Friday Book Review: Two From Simon Winchester

Thanks to Susan for introducing me to the writing of Simon Winchester. So far I've been able to read two of his books. The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary and The Map That Changed The World. Both books shed light on areas of history that are not well illuminated.

The Meaning of Everything details the long slog totaling 68 years it took to create the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. While The Map That Changed The World follows the life of William Smith who is basically the father of modern Geology. His findings were instrumental in a number of areas including the determination that the Earth is much older than 4000 years. Unfortunately, William Smith was not high born so he was continually snubbed by English society. The story of his accomplishments was very interesting.

I'm rating both books a borrow as they are interesting reads but not necessarily required for your library at home.

Friday Book Review: What Would Google Do?

Once upon a time the 800 pound gorilla in the room was Microsoft. They had so much money and so many resources that companies were, rightly, afraid that Microsoft would enter their space and take away their market share.

This has actually happened to me. Once upon a time the executives at a company I was working at wanted to partner with Microsoft so they had them come in for a demo of our product that integrated with Exchange. The demo went well and Microsoft executives were impressed but the partnership never emerged. However about a year later there were rumblings in the industry that Microsoft was about to release a new version of Exchange that duplicated the functionality of our product. I will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

Now the 800 pound gorilla title has passed on to Google. Yes, they have the near unlimited resources that Microsoft has but they are more inclined to commodify your product by releasing their own free version. This is one of the topics that Jeff Jarvis explores in his book What Would Google Do?.

Jarvis boils down Google's strategy into his set of Google Rules:

1) The customer is always right
2) Be a platform others can build upon
3) Middlemen Are Doomed
4) Be Transparent
5) Small is the new big
6) The middleman is dead
7) Don't sell things, stuff sucks

Now these rules apply to more companies than just Google and by following them your organization can innovate like Google. I particularly liked the chapters on middlemen and don't sell atoms, sell electrons.

The book is well worth the read and I'm giving it a borrow rating. Also, I digested this book in audio book form and Mr. Jarvis does a great job of reading it as well.

Friday Book Review: Paris 1919

I like to think that I'm pretty well versed in history. I know a lot about ancient civilizations like the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians because let's face it, those eras are super cool. I even think I know a considerable amount about more recent history from World War II to the present day.

But there was definitely a lack of knowledge about the time immediately before and after World War I. Sure I know that the assassination of Frans Ferdinand is the answer to the trivial question, what started World War I? Other than that I'm sketchy on the details and that is where Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World comes in.

It really is a fascinating book. It is broken out into chapters focusing on individual countries. Detailing their demands at the peace conference, their major players and the resulting new boundaries once the treaty was eventually signed. I found this to be real interesting as the world's boundaries were redrawn pre and post World War I.

The other major part of the book was pointing out the mistakes made during the treaty which directly led to the outbreak of World War II. You'll understand why allies in WWI like Italy and Japan fought on the Axis side during WW2.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a very long read and the information quotient is very dense. I recommend this one as a borrow from your local library.

Friday Book Review: The Lost Symbol

As promised I have finished reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO! Usually, I like to stay positive with my book reviews so I tend to shy away from reviewing books I haven't enjoyed. However, when I picked this book it was for the express intention of cutting loose with my vitriolic sarcasm. Surprisingly, I didn't hate this book.

A number of years ago when The DaVinci Code was all the rage I decided to look into this hot new author. To that end I checked out Angles & Demons, The DaVinci Code, Deception Point and Digital Fortress. Reading all four of these books in a two week period. I do not recommend reading that many books by a single author in such a short span as you really begin to pick up on their formula. This was very much the case as I can distill the plot for all of Dan Brown's novels down into this simple scaffolding:

1. An old man dies who is a grand master of a secret society.
2. The protagonist is called to the scene by the dying grand master and only he can solve the riddle.
3. The love interest of the protagonist is somehow related to the dead grand master.
4. There is a grotesque assassin hunting the protagonist and love interest.
5. Also a misguided member of a law enforcement agency who is chasing the protagonist and love interest.
6. Behind it all is a secret enemy who is pulling all the strings and it is the person YOU'D LEAST EXPECT!

Sadly, after reading more than one of Dan Brown's novels it becomes laughingly easy to pick out the eventual villain. The Lost Symbol is no exception to the above rules as it follows each one of them with a slight twist that I won't mention for those of you who want to read this book.

Anyway, as I said The Lost Symbol follows Mr. Brown's usual formula and apparently the characters act in such a way that they'll believe anything that anyone says to them over the phone. Regardless, of the current situation where prudence should be exercised.

However the strength of the novel lies in the research done on the Freemasons and the city of Washington D.C. Both of which play a huge role in The Lost Symbol. It is there where I find the book to be entertaining but I confess I have not checked any of the facts laid out in this book but I suspect that some artistic license must have been applied. This is not unlike his previous two Robert Langdon novels Angles & Demons (Roman Catholic Church and Vatican City) and The DaVinci Code (Knights Templar and Paris).

Also, it wouldn't be a Dan Brown book without some religious controversy but I can't get into that without revealing major plot points. Grrr!

As much as I wanted to pants this book I'll have to give it a borrow rating. It wasn't as bad as I expected but maybe I just had really low expectations.

However, I feel bad of those who've shown up looking for me to shred Dan Brown. For that you want to read this sarcastic review of the book by Jennifer McKeown. Well played Jennifer, I couldn't agree more.

Friday Book Review: Batman Year One

Not long after Crisis On Infinite Earths
DC comics decided they needed to reboot Batman for a new generation. To which they turned to Frank Miller the man who wrote and drew the amazingly successful Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Combined with Batman: Year One the two books set the course of a grim and gritty vigilante that Batman would become for the next 20 years.

As the title indicates the four issues collected into this trade we follow the early career of Batman. We see Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham City after more than ten years of training and we see Lieutenant James Gordon joining the Gotham Police Force. Both men are struggling with their new roles in society. Batman is still a little green and has difficulties with his equipment and tackling street level bad guys. While Lt. Gordon is not exactly fitting in with the rest of the corrupt cops in Gotham City.

In this story Miller muddies up the pristine backgrounds of a number of notable Gotham residents. The one retcon that I really didn't approve of was the changes made to Selina Kyle aka Catwoman's background.

All and all it is a good Batman story but not a great one. It's hard to be groundbreaking when you are re-telling a character's origin story that's been around for over 50 years.

I have to rate this book a borrow as it is a good story and the basis for the 2005 movie Batman: Begins.

Friday Book Review: Rocket Men

Whoops, I forgot to move this post from the draft to published state. So here is my review of Rocket Men a couple of days later than intended.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. I would have liked to be a NHL hockey player but I knew I was good enough but maybe just maybe I could be one of those people going up on the space shuttle. After all Marc Garneau was going up on those shuttles and he was Canadian. One of my all time favourite family vacations included a trip to the Cape Canaveral, Florida where we watched a shuttle take off and visited the Kennedy Space Center where I got this shiny silver jacket with a NASA patch on the shoulder. I probably still have that jacket somewhere at home.

This leads me to Rocket Men The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon. It is an incredible story of the 9 years and 400,000 people it took to send three men (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins) into space, landing two on the moon and getting them all back safe again.

This is a very interesting book detailing the vast amounts of effort it required from to land men on the moon. It goes into details describing the men of the Apollo 11 mission and how it affected their lives. It truly is amazing how flimsy the lunar lander was, basically a metal cage wrapped in tin foil, and how Armstrong and Aldrin nearly were stuck on the moon only saved by some quick thinking an a felt tipped pen. Which is where I'm guessing The Simpsons get their inanimate carbon rod joke from.

For fans of space this is an excellent book to go out and buy but if you are just casually interested I suggest borrowing it from your local library.

Friday Book Review: The Ten Cent Plague

If you were a fan of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay the Pulitzer prize winning novel by Michael Chabon then you will want to pick up David Hajdu's The Ten Cent Plague.

In this book Hajdu explores the years leading up to the establishment of the comic book code authority which basically neutered the comic book industry. Before the establishment of the code comics sold close to 1 millon copies per month for the best sellers and over 400,000 for the top titles. Nowadays the best selling comic book barely tops 100,000 copies.

Back in the 1950's comics were available in a wide variety of genres. Not only could you find your super hero books but you'd see books on crime, horror, romance and sci-fi.

However, during the 1950's the public was concerned about the growing rates of juvenile delinquency. Commissions were formed to look into this problem and in my opinion and easy scape goat was found in the comic book industry.

As a result of these hearings, the establishment of the comic book code and a book called Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Frederic Wertham the diversity in the comic book industry was devastated. Gone were the horror, crime and romance comics. Only the super hero ones were left and they were in a watered down form. See the 60's Batman TV show to get an idea of the tone of comic books at the time.

The book does a great job of relating to you the story of the nascent origins of the comic book up to the great comic book hysteria and I'd rate it a buy for any comic book fan. If you are not a fan of comics I'd give it a borrow rating.