Berty Reads Books

2006 Reading List

I Really Loved These

Spin State

Chris Moriarty

A post-human universe, emergent AIs, genetic constructs, and illegal wetware. Cyber-punk, baby! It's been a while since I've read a good science fiction novel, and this one is menthol. Check out the review on Amazon's site to get an idea of the story. Bottom line...I loved it. Thanks go to Lisa for the recommendation.


The Closers

Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch, LAPD homicide detective, returns to the force after being away from the job for three years. Instead of returning to Robbery/Homicide Division, he's sent to the elite Open/Unsolved Unit. The Unit's mission is to solve flawed, stalled, or abandoned murder investigations. He's assigned a 17 year old murder and works the case with a partner from a previous novel. I liked it a lot. In fact, I haven't really read any Connelly novel that I didn't like. Though this is a Bosch novel, and the eighth one in a series, reading any of the prior ones probably isn't necessary. If you want to read a Connelly novel, and you don't want to invest in a series, he has four or five other ones that aren't related.


Web Standards Solutions, The Markup and Style Handbook

Dan Cederholm

This rocks. An easy to read and understand book that provides great examples of what to do and what not to do when using CSS while creating web sites. I think this guy is so much better at explaining stuff than Eric Meyer is. So, if you're a web publishing geek, check this thing out. In fact, I liked it so much, I bought his other book, Bulletproof Web Design.


Bulletproof Web Design

Dan Cederholm

I can't praise this guy enough. Love his site. Love his books. He presents the material in an easy to follow manner, with lots of great direction and pictures. Written to help folks to design web sites that are flexible and adapt to a viewer's preferences (larger or smaller fonts, accessibility, etc.).


I Liked These A Lot

The Lincoln Lawyer

Michael Connelly

I've read every book this guy has written. And I love all of them. Defense lawyer Mickey Haller has two ex-wives, four Lincoln Town Cars that he uses as offices, and a bunch of guilty clients that he often gets off on technicalities. Cops hate him, his wives tolerate him, and his clients have trouble paying him. He lands a new client (who by all accounts appears to be innocent) that he calls "the franchise," and Haller expects to bill him handsomely. As usual, there's more to it than meets the eye. Nice characters. Good writing. But I still prefer his Harry Bosch novels to ones like this one.


The Broker

John Grisham

The outgoing President of the United States grants a controversial last-minute pardon to a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. The CIA knows that the Broker was trying to sell a super secret high-tech device that will allow the owner of it to spy on whatever they want to. But they don't know who made the device or who was trying to purchase it. So what do they do? The CIA smuggles the Broker out of the country, hides him in Italy, and then plans on leaking his whereabouts to several different countries to see who will kill him first. It was entertaining. Kind of a big buildup where you ask yourself what the point of the story is while at the same time not really caring because you are intrigued.


The Heist: How a Gang Stole $8,000,000 at Kennedy Airport and Lived to Regret It

Ernest Volkman, John Cummings

In 1978, two employees of Lufthansa and a few assorted wise guys decided to liberate close to 8 million dollars in cash. Not too shabby when you consider the average wage back then was probably less than $10,000 a year. The book is written well, outlining the theft and the police investigation. Youd be amazed, and I mean this with all due respect, how stupid some guys in the mob can be. I give it four stars because the only guy left alive (in the witness relocation program, no less) decided to write a review for it on Amazon. Not too smart, eh?


The iPod Book

Scott Kelby

Guess what I got for Christmas? Guess what book helped this dumbass figure out how to use his new present? Word. Easy read. You can only read what you need, or you can read it cover to cover. Good stuff.


CSS Mastery; Advanced Web Standards Solutions

Andy Budd

This book pretty much takes everything I've read about CSS and sticks it in one place. Plus it includes some things I don't understand now but that will probably make sense in a few months. It has an interesting example on how to do a fluid layout for web design, and it also covers things like image maps and image replacement. I still like Cederholm's books better, but this provides a lot of good resources in one handy place. At the very least, it's convinced me that I have to stop buying books like this.


The Non-Designer's Design Book, 2nd Edition

Robin Williams

Billed as "an essential guide for anyone working with design and type." I don't really work with type, but I dabble in design and would say that this book is for "dabblers." Gave a good basic idea of how to layout a page or site with sound design principles using the CRAP method - Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. It left me wanting a little more.


Web Design, In a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference

Jennifer Niederst Robbins

At 796 pages long a nutshell it isn't, but a good desktop reference it is. I picked up lots of decent tips and reinforced many things that I've read in online articles after reading this one. It will sit on my desk next to the dictionary.


These Were Okay

1776

David McCullough

Amazon describes the book as covering "the military side of the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh perspective to the beginning of the American Revolution." It left me wanting more. I really am interested in history, and want to educate myself as much as possible, but I have yet to find any book on history that I would call "gripping." This was good, but it put me to sleep at times. Taught me quite a few things…like don't try to read it on the bus, because it'll put you to sleep. Read this when you're alert. I recommend pairing it with a strong cup of coffee. If anyone knows of a good book on the American Revolution – one that won't put me to sleep – please let me know.


Honeymoon

James Patterson & Howard Roughan

If you're looking for a book to read on an airplane, or a book to read on the beach, this will do just fine. And for those purposes I would probably rate it a 4 out of 5. It's a quick read. Entertaining. Gets interesting around page 80. The cover says it's the "2005 International Thriller of the Year." Don't know if I'd go that far. This babe keeps killing her husbands. This FBI agent chases her. Off-shore bank accounts and political shenanigans are thrown into the mix. Did I mention it's good for an airplane flight or the beach?


Failure is not an Option

Gene Kranz

Kranz was flight director for Apollo 11 (first time we landed on the moon, eh?) and Apollo 13 ("Houston, we have a problem."). The book recounts Kranz's involvement with NASA's Mission Control and has some interesting stories in it; from stepping off a commercial aircraft at Patrick Air Force Base and being sped to Mercury Control by Gordo Cooper, to what went through the minds of controllers when the Lunar Module touched down for the first time on the moon. It's basically a narrative that is based on the flight controller's perspective of the space program. It was a little weak, but the stories made up for it and it kept my interest. It made me want to go out and buy a few more books about the space program to get a full understanding of what we accomplished.


The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman

A reclusive professor at a private University is found dead in his home and a young inexperienced reporter of the small-town paper in which the professor lived has the task of writing his obituary. Things aren't as they seem, and the professor may have been the final collector and caretaker of alchemical instruments that are over 900 years old and contain mysterious powers. Ooooooohhhh. I liked the story up until the end. Terrible ending.


Blue Streak; Inside jetBlue, the Upstart That Rocked an Industry

Barbara S. Peterson

This was supposed to be a great book with a lot of inside stories about JetBlue. I thought it was okay, bordering on so-so. Peterson has been reporting on JetBlue since before they even flew their first flight. The book reads like she took a lot of the stories she wrote about the airline and pieced them together into a book. A Pulitzer Prize winner it ain't, but it gives you some interesting insight into JetBlue and the folks who have "drunk the blue Kool-Aid."


Professional CSS, Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design

Schmitt, Trammel, Marcotte, Orchard, Dominey

With all those great authors and their in-depth knowledge of CSS, I thought this book would be totally menthol. It was okay. The book "looks at a number of large, contrasting organizations and the challenges in developing their sites." They have some good stuff in here, like using PHP for a style switcher and some layout fundamentals, but nothing really blew me away. Kind of disappointing considering all of these guys have killer web sites and know an immense amount of information.


These Were Not My Thing

Biggest Brother

Larry Alexander

Subtitled, The life of Major Dick Winters, the man who led the Band of Brothers, I thought this would be an in-depth biography of Winters. It ended up being a rehash of the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers, which was based, of course, on Stephen Ambroses novel chronicling Easy Company of the 101st Army Airborne. So we have a book that comes across as being based on the mini-series which was based on a book. There are a few extra things thrown in there with an attempt at providing some background on the man, but overall I was a little disappointed. It could have been better.


State of Fear

Michael Crichton

Young attorney gets drawn into traveling around the world to stop eco-terrorists from creating events that look like natural disasters caused by global warming. Premise: global warming is a big lie, and the media hypes it up. Crichton says that everything is made up with the exception of the footnotes, which refer the reader to "actual" scientific papers that prove the fake stuff is not really fake. I didn't think the story was all that fabulous. I guess after reading a bunch of technical stuff I had a little trouble getting back into mindless fiction. I wouldn't recommend this, mainly because I think he should pronounce his last name differently.


The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell

"The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire." Um, okay. Not sure why I bought this, other than it was in the 3 books for the price of 2 section at Borders. Reviewers have called it "undeniably compelling" and "terrifically rewarding." Yeah, um, not really. Not for me. Maybe a marketing person would find it fascinating, but I didn't. I read the first 10 pages and thought I would actually give up on it, but then it got somewhat interesting. Then I couldn't wait for it to end. At page 245 of 280 I started to read just the first sentence of every paragraph. If anyone would like to have this, let me know…I would be more than happy to part with it. (I gave it two stars because Malcolm needs a haircut)


Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

Alan Alda

I think I bought this just for the title. It's Alan Alda's memoir. It's taught me that I should go to the library more often instead of the book store. The book was a little bland, and didn't make me feel like I wanted to like the guy. Probably the best thing about the book is what he wrote on the last page of the afterword: "Freud said that life is all about being able to love and to work. And I think it is about those things. But it's also about play. Play can bring back the past, but even if it doesn't, play is now; play is fun."


The Camel Club

David Baldacci

Wow. Two duds in a row. That's pleather. I've liked most of Baldacci's other stuff: I didn't like this. "After witnessing a shocking murder, the Camel Club [four eccentric and downtrodden members whom society has forgotten with the simple goal of finding the ‘truth’ behind their countrys actions] is slammed headfirst into a plot that threatens the very security of the nation, full of stunning twists, high-stakes intrigue and global gamesmanship rocketing to the Oval Office and beyond." The dialogue didn't seem real, I didn't care about the characters, and I almost wish I didn't waste the time reading it.


Monster Careers: Interviewing

Jeff Taylor

A book that's supposed to help you prepare for interviews. I enjoy my job, but I'm also interested in what else is out there [update...I am now somewhere else, which is someplace that I have been before]. Which means I have to know how to answer questions like "Tell me about the best boss you ever had?" or "How will you contribute to achieving the company's mission?" It was just okay. It helped me review the basic stuff and get me thinking again, but it wasn't the best thing I've ever read.


Steal This Computer Book 3

Wallace Wang

Should be titled, "Glance at this computer book because you probably already know most of this stuff." Other than some interesting anecdotes and references at the end of the book, it was a waste of time. Why did I not totally trash this book? Well, some of the references are actually good, and I like the author's name — it would be a great band name.