ImperialViolet

(Stephen Baxter, 0-061-05044-x (Hardback), 0-061-05903-x (Softback))

Well, Edinburgh, geology and Sci-Fi. Ian (Clarke) and Matt (Key) eat your hearts out. Baxter always wrote pretty hard sci-fi but that generally means physics. This is the first time I've read a book where the science was mainly geology, but at no cost to the book. This book is novel, well written and engrossing (which is measured by the number of times I put the book down during a lecture).

(Rick Booth, 0-201-47960-5)

This book deals with eeking out every last cycle from Intel processors. It's looking a bit dated now (only covers upto MMX, and even then it only covers that by documentation), however many of the tricks still hold true. The author covers each chip in turn (486-PPro) and then practical applications, including random number generators and JPEG codecs.

Generally not very useful unless you do this sort of thing often, but if you can get it from a library then it's worth a flick through.