Books I've Read This Week

Sir Terry Prachett is a a national treasure, scratch that, an international treasure. His latest book Dodger is doesn't even take place on Discworld but that doesn't mean it is missing Prachett's signature humour. The book takes place in Victorian London and as you may have guessed the main character Dodger is an homage to Charles Dickens character the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist. In fact other Victorian age characters fictional or real like Sweeney Todd, Benjamin Disraeli and Charles Dickens himself play roles in this story. Dodger interrupts an attack on a young woman saving her life in the process. From there he pulls away at the mystery of why she was attacked trying to save her from more danger. His investigations lead him to a lot of interesting places and he meets a number of great characters. I love Prachett's writing so I may be biased but I'd recommend this book to anyone. Especially non-Discworld fans as you don't need any background to jump in and read this story. Oh and if you don't trust my review check out what Cory Doctorow had to say in his review over on Boing Boing.

Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming by Marijn Haverbeke is a great book for folks who want to be introduced to the JavaScript programming language. It is a very clear, concise, well written book with great examples. It recommend it to any beginner or intermediate JavaScript programmers. As well if you want to try it out before you buy it you can download a HTML copy from EloquentJavaScript.net.