The Gold Coast
Nelson DeMille
Rating:
Awesome book. Love that DeMille. New York attorney gets fed up with snobby wife. Tries not to make friends with the new mob neighbor but ends up getting sucked in. Nice sarcasm in the writing.
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Dont Make Me Think
Steve Krug
Rating:
Borrowed this from Jason before I started making web sites. Krug explains how to create navigation and layouts on web sites that don't confuse visitors.I don't know if I followed the ideas of the book. Are you thinking?
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Bringing Down the House; the inside story of six MIT students who took Vegas for millions
Ben Mezrich
Rating:
Smart MIT geeks develop a system that takes down Las Vegas. Well…they don't really take down Vegas, but they make a lot of money. Supposed to be developed into a movie. It's just okay.
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Donnerjack
Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold
Rating:
I like Zelazny. Too bad he died before he finished this novel. Ending leaves you wanting a little bit more of a climax. It's like getting into a Porsche and only driving 55. Nice concept with the trademark "What the hell is this about" beginning and the nice developing story. I won't ruin it for you, but it has to do with the real world and a computer generated world that people can escape to and how they cross over.
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Web Type Expert
Tom Arah
Rating:
Probably one of the best books I've read that explains all the nuances of type, especially to someone that is clueless (that would be me). Quick, informative read with lots of pretty pictures. Was even on sale for $5 when I bought it. Gotta love that!
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Designing With Web Standards
Jeffrey Zeldman
Rating:
First book I read on web standards and CSS. Kind of preaches to you and tells you the reasons for using good mark-up and CSS for presentation. Not much in the way of how to do things…just the why you should do things.
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Conspiracy of Fools
Kurt Eichenwald
Rating:
Enron. The fall of Enron. The waste of reading time for Berty even though the Washington Post said it was good. I was a fool to buy it.
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Running Blind
Lee Child
Rating:
Mindless pulp fiction. One man killing machine hunts down bad dudes or something like that. Needed to pass the time on an airplane. Book would have gotten my recommendation if it weren't for the inaccurate description of how a pilot uses differential thrust in an airplane to make a turn quicker in air. Totally wrong and totally turned me off…dude's on the Berty boycott list now.
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The Sword of Shannara
Terry Brooks
Rating:
I read this book in high school and thought it was one of the best fantasy novels I ever read (yes, I am a geek). Boy was I wrong. Makes me think I should go re-read all of the books that, back then, I thought sucked. But that would take too much time.
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All the Presidents Men
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
Rating:
Nixon did bad stuff. Carl and Bobby found out. They won some awards for journalism and cashed in on it with a book. Ironically, the week I finished this, deep throat (or his family) went public and it was all the rage in the news for a few days.
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The Narrows
Michael Connelly
Rating:
Awesome. Love Michael Connelly. Read it and all of his other books.
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Winning
Jack and Suzy Welch
Rating:
Waste of time. Jack imparts his "wisdom" and it was a total let down. His first book was much better.
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How To Be Invisible
J.J. Luna
Rating:
This guy is one paranoid nut job. You want to be invisible? Don't own anything in your name, have your mail delivered to a mail drop in another county, register your car to an LLC, and never give your social security number out to anyone. Interesting read, but a little too over the edge for me.
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How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job
Dale Carnegie
Rating:
What a crock. This guy was sniffing glue. Well, maybe that was a little harsh. He was definitely an optimist.
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The Art of the Steal
Frank W. Abagnale
Rating:
Sucks. Don't buy it. He wrote Catch Me If You Can, you know the book that the movie was based on? That book rocked. This one was pleather.
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Rule of Four
Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
Rating:
Kind of sucks. Interesting but a little sophomoric (but people have called me juvenile, so it's probably still above my level). Billed as the "thinking man's Da Vinci code." Yeah…NOT.
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Spies Among Us
Ira Winkler
Rating:
I don't even remember reading this book. Something about secrecy and watching out for bad emails or shady people. I have no idea. Yeah, I know this review doesn't help you any. The book probably won't, either.
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Son Of Web Pages That Suck
Vincent Flanders
Rating:
Funny. A little dated, but hey, I bought it in the bargain rack so what can you expect. Gives some really good advice on how not to create mystery meat navigation and other web critique stuff.
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One for the Money
Janet Evanovich
Rating:
Quick read. Bought for an airplane flight and I read it in four hours. Cute...but I don't think I could get into a series where the main character is a New Jersey hard-ass chick who falls into the job of bounty hunter because "she needs the money." Supposed to be a movie soon. Reese Witherspoon or Sandra Bullock might play the main character.
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Schindlers List
Thomas Keneally
Rating:
Oh my God. Wow (as in very powerful). Read it.
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Term Limits
Vince Flynn
Rating:
Alex lent me this. This is the first of three that I read by this guy (Alex lent me all three at once). Okay. Action packed, but a little rough in the writing. Former army guy helps solve some crime or something that has to do with politics and some bad guys with guns or something like that.
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J. K. Rowling
Rating:
Poor Dumbledore. Good stuff as you would expect. You know you don't have to be a kid to enjoy these books.
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Transfer of Power
Vince Flynn
Rating:
See Term Limits above. Continuation. A little better. More guns. Hot chick. Shooting people and bombs.
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Why Do Men Have Nipples?
Mark Leyner & Billy Goldberg, M.D.
Rating:
Mark Leyner (author of some pretty wacky stuff) just happens to have a friend, Billy, who's a doctor. Doctor Billy gets lots of weird questions at parties so they decide to write a humorous book based on said questions. All in all this was okay. Light reading that was, at first, a little confusing on accounta part of it are copies of instant messages sent back and forth between Leyner and Goldberg.
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The Third Option
Vince Flynn
Rating:
I'm getting a little tired of the hot chicks, guns, covert ops, helicopters and "what not"…but for some reason I liked this one.
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Defensive Design for the Web
Matthew Linderman
Rating:
I was looking for something to read on the bus and Jason gave me this. Some pretty obvious stuff, but it will help me design my award winning new commercial site where I will make millions from selling the hottest new product to come along since toaster tongs.
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Magnetic Service
Chip R. Bell & Bilijack R. Bell
Rating:
It was on the shelf of the bookcase in the office and I was curious. Consider me magnetized. You, however, only need to rub up against me to get the ideas of the book…no need to read it. (Not sure what I was going for there, but it's late and I'm tired…so whatever)
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