Category: Books

I read this book on a Kindle. There will be a review next week of the process I went through in deciding to buy a Kindle and what I think about it.

It feels like I was waiting for this book for a very long time. When I last saw Harry he was in big trouble. I think the previous book, “Changes”, is one of the best Dresden books and it ended with a real cliffhanger.

“Ghost Story” disappointed me a little bit, I felt like I knew what was coming next throughout the entire story. I was wrong a couple of times, which was nice, but most of the time the story unfolded exactly how I thought it would with very few surprises.

I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to the next one but it did not reach me the way many of the other books in the series did.

From the publisher:

When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn’t doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin.

But being dead doesn’t stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has no body, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own.

To save his friends — and his own soul — Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic…

I rate this book a 7 out of 10. If you are a Dresden Files fan you will read this book, if not then you should begin with Book 1: Storm Front.

I listened to this book as an audiobook.

Published in 1961, Stranger in a Strange land is one of science fiction’s most influential stories. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith born during the first manned mission to Mars and the only survivor. He grows up on Mars where he is learns to be a Martian and does not learn how to be an earthling.

Over the length of the story Michael learns what it means to be an earthling and what it means to human. It is such a great story of growth and change.

There are a lot of elements in this story that have shaped the science fiction we know today. From terminology like “grokking” to ideas like “sharing water” this story is one of the most important science fiction stories ever written.

Instead of including something from the publisher I am going to include the text from the beginning of the Wikipeidia article located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who has come to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and the eventual transformation of—Earth culture. The title seems to be an allusion to the phrase in Exodus 2:22 (in the Biblical Book of Exodus). According to Heinlein, the novel’s working title was The Heretic. Several later editions of the book have promoted it as “The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written.”

I rate this book a 10 out of 10. Not so much because it is masterfully written or a story that I want to re-read but because of the influence it has had on science fiction and our culture.

We bought this book from Amazon to get our Martha Jones fix. I read this book in one day, I guess I was really in the mood for Doctor Who and Martha. It features David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.

This is not a deep book diving into the characters and exposing their souls, it is full of action, angry computer intelligence run amok, and running, a lot of running.

People are people, even if they do dispense soggy crisps or their lights flicker and spark.

From the publisher:

Tiermann’s World: a planet covered in wintry woods and roamed by sabre-toothed tigers and other savage beasts. The Doctor is here to warn Professor Tiermann, his wife and their son that a terrible danger is on its way. The Tiermann’s live in luxury, in a fantastic, futuristic, fully-automated Dreamhome, under an impenetrable force shield. But that won’t protect them from the Voracious Craw. A gigantic and extremely hungry alien creature is heading remorselessly toward their home. When it gets there everything will be devoured. Can they get away in time? With the force shield cracking up, and the Dreamhome itself deciding who should or should not leave, things are looking desperate…

I rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to all Doctor Who fans.

P.S.
The cover of this book does not represent the story very well at all.

I have loved every book written by Terry Pratchett that I have read and “I Shall Wear Midnight” is no exception. I read the hardback version of this book.

This is the 4th Tiffany Aching book, which is preceded by “The Wee Free Men”, “A Hat Full of Sky”, and “Wintersmith”, all great books.

The story did not initially grab me the way many Discworld books do, but it builds momentum as it goes and has a fantastic ending.

From the publisher:

It starts with whispers.

Then someone picks up a stone.

Finally, the fires begin.

When people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .

Tiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.

But someone—or something—is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root—before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.

Chilling drama combines with laugh out-loud humor and searing insight as beloved and bestselling author Terry Pratchett tells the high-stakes story of a young witch who stands in the gap between good and evil.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend anyone who loves humorous fiction read any and all of the Discworld novels.

I read this book using Safari Books Online. Note that Mr. Schwertly does have something to sell with this book. He is founder of Ethos3 under which he provides presentation training and design services.

My goal when I started reading this book was to improve my ability to reach people through traditional slide presentations. I had recently given a presentation to a room fool of people and felt that I could have done better.

Just a couple of pages into “How to be a Presentation God” Scott Schwertly changed my goals. Now I want to change lives by helping people find their own excellence. The goal of my presentations may not change, I am still selling a service, but now I want to bring my presentation to a whole new level that transcends the sale. I am not totally sure what that means right now, but I plan on having fun figuring it out.

Here is just a little bit of what I am taking away from this book:

• How can I help the audience? How can I meet their greatest needs and desires?
• Creativity is about solving a problem while execution is about implementation.
• Failure is not permanent, be ready to fail.
• Simplicity is king. The message should be inspirational to the catatonic; understandable to the dumb; legible to the illiterate; and logical to the crazy.
• As a presenter you have a certain amount of authority solely because you are the only one allowed to speak.
• To be remembered do the unexpected and don’t be normal.
• Do and be. Do everything right, and be absolutely incredible.
• Focus on the little things that make us big things. Nothing is accomplished without first accomplishing simple, everyday tasks.
• Go forth and dominate.

From the publisher:

Learn how to build, design, and deliver a fire-breathing, wing-flapping, roar-bellowing behemoth of a presentation.

Unlike most presentation books that say the same things regarding presentation design and delivery (less is more, get rid of bullets and use images, emulate Steve Jobs, and so on), How to Be a Presentation God actually divulges step-by-step secrets for how to build, design, and deliver blockbuster presentations.

By providing entertaining and clever presentation insights, veteran presenter Scott Schwertly gives you the in’s and out’s for presenting yourself, your business, and your cause with an easy-to-implement approach.

• Focuses on content, design, and delivery
• Author is a regular speaker at national and regional industry conferences such as PowerPoint Live and Presentation Camps, and is the founder of the award-winning Ethos3 Communications
• Author is the creator of an app, Present, that landed in the top-20 iPhone apps in the Business category on iTunes

How to be a Presentation God will ensure that your presentations reach a new level of effectiveness.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who has a need to give presentations and change the world.

Rory finally gets a time to shine. I read this book while on vacation and it was a great read. It was a very fast and funny read while adding depth to Rory and Amy’s love for him.

From the publisher

‘Why are you here? I mean – who are you, exactly?’ An archaeological dig in 1936 unearths relics of another time… And – as the Doctor, Amy and Rory realise – another place. Another planet. But if Enola Porter, noted adventuress, has really found evidence of an alien civilisation, how come she isn’t famous? Why has Rory never heard of her? Added to that, since Amy’s been travelling with him for a while now, why does she now think the Doctor is from Mars? As the ancient spaceship reactivates, the Doctor discovers that nothing and no one can be trusted. The things that seem most real could actually be literal fabrications – and very deadly indeed. Who can the Doctor believe when no one is what they seem? And how can he defeat an enemy who can bend matter itself to their will? For the Doctor, Amy and Rory – and all of humanity – the buried secrets of the past are very much a threat to the present…

About Gary Russell

Gary Russell is one of the script editing team for Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the author of many novels and reference books in the Doctor Who range. A former editor of Doctor Who Magazine, he also was the producer of Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish Productions for eight years. He lives in Cardiff.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it for all Doctor Who fans.

I listened to this audiobook from Audible on my iPhone over vacation and while commuting.

At Home is a wonderful collection of trivia about the objects in and around our home and our homes themselves. It does not delve into the type of details that A Short History of Nearly Everything does, but includes a lot of interesting Tidbits.

I don’t have much else to say about the book, I found it interesting and a good listen but it did not wow me.

From the publisher:

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

As an audiobook I rate this 6 out of 10 and recommend it to people that enjoy trivia about the origin of things in and around their home.

I read The Kings Dragon while on vacation recently and really enjoyed it. Written by Una McCormack and featuring the Mat Smith Doctor with Amy and Rory.

The Doctor’s curiosity is peaked when he discovers the town of Geath covered in gold even though gold does not exist naturally on the planet. And to top it off Geath now has a king after thousands of years of self-rule.

The pace of this book is a little slower that other recent Doctor Who books, it was kind of nice slowing down a bit.

From the publisher:

In the city-state of Geath, the King lives in a golden hall, and the people want for nothing. Everyone is happy and everyone is rich. Or so it seems. When the Doctor and Amy look beneath the surface, they discover a city of secrets. In dark corners, strange creatures are stirring. At the heart of the hall, a great metal dragon oozes gold. Then the Herald appears, demanding the return of her treasure – the ‘glamour’ – and next come the gunships. The battle for possession of the glamour has begun, and only the Doctor and Amy can save the people of the city from being destroyed in the crossfire of an ancient civil war. But will the King surrender his new-found wealth? Or will he fight to keep it? A thrilling, all new adventure featuring the Doctor and Amy, as played by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in the spectacular hit series from BBC Television.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and a good read for any Doctor Who fan.

I had a great time at the workshop and learned a lot. I have posted a few more pictures.

This is Dana posing on a Steamer trunk.

I have finally finished reading this book after loosing it in a piece of luggage for a couple of months.

I did not have LEGOs as a child; my interest in them began as a means to build robots and prototype enclosures for electronic gadgets. My interest grew quickly after buying a couple of small kits and now I am putting kits together on a regular basis. I am currently in the middle of building the 8070 Supercar.

LEGO: A Love Story is a first hand account of Jonathan Bender’s journey into LEGO as an Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) and the people he meets along the way. He attends conventions devoted to lego, travels to LEGO headquarters in Denmark and Connecticut, to Legoland in California, and meets great fans of LEGO everywhere he goes. Jon’s passion for LEGO is clear and the way it brings him closer to his wife and father are inspirational.

From the publisher:

There are 62 LEGO bricks for every person in the world, and at age 30, Jonathan Bender realized that he didn’t have a single one of them. While reconsidering his childhood dream of becoming a master model builder for The LEGO Group, he discovers the men and women who are skewing the averages with collections of hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks. What is it about the ubiquitous, brightly colored toys that makes them so hard for everyone to put down?

I rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend to any AFOL.

Jonathan also shares some of his family’s difficulties with getting pregnant and having a child. My wife and I went through a similar experience and I found myself feeling very emotional during that part of the book. One of the situations they experience mirrored ours and it really hit me hard. Also similar to our experience, they were eventually blessed with a baby. I wish them the best of everything and hope they enjoy JEGO for a long time to come.

Written by Neal Bascomb and Narrated by Kirby Heyborne the audiobook version of The New Cool from Audible is absolutely incredible. After a number of books that fell flat for various reasons this one really came through as a great listen.

Over the last few years I have been getting into electronics, micro-controlers, and robotics and in 2010 my wife and I were able to catch the very end of the FIRST championship at the Georgia Dome. We didn’t really get to see much and what I saw didn’t make a lot of sense to me, after listening to this book it does now.

This book is the story of a school in California and its FIRST robotics team made up of rookie high-school seniors competing in the annual FIRST competition. If you don’t know about FIRST check out http://www.usfirst.org/

I really like the mission statement of FIRST found on the web site:

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

I hope that stories like the ones told in this book are being repeated all over the country and that by reading this book will encourage more people to get involved. I hope that I can work in time to volunteer for some FIRST activities this year even if it is just a couple hours taking pictures or helping to setup.

Publisher’s Summary

That Monday afternoon, in high-school gyms across America, kids were battling for the only glory American culture seems to want to dispense to the young these days: sports glory. But at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, in a gear-cluttered classroom, a different type of “cool” was brewing. A physics teacher with a dream – the first public high-school teacher ever to win a MacArthur Genius Award — had rounded up a band of high-I.Q. students who wanted to put their technical know-how to work. If you asked these brainiacs what the stakes were that first week of their project, they’d have told you it was all about winning a robotics competition – building the ultimate robot and prevailing in a machine-to-machine contest in front of 25,000 screaming fans at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.

But for their mentor, Amir Abo-Shaeer, much more hung in the balance.

The fact was, Amir had in mind a different vision for education, one based not on rote learning — on absorbing facts and figures — but on active creation. In his mind’s eye, he saw an even more robust academy within Dos Pueblos that would make science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) cool again, and he knew he was poised on the edge of making that dream a reality. All he needed to get the necessary funding was one flashy win – a triumph that would firmly put his Engineering Academy at Dos Pueblos on the map. He imagined that one day there would be a nation filled with such academies, and a new popular veneration for STEM – a “new cool” – that would return America to its former innovative glory.

It was a dream shared by Dean Kamen, a modern-day inventing wizard – often-called “the Edison of his time” – who’d concocted the very same FIRST Robotics Competition that had lured the kids at Dos Pueblos. Kamen had created FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) nearly twenty years prior. And now, with a participant alumni base approaching a million strong, he felt that awareness was about to hit critical mass.

In The New Cool, Neal Bascomb manages to make even those who know little about – or are vaguely suspicious of – technology care passionately about a team of kids questing after a different kind of glory. In these kids’ heartaches and headaches – and yes, high-five triumphs — we glimpse the path not just to a new way of educating our youth but of honoring the crucial skills a society needs to prosper. A new cool.

I rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it for anyone and everyone.

Written by Tim Wu and narrated by Marc Vietor “The Master Switch” is about the past and present of the United States communication industries. I bought this audio book from Audible.com.

The information contained in this book is wonderful and enlightening. I learned a lot about the history of the telephone, movies, radio and the Internet.

I am keeping this review really short to contrast how terribly long and drawn out this book is. I would estimate that half of the words in the book are unnecessary and do nothing but make the book longer and harder to read. I found it very boring and frustrating because of this. But the information you walk away with if you make it through the book is really great stuff.

Publisher’s Summary

A secret history of the industrial wars behind the rise and fall of the 20th century’s great information empires – Hollywood, the broadcast networks, and AT&T – asking one big question: Could history repeat itself, with one giant entity taking control of American information?

Most consider the Internet Age to be a moment of unprecedented freedom in communications and culture. But as Tim Wu shows, each major new medium, from telephone to cable, arrived on a similar wave of idealistic optimism only to become, eventually, the object of industrial consolidation profoundly affecting how Americans communicate. Every once-free and open technology was in time centralized and closed, a huge corporate power taking control of the master switch. Today, as a similar struggle looms over the Internet, increasingly the pipeline of all other media, the stakes have never been higher. To be decided: who gets heard, and what kind of country we live in. Part industrial exposé, part meditation on the nature of freedom of expression, part battle cry to save the Internet’s best features, The Master Switch brings to light a crucial drama rife with indelible characters and stories, heretofore played out over decades in the shadows of our national life.

©2010 Tim Wu (P)2010 Audible, Inc

If you do not currently believe that Net Neutrality laws should be passed immediately I beg you to read this book.

I rate this book a 6 out of 10 because of how wordy it is, cut it in half and it would be a 10.

The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm by Tom Kelley was written in 2001 and it is amazing how just 10 years can make a book’s examples feel so dated. IDEO is one of the greatest ‘idea’ companies of all time, but technology examples in this book made it feel very dated and out of touch to me.

I bought this book from Audible and listened to it during my commute. The production quality is absolutely horrible. It may have to do with the production standards of audio books in 2001 versus the current standards. I was not impressed by the audio quality or the narrator’s method for identifying chapters and sections.

If you can get past all that, this is a really good book. The methods described on how to be innovative, how to brainstorm, how get creative ideas flowing, and how to have a company that is focused on creating great products for customers are all great and I believe they would be effective at any company.

I really enjoyed hearing how IDEO uses prototyping to fail early. Failing early is a philosophy I have been interested in for a couple of months now and the idea of using quick prototypes that can be shared with the team and with customers has become a recurring theme in the books I have been reading. Web design and development books are encouraging user centered designs that use prototypes and quick usability tests to discover what works and what doesn’t work quickly and cheaply.

Also, the content on brainstorming was good; it reinforced the format and rules for holding useful sessions that I have learned elsewhere. I really like the idea of having a room with the brainstorming rules painted on the walls. I may make some banners to hang on the walls before my team holds our sessions.

From the publisher:

There isn’t a business in America that doesn’t want to be more creative in their thinking, products, and processes. At many companies, being first with a concept and first to market are critical just to survive. In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, general manager of the Silicon Valley-based design firm IDEO, takes readers behind the scenes of this wildly imaginative and energized company to reveal the strategies and secrets it uses to turn out hit after hit.

I rate this book a 6 out of 10 keeping in mind that it includes sections that I would rate a 9.

I have been listening to Dave Ramsey for about 5 years now. I started listening before getting, Dave’s radio show and his book “The Total Money Makeover” were a revelation.

When I met my wife money was one of the first things we talked seriously about, I believe that money is the number one cause of fights and divorce among couples, so being on the same page about money is a big deal. For a couple of months we listened to the show’s free daily hour-long podcast for ideas and inspiration.

By our 1-year anniversary we were debt free. I got the opportunity to help host a Financial Peace University class at our church, our friend Neal took the lead and Bobbie and I helped out where we could. It was a great success and it helped people both from our church and our community.

I still listen to the radio show during my commute or when I go on long motorcycle rides and the radio show really enforces what we learned in FPU. Hearing Dave give financial advice day after day using the same principles he outlines in all of his books and classes is great, it is rare to hear someone be so consistent in thought and deed.

I rate the free podcast and the 3-hour radio show a 9 out of 10 for those interested in living debt free.

I bought this lecture on Audble.com and listened to it during my morning and afternoon commutes.

The Modern Scholar series are recorded college-level lectures. I enjoyed listening to this lecture and feel like I learned something, but not a lot. Maybe I will listen to it again and spend more time with the 82-page course guide while listening. I think there is a lot to learn from this lecture, but like most classes you only get out of it what you put in. In other words, it is going to take some work to get the most from this lecture.

I enjoyed listening to Professor Drout, and look forward to listening to more of his lectures that are a part of the same series.

From the publisher:

Esteemed professor Michael D. C. Drout brings his expertise in literary studies to the subject of rhetoric. From history-altering political speeches to friendly debates at cocktail parties, rhetoric holds the power to change opinions, spark new thoughts, and ultimately change the world.

The study of rhetoric not only leads to a greater understanding of how personages such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Winston Churchill elevated the power of speech to majestic heights, but also to a stronger proficiency in using rhetoric in anyone’s day-to-day life.

Professor Drout examines the types of rhetoric and their effects, the structure of effective arguments, and how subtleties of language can be employed to engage in more successful rhetoric. Drout also ponders the role of rhetoric in our world and the age-old question of whether it is just a tool for convincing people of things that aren’t true, or whether it is indeed a force for good that will ultimately lead to truth.

I rate this lecture a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone interested in rehetoric, political speeches, and public speaking.