Category: Books

While I’ve been quite a avid reader the past few years, every now and then I find something new that’s really in the field I work in. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed Dogfight at my library and immediately decided to give it a read.

It details the ongoing battle between the iOS and Android platforms. From how the iPhone was created up until the current battle. I especially found the early iPhone development stories to be most interesting. I can’t imagine how much fun (and stress) it would be to be on a team developing a completely new product. That’s got to be insanely rewarding.

The author did a pretty solid job of not favoring one side too much in the book. While I don’t agree that there has to be one winner in the mobile phone battle, it was still a very interesting read. I do believe that there is enough room for two or even three platforms to exist. I don’t think it’s quite the same as the Windows vs Mac battles of the 80’s and 90’s.

Even if you don’t work in technology you might want to give this one a shot. We all pretty much use smartphones and this does give a good tale on the high stakes events that are still ongoing. Very interesting.

Just finished up a pretty good one. I’m not sure if 11/22/63 by Stephen King was featured at my library because of the anniversary of JFK’s assassination or if it was part of another type of display, but I gave it a shot and am glad I did.

While it was a rather lengthy book, once I got going I plowed through it rather quickly. It was tough to put down at times, very good stuff.

The whole idea of time travel and it’s potential consequences is always very interesting to me, and the author has an interesting take on it. The whole harmony aspect and how the past does so much to stop itself from being altered was very interesting.

The book also does a really good job of making you think how you would act if given the opportunity to go back and change the past. I do enjoy anytime something can cause me to stop and think like that, whether it’s a great film or a book.

This was a very good read and I’d highly recommend it.

I was really stumped with what to read next. While I know it’s not even close to possible, I’m getting to the point where sometimes I think I’ve read everything in the library. So after wandering around with no direction around the fiction area, I stopped in the V section. I’ve never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut and figured that I should give the chap a shot.

So I picked up Slaughterhouse-Five as I did recognize the title, but really had no idea what it was about. I do have to admit that after reading the first few chapters, I was quite confused. Not what I was expecting even though I really had no expectations.

Once I got a few chapters in the life of Billy Pilgrim was beginning to make sense. The book did a solid job of pointing out the terrible thing that is war, something that I’ve always felt was much too glorified by society. Killing people is always a bad thing to do.

The whole aliens and 4th dimension was very strange, but also interesting. There were also several humorous moments mixed in with the doom and gloom as well. A pretty different and interesting read.

Decided that I would try to read something from the Halloween section that was setup in the library. The first thing that caught my eye was Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. I recalled it being fairly popular a few years back and they did make a movie of it, so why not.

It was pretty cool. An interesting mix of actual history with a very healthy dose of fiction. Actually a lot of fiction, but that’s what made it fun to read. I have read up a bit on Lincoln’s actually life not too long ago, so the changes or “real” explanations that the book presents were timely.

Plus who doesn’t like the epic battle of vampires vs. humans? It just doesn’t seem to get old.

The book also went by very fast, so I will chalk that up to it being pretty good.

Since Inferno was released a few months ago, I was checking each visit to the library if a copy was available. I did enjoy The Lost Symbol and everyone knows about The DaVinci Code, which Dan Brown has authored as well. Well a copy was in so I figured I’d finally give it a read.

It was pretty good, very similar to both books I mentioned above. Sticking with the now familiar script of scholar who decodes clues in awesome cities and ancient or really old things. Still a pretty solid formula which hasn’t gotten old to me at all.

The book has a couple of twists and turns, several of which did surprise me. However, the coolest thing about it was the whole topic on the potential of human extinction and how overpopulation is what would most likely cause it. I’ve long pointed to overpopulation as the problem of most problems we face as a society today. There’s some interesting ways that it gets addressed in this book.

Very good book, and I especially enjoyed it towards the end as things really started picking up.

I was pretty excited when I saw Kenobi: Star Wars at the library. Ben Kenobi was always a bit of a mystery watching Star Wars growing up, so a story about his time before episode IV seemed like something that would be cool to read.

It was a pretty good story. It was kinda written like a western, with the stranger coming into town (Ben) and helping the locals. Almost like an A-Team episode now that I think about it. I thought it was pretty well done and liked that the story didn’t just name drop well known characters from the franchise just for the sake of it.

While it hardly touched on him actually looking over Luke, it does do a great job of explaining his thought process after all the events at the conclusion of episode III. Being alone and unable to really do much about it, and his struggle with this new role of his while keeping his identity a mystery.