I've Been Reading Again

I've read a lot the last few weeks and months. I get on these reading binges and just read and read and read. The Kindle doesn't help control my near addiction to reading either. I'm definitely reading more since I bought the Kindle but is that a good thing? After the reading binge though I usually go through a "sober" period where I read much less for a while.

I say "less" because I try every day to at least read the local newspaper, my Bible passages from my "Read Through The Bible in a Year" program, and my emails. That's actually quite a bit although my emails are fewer now.

There isn't any particular order here. I usually read several titles at a time anyway and the Kindle, the iPhone Kindle, and my laptops all contribute to me reading more titles at a time. And again I am uncertain if this is good or bad.

Also, I may be repeating something I've already written about here.

When God Goes to Starbucks: A Guide to Everyday Apologetics
by Paul Copan

I read about this title on a blog about the same time I happened to overhear a conversation about faith while sitting in my favorite Starbucks (Fritts Farm - Moore, Ok).

I can't really say I was misled exactly because the title clearly says it is "apologetics." But I was disappointed. I suppose for one thing I no longer really much like apologetics. For another though I thought it might be more about conversations I've actually had or overheard in Starbucks or other similar venues. But that's just me.

If you are interested in apologetics covering certain questions then this is a good book. The arguments are well conceived and logical and pretty succinct.

Retail Superstars
by George Whailin

I bought this one right after finishing the In-N-Out and jumped right into it. In-N-Out left me kind of excited about retail and I was kind of hoping for something similar in this book but covering a variety of stores. It didn't really do that.

On the other hand Whailin does a really good job of briefly describing and analyzing several retailers that were totally unfamiliar to me and that I am certain would have remained that way except for his work.

I guess I'd say interesting but nothing inspiring for me at least. There are only 7 reviews on Amazon and all gave 5 stars. I didn't review there but it wouldn't be 5 stars for sure.

The Neighbor
by Lisa Gardner

I liked this title a lot. It's kind of a cool story on several levels. Lisa Gardner never fails to satisfy on detailed research and procedures and so on and this title is one of the best she's done in that regard.

There's a husband, wife, and child. Something happens to the wife. The husband is the likely suspect -- even to the reader. Lots of computer stuff. At least one or two loose ends even at the conclusion for me at least.

On the negative the characters weren't exactly as sympathetic as I would have liked. That means I never came to really care about them too much. There was a certain feeling of contrivance that I ignored.

For me it was a good solid 3 star read though. Good book and I like Lisa Gardner's stuff.

The Fat Resistance Diet
by Leo Galland, M.D.

This is a really good book in my opinion. I learned a lot reading this book and even have tried out some of the ideas and found them rather helpful. It is about leptin resistance. If you haven't heard of leptin then by all means take a look at this book.

The Cabinet of Curiosities: A Novel
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I enjoyed this book sufficiently that I have purchased another title by the same authors. I also enjoyed learning about "cabinets of curiosities" and several other subjects. I was disappointed some in the characters but found enough to keep me interested. There were several really implausibilities that bothered me but that I overlooked in the interest of my own joy. Again I've bought another title.

Scarpetta
by Patricia Cornwell

It's kind of strange that I've never been much of a Scarpetta fan but I actually became interested in this rather long book. At first I was so bored that I nearly quit but there is something to be said for stubbornness I suppose. So in the end I enjoyed the experience of reading this book. The characters didn't much win me over. The ending was nuts. Still I enjoyed it anyway.

Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity
by Mark A. Noll

This book was exactly what I hoped and was a very enjoyable reading experience. If you're interested in the history of Christianity this is a good choice for a quick excursion of a rather long and complicated journey.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Alice Schroeder

Let me put it this way: DON'T BUY IT. If you do buy it don't read it. Good grief!! This thing goes on and on and on. There are all kinds of dubious facts and possibly some out and out inaccuracies. Boring. This author never heard of succinct.

The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines
by George Husmann

It was only $ .99. I had some interest in growing grapes there for a brief spell. Not sure it isn't a good idea even now.

In-N-Out Burger by Stacy Perman

In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules
by
Stacy Perman

This book was just released this year in April by Harper Business.

Really I knew nothing about this hamburger chain except that I had seen the name mentioned a few times in various discussion board posts. Usually it was along the lines of "we should get one of those" places or "why don't we have an In-N-Out here."

But it is a California chain and I've been to California a total of three times in my life. And never did I go there to eat a hamburger. So I suppose it isn't all that strange that I would not have been to an In-N-Out.

And after reading the book it makes me want to go to one just to try it for myself.

The prologue describes the opening of a store in Tuscon, AZ in 2007. The description reminded me of my own experience with the Chick-Fil-A here at Fritts Farm in Moore, OK. Except, of course, that Chick-Fil-A sells chicken and In-N-Out sells hamburgers. And Chick-Fil-A is here and In-N-Out isn't.

But there are many other similarities between the two firms. Notably both are family owned which is to say private. Both have gone their own way rather than the "corporate" way. Both have a cult-like following (I started to write "kind of" but there is no "kind of" about it). Both have a nearly fanatical obsession with customer service, food quality, and cleanliness.

All that is well and good but not so much really what fascinated me about this story. Rather it is the similarity and contrast to my own family and personal story.

I'm not bothering with a review. Amazon offers plenty of those: editorial here and user here.

My family didn't sell hamburgers but we had a family business when I was growing up and when my children were growing up and now we have another one.

Thanks to my son who was on vacation in California and was able to get this nighttime picture for me of an actual In-N-Out Burger place. That's probably about as close as I'm going to get for now.

The In-N-Out story is many stories of course as are most involving humans. Every person that worked at In-N-Out probably could tell their own story in fact and it would be just as full of drama and interest as the one in this book.

But the story of In-N-Out is more than anything else the story of Harry and Esther Snyder and their sons, Rich and Guy. Harry was born in the same year as my mother and Esther in 1920 so I put them in the same age range as my own parents. They opened the first store in the year I was born and their sons were just a little younger than I am. So we share a time if not a place.

So I see family lessons in this story and I see business lessons as well. There are other lessons, too, but I'll leave those for others. I think family and business is a sufficiently large universe for my brief exploration.

The first thing that occurs to me is the idea of recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities as they come along. That's what it seems to that Harry and Esther Snyder did and that's what my mom and dad did as well. It wasn't that my parents had any great plan or that they wanted to be rich. They wanted to earn a living for their family and they used what they had. And they worked their tails off, too.

Is is really that hard to recognize opportunities?

Yes, it is. Just listen to people talk sometime. I had someone the other day say to me that they could have bought my dad's farm or land around it. In the context he was letting me know that he felt he missed an opportunity. Or I hear people say things like "I thought of something like that and I don't know why I didn't act on it." I received an email a few years ago from a friend I've not seen since high school. He told about working for Hewlett-Packard when they were still in a garage. But he left before the company became successful.

Then there is the power of "saying NO."

That what my dad and mom did when it came to their farm. Over the years they had so many offers to sell it. And I'm certain there was at least some temptation because I know there were money problems at various times. But Dad just kept saying "NO" and held on to the farm. Harry and Esther Snyder and their sons did the same thing.

In both cases money was not the overarching motivating factor. I'm not saying it was unimportant because it was. But Harry Snyder wanted to make hamburgers his way and he stuck to that. My Dad used to tell me to "pay attention to your business and let other people worry about theirs."

Don't borrow money. Both my parents and the Snyders just would not do anything they could not afford without borrowing.

A couple of serious negatives though I noticed from the book.

One is that family businesses become just all consuming. I know this from personal experience and it is surely something the book makes clear in the case of In-N-Out. There is this confusion that occurs between where family life ends and business life begins.

The family business can be used to control family members and others who work for the business. That almost always has negative repercussions for everyone involved. I saw that first hand as well.

In the Snyder's case the business caused a terrible rift in the family. So far we've managed to avoid that and I want to make sure we never, ever let the family business become more important than the family. Just not worth it.

That's about it I guess.

I hope to get to an In-N-Out Burger someday and try it out.

I very much recommend this book.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

A while back Amazon offered a Kindle version of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I wasn't really interested in again reading the novel. Although I very much did enjoy reading it ages ago when I was much younger. Of course when I read it the year 1984 was still in the future. And I recall thinking that I would not be so terribly surprised to find at least some of what was described in the novel become fact.

Then when 1984 arrived it wasn't much like the novel here in the U S of A anyways.

Apparently though there were a lot of other folks who did want to read a Kindle version of the novel. Or at least they bought and downloaded copies of it.

But the publisher apparently changed its mind about the entire idea of offering an eBook version and thereby instructed Amazon to stop offering them for sale. So Amazon removed the item from the store.

Which in turn removed the titles from individual users' Kindles.

Which in turn caused quite an uproar.

Which in turn caused me to become interested in the entire matter.

In my research I found that the novel will enter the public domain in the United States in the year 2044. I'll be 96 then and probably have lost interest if I'm still around.

It turns out though that the novel has already entered the public domain in Australia and that in fact the novel in question was available for reading from a web site. I clicked the link and the book in HTML glory appeared on my computer screen.

Somehow the government is going to have to get control of this entire thing or all sorts of people are going to be reading 1984 in violation of the copyright.

Maybe we're not as far from 1984 as I thought.

Google Books and Other Digital Books

Back in 2004 Google launched the Book Search Project as it was known. Supposedly there are now some 10 Million books that have been scanned and made either wholly or in part available on line. I say "supposedly" because I have definitely not counted them.

Some authors and publishers were either not contacted or could not be contacted and so some scans were done without permission. So there was a lawsuit. Not that a lawsuit about something like this is a big surprise.

Then in 2008 a settlement was reached whereby Google would pay some $125 Million to various parties. There have been at least three federal investigations and I don't know where those stand.

It's been in the news recently, too. And at least one blogger I read posted about Google Books.

So I thought I should check it out.

I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was a young reader. I think I read most of his works although not all by any means. I am not even certain how many books he wrote.

I clicked on one of the titles the search brought up. I honestly don't know if I've read it or not. I could read it online on my computer, download a PDF or a TXT file, buy it from a list of sellers, or find a library. Pretty good I thought.

So I clicked on the Amazon link to see if I could buy the book as a Kindle version.

Sure enough I could buy it for $.80. Actually that's pretty good, too, because if I wanted it on my Kindle and downloaded it from Google then I would have to convert the PDF and then copy over to my Kindle or use the TXT and copy over. Probably worth $.80 to do that.

But while I am looking at the page I see one of those "also bought" links to a "Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs" that contained 50 of his books. FIFTY! So I click and sure enough it is what it says and is priced at $4.79 for the Kindle. That's 50 books for $4.79 for the Kindle. That's amazing.

The publisher is MobileReference.com so I surf over to their site. They have a whole bunch of books that are ready to go for the Kindle.

I did not buy the Edgar Rice Burroughs book but I might. The reason I didn't buy it is I have more books I am reading right now than ever before in my entire life. I see so many titles I would like to read and it is so easy to get them.

If it were just easier and faster to read them now.

Kindle Readers Elitist According to Author

I found this quote interesting in a recent article I was reading:

At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices “elitist” and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, "I wanted to hit her."

The article was in the NY Times titled: Book Fair Buzz Is Not Contained Between 2 Covers by Motko Rich. Oh it was dated 5/31/2009, too.

I read my Kindle on an airplane once. There were two of us with Kindles on that same flight in fact. Never did occur to me that I should be afraid of people attacking me because they would think I am an elitist.

And the Kindle is a great thing to use to read on an airplane or in a waiting room or any number of other places where space is a premium.

Never ceases to amaze me what people actually say and think.

Believe I'll pass on that book or anything else by that author.

I don't quite understand the author's hysteria about the Kindle but I suppose anyone who would consider hitting someone reading on an airplane is not really a serious person.

This generated quite a discussion on the Amazon discussion forum.

UPDATE (after original post):
The author, Sherman Alexie, has a web site, shermanalexie.com and has posted a response about both the Kindle and the article and all the emails he received.

He seems like a decent guy with deeply felt concerns about the Kindle. I really don't understand his concerns but he did post on the Amazon discussion thread about his remarks and that earned him some points with nme.

I've Been Reading Again

Run for Your Life
by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Certainly not the best Patterson book I've read. Still I enjoyed it.
I liked the characters or most of them at least. I even found a little
sympathy for the villian. It is pretty simple. Big, good looking guy
is pushed over the edge and decides to teach as many as possible a lesson by
killing as many as possible. Michael Bennet, NYCPD detective, has to stop
the killer while dealing with his own grief as a relatively new widow and single
parent with a housefull of kids. Killer decides at last minute to kill
Michael. Wonder how it ends?

The 6th Target
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Another of the women's murder club stories. I like them.
Lindsay has to solve a string of children kidnappings while breaking in a new
partner and dealing with other stuff including her romance with Joe. She
does in case anyone might wonder.

7th Heaven
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Yet another women's murder club story. I liked this one better I think
that 6th Target but then again I read it most recently. Everyone of the
club gets into the act in this one except the reporter I guess. I thought
it was enjoyable. Several stories all happening at the same time.

Wicked Prey
by John Sandford

A team of thieves puts together a pretty decent plan to pull several high dollar
robberies in the midst of the Republican convention in Minneapolis - St.
Paul. Lucas has his hands full trying to figure it out and stop them. I really like Lucas Davenport and friends -- just very cool characters.

One interesting thing about this one is that the Kindle version originally was nearly the same price as the hardcover book. Because of that I joined a boycott which is rather more political than I really am.

But when the price declined to $9.99 I bought it for my Kindle.

True Detectives, A Novel
by Jonathan Kellerman

This one really dealt with two new characters although my old favorites, Alex
Delaware and Milo Sturgis, do show up. The pace was a little slow at
first and for a while I didn't think I was going to like the characters
much. But by the end I had decided I would read more about these 2
brothers. Not exactly up to Kellerman's normal book I think.

Book: Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

Cazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
by Francis Chan

Francis and Lisa Chan founded Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, CA in 1994. He writes some about his biography in the book but otherwise I did not find a lot about him from the web.

There is a web site for the book, too: crazylovebook.com.

Chan talks about how many Christians become so without really having a clear understanding of God's character and the resulting, "crazy" love that He displays towards us.

Moreover he says that if we really grasp God's character and love that there is really only one valid response on our part. That is our unrestrained, "crazy" love for God.

He goes on to discuss this idea in several different ways. The chapters are relatively short and easy to read and appreciate. He uses a good many Scripture references and intersperses them clearly and artfully. On my Kindle the default font size was rather large but easily changed.

There were for me several notable and memorable places in the book.

One chapter discusses the parable of the soils and Chan writes "Don't assume you are good soil." I smiled when I read that for several reasons. We do often find it easier to associate ourselves with the hero than the villain.

Another chapter discusses what it means to be lukewarm and Chan declares that a lukewarm Christian is simply an oxymoron -- not possible.

Yet another place he says that a Christian life really should not make sense to non-believers. I smiled again.

I think I most enjoyed the little examples of actual people who have sold out entirely to the Lord. I think Chan does those particularly well.

In thinking about the book now that I have finished I realize that I did not really enjoy it as much as I had expected before I began reading. Partly I think that's because of high expectations.

I do agree with so much of what Chan says though and much of what he does is well done I think.

When I read something like this though I always worry that some might feel a need for greater human works than greater faith. Chan does not say this by any stretch. But I do worry about it.

It is a worthwhile read I think.

Book: Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz

Your Heart Belongs to Me: A Novel
by Dean Koontz

I've read several books by Dean Koontz but I cannot say I am a really big fan of his work.

His books that I've read have been fast paced and interesting and surprising and suspenseful and most all the things I like. But I guess they are just a little too weird for me.

But I hadn't read one of his in a while and I was needing some new stuff and this one was available for my Kindle and I clicked the button and there it was.

I read the first couple of chapters a while back and they didn't seem very "koontz-like and they didn't interest me terribly much either. So I got busy with something else and read several other titles.

But over Memorial Day weekend I decided I needed to catch up and finish reading several of my underway titles and this one was included. I can't say I was terribly happy about reading it for quite a while but I persevered through the end.

The story is about this rich "dotcom" guy that is in love with this wonderful girl who also loves him but rejects his marriage proposal. Then it turns out the rich guy needs a heart transplant. His girlfriend begs him to just let the process unfold naturally without trying to manage everything himself. He, of course, says he will but later cannot resist his need to control everything and changes doctors.

Soon afterwards he is flown out of country on his own jet with accompanying surgeon and staff to receive the heart that has conveniently beome available.

But in doing so he loses his girlfriend who finds out he couldn't keep from micromanaging.

And at this point in the book I thought ot myself that it was a good thing he had involved himself because otherwise it wasn't looking so good to actually get a heart.

There's a place in the book where this lady private ey tells the rich guy that the roots of violence are lust, envy, anger, avarice, and vengenance. At the time I thought it was about someone that was trying to do the rich guy in and he did, too.

It seems that he is having all these strange things happen not the least of which is this woman he keeps seeing from time to time. He has the private investigators find out who donated his heart and the woman is a spitting image of the donor.

I'm giving the ending away now -- so if you don't want to know what happens -- stop here.



Turns out the woman is the sister of the donor. The donor wasn't a volunteer either. And that new doctor wasn't exactly a great humanitarian since he basically bought the heart.

So it turns out that the rich guy's micromanaging of his situation set in motion a string of events that claimed an innocent life.

At the time I finished the book I still didn't much care for the book.

But in the few days since I finished I've been thinking about it and I've changed my mind. I really like this story now.

I like the lesson of this story and find a good deal of truth in it.

I'm one of those who has often succumbed to the temptation to try to control things myself. For one thing I hate to lose and for another I hate to give up. So I go all out usually.

Sometimes my zealousness has produced a variety and a number of unintended consequences that were apparent.

I wonde what the ones were that were not so obvious.

A very thought provoking book from Mr. Koontz.

Kindle - $9.99 Boycott - Revisited

Just a few days ago I blogged about the so called "Kindle Boycott" of titles costing more than $9.99 by Kindle users. That blog was titled A Chink in the Kindle - $9.99 boycott.

I was on the verge of purchasing John Sandford's new book, Wicked Prey, when I noticed the price for a Kindle version was only $1.40 less than the price of a hardback edition.

So yesterday (May 21, 2009) the price was reduced to $9.99. I bought it and it was delivered in a few minutes to my Kindle. I haven't started reading it yet but I will probably read it over the weekend.

The "boycott" is a pretty loose term I think for what is happening over at Amazon. I think a lot of us that have expressed our disappointment over the Kindle pricing are not much into boycotting stuff. I am certainly not.

But in one of the discussion forum topics about the $9.99 price issue there are more than 360 participants and more than 2500 posts. I remember one time someone telling me that less than 1% of the people would respond to a survey but that 1% would reflect the same sentiment of a much larger group. If that's true that means there could be tens of thousands of people who feel that the Kindle pricing is out of line.

I seriously doubt the "boycott" had any real bearing on Putnam reducing the price of the book I wanted to buy. It might have but really I have no way of knowing for sure one way or another.

More likely I suspect is that a whole bunch of us made similar individual decisions about buying. At the same time I think publishers and authors are struggling with complex issues about how to address this new digital age in which we all find ourselves living.

Regardless the reason I am happy the price was reduced on a title I wanted and I am happy I was able to buy it.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

It was March 28, 2008 when I first blogged about reading this book on my Kindle. At the time I reported that the hardcover book was 944 pages and weighed in at 2.4 lbs. according to the information from Amazon's site. On Kindle it was under 5 Mb.

I actually purchased and downloaded it on March 22, 2008. And just for the record I paid $9.99 and I don't know what the hardcover price was then. It was published in December, 2006 though; so, it had been out awhile.

Really I did not expect it to take more an a year to read the book. And the book was interesting. The writing was fine although not exactly of "page turner" style. In terms of style and format I would have really appreciated shorter chapters and there are so many details and characters presented that it is easy to become bogged down in them and distracted from the story.

But the story itself is so interesting and intriguing that this really is a wonderful read. About 1/'3 of it is notes and references and so on including a photo section -- all in the back. This is not history you learn in school. Really it is neither dry nor uninteresting. Many of all those details I just complained about help provide a decent human understanding of both the people and times.

This book made more real for me the horror of the civil war and the sacrifice of so many men and women who ultimately waged it in all too bloody terms a great moral struggle.

At the end the pages that describe the assassination and the near term aftermath are so poignant. If I had read nothing else I think that alone would make the entire book worthwhile.

Lincoln is the central character as one might expect and by the end of the book his already giant standing in my mind had grown by several orders of magnitude.

Slavery is so strange to contemplate as such an everyday, casual part of life. Then the fact that it took a terrible war with horrible losses on both sides to resolve the issue is even more amazing to me.

As horrible as war is, and that one was, it is even more horrible to think that the evil of slavery be allowed to survive even a short time longer.

I wonder how things would have been different if Lincoln had survived and been able to lead the nation during the subsequent reuniting of the country.

I thought at one point during my reading that one high mark of leadership was simply staying the course.

I am certain I am going to be thinking about this work for a good while. I am glad it is over but I am so glad I've read it.

I really recommend this book if you have the time and patience.