Winter Reading: Dirac, Churchill, and Game Development

Eli Bendersky's quarterly reading roundup covers ten new books and one re-read, spanning history, physics, sociology, and science fiction. The standout is Winston Churchill's "The Birth of Britain" — the first volume of his four-part History of the English Speaking Peoples. Though begun in the 1930s and interrupted by WWII and Churchill's premiership, the project was completed in the 1950s. The prose is excellent and the research generally solid, though the author occasionally ventures into admitted speculation where documentation is thin. Covering from Roman times through the end of the Wars of the Roses in the late 15th century, the book can fatigue readers with its procession of kings and Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-French conflicts, but Bendersky found it genuinely enjoyable and plans to continue with the next volume.

Lawrence Wright's "Thirteen Days in September" offers a day-by-day reconstruction of the 1978 Camp David accords, interwoven with a substantial history of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the latter half of the 20th century. The book distributes blame across both sides with unusual even-handedness, which Bendersky notes is no small achievement given the subject. It makes for difficult reading for anyone with emotional investment in the topic, but the effort at objectivity largely succeeds.

Physics with Actual Math

Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky's "The Theoretical Minimum" departs sharply from popular science conventions: it is a mathematically rigorous introduction to classical mechanics via the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian frameworks. University-level calculus, linear algebra, and some differential equations are prerequisites. The first half is approachable; the later portions become considerably harder, moving too quickly for Bendersky's taste, with content accumulating faster than motivation or worked examples can support. Still, for a reader with limited time who wants a genuine view of how physicists work, it serves as a solid quick overview.

Biographies and Memoirs

Graham Farmelo's "The Strangest Man" is a well-crafted biography of the quantum physicist Paul Dirac. Vladimir Nabokov's memoir "Speak, Memory" demonstrates his unmatched command of prose, but covers only roughly the first two decades of his life. As a result, it offers little about his development as a writer — instead giving an insider's portrait of aristocratic childhood in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Sociology and AI

Sudhir Venkatesh's "Gang Leader for a Day" is an unusual work of sociology: the author gained the trust of a Chicago gang leader and spent years observing gang activity and life in the projects firsthand. The result is a rare insider perspective on a part of society that receives little direct exposure. Brian Christian's "The Alignment Problem", by contrast, left Bendersky underwhelmed. The book's substance amounts to identifying the alignment problem in AI, acknowledging that solutions remain rudimentary, and filling the rest of the volume with roughly ninety percent AI research history — competently written but not particularly illuminating on the core topic.

Fiction and Games

Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Children of Ruin", the second entry in the author's sci-fi series, proved more difficult than its predecessor. An overabundance of characters and a heavily non-linear plot made it more confusing than enjoyable, offering little new beyond the first book. Jason Schreier's "Blood, Sweat and Pixels" collects articles on game development history. It is engaging but, for a technical reader, disappointingly light on engineering detail. Yu Hua's "China in Ten Words" mixes autobiographical vignettes with cultural-revolution history and musings on modern China — neither memorably good nor bad.

The quarter's re-read was John Steinbeck's "A Russian Journal".