I am not sure where I bought this hardback book, probably Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I read it here and there over a couple of months, it took awhile between everything else that has been going on.
Wetworld features 2 of my favorite characters, David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.
The story itself is really cookie-cutter. The companion wants to go some where/some when, the Doctor agrees while totally misinterpreting the where and when, and the TARDIS takes them to someplace that neither one of them expects. Something is wrong endangering the locals of where they land. The companion gets in trouble, the Doctor runs around acting manic, and with the help of the locals everything gets straightened out.
But I still enjoy reading these stories, especially the Dave Tennant stories. If you like Doctor Who novels, this one will not disappoint.
From the publisher:
When the TARDIS makes a disastrous landing in the swamps of the planet Sunday, the Doctor has no choice but to abandon Martha and try to find help. But the tranquillity of Sunday’s swamps is deceptive, and even the TARDIS can’t protect Martha forever.
The human pioneers of Sunday have their own dangers to face: homeless and alone, they’re only just starting to realise that Sunday’s wildlife isn’t as harmless as it first seems. Why are the native otters behaving so strangely, and what is the creature in the swamps that is so interested in the humans, and the new arrivals?
The Doctor and Martha must fight to ensure that human intelligence doesn’t become the greatest danger of all.
Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit Doctor Who series from BBC Television.
I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Doctor Who.
I read this book on Safari Books Online using the Safari Books app on an iPad.
I am not a big fan of using flash in the type of photography I usually do, but I am trying to improve my skills with speedlites and strobes. I have an old Canon 550EX and a pair of Yongnuo cheapo flashes with Yongnuo wireless triggers.
The Yongnuo flashes work great when I have a lot of time to set them up and experiment with settings since everything is manual with them. But where the Canon flash is 95% reliable the Yungnuo flashes are more like 75% reliable, so they get the job done, I just have to pay closer attention to them and double-check every exposure.
So that is where my interest in this book began, but this book delivers so much more than what to do with your flash. The first 5 chapters are about how to see and capture light and are absolutely fantastic, a must read. It is so well written, where the book "Light Science and Magic" feels like reading a schoolbook, the Speedliter’s Handbook is much friendlier and more conversational. I really enjoyed it and expect to read it again and again until I have soaked it all up.
In the appendix of the book is a great resource of websites about photography, I filled up my news reader with more than a dozen of them.
From the publisher:
Getting your Canon Speedlite to produce the light you need can be a real challenge. For those new to flash photography—or for anyone who has previously given up out of frustration—Speedliter’s Handbook is a revelation. Photographer Syl Arena takes you on a journey that begins with an exploration of light and color, moves through a comprehensive discussion of the Canon Speedlite family and all of the accessories and equipment available to the Speedliter, then settles down to crafting great light in one photo shoot after another. Whether you want to create a classical portrait, shoot an event, or simply add a little fill light to a product shot, Speedliter’s Handbook shows you how.
A fantastic in-depth resource illustrated with over 500 images, Speedliter’s Handbook covers:
how to see the various characteristics and properties of light itself, as well as the differences between how your camera sees versus how you see
all the buttons and dials of the entire Canon Speedlite family
the basics of on-camera flash…and the necessity of getting your flash off the camera
how to beautifully balance flash with the existing ambient light
all the equipment necessary for great Speedlite shots
how to get amazing shots with just one Speedlite
how and when to use E-TTL versus manual flash
the use of color gels to balance color, as well as create dramatic effects
how to tame the sun—or any really bright light—with hi-speed sync
and much, much more
Whether you’re shooting portraits, events, or sports, Speedliter’s Handbook is an essential resource that teaches you how to craft the light you need for any type of shot you want.
I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to any photographer.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
With such high ratings and the endorsement from Neil Gaiman, how could I pass this one up.
I am not sure why, but this book just didn’t work for me. It started out with many small technical problems with the audio, small chirps and crackling, that really distracted me. But even after those issues went away later in the book I still just couldn’t get into it.
The lead character, Tom Carmody, never appealed to me… The book just feels pretentious to me with all the armchair philosophy, puns, and forced wordplay. I can see how this book would be viewed as a precursor to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series, but Mr. Adams was able to do it without pretension, he did it in a way that made it feel natural in a way I do not feel like this book does.
John Hodgman does a good job narrating the book, but it is hard for me to judge as I never could get really involved with the storyline.
I really respect Neil Gaiman and Audible for making audiobooks like this one of stories and authors that many of us have never heard of and look forward to many more of them.
From the publisher:
Award-winning author, narrator, and screenwriter Neil Gaiman personally selected this book, and, using the tools of the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), produced this work for his audiobook label, Neil Gaiman Presents.
A few words from Neil on Dimension of Miracles: “Dimension of Miracles is probably not [Sheckley’s] most famous book…. but I think it’s probably his best-loved book. It’s about the joys and tribulations (mostly the tribulations) of winning the lottery—the galactic lottery—accidentally. And wrongly. Tom Carmody is awarded a remarkable prize, is taken half way across the universe to collect it, finds himself hopelessly lost, and needs to find his way home again to Earth…to this Earth, not an alternate, weirdo Earth. He’s got to get back. And the price is high.
In its style of humor—and even in some of the jokes—Dimension of Miracles is very obviously a precursor of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas actually hadn’t read Dimension of Miracles until very shortly after Hitchhiker came out, when people pointed him to it, and he told me that he found the experience almost shocking—it was like reading himself. He was a huge admirer of Bob Sheckley and a huge admirer of this book, and in later life, I had the privilege of introducing both of them.
Now the challenge for me with a book this funny, this strange, this perceptive was to try and find a narrator who was as iconic, somebody who could deliver the goods, somebody who could give you a book like this as it deserved to be given. And the first, and the last, and actually the only person to come to mind was John Hodgman. So I asked John, and he said yes! And he did it; he pulled it off. Listening to John—not just the suave, sensible, sane narrator of this book, but all the peculiar accents and incarnations that he is forced to adopt through here—he does it delightfully, he does it brilliantly, he’s really, really funny. And so is this book. Enjoy your journey through a Dimension of Miracles.”
Dimension of Miracles is a satirical science fiction novel first published by Dell in 1968. It’s about Tom Carmody, a New Yorker who, thanks to a computer error, wins the main prize in the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. Tom claims his prize before the error is discovered and is allowed to keep it. However, since Tom is a human from Earth without galactic status and no space traveling experience, he has no homing instinct that can guide him back to Earth once his odyssey begins – and the galactic lottery organizers cannot transport him home. Meanwhile, his removal from Earth has caused a predatory entity to spring into existence – one that pursues and aims to destroy him. Carmody is on the run, and he ends up transporting from Earth to Earth – different phases and realities of the planet, which of course is not the time or condition he expects.
These books have been where I have gotten most of my personal photography workflow from and why I made the switch from doing all of my post-production in Photoshop to doing it all in Lightroom. In fact I only open up Photoshop to do quick panoramas (I have other software I use for large intricate panos) and for extensive retouching or composites.
About Stars, Labels, and Flags
I do not use stars at all, I have no reason to rate pictures on a scale. I use labels only to identify pictures that are part of panoramas or composites. I am a firm believer in using flags exclusively to identify the value of pictures.
A picture is either “Rejected” and deleted forever, not flagged because it is an ok picture that I may need at some point in the future, or it is a “Pick” and I have big plans for it.
Scott does a much better job of explaining why than I do and I hope he doesn’t take offense at me quoting him here:
“When you boil it down, our real goal is to find the best photos from our shoot, but we also want to find the worst photos (those photos where the subject is totally out of focus, or you pressed the shutter by accident, or the flash didn’t fire, etc.), because there’s no sense in having photos that you’ll never use taking up hard drive space, right? Lightroom gives you three ways to rate (or rank) your photos, the most popular being the 1-to-5-star rating system. To mark a photo with a star rating, just click on it and type the number on your keyboard. So, to mark a photo with a 3-star rating, you’d press the number 3, and you’d see three stars appear under the photo (shown here at the top). To change a star rating, type in a new number. To remove it altogether, press 0 (zero). The idea is that once you’ve got your 5-star photos marked, you can turn on a filter that displays only your 5-star photos. You can also use that filter to see just your 4-star, 3-star, etc., photos. Besides stars, you can also use color labels, so you could mark the worst photos with a Red label, slightly better ones with Yellow, and so on. Or, you could use these in conjunction with the stars to mark your best 5-star photo with a Green label (as shown here at the bottom).”
“Now that I’ve mentioned star ratings and labels, I want to talk you out of using them. Here’s why: they’re way too slow. Think about it—your 5-star photos would be your very best shots, right? The only ones you’ll show anybody. So your 4-star ones are good, but not good enough. Your 3-star ones are just so-so (nobody will ever see these). Your 2-star ones are bad shots—not so bad that you’ll delete them, but bad—and your 1-star shots are out-of-focus, blurry, totally messed up shots you’re going to delete. So what are you going to do with your 2- and 3-star photos? Nothing. What about your 4-star photos? Nothing. The 5-stars you keep, the 1-stars you delete, the rest you pretty much do nothing with, right? So, all we really care about are the best shots and the worst shots, right? The rest we ignore.”
“So instead, I hope you’ll try flags. You mark the best shots as Picks and the really bad ones (the ones to be deleted) as Rejects. Lightroom will delete the Rejects for you when you’re ready, leaving you with just your best shots and the ones you don’t care about, but you don’t waste time trying to decide if a particular photo you don’t care about is a 3-star or a 2-star. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people sitting there saying out loud, “Now, is this a 2-star or a 3-star?” Who cares? It’s not a 5-star; move on! To mark a photo as a Pick, just press the letter P. To mark a photo as a Reject, press the letter X. A little message will appear onscreen to tell you which flag you assigned to the photo, and a tiny flag icon will appear in that photo’s grid cell. A white flag means it’s marked as a Pick. A black flag means it’s a Reject.”
I really love Lightroom and I think this book is one of the best ways to learn how to use it.
From the publisher:
Since Lightroom 1.0 first launched, Scott’s Kelby’s The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers has been the world’s #1 best-selling Lightroom book (it has been translated into a dozen different languages), and in this latest version for Lightroom 5, Scott uses his same award-winning, step-by-step, plain-English style and layout to make learning Lightroom easy and fun.
Scott doesn’t just show you which sliders do what (every Lightroom book will do that). Instead, by using the following three simple, yet brilliant, techniques that make it just an incredible learning tool, this book shows you how to create your own photography workflow using Lightroom:
Throughout the book, Scott shares his own personal settings and studiotested techniques. Each year he trains thousands of Lightroom users at his live seminars and through that he’s learned what really works, what doesn’t, and he tells you flat out which techniques work best, which to avoid, and why.
The entire book is laid out in a real workflow order with everything step by step, so you can begin using Lightroom like a pro from the start.
What really sets this book apart is the last chapter. This is where Scott dramatically answers his #1 most-asked Lightroom question, which is: “Exactly what order am I supposed to do things in, and where does Photoshop fit in?” You’ll see Scott’s entire start-to-finish Lightroom 5 workflow and learn how to incorporate it into your own workflow.
Plus, this book includes a downloadable collection of some of the hottest Lightroom Develop module presets to give you a bunch of amazing effects with just one click!
Scott knows first-hand the challenges today’s digital photographers are facing, and what they want to learn next to make their workflow faster, easier, and more fun. He has incorporated all of that into this major update for Lightroom 5.
It’s the first and only book to bring the whole process together in such a clear, concise, and visual way. Plus, the book includes a special chapter on integrating Adobe Photoshop seamlessly right into your workflow, and you’ll also learn some of Scott’s latest Photoshop portrait retouching techniques and special effects, which take this book to a whole new level. There is no faster, more straight-to-the-point, or more fun way to learn Lightroom than with this groundbreaking book.
I rate this book and its predecessors as a 9 out of 10.
Soft Target by Stephen HunterI bought this audiobook on sale from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
I absolutely love Stephen Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger series of books, but after so many books they got very stale to me. It started feeling like Mr. Hunter was not trying very hard to come up with something new, so I have not read any Stephen Hunter books in a long time. When I saw this audiobook on sale at Audible I decided to give it a try.
Soft Target is not a Bob Lee book but is instead about Ray Cruz, a Marine sniper who was introduced in Bob Lee books.
This story just didn’t work for me, the technical descriptions of computer systems are incorrect, annoyingly so. Mr. Hunter obviously has an experts level of understanding when it comes to firearms, but until his understanding of computers reaches the same level he should avoid writing about them.
The entire book feels like he is struggling to write a script for a 45 minute long TV show.
From the publisher:
New York Times best-selling author Stephen Hunter is back with another breakneck thriller, in which ex-Marine sniper, Ray Kruz, must outwit a group of murderous Somali terrorists who’ve laid siege to the Mall of America.
Recently retired marine sergeant Ray Kruz has been talked into a mall trip by his fiancé, the beautiful Molly Chan. For Ray, Molly represents a way to reconnect with normal life, something his 20 years in the service and five tours in two combat zones have prevented. But now he finds himself in the middle of the softest target of all, a huge consumer mall where a self-styled "Mumbai Brigade" has come to bring massive death to the heartland. They just didn’t know Ray Cruz was in the building….
I bought this book from Safari Books Online and read it using the Kindle app on my iPad.
I really like Zack Arias as a photographer and a person. He is very open about what he does, why he does it, his triumphs, and his troubles.
Photography Q&A is full of questions that amateur and professional photographers have asked Zack with his honest and heartfelt answers. So much good information here, it is an amazing amount of information.
If you don’t know who Zack is, take a look at his website at http://zackarias.com/ and really take a hard look at this video "Transform." I think after watching the video you will want to hear much more from Zack.
I really enjoyed reading "Photography Q&A", I learned a lot, I laughed a lot, and have decided I need to buy a light meter pronto!
From the publisher:
For years, editorial and commercial photographer Zack Arias has been a respected and trusted voice in the photography industry. Known for his photography, his teaching, and his ability to connect with photographers, Zack has long had an "open door" approach to discussing his career–the ups and the downs–and in so doing has provided a straightforward and candid look inside the industry. By consistently showing great work and offering helpful advice, he has built a large, loyal readership that looks to him for guidance in navigating the currents of a difficult and dynamic industry. Now, Zack finds yet another way to cut through the noise and offer truly valuable information to those struggling to make their way through the twists and turns of an ever-changing landscape.
In Photography Q&A, Zack answers over 100 questions that he fielded directly from the public. These are questions that range across all aspects of the photo industry: gear, marketing, street photography, vision, pricing, branding, light, models, work/life balance, technical advice, and much more. From how to "put yourself out there" and start to get jobs, to how to get paid for those jobs when the client is slow to cut the check–and everything in between– Photography Q&A answers many of the pressing questions that photographers are asking, but until now have not been addressed. The book also includes intermittent "Visual Intermission" sections–where Zack discusses individual images that were milestones in his development as a photographer–as well as worksheets on topics such as pricing and costs that help photographers to "know their numbers."
With all this material, and with insightful, honest answers that come straight from Zack’s experience as a photographer who has seen it all (or at least a lot of it), Photography Q&A is an essential resource for any photographer looking for the real answers to the real questions in the industry today.
I rate this book a 9 out of 10. It would have been a 10 if there had been more photographs.
I bought this book on audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app while traveling from Atlanta to Portland.
I have been working on loosing weight and getting in better shape over the last year. So far I have lost around 30 pounds, I am very happy about that. As a part of getting in shape I have been doing some running, mostly the run/walk/run thing, but for now I only average a 15-minute mile, a bit slower in the summer heat. So this is where my interest in running has come from.
"Born to Run" popped up in an email about new books from Audible and the rating and reviews were so high that I couldn’t pass it up. A lot of the reviews stressed that the book would be enjoyed by anyone, even those who do not run, and boy were they right.
Many years ago I went through a lot of books about mountaineering, I enjoy hiking, but never really had any intention on doing anything close to real mountaineering, but I really enjoyed the books. John Krakauer’s "Into Thin Air", "Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills", and "The Burgess Book of Lies" are some of my favorites. I put "Born to Run" right up there with those books.
It is a great read. There is a lot of information for those who love to run, relationships and emotions for those looking for a good story, and controversy for those who like that sort of thing.
After reading this book I have decided to give barefoot or minimalist running a try. When I was in the Navy, many years ago, I spent a year running on a regular basis and injured my left foot. After that I was told to always wear stiff soled shoes and not to run so much. Lately I have been running in New Balance running shoes with high-end insoles and have not had any foot problems, but this book has me excited to give a try at strengthening my feet by wearing minimal footwear. I’ll let you know how that goes.
From the publisher:
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt?
In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.
Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence.
With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a 50-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.
With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons.
Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.
I really enjoy these cheesy Doctor Who novels, they are great fast reads that deepen the mythology and add a lot of depth to the characters.
This story is about the Eleventh Doctor, as played by Matt Smith and Amy Pond romping around New York saving the earth from an invading army of doll-sized aliens. Good stuff.
From the publisher:
‘Let me tell you a story. Long ago, in the frozen Arctic wastes, an alien army landed. Only now, 10,000 years later, it isn’t a story. And the army is ready to attack.’
New York – one of the greatest cities on 21st century Earth… But what’s going on in the Museum? And is that really a Woolly Mammoth rampaging down Broadway? An ordinary day becomes a time of terror, as the Doctor and Amy meet a new and deadly enemy. The vicious Army of the Vykoid are armed to the teeth and determined to enslave the human race. Even though they’re only seven centimetres high.
With the Vykoid army swarming across Manhattan and sealing it from the world with a powerful alien force field, Amy has just 24 hours to find the Doctor and save the city. If she doesn’t, the people of Manhattan will be taken to work in the doomed asteroid mines of the Vykoid home planet. But as time starts to run out, who can she trust? And how far will she have to go to free New York from the Forgotten Army?
I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Doctor Who and cheesy sci-fi.
I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone. This is the 4th book in the Retrieval Artist series.
Jay Snyder turns in another great performance; to bad the story is not up to snuff.
This story took the politics to far, I seriously lost interest in this story many times. I feel like there is very little action and entirely to much explanation and whining. This is not why I have been reading these books.
I will now be taking a break from reading the Retrieval Artist series for awhile, it looks like the next book in the series may have more action and less politics so I will eventually listen to/read it, but it wont be anytime soon.
From the publisher:
Forensic anthropologist Aisha Costard has been summoned to Mars to examine skeletal remains recently discovered beneath a building erected by the Disty aliens. The bones belong to a human woman who vanished 30 years ago with her children. She is believed to have been one of the Disappeared, outlaws wanted for crimes against alien civilizations.
To investigate the mystery of the skeleton, Aisha turns to Retrieval Artist Miles Flint. Following the trail back three decades and seeking the whereabouts of the victim’s missing children, Miles discovers a deadly secret that could threaten the stability of the entire solar system.
I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
This is book 3 in the Retrieval Artist series.
I really liked this one. So far it is the best book in the series. The tension between Noelle and Flint continues to grow as they try to sort out how they feel about each other.
I liked the mystery aspect and the depth in which it was explored by Flint. His honor and ability to sleep at night are seriously on the line. It is this aspect that made the story interesting to me, I could use a lot more of that type of story. Action, conflict, mystery and more action.
The politics in this book did get on my nerves; I could do without all the back and forth about alien politics.
From the publisher:
Officer Noelle DeRicci is investigating a murder in Armstrong, the domed colony on the Moon. The victim was one of the Disappeared – outlaws in hiding who are wanted for crimes against alien civilizations – whose family had her brought home, believing she was no longer in danger.
Retrieval Artist Miles Flint is responsible for putting the dead woman in harm’s way. He may be the only one with the information needed to solve the case. Now, with DeRicci pressing him for answers he’s not ready to give, he must relive the events that led up to his client’s death, including her role in a war between humans and a mysterious alien race. And that ongoing war continues to escalate, threatening to consume the entire solar system.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
This is the second book in the Retrieval Artist series of books and is a great continuation of the storyline.
In this book Flint and Noelle are no longer working together and Flint is learning that he really can’t trust anyone, which is very hard for him as he really wants to trust Noelle with everything he knows, but telling her to much will endanger his clients and their families.
The tension between Noelle and Flint is growing; they are trying to figure out what there new relationship is and how it will work in the future. It is not something that will be resolved anytime soon. It is this tension between the characters along with the crime-mystery drama that makes these books enjoyable for me.
Jay Snyder continues doing a great job bringing the characters to life.
From the publisher:
His name: Miles Flint. His occupation: Retrieval Artist. His job: find the Disappeared – outlaws on the run, wanted for crimes against alien cultures. The catch: Flint isn’t working on the side of the law anymore.
One simple mistake and a Disappeared could end up dead. But this time, the death of an ailing Retrieval Artist has caught Flint’s attention. He suspects it was foul play, not a viral infection. Equally suspicious is a young woman’s sudden demise during the Moon’s prestigious Extreme Marathon. As Flint investigates, he finds an ominous connection. Both deaths lead back to a scientist – a scientist who is now one of the Disappeared.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
I chose this book based upon the reviews at Audible and they were right, it is a very good listen. Jay Snyder turns in a very good performance bringing the characters to life and giving each one a uniqueness that makes them come alive.
This is the first book in a series that is currently up to 9 books, there is a lot of good reading here and it is a nice step away from the John Scalzi books I have been listening to.
What I like most about this book is how clear the main characters motives are, they are driven by things that make sense to me, their emotions feel real and easy to understand. They are very human.
In this universe Human’s have agreed to respect and uphold the laws of many different alien cultures. This has created a lot of problems for the police and the court systems because many of the alien laws, punishable in amazingly horrible ways, are not obvious to the humans who regularly break those laws accidentally by doing things that are not considered illegal by the humans.
Those that find themselves in trouble disappear; they change their identities and their lives to escape the alien punishments that await them. They spend the rest of their lives on the run from both the human and alien courts.
There are bounty hunters known as "Trackers" who hunt down the disappeared to bring them back to the courts while "Retrieval Artists" who search for the disappeared to help them in different ways.
From the publisher:
Retrieval Artists help the lost find their way back home, whether they like it or not. Specialized private detectives, they investigate the most unusual crimes in the galaxy. But Miles Flint isn’t a Retrieval Artist. He’s just a cop, trying to do his job.
In a stolen space yacht, three people have been found eviscerated, the grisly signature of an alien vengeance killing. Moments later, the border patrol halts another ship launched out of the moon’s orbit. Its passengers are two human children, kidnapped by the most ruthless aliens in the universe. Both ships are linked to a woman on the run: a Disappeared relocated to the inhospitable landscape of Mars. A reluctant outlaw with a bounty on her head and a detective on her case, she’s about to teach all of them a lesson: it’s dangerous to gamble with your life in a universe that rigs the game.
I bought this used hardcover book from The Book Nook II in Marietta.
After reading "A Dirty Job" also be Christopher Moore I was determined to read more of his stories, so I bought 2 of them as used hardcovers.
The Stupidest Angel was a very quick read, it only took me two nights of reading to finish it and I enjoyed every minute. It is a fun romp through a small town where everyone is in everyone’s business.
This book makes me want to read more of Moore’s work and I already have a second hardback just waiting to be read.
From the publisher:
‘Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.
But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he’s not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn’t run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.
But hold on! There’s an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It’s none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel’s not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say “Kris Kringle,” he’s botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.
Move over, Charles Dickens — it’s Christopher Moore time.
I rate this book an 8 out of 10. It is a fun quick read.
My wife and I read a lot of books. Now that our son has gotten a little older and needs less attention, I go through more than a book a week on average, Bobbie doesn’t go through as many books in number, but she is reading much larger non-fiction books and taking copious amounts of notes.
Many years ago I bought Delicious Library 2 (DL2) as a part of a bundle deal. Bobbie and I used it to catalog all of our fiction and collectable books. It worked well enough and with some simple PHP and YUI coding I built a simple web page we could use on our phones to check our library while out and about.
Then disaster struck, I reformatted/re-installed all of our computers and updated them to the latest version of the Mac OS. I thought I had backed everything up, but apparently Delicious Library’s database was not.
Lately Bobbie has been asking me about how to update the Library page with the new books we have purchased. I did another round of research for library software and came to the decision to buy and use Delicious Library 3 (DL3).
I bought it from the Apple App Store, which means it can run on all of our machines and it will stay up-to-date via the App Store app.
The great news is that even though I had lost the DL2 database, DL3 was able to import the CSV file I was using on our website and retrieve the information for the 450+ plus books that were in it from Amazon. That was pretty amazing and made me very happy.
Also, the iPhone app Delicious Scanner worked great for me successfully scanning about 75% of the books that had barcodes in our library. I was kind of surprised how well it worked, DL2 was not nearly as successful using the iSight camera on a laptop. I was also surprised by how many books we have that do not have any kind of bar code or even an ISBN code, a lot of Bobbie’s antique books predate ISBN.
The good news is that scanning the rest of the books went faster than I expected and DL3 did a good job of finding the books on Amazon with a little bit of manual help. DL3 is not fully automatic; I don’t think any book library app could be, there is always going to be manual work involved. Adding the meta-data that is important to us like the name of the Series that a book is a part of, the book’s number in the series, and the character name’s that appear in the book is always going to be manual because what is important to us is not going to be important to everyone.
The bad news is the DL3 is still burying its database in a proprietary format in a deeply hidden corner of your computer. There is still no way for multiple people to collaborate on a single library, you can export/import libraries but it is very klunky and if every book does not have an associated ISBN or Amazon code you are bound to have duplicate entries. And the templates for exporting an HTML version of your library are absolutely useless!
The HTML output and even the default interface of DL3 makes me very sad and frustrated. The developers/designers of the app spent all this time on graphics, 3D effects, and a multitude of wood grains instead of on the usability of the app.
This is what we need from a library app:
Easy book entry
Easy to find a book in the library
Delicious Library 3 is awesome at book entry, that part fits my needs almost perfectly. The only thing that would make it better is integration with data sources other than Amazon.
When it comes to finding a previously entered book, the DL3 app on the desktop works ok. The default 3D Bookshelf view with the books on a shelf (duh) is absolutely worthless for this, it makes it almost impossible to scan through the books and the cover from Amazon may not match the cover of the real book on your shelf making it counter-productive.
Switching to List view improves the situation a lot. You can control what fields/columns are visible and sort the columns.
Oh wait; right there in the top left is search box. Well that should help right? WRONG, when you enter text in that box it displays the results in a pop-up with a fixed width that truncates the book titles to the point that they are useless.
I am going to stop complaining right there. Delicious Library has a lot of usability issues that will apparently never be addressed, lets move on to why it is still a very useful app.
You can output a CSV file!
I have written a little PHP file that takes the CVS file that DL3 outputs and makes a very simple HTML table with the data. Then I use jQuery and a couple libraries to make the table sortable, searchable, and filterable.
The PHP is not very efficient, if we had many more books the JavaScript/jQuery would be to slow to be useful, and having it all in a database would make it easier to do some other cool stuff with the data. But for now the simple PHP and JavaScript fit our needs and give us a great interface into our book library.
I am using jQuery 2.0.2 and tablesorter with the Zebra and Filter widgets.
Here is the JavaScript, it is almost entirely cut and paste from the tablesorter web page:
$(document).ready(function()
{
$("#myTable").tablesorter({
theme : 'blue',
sortList: [[0,0], [1,0]],
widgets: ["zebra", "filter"],
widgetOptions : {
// If there are child rows in the table (rows with class name from "cssChildRow" option)
// and this option is true and a match is found anywhere in the child row, then it will make that row
// visible; default is false
filter_childRows : false,
// if true, a filter will be added to the top of each table column;
// disabled by using -> headers: { 1: { filter: false } } OR add class="filter-false"
// if you set this to false, make sure you perform a search using the second method below
filter_columnFilters : true,
// css class applied to the table row containing the filters & the inputs within that row
filter_cssFilter : 'tablesorter-filter',
// class added to filtered rows (rows that are not showing); needed by pager plugin
filter_filteredRow : 'filtered',
// add custom filter elements to the filter row
// see the filter formatter demos for more specifics
filter_formatter : null,
// add custom filter functions using this option
// see the filter widget custom demo for more specifics on how to use this option
filter_functions : null,
// if true, filters are collapsed initially, but can be revealed by hovering over the grey bar immediately
// below the header row. Additionally, tabbing through the document will open the filter row when an input gets focus
filter_hideFilters : false, // true, (see note in the options section above)
// Set this option to false to make the searches case sensitive
filter_ignoreCase : true,
// if true, search column content while the user types (with a delay)
filter_liveSearch : true,
// jQuery selector string of an element used to reset the filters
filter_reset : 'button.reset',
// Delay in milliseconds before the filter widget starts searching; This option prevents searching for
// every character while typing and should make searching large tables faster.
filter_searchDelay : 300,
// if true, server-side filtering should be performed because client-side filtering will be disabled, but
// the ui and events will still be used.
filter_serversideFiltering: false,
// Set this option to true to use the filter to find text from the start of the column
// So typing in "a" will find "albert" but not "frank", both have a's; default is false
filter_startsWith : false,
// Filter using parsed content for ALL columns
// be careful on using this on date columns as the date is parsed and stored as time in seconds
filter_useParsedData : false,
filter_onlyAvail : 'filter-onlyAvail'
}
});
}
);
If you are looking for a way to keep track of your books, give Delicious Library 3 a try. So far it is working well for us.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
I enjoyed the movie Payback with Mel Gibson, even though I think John Myhre ruined the theatrical release, which got me interested in reading the book that it was based on. This is that book. But before reading this book, forget the theatrical release of the movie entirely.
This is a dark book with a lead character that is not likeable in any way. I suspect there are plenty of people out in the world that would like to think of themselves as being a lot like Parker, hard, mean, uncaring and as tough as nails. But if they are like Parker they do not have any friends and will lead a very lonely and hard life.
I enjoyed this book but it did not make me want to read the rest of the 25 books in the series. Yes, you read that right, there are currently 25 books in the series, so obviously someone likes them a lot.
John Chancer does an amazing job narrating this book, he gives Parker a hard edge delivering his lines in a flat emotionless way that makes him very believable.
You’ll have to excuse me now, I am going to go watch "Payback: Straight Up: The Director’s Cut" which is much closer to the original story than the theatrical release.
From the publisher:
You probably haven’t noticed them. But they’ve noticed you. They notice everything. That’s their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers’ work habits. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack. They’re heisters. They’re pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is the heister’s heister, the robber’s robber, the heavy’s heavy. You don’t want to cross him, and you don’t want to get in his way, because he’ll stop at nothing to get what he’s after.
In The Hunter, the first volume in the series, Parker roars into New York City, seeking revenge on the woman who betrayed him and on the man who took his money, stealing and scamming his way to redemption.
I am not sure where I bought this hardback book, probably Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I read it here and there over a couple of months, it took awhile between everything else that has been going on.
I read this book on Safari Books Online using the Safari Books app on an iPad.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
I bought this book from 
I bought this book on 
I bought this hardcover book from Amazon.
I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone. This is the 4th book in the Retrieval Artist series.
I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.
I bought this used hardcover book from The Book Nook II in Marietta.
I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.