
Great book on quality – turns things upside down.
Rafael Aguayo, 1990, Fireside Book Simon & Schuster.
Make It Stick – the Science of Successful Learning
You remember more if your teacher presents nonlinearly – very disturbing.
Peter Brown, Henry Roediger III and Mark McDaniel, 2014, Belknap Harvard University Press.
Talent is Overrated
Super success is possible for many more than just folks like Mozart.
Geoff Colvin, 2008, Portfolio Penguin Group.
The Sound Book
A new way to look at the world through sounds.
Trevor Cox, 2014, Tantor.
The Myth of Multitasking
Very good description of how we all lose when we try to multitask.
Dave Crenshaw, 2008, Jossey-Bass Wiley.
Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain
Inspirational aspects of observation and drawing.
Betty Edwards, 1979, J. P. Tarcher.
The Man Who Discovered Quality
Nice history of how quality was introduced to America by Deming
Andrea Gabor, 1990, Peguin Books.
David and Goliath
We’ve looked at winners and losers all wrong.
Malcolm Gladwell, 2013, Little Brown.
Four Days with Dr. Deming
Fabulous description of quality methods.
William Latzko, and David Saunders, 1995, Addison-Wesley.
Freakonomics
An amazing way to look at the possible cause and effect of things.
Levitt, Steven, Dubner, Stephen, 2009, Harper Perennial.
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Money is not what motivates people – in fact it ends up demotivating them.
Daniel Pink, 2009, Riverhead Books Penguin Group
To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
All of life is about selling and that’s not a bad thing
Daniel Pink, 2012, Riverhead Books Penguin Group.
When I Say No I Feel Guilty vol II
How to cope with difficult people and not get bogged down.
Manuel Smith, 2000, A-Train Press.
My Stroke of Insight
Amazing description of having a stroke and recovering.
Jill Taylor, 2009, Plume.
A Kick in the Seat of the Pants
Wonderful way to provoke creativity.
Roger Von Oech, 1986, Harper and Row.
A Whack on the Side of the Head
Another wonderful way to provoke creativity.
Roger Von Oech, 1990, Warner Books.
Professionally useful books
Unix C Shell Desk Reference
Simple and clear description of c shell scripts.(It has a couple of typos.)
Martin Airck, 1992, QED Technical Publishing Group.
Quantitative Seismology
The seismic bible.
Keiti Aki, and Paul Richards, 1980, Freeman.
The Fourier Transform and Its Applications
Great in depth description of the Fourier transform including pictures.
Bracewell, Ron, 1965, McGraw-Hill.
XML: A Manager’s Guide
Fun format for a book that summarizes each paragraph in the margins.
Kevin Dick, 1999, Addison-Wesley.
SED and AWK
Very useful for awk script writing.
Dale Doughterty, 1990, O’Reilly & Associates.
Graphics and GUIs with Matlab, 3rd Ed.
Excellent book on writing GUIs in matlab – there is no better one.
Patrick Marchand and O. Thomas Holland, 2003, Chapman & Hall/CRC
Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 2nd Ed
Finally a book that made linear algebra understandable.
Gilbert Strang, 1980, Academic Press.
Fiction books
The Da Vinci Code
Fast pace, fun, crazy, amazing.
Dan Brown, 2003, Random House.
Whiteout
Listened to this on audio book – great story, wonderful British accents
Ken Follett, 2004, Penquin.
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Also listened to this on audio book – they reordered the chapters making it more fun than the book or the movie.
Audrey Niffenegger, 2005, HighBridge Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Kid books
Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time
Fantastic story, stunning illustrations
James Gurney, 1992, Turner Publishing.
The Hole Book
Tom Potts accidentally fires a gun and the hole goes through the book’s pages
Peter Newell, 1936, originally published in 1908, Tuttle.
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