26 May 2004

Five Quarters of the Orange Just finished this book.  I really enjoyed it, fewer characters and better developed, a bit dark but very well developed and with fewer tricks and magic, just good old story telling. 2:56:03 PM      comment [] Coastliners Not Joannes best book in my view, but a good read none the less.  being a Coastliner myself though I think it appealed to me more than most other reviewers.  Like many of Joannes books I tend to feel they are a bit too short given the number of interesting characters she has I would like to get to know them a bit better.  2:53:02 PM      comment [] The Dalai Lama's book of transformation I carry this little book around with me.  It fits perfectly in the side pocket of my combats, so I can read it whenever I have a spare moment.  I find its great to have something to do when you would ordinarily be waiting around in a queue for example, and the best thing is that when you are waiting around you tend to be fairly receptive to thinking through the ideas and concepts in this powerful little book. 2:46:24 PM      comment [] Genius - Richard Feynman and Modern Physics Just started this book, although I have had it for a while.  Looks like its going to be a good read so far 2:40:53 PM      comment [] Chocolat A fine book, not in my view quite as good as Blackberry Wine, but then I read them in the wrong order.  Still a very enjoyable read, very nicely crafted, perhaps a little too short as I would have liked to see the characters developed a little more.  They were very interesting characters and I was left wanting to understand them a bit more. 10:52:27 AM      comment [] Blackberry Wine A really good novel, probably my favourite of all Joannes books.  The only things I disliked about it was the insistence on sticking with the "clever idea" she has at the start of the book of describing things from the perspective of one of the 'special' bottles of wine.  Whilst it seems clever at the start I found that the story was so strong without it that in the end it detracted from the main themes of the story.  10:49:52 AM      comment [] Utopia Just started this little book so I am not really sure where its taking me.  This version has a lot of preample putting the book in its historical context and talks a lot about the approach taken to the translation, and compares this approach with other translations, ie its a slow start unless you are interested in that sort of thing.  I am reading this book because my wife bought it to read and then left it lying on the shelf, something had to be done! 10:45:31 AM      comment [] FLOW An interesting book that takes 300 plus pages to describe what it probably could do in 20.  The basic idea, you are happiest when you are involved or imersed in what you are doing.  It then gives loads of examples of how this can happen in sports, music, work etc.  Not the most practical book on the subject of happiness and it seems to neglect lots of things in pursuit of the FLOW concept.  For example it does not talk at all about the effect on happiness of advertising, too much choice, not living in the moment etc. 10:42:23 AM      comment [] The JOY of Working from Home A little book that concentrates mainly on opportunities for working from home.  If you already have a job and are looking to work from home then its not so appropriate.  But it does give a few hints on issues you might face working from home like feelings of isolation etc.  Not my best find on the subject.  In fact I would recommend te following web site as an alternative to any of the books I have read: http://www.flexibility.co.uk/index.htm 10:38:20 AM      comment [] Radio Userland Kick Start This book provides an introduction to using and programming Radio Userland.  I thought I would give it a read as it seems that radio userland is quite a powerful and flexible environment.  I have already played around with a few additional tools, particularly as I wanted a bit more power when entering blog entries via email.  In the end I settled on using assetManager as I could not get the more powerful MailEdit to work! 10:34:45 AM      comment []

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