A colon can completely change the meaning of a sentence.  For example: 1. I ate my friend's lunch. 2. I ate my friend's colon. - Barry Halverson, X Recommended Reading List (Pompous Version): ------------------------------------------- 1. "The Eudaemonic Pie": counting cards at Blackjack?  Child's play.  The Eudaemonic Pie guys built machines to predict the outcome of a roulette spin.  And tested it in real casinos. 2. "The Great Mambo Chicken & the Transhuman Condition", and "Nano", both by Ed Regis: imagine a microwave-sized box into which you place some straw and some grass and come back a few hours later and open the door to find a perfect, dry-aged steak in their place.  Brought to you by the miracle of atom-by-atom, molecule-by-molecule manipulation.  No intermediary cow needed.  But be careful of the "gray goo".  (No, this technology doesn't exist yet.  But the father of nanotechnology, K. Eric Drexler, insists that it's theoretically possible.) 3. "The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers".  Check out the entry for the number 39. 4. "Mathematical Cranks" and "The Trisectors", both by Underwood Dudley (pen name?):  about amateur mathematicians, working in their basements, who have convinced themselves that they have found a proof (method) of squaring the circle (constructing a square with the same area as a given circle using only a compass and (unmarked) straightedge) or trisecting the angle, or doubling the cube, even though it was mathematically proven in the 19th century that all 3 of these operations are impossible (because, for example, they involve constructing a line segment that is the cube root length of another line segment, which you can't do with straightedge and compass alone).  You can skip the math and go straight to the letters:        "Dear Professor X (ABC University), you SOB you:                It has been 6 months since I sent you my         proof and you have yet to publish it in         a mathematical journal.  You are trying         to steal the credit from me and take the         glory for yourself.  I am going to devote         the remainder of my life to destroying         you, you bastard..." 5. "A History of Pi", by Beckmann:  this guy really, really, really, really doesn't like Aristotle.  The author is a bit of a crank, however, who has claimed that Einstein's theory of Relativity is incorrect. 6. "Through the Alimentary Canal with Gun and Camera": this is an inside joke, not an actual book recommendation.  Although the book does indeed exist. 7. "A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown" (physics, mechanical engineering).  Yes, this is a real book.  Yes, it has been included on this list only for pomposity's sake. 8. (working on it... check back) Recommended Reading List (Non-pompous Version): ----------------------------------------------- 1. "Replay" by Ken Grimwood:  Groundhog Day, *long* before the movie "Groundhog Day".  This is The Great American Novel.  And much better rendered (but with a plot hole). About a thousand times better than "The Great Gatsby" or "Catcher in the Rye" that we had to read in school.  But don't tell any English teacher I said that. 2. Almost anything by Bill Bryson.  "A Walk in the Woods" is the book made (slightly) famous by the Robert Redford movie adaptation, but for my money, "Neither Here nor There" is better. 3. (working on it... check back)