
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Gold Box Deal: up to 75% off books for “students”

January 13, 2015

Gold Box Deal: up to 75% off books for “students”

I recently wrote recently wrote about how I like Amazon’s “Big Deal” (the current one goes through January 25th) on Kindle books, and I do. :)

However, I think I like another sale they do (more rarely) even better…their sales of hundreds of books for “students”!

I put the word “students” in quotation marks, because really, there are books here for a very wide variety of people. I would hope that people are always students, at any stage of life and in any profession.

This is a Gold Box Deal: it will only be good for today (although the books may go on sale again some time, of course), and may not apply in your country (I have readers all over the world).

Here it is:

Gold Box Deal of the Day: Save up to 75% on Kindle Books for Students (at AmazonSmile*)

Remember that these can also make good gifts. You can delay their delivery for a specific date, or you can have the gift e-mailed to yourself, print it out and save it. That makes it a good “emergency gift”. :) Since this is a one day sale, I don’t have time to really describe each of the books I select…don’t want you to miss getting the ones you want. :)

These are some that caught my eye:

When H*ll Was in Session
by Admiral Jeremiah Denton

Stuff You Should Know About Stuff: How to Properly Behave in Certain Situations
by Tyler Stanton and Tripp Crosby

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying
by Carol Leifer

Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience
by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa
by Jason Stearns

Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
by Paul Graham

Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded): 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
by John Medina

The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness
by Mark Rowlands

Building Wireless Sensor Networks: with ZigBee, XBee, Arduino, and Processing
by Robert Faludi

Hi-de-ho: The Life of Cab Calloway
by Alyn Shipton

Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline
by Cathy O’Neil and Rachel Schutt

Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation
by Robert Wilson

Making Things See: 3D vision with Kinect, Processing, Arduino, and MakerBot
by Greg Borenstein

Mandela
by Martin Meredith

Forecast: What Physics, Meteorology, and the Natural Sciences Can Teach Us About Economics
by Mark Buchanan

How to Succeed in Hollywood: A Field Guide for Christian Screenwriters, Actors, Producers, Directors, and More…
by Baehr Ted

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (American Academy of Neurology Press Quality of Life Guide Series)
by Gareth J. Parry MB ChB FRACP and Joel S. MD, PhD, FICA Steinberg

Safe Stardom: How to Protect Your Children on Their Road to Fame
by Robert Pafundi and Caitlin Sanchez

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Guide for Patients and Families:Third Edition
by Hiroshi MD Mitsumoto

What?: Are These the 20 Most Important Questions in Human History–Or Is This a Game of 20 Questions?
by Mark Kurlansky

Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Kept Its Feet
by John Bemelmans Marciano

Beasts: What Animals Can Teach Us About the Origins of Good and Evil
by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Richard Dawkins: How a scientist changed the way we think
by Alan Grafen and Mark Ridley

Designing Science Presentations: A Visual Guide to Figures, Papers, Slides, Posters, and More
by Matt Carter

The Leader’s Checklist: 15 Mission-Critical Principles
by Michael Useem

The Music of Joni Mitchell
by Lloyd Whitesell

The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life
by Eviatar Zerubavel

Coming up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s
by Ethan Mordden

Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius
by William R. Shea and Mariano Artigas

Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick
by George Cotkin

The Next Nightmare: How Political Correctness Will Destroy America
by Peter Feaman

Organic Chemistry Demystified 2/E
by Daniel Bloch

The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (Oxford Books of Prose & Verse)
by John Gross

Michael Jackson: Man Behind the Mirror
by Raamayan Ananda

Obstetric Triage and Emergency Care Protocols
by Diane J. Angelini and Donna LaFontaine

The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved (Studies in the Evolution of Language)
by Robbins Burling

How to Read a Word
by Elizabeth Knowles

Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery
by John Waller

Humor 101 (Psych 101)
by Mitch Earleywine PhD

Totally Weird and Wonderful Words
by Erin McKean

Copyright’s Paradox
by Neil Weinstock Netanel

Using Superheroes in Counseling and Play Therapy
by Lawrence C. Rubin and Rubin, Lawrence C., PhD, LMHC, RPT-S

The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I Have a Dream” and Other Great Writings (King Legacy)
by Martin Luther King Jr and Clayborne Carson

Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open : A Free Press for a New Century (Inalienable Rights)
by Lee C. Bollinger

Digitized: The science of computers and how it shapes our world
by Peter J. Bentley

France Since 1945
by Robert Gildea

Enjoy!

Join more than a thousand readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

I bought my Echo through AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. :) Shop ’til you help! :) By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Review: new $79 Kindle

October 4, 2014

Review: new $79 Kindle

7th generation entry level Kindle: “Mindle Touch” (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

I’ve had the opportunity to do a hands-on exploration of the new Kindle.

Let me start out by saying that this is a considerable improvement over the former $69 Kindle, thanks both to the touch screen and the quality of the display.

If what you want is an inexpensive device for reading, this will work well.

In fact, comparing the same text of the same edition of the same book with the  same settings (font size 4, Caecillia) with the more expensive Kindle Paperwhite 2 (with the light turned all the way down), the KP7 (on the top) is easier to read:

K7vKPW2

The background seems lighter and the text seems thicker…that seems odd, because there are more PPI (Pixels Per Inch) on the Paperwhite…they are doing something different to optimize the appearance.

The device itself feels light, which is a goal for people. Irrationally, it also makes it feel a bit cheap…it definitely feels like plastic.

Another “feel” issue is that it is a tiny bit wider than the previous version, which would take a bit of getting used to, although it is only slightly wider (2mm…a tenth of an inch) and slightly thicker than the Paperwhite.

I think, though, it may feel wider than the Paperwhite in part because of the clear bevel of the edges:

Bevel

The KP7 is on your left, the Paperwhite on your right. The PW slopes away smoothly. The K7 has a perpendicular edge, and then it slopes. That’s kind of geeky, I know, but the bottom line is that where you are holding it is thicker. It’s not enough for me to be a problem, but I would say it is slightly less comfortable.

Other external differences with the Paperwhite include

  • The word Kindle on the front of the device is not in silver. Some people actually found the silver distracting when they were reading, so I would say that’s going to be an improvement
  • On the back of the new device, it says “Amazon” rather than “Kindle”

What about the software?

It looks very similar to the Paperwhite. The menu on the homescreen has the same choices.

When you tap the Settings choice, they’ve consolidated the Device Time choice into “Personalize your Kindle”…which makes sense (it didn’t need its own menu choice).

Within a book, they’ve changed the order of the menu…but the choices are the same.

“Long press” a word in the book, and again, the choices are essentially the same.

The choices in the store were a bit different. Tapping the menu there, the K7 doesn’t have a Kindle Unlimited choice (although it’s on the screen), and does have “Recommended for You”, which the Paperwhite doesn’t have.

Overall, it’s very much like the Paperwhite 2 in terms of software.

I’ve liked my PW2 very much, and I think people would like this also.

So, the question seems obvious: why pay $40 more for the

Kindle Paperwhite 2 (at AmazonSmile*)

?

The answer is equally obvious: the light.

The built-in light on the Paperwhite is a wonderful thing. It gives me the most comfortable reading experience I’ve ever had, including paper.

However, you may just want to have a guest Kindle, or a “spare”, or something more inexpensive for a young reader. Maybe you are working or going somewhere where you will the risk of loss, theft, or damage is high…and you’d rather bring one that’s easier to replace.

As has been the case with recent non-Fire Kindles, and is the case with all of the non-Fire Kindles being sold new by Amazon, including the top of the line

Kindle Voyage (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

the K7 does not have sound: no audiobooks, no music, and no text-to-speech. Personally, I’d like to see that as a choice: TTS is a big part of my life (I listen to it typically for hours a week in the car), and I’d be fine with it being done without onboard speakers (just a headphone jack, so I can plug it into the car’s sound system, or listen with headphones at home).

Bottom line: the K7 is a fine basic reader, $40 less than the Kindle Paperwhite 2, and an improvement over the previous “entry level” model. It has up-to-date features in the software. Some people will want to pay more for the light, and others will choose to pay $120 more for the top of the line Voyage.

If you have any specific questions about the device, feel free to ask by commenting on this post. I will probably have it for a few more days, while I document a bit more about it.

 Join hundreds of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. :) Shop ’til you help! :) 

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 4)

September 15, 2014

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 4)

This is a continuation of a recent series of posts:

in which I list and talk about the books I currently have downloaded to my Kindles. For more information on this, see that first post linked above.

Listed in the previous posts:

More books…

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (at AmazonSmile*)
by Randall Monroe
4.8 stars out of 5, 145 customer reviews
65% done
borrowed through Kindle Unlimited

I’m enjoying this one a lot! The author (of the xkcd.com blog) takes bizarre hypothetical questions and explains with solid science as to whether or not they would work or what would happen. For example, if every human on Earth stayed away from all other humans for a couple of weeks, would the common cold die out? Monroe explains why it wouldn’t work…do you know why? Yes, there is math here, but you can gloss over it if you want. Importantly, there is also dry humor and wry cartoons (drawn by Monroe). Amazon has been promoting this book, and it’s been in People Magazine…it’s #57 paid in the Kindle store. That’s exactly the kind of book a lot of people want to see in Kindle Unlimited (which it is). Might also make a good gift. If you want to buy it, I’d suggest you list it at eReaderIQ.com. There may be price wars on this one, and eReaderIQ will send you a free e-mail when it goes down an amount you specify.

The Mind Boggles: A Unique Book of Quotations (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
by Bufo Calvin (yes, that’s me)
3.2 stars, 4 customer reviews
finished
purchased for $0.99

This is the only one of my books that I generally keep on all my devices…I do use the quotations from time to time when I write, so I like to have it handy.

How To Get Instant Trust, Belief, Influence and Rapport! 13 Ways To Create Open Minds By Talking To The Subconscious Mind (at AmazonSmile*)
by Tom “Big Al” Schreiter
4.7 stars, 176 reviews
not started
purchased for $2.99

This is one of those I buy so I can read something that connects to work (I like to always be doing that).

The Complete Wizard of Oz Series (at AmazonSmile*)
by L. Frank Baum
4.3 stars, 316 reviews
re-reading
purchased for $0.99

I have more than one Oz collection (I’m a huge fan), and this is one I like. I’m actually re-reading it on my Paperwhite…planning to go straight through, then start over (I read it before I go to sleep). I’ve never been much of a re-reader, but I wanted to experiment with it. :) I’d really like to know it inside out, which used to be easier for me than it is now. I’ve been writing a few Oz things, and that would help. However, I really don’t read it on this device (my Kindle Fire HDX) right now, so I’ll probably take it off.

Kong: King of Skull Island (at AmazonSmile*)
by Brad Strickland, Joe DeVito, John Michlig, Ray Harryhausen (Introduction)
4.3 stars, 32 reviews
1% read
gift

I haven’t really started this one yet. It was a gift, and I am looking forward to reading it.

Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer (at AmazonSmile*)
by John Grisham
4.0 stars, 817 customer reviews
not started
purchased for $5.99

My Significant Other like Grisham (and other legal novels), and bought this kids’ book by the popular author. I intend to read it at some point.

Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (at AmazonSmile*)
Philip José Farmer
4.5 stars, 24 reviews
will re-read
purchased for $5.99

This was a gift. I’ve read this before, and it was great! I wanted to have it on my Fire, as a resource. They are writing new Doc Savage novels, and if I ever did write one some day, that would really be a fantasy for me. Doc is one of my literary heroes.

A Christmas Carol (the version I have is no longer available, so no link)
by Charles Dickens
got free

I’m not sure why I have this on my Fire right now…I’ll remove it.

Delightfully Twisted Tales: Close Encounters of the Worst Kind (Volume One) (at AmazonSmile*)
by Nicky Drayden
4.0 stars, 11 customer reviews
19% done
got for free

I like short stories, so I thought I’d give this one a shot. I’d probably have to restart it…don’t recall much about it.

The Dumb Bunnies (at AmazonSmile*)
by Dav Pilkey
4.3 stars, 65 customer reviews
15% done
purchased for $5.42

Pilkey (Captain Underpants, Dog Breath) can do hilarious children’s books (we liked Dog Breath a lot in our house). I think I bought this in part because I was testing something in the formatting.

Batman ’66 #1 (Batman ’66) (at AmazonSmile*))
by Jeff Parker (Author), Jonathan Case (Illustrator)
3.9 stars, 28 customer reviews
finished
got for free

In a bit of an Ouroborus, this is a comic book based on a TV show based on a comic book. :) I’ve finished it…I’ll remove it. It stars Frank Gorshin’s version of the Riddler…his manic performance in the first episodes really helped make the show a success. Gorshin was Emmy nominated for the part. The writing isn’t as clever as the series, and they take the advantage of the medium to do more set pieces, but it was worth reading.

Polaris of the Snows (at AmazonSmile*)
by Charles B. Stilson
4.5 stars, 2 customer reviews
not started
got for free

I’ve heard that this book, from 1917, might be a precedent for Doc Savage (which started in 1933). Looking forward to seeing how it might line up.

Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century (at AmazonSmile*)
by Sean Patrick
4.1 stars, 2369 reviews
not started
got for free

Tesla’s a remarkable person, and there is a lot of mythology involved. I’m interested in seeing what this book has to say.

Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 – 5) (Silo Saga) (at AmazonSmile*)
by Hugh Howey
29% done
purchased for $1.99

I’d heard of Wool when Amazon introduced Kindle Worlds. This was a great price for it, and I knew the reviews were good…so I thought I’d try it, and see if I might want to write in that world. I have enjoyed what I’ve read so far, and I’m using it as sort of backup book…one to go to when I’m between things. Howey is now perhaps the most prominent of the pro-Amazon authors in the Hachazon-Amazon dispute (which I call the Hachazon War).

Whew!

That takes care of my

Kindle Fire HDX (at AmazonSmile*)

As to our

Kindle Paperwhite (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

I’m currently using the “guest Kindle”. I dropped my Mindle and did break it, so this has become my household non-Fire Kindle. The only thing I’m reading on it is the Oz collection above. There are a lot of other books on it, to make it simple for guests who use it. You can see those here:

On our guest Kindle

Well, I hope you’ve found this listing interesting! It might give you some inspiration for books for yourself or as gifts…and it does give you a bit of insight into me, which I think some of you want.

Any comments? Do you like it when I do these? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

 Join hundreds of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. :) Shop ’til you help! :) 

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 3)

September 7, 2014

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 3)

This is a continuation of a recent series of posts:

in which I list and talk about the books I currently have downloaded to my Kindles. For more information on this, see that first post linked above.

Listed in the previous posts:

More books…

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves
3.9 out of five stars, 319 customer reviews
12% done
bought for $1.99

I’ll be interested to see how I come out on this. I’m not a very emotional (I tend to stay on a pretty even keel) person, but I do think I’m pretty good at understanding other people’s emotions. I think that empathetic sense helps me as a trainer, and when I was hiring trainers, it’s one of the things I sought in candidates. I’ve been stalled on this one because it wants me to take an online test to set a baseline, and I just haven’t gotten around to that. There is a basic concept at work here, that there are many kinds of “intelligence”. I wrote a paper in high school on “optimum IQ”, in which I argued that the highest IQ wasn’t necessarily the best one, in terms of success in the world. Obviously, I’m not the only person to have thought that. This quotation, which I have in my book of quotations, The Mind Boggles: A Unique Book of Quotations (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*), gives one perspective:

Cassie Hughes (played by Christina Cole): “So, what’s it like being so wise?”
Azazeal (played by Michael Fassbender): “Well…obviously, it makes normal life difficult. The trouble is, you see everything before everyone else, and then you have to wait for them to catch up.”
Cassie: “That must be very frustrating.”
Asazeal: “You’ve no idea.”
–Possession episode of
Hex
screenplay by Julian Jones

A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle: A Song of Ice and Fire Series: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows (at AmazonSmile*)
by George R.R. Martin
4.4 stars, 390 reviews
8% done
purchased for $15.72

No, I’ve never seen the series. :) We don’t have HBO, and while I probably would try it if it eventually became free or “no additional cost” (available through Prime Video, for example), I’m not willing to pay for it.

What happened here is that a relative (one generation down) asked me if I’d read it because it was hard to follow and my relative wanted to ask me some questions about it. So, I bought it. :)

I’ve only been reading it off and on. I haven’t found it all that engaging and while it does have non-human animals (always a plus for me), it’s quite harsh, which I tend not to prefer. Our adult kid has both read the books and seen the series, and recommended to me watching the series first (a very unusual suggestion from that source), since it gave you more of a “road map”, which made the books easier to follow. I’m a bit torn, because of that…our adult kid is very wise. :)

Horns: A Novel (at AmazonSmile*)
by Joe Hill
4.2 stars, 1153 reviews
not yet started
bought for $1.99

With the Daniel Radcliffe-starring, Alexandre Aja-directed version opening in the USA at Halloween, I was intrigued…and picked this up on sale.

How To Get Instant Trust, Belief, Influence and Rapport! 13 Ways To Create Open Minds By Talking To The Subconscious Mind (at AmazonSmile*)
by Tom “Big Al” Schreiter
4.7 stars, 175 reviews
not yet started
bought for $2.99

Using “Big Al” as a nickname didn’t immediately gain my trust or belief, but we’ll see how the book goes. ;)

This Explains Everything: 150 Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works (at AmazonSmile*)
by John Brockman
4.0 stars, 97 reviews
not yet started
bought for $1.99

“The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
–Thomas Henry Huxley

That quotation is paraphrased a lot, but I would also say that’s the beauty of science…you want your hypotheses knocked down by facts: that’s why they are there. ;)

I’m looking forward to starting this one, when the timing is right.

This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking (This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking)
by John Brockman
3.8 stars, 148 reviews
bought for $2.99
0% (still in the front matter)

That’s not like me! I didn’t even realize until now that these were both by the same author. :) I will say, though, as I check the prices, I got some good deals! This one is currently $8.81. Now, though, I’m much more likely to just get something through Kindle Unlimited, so books being on sale won’t tempt me as much.

The Battle of $9.99: How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight (Kindle Single) (at AmazonSmile*))
by Andrew Richard Albanese
3.8 stars, 138 reviews
Got it as a gift

Not sure why this one is still on my Fire. :) I got this Kindle single as a gift at the holidays, and I have read it. I’ll remove it after this. You can read my review of it on Goodreads

here

A Long Way To Contentment (at AmazonSmile*)
by Boyd Lemon
4.4 stars, 9 reviews
bought for $0.99
not yet started

This one was purchased by Significant Other…probably give it a shot when my SO is reading it, so we can talk about it afterwards.

Crash Gordon and the Revelations from Big Sur (at AmazonSmile*)
by Derek Swannson
4.4 stars, 42 reviews
bought it for $3.99

I was able to help with this in the pre-publication phase, doing proofreading and making some editorial suggestions. For that reason, I don’t want to say too much about it (although I don’t have any financial connection to the book, and I don’t have a relationship with Derek outside of having read the first book, reviewed it, and then helped with the second gratis). Both books are available through KU.

Here’s my review of the first book, which will give you some idea:

Review: Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg

I think that’s enough for this post! One more ought to catch us up.

By the way, my SO used KU for the first time….and borrowed a couple of cookbooks and got a couple of recipes…that’s an excellent use of it, in my mind.

Join hundreds of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. :) Shop ’til you help! :) 

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 2)

August 25, 2014

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 2)

This is a continuation of a recent post

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 1)

in which I list and talk about the books I currently have downloaded to my Kindles. For more information on this, see that first post linked above.

Wild and Untamed Thing: Richard O’Brien – the LOST interview (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping)
by Phil South
5 stars out of 5, 1 customer review
borrowed through Kindle Unlimited
not yet started

It’s been about forty (!) years since The Rocky Horror Picture Show was first released in the USA. When I first saw it, there was just a handful of people in the audience, and the whole audience immersion part of it hadn’t happened yet. I’d had it recommended to me by someone who knew my fondness for the Universal Horror movies of the 1930s and 1940s (and to which it pays homage). It was fascinating to see the development of the “cult” over the years, as I went back to see it many times. It went from people spontaneously shouting at the screen, to ritualized mass repetition of the same audience-spoken lines…often with the original meaning diluted. My Significant Other, by the way, had never seen it when we met…and in fact, jokingly suggested that as an epitaph: “Here lies — — who never saw Rocky Horror”. ;) When I was looking to get to the maximum ten simultaneous borrows for

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

so I could test something, I happened to stumble across this one. It made sense: it’s a transcription of an interview with the creator (and one of the stars) of Rocky Horror, first as a stage show, then on-screen. I look forward to reading it.

This is a case where the publisher will make a lot more money because I borrowed it through KU than if I had bought it, since it is priced at $0.99. The publisher (which could be just the author) would get about $0.35 if I bought it…and while we don’t have the exact figure yet (it’s based on a pool of money which is divided dependent on the number of borrows there are), it is likely to be upwards of $2.

Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind: Selected Writings of John A. Keel (at AmazonSmile*)
by John A. Keel (edited by Andrew Colvin…no relation, and not spelled the same) ;)
4.5 stars, eleven reviews
borrowed through Kindle Unlimited
not yet started

Ah, John Keel…it’s a bit hard to describe this writer, and how big the influence of Keel’s books has been (not just on me, but on many people). Keel was the clear inspiration for Carl Kolchak on The Night Stalker, and of Alva Keel in the lamentably short-lived Miracles TV series (at AmazonSmile*). Keel brings this odd synergy of ordinariness in the midst of “high strangeness”. Just as in the Darren McGavin performance, Keel comes across as no superhero, or Sherlock Holmesian genius, yet encounters Mothman and the Men-in-Black (and popularized both). Keel’s greatest book (which became a New York Times bestseller) The Mothman Prophecies (at AmazonSmile*), and several others, are available in the Kindle store…but the classics aren’t available through Kindle Unlimited. This book collects articles by Keel: I suspect I will have read some of them, however, many of the magazines which would have carried Keel were not widely available (even to someone like me who collected a lot of “Forteana”). Thanks, e-books!

THE ROAD TO LOCH NESS (The Kodiak Books) (at AmazonSmile*)
by Lee Murphy
5 stars out of 5, three customer reviews
not yet started

While this book is available through Kindle Unlimited, I got it when it was recently free (and I flipped that information into the free The Measured Circle magazine at Flipboard, so I’m guessing some of my readers did as well). Murphy writes a series of novels involving cryptids (reported animals not recognized by science, like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster), starring George Kodiak. I’ve read one of them…not burning to read another one, but I probably will eventually. :)

Batman Eternal (2014- ) #1 (at AmazonSmile*)
by Scott Snyder, James Tunion IV, Ray Fawkes, John Layman, Tim Seeley, Jason Fabok
4.1 stars, 68 customer reviews
gotten as a freebie
7%

I don’t read many comics nowadays, although I used to read them a lot. I had told you about this freebie when San Diego Comic Con was starting this year, so I assume some of you got it as well.

Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less (at AmazonSmile*)
by S.J. Scott
3.9 stars, 212 customer reviews
borrowed through Kindle Unlimited
completed

This is one of those books I borrowed to be reading something that ties into work (I actually report that regularly to my boss, as part of “personal/professional development”). It’s not bad: very bite size, and the structure of how to build habits is more significant than the habits themselves…which is important.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (the one I have isn’t available any more, so no linking)
by Lewis Carroll
4.2 stars, 1672 reviews
gotten as a freebie
51% right now, but I’ve finished it

I keep this one on my Kindles to demo stuff for people. It’s in the public domain, so there aren’t any copyright concerns (if you used text-to-speech in a public setting with a book under copyright protection, for example, you could be infringing on the public performance right). Since I’m not really reading it currently, I don’t care if they leave it in a different place in the book, so it works well to just let somebody play with it. :)

The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge (at AmazonSmile*)
by Dave Coplin
2.7 stars, 3 customer reviews
not yet started
gotten as a freebie

This is another one I got to read as a “work book”. Haven’t started it yet. The low ratings aren’t encouraging me, but I’ll likely try it eventually.

To be continued…

Bonus deal

My apologies that this is so late: I know some of you may miss it. On the other hand, that’s always true, since I have readers around the world…even if the deal is good in their countries (which is often not the case), the timezones would cause problems as to when the deal was available.

One of today’s Kindle Daily Deals is five Sookie Stackhouse novels (including the first one) for $1.99 each. You can buy as many as you want of the five, paying $1.99 for each one. This is clearly a tie-in to the finale of the True Blood series, which is based on these books (but the story lines really diverged).

I would have gotten it out sooner, but my Significant Other is an Insurance Claims Manager, and had to go into the office to deal with the earthquake in Napa, which through off the timing. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area (although not that near Napa), and really felt it this morning, but there wasn’t any damage here.

Hopefully, some of you can take advantage of this.

These books are not currently available through Kindle Unlimited or the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Enjoy!

Join hundreds of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. :) Shop ’til you help! :) 

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Books on my Kindles #2 (part 1)

August 22, 2014

Books on my Kindles #2

Books on my Kindles is a series of posts where I list what books I currently have on my devices.

This listing is quite a bit different from the last one.

One reason for that is

Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

I normally only keep about ten Kindle store books on any of my devices at a time. I like to keep my devices lean if I can: I do think they run better. So, even though I could hypothetically have over 5,000 e-books on my

Kindle Fire HDX (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

for example, I normally don’t carry more than I need with me (and being an inveterate book lover who reads multiple books at a time, “need” means ten or so). :)

I was testing something with KU, though, and needed to get to the limit…so I borrowed ten books. I didn’t have to download them all to my Fire, but I think I did.

The other big thing, as I mentioned last time, is that this is kind of hard for me to do. I know people judge people by what they read…both in good ways and in bad. This particular grouping (I did not manipulate them before writing the post) leans pretty heavily in the geeky direction. I am a proud geek, but I also mention on here that I’m an eclectic reader. This grouping won’t look much like that: it seems like much of a muchness, as I glance at it at first. Still, as a bit of a random snapshot, I’ll go with what’s here. There are too many to really list in one post, so I’ll take a few to go through them.

Not counting the dictionaries that come with the device, magazines, items filed under Docs rather than Books, here are the first of the 37 Kindle store titles in descending order of most recent (most recent first):

The City on the Edge of Forever (at AmazonSmile*)
by Harlan Ellison
borrowed through Kindle Unlimited
47% complete

I borrowed this one Wednesday morning, because a couple of my readers (Allie D., jjhitt) and I have been talking about Harlan Ellison after I recently listed a Kindle Daily Deal with Hugo Award winning and nominated books.

There’s a lot of controversy over Ellison’s script (and pre-scripts) for The City on the Edge of Forever, which became an episode of the original Star Trek…and cited by various sources as one of the best.

As regular readers know, I’m not fond of vituperation, and Ellison certainly isn’t hesitant about it.

Ellison’s version of the events does sound…plausible, for the most part, with appropriate details. The way the author describes it and characterizes other people does make me less sympathetic, though.

One interesting point: Ellison (and other sources which can be seen) quote Gene Roddenberry as saying, “He had my Scotty selling drugs…” The script and treatments are in the book, and that’s not it.

However, Ellison also says, “Geezus bleeding Kee-rist on a crutch! Scotty doesn’t even appear in the g*ddam script!” (I added the asterisk, even though the author left out the “n”).

Perhaps not in the script, but in the first version in the book, there are a few references to the “SCOTTISH ENGINEERING OFFICER”, who participates in a court martial with Kirk, Spock, and “THE MEDIC”.

That isn’t in one of the actual script versions, and it isn’t Scotty by name…and, most importantly, that’s not “selling drugs”, but I think it’s not unreasonable for someone to think Scotty was in Ellison’s story based on that.

At this point in reading it, I’d say that Ellison wrote well, and not inexpertly for the medium…but the feel is certainly not Star Trek (it lacks the optimism about the future), and the characterizations aren’t on target (although they improve in successive versions which are in the book).

Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change your Life (at AmazonSmile*)
by Michael Merzenich
borrowed through Kindle Unlimited
6% complete

This one was recommended to me by a physical therapist (who wasn’t treating me…I was training the PT) who thought it might be useful for me. The main point is the idea that the brain can be changed…I’m not far enough into it to judge it well, yet. I like to always be reading something that can relate to my day job, and that’s the one right now…

These are the Voyages – TOS: Season Two (at AmazonSmile*)
by Marc Cushman with Susan Osborn
4% done
borrowed from Kindle Unlimited

I really enjoyed the first one of these! At times, it was a day by day “biography” of the original Star Trek (which is where I got the “other side” view of The City on the Edge of Forever), and quite well done. Again, not really far enough into this one to judge, but I’m enjoying it so far.

These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One ( Season One Book 1) (at AmazonSmile*)
by Marc Cushman
100% done

I just haven’t deleted this one yet, because I still want to write up a review at my Goodreads account:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3037617-bufo-calvin

I’ve been doing an okay job of keeping up with that, but things have been super busy lately. I’ll catch up. :)

Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond (at AmazonSmile*)
by Hans Holzer
50% done

I really like this book! I’ve always enjoyed Holzer, and have suggested elsewhere someone could do a good TV series based on the original “ghost hunter”. This is kind of an emergency book for me…I go to it from time to time between other books, and maybe on a long drive. I always enjoy it.

The Painted Word: A Treasure Chest of Remarkable Words and Their Origins (at AmazonSmile*)
by Phil Cousineau
100% done

Another one I just need to review. I was disappointed in this one. I love words, and books about words. I just didn’t find it that engaging. It was also weird to read this: “…it’s hard not to hear the echo of Sly and the Family Stone’s funkadelic song ‘Play that funky music right, boy!…'” Um…I don’t think that’s quite the right lyric, which then makes me doubt the scholarship of the rest of the book. It’s also not the right band, from what I know, but I haven’t checked to see if there was a “cover” by Sly. By the way, do you know why they are called “cover” versions? Originally, it was because radio stations and certainly stores didn’t want to play music by African American artists. So, the songs would be re-recorded by Caucasian American artists…putting a more “marketable” face literally on the cover of the record. It always surprises me a bit that many people don’t seem to know that nowadays, and blithely use the term “cover”. It has changed over time, though, and I can accept that it has a different meaning now.

That’s enough for part 1!

Not all of the books will get this much coverage (and I wrote the big introduction in this post), so I think I can do this in…two to three more posts, most likely.

What do you think? Any comments on these books? Do you enjoy somebody being caustic? I can’t deny having liked Simon Cowell. ;) Do you want to just list the books on your Kindle (or, say, ten of them)? Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.

Join hundreds of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. :) Shop ’til you help! :) 

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

The Scribd reading experience

February 22, 2014

The Scribd reading experience

I recently wrote about Scribd now having a

Kindle Fire (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

app for their “all you can read” for $8.99 a month subser (subscription service).

I’m in the midst of the free trial (and have almost finished a book on it), and I thought I’d give you some feedback on how it is as a reader.

My general impression is that it is a good, bare bones reader.

It’s interesting to me how I am missing some things which I never had with a p-book (paperbook), though, and which I do use when reading in the Kindle application on my Fire or on one of our non-Fire readers.

Especially noticeable to me are the lack of:

  • Text-to-speech. At this point, that by itself will keep me from renewing. While I have a philosophical objection to publishers blocking text-to-speech, I don’t think it’s necessary for every device or app to have it. It is impractical for me not to have it, though. I use it often in the car, and I almost feel like I only have half the book without it
  • Dictionary look-up. I don’t use that all that often, but there is no kind of look-up (web or otherwise) that I can see
  • Highlighting. I’ve held my finger on the screen several times not thinking about it, wanting to highlight a passage. That might be because it was an interesting quotation, or because there was a minor error (this book is well proof-read) about which I might want to notify the publisher
  • Bookmarking
  • Notes

You have the text on the “page”…that’s about it.

Even “long pressing” a picture didn’t seem to do anything…I don’t think it has a zoom function.

On the good side, there are controls over the appearance of that text, and navigation controls.

I think my favorite feature is one that the Kindle doesn’t have: “pages left in chapter”. Rather than pages, that’s actually a reference to the number of screens that are left…and if I change the text size, the number adjusts. Interestingly, that’s the most useful measure I’ve found…the amount of time I have left in a chapter just doesn’t seem to be very accurate. I often leave my Kindle open on a screen while I do things, and I think that might be throwing it off.

Speaking of increasing the text size, you do get some good controls there. Tapping in the middle of the page invokes some controls.

One looks like a book, and brings up the Table of Contents (in at least the book I am reading now, you can use it for navigation).

In your bottom right, there is an Aa button, similar to Amazon. Tapping that, I can increase or decrease the text size (there appear to be fourteen options), choose from Default, Sans-serif, or Serif typefaces, and choose white, black, or sepia backgrounds. I’ve been reading the default text on a black background, and it is crisp.

You have the ability to download the book to the device, so you can read offline. That is an icon in your bottom right that looks like a cloud with down arrow on it.

At the top of the screen (after you tap the page), there is a library symbol (three books), with which you can add it to or take it away from your “favorites”. There is a sharing symbol, which lets you like it on Scribd, e-mail it, or “other”. I haven’t played around with that much…e-mailing it would be information about the book, presumably.

So, I would describe it as being all about the reading, without the ability to annotate (or listen to TTS).

Would I pay the $8.99 if they had TTS? Maybe…my Significant Other hasn’t really checked it out enough yet to give me the impression of a less techy user.

The book I’m reading, by the way, is

Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky: A History of Famous Incidents, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups (at AmazonSmile)

by Kevin Randle. Randle is going through all sorts of reported UFO crashes, and generally dismisses them for various reasons, or simply lists them without endorsing them.

The author is a recognized expert on the Roswell Incident and has been seen as an advocate of the reality of an extraordinary event there.

It’s interesting, therefore, that even though this is what we used to call a “seed catalog” type listing, it certainly doesn’t come across as the work of a simple true believer.

Randle writes more about some of the cases, including Shag Harbor and Kecksburg. I would describe the writing as largely intentionally dispassionate, which isn’t all that common (from Skeptics or true believers) in this field. I find that refreshing, although some of the customer reviews on Amazon describe it as “boring”. ;)

I also want to mention that I’ve started to look into

Entitle

another e-book subser, recently promoted on the Ellen Degeneres show.

It’s a very different concept, much more like Amazon’s own Audible.

You pay a flat rate a month, and can get a certain number of e-books.

For example, you can pay $9.99 a month and get two books. That’s pretty much how it works: about $5 per book, with a strict limit as to how many books you get.

However, you do own the books. If you stop paying, you still get them…so, in a way, it’s like getting an AmazonLocal coupon.

The selection seems very impressive, and they do have a free trial.

The books use the Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Management) system, but they do have an app for a Kindle Fire (hm…I wonder if that app would allow you to read other Adobe DRM books on your Fire?).

I haven’t tested this all much, yet, but I thought I’d let you know. :)

Nominate a child to be given a free Kindle at Give a Kid a Kindle.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. :) Shop ’til you help! :) By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Round up #219: Kids need books, Black Friday deal revealed?

November 9, 2013

Round up #219: Kids need books, Black Friday deal revealed?

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Mini-review: Teenagers from the Future

Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes
edited by Timothy Callahan
text-to-speech, lending enabled (no X-Ray, no Whispersync for Voice)
$4.99 at time of writing (can be borrowed through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library at time of writing)

Writing about popular culture and treating it as Significant Art can be tricky.

In some cases, it appears that the author really isn’t a fan or understands the genre all that well, but rather enjoys applying academic skills to any subject…sort of like trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, without really believing there are angels…or caring about dance.

On the other side, you have “fans who write”, who don’t necessarily write all that well, but are enthusiastic and simply want you to believe that Superman is as deep as Shakespeare, with an understanding of the latter consisting mostly of education by Leonardo DiCaprio and Olivia Hussey. ;)

While Teenagers from the Future is almost by necessity uneven (being a collection of essays by different authors), it falls into neither of the above categories.

I found it both insightful and entertaining.

I read the Legion when it was first published, and haven’t really kept up with its development in subsequent reboots…but I find that it’s generally much more difficult to spoil comics for someone than to spoil a book. They aren’t always about this or that particular plot twist…sometimes, even if you know the plot, it doesn’t affect your enjoyment of it.

What is the Legion?

Well, it’s kind of a bizarre concept, at least the way I knew it…and that’s part of what makes it work.

In the future, a group of teenagers, inspired by the adventures of Superboy (Superman when he was a boy) in their distant past, form a club of superheroes (yes, they have super powers…although in some cases, their powers would be normal on their home planets). They then interact with Superboy, through time travel.

Okay, that’s strange enough initially…super powered fans and the complexities of time travel.

However, the Legion was not your typical comic series. For one thing, they killed off a major character quite quickly.

For another, they had a group of reject applicants (the Substitute Legion) with powers that were either pretty useless (one could turn into a statue…not a moving statue, just a statue: another could change the colors of objects), or were dangerously unpredictable (Infectious Lass, for example, who could generate diseases…but not control reliably which ones or who they affected).

All of that was obvious to me when I was first reading it.

Not so obvious was some of the social commentary. As John G. Hemry writes in this collection in the essay, “Liberating the Future: Women in the Early Legion”, by the 30th Century, women were treated a lot more equally (usually).

The Legion was often led by Saturn Girl, and there wasn’t anything considered to be unusual about a woman leading the group (often into combat…and the female Legionnaires fought like the male ones, punching people, when not using their powers).

I wonder how much that did influence readers of the comics. I suspect that Legion readers were much more comfortable in the 1960s and 1970s with female bosses (whether the employees were females or males) than the average person.

I also enjoyed the “The Legion’s Super-Science” by James Kakalios. It includes an analysis of how the Legion’s “flight rings” might actually work.

One thing about the Legion: they celebrated intelligence, not just fighting ability. Kakalios points out:

“In Adventure Comics #321, June 1964, when Lightning Lad is locked up for the rest of his life for ‘betraying’ the Legion by  ‘revealing’ the  secret  of the Concentrator, his cell has buttons for the three essentials of life: food, water, and books!”

I don’t think you have to be a Legion fan (there are still many) to enjoy the book…but I do think it would help. ;) This might be another good gift for a Baby Boomer geek (the Legion started in 1958).

Best Buy Black Friday Kindle HD deal?

I’ve written before about

http://bfads.net/

my favorite source for information about sales on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving).

Thanks go to a reader, though, who gave me a heads up in a private e-mail to this

ZDnet story by Sean Portnoy

I hadn’t started planning for the day yet, but according to them, a Best Buy employee mentioned some Black Friday deals during an interview with a local TV station in Arkansas, and one of them was the

Kindle Fire HD 7″, HD Display, Wi-Fi, 16 GB – Without Special Offers

for $99.99.

At least, I think that’s the one: the “Blueshirt” says, in this

Arkansas Matters video

that it is usually $199.99. Well, I don’t know of any configuration that gets you as high as $199.99 at Amazon.com for the Kindle Fire HD, but that’s the closest.

“Doorbusters” like this often disappear quickly and are in limited quantities, so even if this is a nationwide deal, you can’t be sure you’ll get one.

Interestingly, doing a

BFads.net search for Kindle

at this point only shows deals on Fires, not on other models. That will likely change in the next couple of weeks, though.

Amazon may also offer deals: two years ago, they had a big deal on Kindle books on Cyber Monday (the Monday following Black Friday).

Eek! A mouse!

This is a bit weird! Here is a picture from Amazon’s own Lab126 of a wall of Kindles and Kindle insides:

https://twitter.com/AmazonKindle/status/398554536035360768/photo/1

It’s certainly nostalgic to look at it (it sort of looks like a room of hunting trophies), but what appears to be a Kindle Keyboard has a mouse attached to it!

There’s another one that could possibly be a color display on a large screen EBR (E-Book Reader…not a Fire), but it s more likely just a picture in a frame. :)

Kids need books!

I was actually shocked by this

UK Children’s Commissioner survey

This

The Telegraph article by Sam Marsden

highlighted the significance of technological gadgets to the young people:

“Invited to say what they could not live without, 8.9 per cent of those questioned said their games console, 5.7 per cent said their mobile phone, 4.3 per cent said music and 3.4 per cent said sweets or chocolate.”

However, while “reading books” (and “school books” as a separate category) were in the questionnaire (I checked), I don’t see them being mentioned in the article or in the summary.

I’m sure quite a few of you would have listed that quite high when you were children, as would I. As a kid, I would have ranked books higher than “sweets or chocolate”. We didn’t have game consoles or mobile phones, and perhaps (based on the illustration in the questionnaire), these children are only answering that question around p-books (paperbooks), thinking that if they had a computer and/or a phone, they could still read books.

That’s my hopeful hypothesis. :)

What do you think? Does what we read for entertainment influence our social paradigms? When you were a kid, where would books have ranked among “things you need”? Higher than television, music, or pets? Do kids now think of p-books as something old-fashioned, and a different category than the books they read on their devices? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them

Round up #209: bookstores, Hollowland

October 1, 2013

Round up #209: bookstores, Hollowland

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later. 

PowPow is shipping!

My

Kindle Paperwhite, 6″ High Resolution Display with Next-Gen Built-in Light, Wi-Fi – Includes Special Offers

has started its journey. :)

Since it’s a 2nd generation Paperwhite (PW), and I’ve been writing that as PW2 (which I read as “PW squared”), I have named it “PowPow”. ;)

I am looking forward to exploring it. I hope to have a menu map out by the end of Wednesday.

My Kindle Fire HDX 7″, HDX Display, Wi-Fi, 16 GB – Includes Special Offers (which I have named “HDXter”, pronounced “Aitch-Dexter”) is still scheduled for October 18th.

I’m excited to see them both!

Mini-review: Hollowland

Hollowland (The Hollows, #1)
by Amanda Hocking
Free at time of writing
X-ray, lending, text-to-speech, all enabled…and unlimited simultaneous device licenses

I’ve written about Amanda Hocking before. In particular, there was this piece, more than two and a half years ago, about Hocking being one of the iconic Amazon indie authors making it in the writing world. I’ve also said I think Amanda Hocking may be the best tweeter on the planet. ;)

However, honestly, I’d never read a novel by Amanda Hocking.

Now I have. :)

It was free, and I knew from the tweets this was a talented author.

The product page describes it as a “young adult” novel, although it wasn’t categorized that way.

Certainly, the protagonist would generally appeal to that demographic, and there are elements of the story structure (the way that the world can revolve around person still figuring out who they are and where they fit in it) that I’m sure help to contribute to an excellent 4.3 out of 5 star rating with 684 reviews.

However, I have to say…there are things where I would caution you. The appearance the “S word” early on…well, that’s becoming almost acceptable on broadcast TV. We did, though, get to the “F word” eventually. There is clinically described violence (quite a bit of it, even though it is commonly against “zombies”), and…um…an unambiguous sex scene.

If those aren’t concerns for you, then let me say that I liked the characterizations, and the world. I could feel for the people involved, be amused in the right places, and recognize the realness of several of the characters.

As an animal lover (and Hocking tweets quite a few animal pictures), I also appreciated one particular element.

Overall, the story was enjoyable, and I was looking forward to seeing what happened next as I went through it.

In terms of production quality, well, there were a number of minor typos, but they weren’t as common as zombie kills in the book. ;) The cover was haunting.

I wouldn’t say this is classic literature, but if you are comfortable with the elements I mentioned and are looking for a good popcorn book, this could be it.

Library of Congress websites will go offline if the government shuts down

As I write this (but maybe not when you read it), we don’t know yet if the U.S. government will shut down, and if does, for how long.

We do know, though, that the Library of Congress websites (with the exceptions of Thomas.gov and Congress.gov) will go offline if it happens.

That would include a site I’ve mentioned before:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

While many people would be affected in much more serious ways, I thought some of you might be wondering…

Bookstore mini-round-up

You know, I read a lot of stories about bookstores…both about ones opening and ones closing. I know I’m probably more interested in that than some of you, since I managed a brick-and-mortar bookstore. I do think it relates to e-books, though, since the different delivery media for books (e-books, audiobooks, p-books ((paperbooks))) have an interdependency. Feel free to let me know if you’d rather not see these types of stories.

SCPR.org: LA’s Last Bookstore looks to keep the page in the digital age by Colin Berry

This sounds like a bookstore I’d like to visit! It’s funky and apparently has a huge selection of used books, many for $1. It’s exactly the kind of store I’ve suggested could thrive in the current and projected environment. They’ve made it an experience to go there:

“The result could be out of a neo-Victorian sci-fi novel. As Spencer has imagined it, the Last Bookstore is more quirky than stuffy, with bicycle-wheel chandeliers, a huge mural made of paperbacks, and sculptures made of books that literally fly off the shelves.”

New York Daily News: True South, financially strapped black bookstore, closes in Bedford-Stuyvesant by Reuven Blau

On the other hand, not every specialty bookstore is going to survive, even with community support. I love that there was this bookstore in Bed-Stuy: that’s not what you always hear about with that neighborhood…

Idaho Stateman: Ada Community Library Bookstore grand opening Oct. 5 by Cynthia Sewell

That’s right: it’s a used bookstore as part of a community library…and it’s adding a bookstore to the world.

How is it going overall for bookstores?

Fortune: The indie bookstore resurgence by Verne Kopytoff

The article (which I recommend) has several positive indicators…more sales, more membership in the American Booksellers Association.

However, it does talk about Amazon’s “aversion” to collecting State sales tax. Amazon has sent a top executive to argue in favor of a national internet sales tax policy (not a new tax, but what I refer to as “equal collection legislation”. What they don’t want is different rules in different places. Of course, I think it’s also reasonable to ask: if brick-and-mortar stores were not collecting sales tax now, would they be “averse” to having that added to their duties? I’m thinking yes…which suggests that there isn’t a moral superiority in that element, but simply a matter of circumstance. I’m not saying that local institutions aren’t more inclined towards paying local taxes (since they see the benefits more directly), but I don’t think it’s fair to say that because you are doing something you are legally required to do, you are better than someone who hasn’t been legally required to do the same thing.

What do you think? Amazon has fought a sales tax thing…are they taking advantage of the tax structure to get an unfair marketplace edge? Do stories about brick-and-mortar bookstores belong in ILMK? Are you excited because you ordered a new Kindle? Have you been to any of the bookstores I mentioned? If so, how was it? Did you buy anything? Is it okay for young adult books to use profanity and have violence and sex scenes? If so, what makes them young adult? Is that not a label for guidance, but just one for marketing? Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Wicked, Oz, and reimagining public domain works

June 10, 2013

Wicked, Oz, and reimagining public domain works

I have recently finished reading Wicked: Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years) for the first time. I came to it as a big Oz fan, with a good knowledge of the official books in the series.

The book has been influential. When you see works created since Wicked’s release in 1995 which “reimagine” putative children’s literature for a modern, adult audience, you can often see how the spirit of this book caught on with the creative community (and with those who market entertainment). Would we have had Disney’s Once Upon a Time series without Wicked? Perhaps, but not in the same way.

I had certainly heard of Wicked: I sold it when I managed a brick and mortar bookstore. I was able to approach it without knowing much about the particulars, though.

SPOILER ALERT

I will reveal some fairly minor things about the book (and the original Oz books and the 1939 movie) below. I’m careful about trying not to take away the sense of discovery from those who are going to first encounter a work, and that’s why I’m giving you this warning. I don’t think I’m going to write about anything any particular plot twists, but I will mention some elements that appear in the book.

What I did anticipate was that the book was going to make the characters seem “more like real human beings”. I expected there to be sex and violence: there sometimes seems to be this idea that so-called children’s literature is limited by an ability to portray those areas of life, and that writing for adults frees the author to cover those. I don’t think L. Frank Baum wanted to put in sex scenes, and was told that was inappropriate by someone else…this isn’t an external constraint, it’s an artistic choice. There is certainly violence in the original Wizard of Oz book…the Tin Woodman alone accounts for over 100 deaths. There isn’t any explicit sex in the original series, although romantic love is an element.

That would have been okay with me. I’ve been called a prude because I don’t use obscenities in the blog, and have sometimes criticized their use by others (although I think that has not particularly been for fictional works). I alert people to possibly  objectionable elements when I do reviews, but that doesn’t make me give the book a more negative review (although I do think it can limit an audience, while perhaps expanding another).

Where did make me more uncomfortable here was the negative attitude the book presents about the world.

That always tends to get to me in books. When a book presents things as people (human or not) being generally “bad”, I find that unrealistic. I’m not a fan of cruelty in books by people who aren’t the clear “villains”, but are simply in the general populace. It just clashes with my own paradigm, in that I think people are generally “good”. For that reason, it feels…exploitative, I guess.

Gregory Maguire’s Oz is a very cruel place. Adults are cruel, children are cruel. There is overwhelming societal prejudice, against strangers, against intelligent Animals (more on that capitalization later).

Does that contrast with the original series?

Well, there are some cruel people in L. Frank Baum’s Oz. They are, however, in a tiny minority.

That’s perhaps part of why Oz has been part of our culture for well over a hundred years. People who read Oz would like to go there…despite the Wicked Witches, the Nome King, the Wheelers, the Princess who wants to take your head, and the deadly Kalidahs. There is slavery (it’s quite common), and suicide. Still, most people in Oz are good, and Ozma (the main ruler of Oz after the Wizard) has an open heart.

That’s nothing like Maguire’s Oz. Maguire carefully brings in names and elements from the original series, but they are seen through the opposite of rose-colored glasses.

Mentioning color brings up a key point.

While the book is supposedly based on the public domain Oz books, and gathers characters from books beyond the first (Tik-Tok, for example, appears in a different form…the clockwork robot first appeared in the fifth book of the series), it clearly owes a great deal to the non-public domain 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz.

Much of what happens in the book stems from the Wicked Witch of the West being green. Naturally, that’s seen as a bad omen (I don’t think there are any good omens in Wicked). As an infant and forward, Elphaba (Maguire creates new names for characters), is seen as a symbol of evil because of skin color, and that naturally impacts the future Wicked Witch’s emotional development.

The Wicked Witch of the West is not green in the L. Frank Baum books. That was apparently introduced in the 1939 movie, partially to show off the color in the movie.

Also, the Witch flying on a broomstick is important in Maguire’s Oz, and does not happen in Baum’s (although other witches do fly on broomsticks much later in the series).

After someone sings a song in Wicked, there is a mention of rainbows…a not so subtle connection to Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

It’s absolutely fair to say that the 1939 movie was also different from the original books. It was not a success when first released…there were many Oz fans who didn’t like the casting of Bert Lahr, a known comedian, as the Cowardly Lion, for one thing.

However, it is different in different ways from Maguire’s Oz. It differs more in specifics than in tone.

Did I like Wicked?

Yes…I thought the writing was quite good. It was harsh, it was deliberately shocking in places, it was sometimes jarring (cigarettes, adjustable loans, and trains in Oz? For one thing, where were they growing the tobacco?)…but I really felt for the characters. I was anxious to see what happened next.

For me, it would have been a much better book if it didn’t have the Oz veneer over it…but can I honestly say I would ever have read it if it had just been a sort of Dickensian tale, without the magic and familiar characters? Probably not.

I will go on to other books in the Maguire series.

One last note about the book itself. I mentioned this capitalization thing with Animals. That was something that bothered be every time it happened: intelligent animals in Maguire’s Oz are pronounced in some way with a capital letter. That’s to distinguish a Cow (which speaks and thinks like a human) from a cow (which doesn’t). I didn’t get that: how do you pronounce it differently? I listened to part of the book with text-to-speech, and of course, Ivona didn’t pronounce it any differently. I didn’t have trouble telling what was meant by the context, though…it just seemed like a contrivance. As a vegetarian, I wasn’t happy with the treatment of the animals or Animals in the book, but people weren’t particularly more cruel to them than they were to other more human types that they encountered.

This all got me thinking about when people reimagine public domain works. That can produce some great things. For example, West Side Story and Forbidden Planet are both based (somewhat loosely) on Shakespeare plays (Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest, respectively).

That can lead to some great new insights and art. Philip José Farmer’s A Barnstormer In Oz, which preceded Wicked by some thirteen years, similarly explores Oz with a different sensibility…and yes, more realistic violence and sex than the original books.

I’m not opposed, under the current legal structure, to new adventures with public domain characters…I just recommended authors do just that in Three characters walk into a plot….

I think Wicked has considerable value as a work of art, even if I don’t personally like its sensibility.

I don’t think a derivative work damages the original…even though many people may first become familiar with something through an adaptation or derivation (I would guess the vast majority of people in the world know MGM’s Oz much better than Baum’s).

I’m curious what you think, though. Do you feel like classic characters and books need to be “respected” by not being portrayed in ways other than the original? Is it okay for later authors to change their inner motivations? What do you think when a book labeled a children’s book is “updated” with sex and explicit violence? If that’s clear to the audience, is it still some sort of “violation” of the characters?

Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.


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