The Daughter of Time
Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world’s most heinous villains—a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother’s children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England’s throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes in the Tower. The Daughter of Time is an ingeniously plotted, beautifully written, and suspenseful tale, a supreme achievement from one of mystery writing’s most gifted masters.
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What Hacker News says
- I've recently read Josephine Tey's novel "The Daughter of Time" and enjoyed it immensely. It has a fictional detective, laid up in hospital, investigating how true the terrible tales and crimes of Richard III were and comes to the conclusion that it was almost certainly a stitch-up. Great book.
- Hoftstadter is fairly near standard isn't it? Assuming you mean actually reading GEB and not The Mind's I or I Am A Strange Loop. Not generally a course text but very common reading among CS/AI students. Some of whom even read all the way to the end instead of just pretending to!
The book I would most recommend software developers read is Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas by Seymour Papert.
It's a lot shorter. And probably more valuable.
And one random side recommendation: The Daughter Of Time by Josephine Tey. It's a narrative exploration of how to challenge consensus belief, explore gut instincts and follow research leads, expressed as a perception-challenging historical review of Richard III by a fictional detective.
The BBC audio book is worth a go. My copy of this book (which was my mum's copy) is one of the few things I'd rescue from the hypothetical fire. It stays with you.
- Now is an excellent time to be reading The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.
