Read Books This will provide a list of the books I've read with a brief review. Users are blocked, contact me for access. I welcome discussions, but I'm tired of spam.

November 2, 2018

Star Trek Psychology: The Mental Frontier edited by Travis Langley

Filed under: Science — Tags: — Randolph @ 3:57 pm


Star Trek Psychology: The Mental Frontier edited by Travis Langley

This is a collection of short papers on common subjects in psychology. It uses Star Treck characters and events to provide examples and explain concepts. Each paper is written by different experts in the field paired with someone more experienced in writing to the common man. Editing is done well, as each paper has a similar style, making the collection feel coherent.

I found the book both interesting and easy to read. The use of Star Trek to drive ideas home makes it easy to understand and (hopefully) remember.

The book is part of a series, Psychology of Popular Culture. I plan to read more of this series.

October 14, 2018

The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman

Filed under: Mystery — Tags: , , — Randolph @ 2:32 pm


The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman

Jim Chee has been transferred to a team commanded by Captain Largo. His duties are to investigate the repeated sabotage of a windmill, solve the killing of a man by a witch and to solve a robbery case. When a drug-running plane crashes and several people are killed, things get more bizarre. The crash and related murders are outside of Chee’s jurisdiction, but all the events seem interrelated.

The story takes the reader into the Navajo and Hopi cultures as Chee tries to sort things out. Even the cultures are tied into the crimes.

When the solution unravels, Hillerman has intertwined everything into a fully satisfying solution.

October 3, 2018

Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot & Structure by Jesse Lee Kercheval

Filed under: Writing — Tags: , — Randolph @ 3:55 pm


Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot & Structure
by Jesse Lee Kercheval

In this book, Jesse provides clear steps and ideas to build structure and characters into a story. The book is well-written with clear goals and organization. She goes through different stages of writing discussing topics such as point of view, opening statements, building characters. She also compares the complexities and requirements of a book, short story and novella among others.

I found it easy to read and informative. She touches on ideas other books haven’t covered without going into great details.

September 13, 2018

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

Filed under: Mystery — Tags: , , — Randolph @ 2:46 pm


How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

This is the ninth novel in the Inspector Gamache series of books. Gamache is investigating the apparent suicide by a woman who is using an assumed identity. He unveils a tragic story of the woman’s past. This investigation provides a background to the culmination of events involving his former second-in-command and friend, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and the Chief of the Sûreté, Sylvan Franceur.

Gamache returns to Three Pines for his base of operations because of it’s lack of connectedness to the outside. This allows all the familiar characters of Three Pines to become a part of the story.

This is a well-told mystery, although it deviates from the traditional mystery in that it has major themes continuing through the series. This book brings it all to a close and set up what looks like a change in the series with the next book. The writing is excellent and the characters engrossing. But the series should be read in order!!

August 2, 2018

French for Cats by Henry Beard

Filed under: Humor — Tags: , , — Randolph @ 5:37 pm


French for Cats by Henry Beard

This book takes the form of a normal phrasebook as intended for cats. Or at least what humans would expect a cat to say in various situations. It is a light and quick read and the French itself is accurte and useful, but knowing some French is useful, as a few of the “translations” are jokes in themselves.

Mon dieu! Un petit livre pour des chats! Maintenant il peut miauler en deux langues! Aucune paix pour l’homme.

July 31, 2018

The First World War by John Keegan

Filed under: History — Tags: , — Randolph @ 2:17 pm


The First World War by John Keegan

John Keegan’s book provides a very thorough look at World War I. It details the politics, both international and internal to each of the primary countries, in addition to the military status, targets and goals. It also summarizes the affects the war had on the world while raising some interesting questions. It is an excellent way to learn about this war and how it affected the world, something that is being forgotten in our schools.

May 14, 2018

How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse by Thomas C Foster

Filed under: Literature — Tags: — Randolph @ 9:18 am


How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse by Thomas C Foster

Thomas Foster discusses different elements of poetry to raise the awareness of the elements and the appreciation of poetry in the reader. Foster does a good job of making it interesting and easy to foolow and remember. I’ve enjoyed his other books, as his writing style is easy to read and has a lot of good information.

Foster covers a variety of styles, explaining what elements make it what it is. He uses limited technical jargon and carefully explains them when he does.

His writing is easy to read and informative. I plan to seek out other books of his to read.

February 20, 2018

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Filed under: self-help,Writing — Randolph @ 10:43 am


Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

This book is mostly a supportive book written in a self-help style, and almost a spiritual style. It has a lot of anecdotes detailing her experiences dealing with all the roadblocks that we encounter or put up in our own path. She has a neurotic sense of humor that makes the book entertaining at the same time.

In this book, she writes a lot about the publishing process, adding a hearty dose of reality to want-to-be writers.

This book came recommended to me, although I can’t remember the source. I felt the book got off to a slow start. The first few chapters leaned more toward the spiritual style which didn’t appeal to me, but later chapters had more useful information. Overall, I found the book an enjoyable read, even if it didn’t give me all I was expecting.

January 21, 2018

Time Travel: A History by James Gleick

Filed under: Philosophy — Randolph @ 2:00 pm


Time Travel: A History by James Gleick

The book’s title has two meanings. The first is obvous, time travel at other than the normal rate. The other is traveling through history discussing attitudes and knowledge about time.

The first few chapters discuss historical perspectives about time, putting them in context of the local cultures. Then it gets into fiction, early suggestions of time travel cluminating with H. G. Wells and the actual consideration of traveling through time.

With Wells’ book, there is a lot of discussion about reactions to the idea, from supportive and expansive fiction to ridiculing reactions as reviews.

It expands on this idea to talk about how time travel is used to tell stories. This includes backstories and telling a story from two differnt time periods concurrently, as opposed to the current idea of time travel.

Finally, there is some discussion about the arrow of time, current ideas on time travel, and more journeys into fiction.

The book is interesting and worth reading, but didn’t provide a lot of new information of philosophical ideas.

January 16, 2018

New Grounds: The Manual for Non-Toxic Etching by Regina Held and Ray Maseman

Filed under: Art — Randolph @ 1:47 pm


New Grounds: The Manual for Non-Toxic Etching by Regina Held and Ray Maseman

This books is a text for a class taught by New Grounds. But it does stand on its own very well.

The book start off with a historical introduction, then chapters describing techniques to etch and print a plate. After that it goes on to describe different techniques to create and apply grounds: hardground, aquatint, spit bite, softground, crayon softground, liftground, Crisco liftground, color proofing, Chine Collé and finally curing the print. Each chapter goes into step-by-step details to create the ground, etching, timing considerations and finally some common problems and their solutions.

This is a great book for beginners as well as intermediate-level printers. Maybe advanced, I can’t speak to that.

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