Anyone who knows a thing or two about legendary id Software graphics programmer and technical director John Carmack will be aware that the genius programmer and rocket scientist consumes books at an incredibly rapid rate, tearing through tomes of knowledge at an inhuman pace.

These books range a gamut of topics, from history and science to technology, programming and science fiction - and anything in-between - perfectly showcasing his philosophy of ‘learning everything from anything.’ Anything can be an opportunity to discover something new.

Apparently, Carmack’s son recently underwent a medical procedure in Boston, Massachusetts, and Carmack was with him for the week of the operation. During those seven days, Carmack “got to read lots of books.”

Indeed he did! Let’s take a look at some of his quick-fire reviews of the books he read to get a little further insight into the mind behind Wolfenstein, DOOM, Quake and RAGE (and their technical innovations):

REAMDE:

“the first half was great, but by the end I was actually skimming some paragraphs. Yuxia dialog made me grin.”

The Post American World:

“I expected to be irritated, but it was far less ideological than expected, and I found it all quite sensible.”

Powering the Future:

“Does the math and discards silly ideas, but still undervalues the importance of small engineering scale factors.”

Better, A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance:

“I see lots of parallels with software. Facing up to how bad people can be at their jobs is tough”

Children of the Sky:

“Vinge wrote two of the best SF novels ever, but this is only OK. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t really recommend.”

Have you read any of these books? Would you now go and read them on John Carmack’s recommendation?

Source: John Carmack on Twitter