Page Count Grade 0-9 Date I finished Source (FPL Fargo Public Library)
Enjoyable Science Fiction/Comedy. 3/4 through the book I realized it was a psuedo satire of Logan's Run. Hank is Logan, but a Pick Up artist not DS man Homer is his female dog not the killer weapon Henry is his pregnant girlfriend like Jessica He's looking for a Hank Williams LP not Sactuary. The cloned Indian Bob's are like box. 240 pages 7.8 1/6/04 FPL
The piece on Tom Waitts was pretty good, but I had read much better peices of music writing. I don't think the editor looked very hard. 288 pages 2.2 1/10/04 Craig
A Terranical coach who we find out loved his players. A short bittersweat tale, which would probably make a good movie. 163 pages 7.6 1/12/04 Victor
A good job editing the orginal journals. I would have dropped the inventive spellings after a few chapters. I would not have dropped them all together as they give an interesting favor. It seemed they had more problems with bears than with Indians. Victor and I are taking a class in March, this is the suggested reading. Ambrose's book is better overview. 203 pages 7.0 1/19/04 FPL
100 Industrial Strength Tips And Tools
A good book to read, but it was due back before I was ready to build my new computer, hopefully? with Windows XP. Maybe I'll check it out again. I find these kind of computer books more useful than the 'dummies' type. 362 pages 6.9 3/1/04 FPL
The stories which Suzanne told me were better than reading the stories in the book. It was a let down. 338 pages 0.0 3/9/04 Suzanne
100 Industrial Strength Tips And Tools
The worm, Leto II, gets on everyone's nerves including the readers. By the end of the book, you're glad Duncan Idaho and Siona kill him. 423 pages 5.0 3/25/04 FPL
I'm beginning to think Frank only had one good book in him. (His son is another story.) This book rambles on for 300 pages, finally starts getting interesting, and then ends off camera. I don't find the Bene Gesserit that interesting. 471 pages 4.7 4/20/04 FPL
Programers Reference
I wanted a reference book on CSS that wasn't too expensive and this is a very good. I would like more examples or screen shot, but then it is a reference. Some tags are endless duplications ie: border, border-left, border-right, border-top, border-bottom- which could all be lumped together. I have websites (Eric's in particular) book marked so there are some examples, and I ordered his other book from the library- more practical examples. I use CSS now but know there is more I could be doing with it. 316 pages 5.0 4/23/04 Craig
A New History
I got this from Suzanne at Christmas; it took me this long to read it! Doing some art myself I would read a paragraph and then thing about it, then read the paragraph again. Not enough photos, he should have at least set up a website. Too much primative art, archetecture, fashion art. He should have written more than one book- one for each subject. Even then I don't think I learned much other than he doesn't care for non-representational art- but then who does. ha ha. It does make a good reference for further research. 752 pages 3.0 4/25/04 Craig
A good book but there isn't much to the iPod, so there isn't much to this book. There is more to iTunes and then there are 3-4 different iPods so the book is sort of padded out. 298 pages 4.9 5/4/04 FPL
I don't think any of the post-Dune books are worth reading. Like "Heretics Of Dune" this book rattles on for 300+ pages then the action begins only to end prematurely, inconculsively, and anti-climatically. It's always a bad sign when you don't care what happens or you don't care about any of the charactors. I am interested in reading Brian Herberts sequels to see if he can keep up 'his' good work on Dune using his father's notes. 436 pages 2.8 5/12/04 FPL
Mastering The Language Of Web Design
You need to know CSS to get anything out of this book, but if you do, it's really good. A practical guide to using CSS. It cleared up some of the abstract knowledge I had about CSS. I got the book through the interlibrary loan program, so I didn't have the book as long as I would have liked to. 310 pages 7.0 5/21/04 FPL
A look at the second gulf war from the ground. The included DVD was pretty good too. 297 pages 6.7 5/22/04 Suzanne
Interesting look at my favorite comedy group and Suzanne's bankroll. I thought I wouldn't learn much having read a number of other Python books before but this was all behind the scenes and so I did learn about Python. 351 pages 7.5 5/29/04 FPL
The stories has a simple sameness to them. At first I thought I would abandon the book. I would read one story every so often and then the book was finished. 335 pages 3.5 6/13/04 FPL
"How I exposed hucksters, cheats, and scam sartists and became the scourge of the liberal media..." This the libertarianism which I believe in. He's very plain spoken and I don't know how anyone can argue with him, but they do. That's what's so frustrating- anyone can see the damage being done; yet no one wants to undo the damage- instead they want to make it worse. 286 pages 7.7 6/13/04 Suzanne
The Epic Encounter That Transformed The Middle East
A well written account of a fasinating war. I kept waiting for the Israeli army to attack- I already knew they won the war. However it wasn't until they were almost finished off that Israel found a way to pull victory out of defeat. It started when Egypt over reached and Kissinger leveraged the USSR fear of what would happen if the war was left unchecked. 515 pages 7.5 6/27/04 FPL
The Definitive Guide
This book was his first on CSS. It's pretty good but out of date. When the second edition comes out- that might be the best CSS book to get, although his tutorial books are pretty good. I feel I'm starting to get a feel for CSS, althought there are a lot of browser problems I worry about. 401 pages 6.0 6/29/04 FPL
"The Illustrated story of armored battlefield conflict in the Twentieth Century" I really wanted a short book on Tank Technology but this was the closest I could find. The armor vs gun charts were good but only dealt with WWII tanks. The water color illustrations were very good. 190 pages 4.5 7/1/04 FPL
It didn't read like a story. The writing could have been better too, but it did manage to cram a lot of information in a few pages. Sure the indians got a raw deal but what's interesting is how forgiving they seem to be about it. Stoic. 207 pages 4.3 7/13/04 FPL
Suzanne recommended the book. I got the impression it was like "The Da Vinci Code" but it wasn't. The charactors were flat and I really didn't care about them. If they hadn't been famous I would not been able to keep them straight. The action was slow and plodding. 370 pages 2.0 7/20/04 Suzanne
100 Industrial Strength Tips & Tools
The tips weren't as good as the google tips, but I should probably try them before passing judgement. If nothing make sure the links on my website to Amazon are correct and review my Associate account. 268 pages 5.2 8/4/04 FPL
Attempts At Flight Before And After The Wright Brothers
The book could be much longer and I've seen longer collections of odd aircraft. I think he should of kept his sights on Wright Brother era attempts and expanded the comments there. 213 pages 5.4 8/5/04 FPL
A very good read. The charactors were well developed and for a change I actually cared what happened to them- even the minor charactors. The story was good: a prostitute's (Sugar) rise in 1875 London. The ending is sort of abrupt, but I like it because it let's your imagination run. (I think they went to America- for the following day's lesson.) 895 pages 8.0 8/12/04 Suzanne
Paul handed me this book. I read it with the idea that we'll start making some root beer. I looked over the recipes and picked some easy ones. I hope it tastes good. 114 pages 5.3 8/13/04 Suzanne
Smithsonian National Air And Space Museum
This would be a good book if the text was legible- it's too small and printed in a very light ink that actually reflects light. A lot of the artifacts are sort of everyday. Not that it's bad but I would like to see a better selection of objects. 157 pages 5.7 8/15/04 FPL
Dreamers, Doers, And Daredevils
The Markup And Style Handbook
The standards are almost 100% CSS with just a little XHTML thrown in. I didn't see anything that I'm not already using. I was sort of a nice review. There were some tricks that were clever but nothnig I would use. 238 pages 3.0 8/28/04 FPL
This was a great story which reads like a Clancy book. Enough details to keep me interested but not so many as to make it like a text book. The chapters on the Mossad and the F-16 were very interesting. There were many parallels to Afganistan and Iraq. 242 pages 8.6 8/29/04 FPL
Blood Sport, The Bush Doctrine, And The Downward Spiral Of Dumbness
I enjoy reading Thompson. I don't agree with anything he says but I like how he says it- very entertaining. Considering his track record on the one thing he claims to be an expert on, Gambling, his other advice is probably not very good either. 244 pages 5.0 9/4/04 FPL
I enjoyed reading this story. Everything was good, the charactors, the plot, and the telling. This is why I like reading Grisham stories. 355 pages 7.8 9/6/04 FPL
100 Industrial-Strength Tips And Tools
Richard's books are good, and even some of his poems, but this collection of poetry wasn't very good. "It's Time to Wake Up: I set the alarm for 9 a.m./ but it wasn't necessary./ The earthquake at 7:30 woke me up.//From the middle of a dream/ I was suddenly lying there/ feeling the hotel shake,/ wondering if room 3003/ would soon be a Shinjuku/ intersection/ 30 floors below.//It sure beats the hell/ out of an alarm clock. 97 pages 3.2 9/12/04 FPL
David was very funny on Letterman and the reviews of the book were very good, but I did not find the book all that funny. I'm guessing it would be much better as a book-on-tape. The stories were interesting and the writting was okay, but not terribly funny. 257 pages 5.2 9/22/04 FPL
This was warm story about a Bangledesh girl who moves to England, raises a family and leaves a rather ordinary life as an immigrant. It was well written and the charactors were developed and likable. I think Suzanne like it more than me but I did enjoy reading it. 369 pages 7.1 9/23/04 Suzanne
100 Industrial-Strength Tips And Tools
The market for this book has to be pretty narrow, namely professional Flash designers. I know enough Flash so I could follow along, but it's obvious that Flash has changed a lot since version 4.0a. (Which I have and use.) It seems using Action Scripts has taken over most of the timeline functions. 452 pages 5.5 9/23/04 FPL
Very interesting. Life sure seems bleak in Iran especially if you're a woman. The books is made up of a short story that is "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and then rest of the chapters are her memoir which is more interesting. Lolita becomes an allegory for women in Iran- although she claims it's not. The saddest chapter maybe Azar as a student in the US demanding a revolution. Revolutions rarely work- little did they realize they would be getting fewer rights rather than more. 347 pages 7.2 9/27/04 Suzanne
100 Industrial-Strength Tips And Tools
This book had lots of interesting ideas for the photo enthusiast. Even I learned a few things. www.oreilly.com/catalog/digphotohks/ fireworks at ?8 and very long exposures-placing a card in front of the lens between explosions. Using Quicktime Pro, Proper flash technique- turn off red eye flash. Unsharpen Mask filter at 12% 1.0 pixel radius 4 level threshold. 298 pages 7.5 10/2/04 FPL
Seven Wonders Of The Nineteenth Century, From The Building Of The London Sewers To The Panama Canal
Each chapter was an interesting look at some structure. Often it was something you wouldn't even think of such as the London Sewers- a structure that saved tens of thousands of lives and greatly improved the lives for those living in London. Conversely something like the Panama Canal cost 25,000 lives to build mostly due to Yellow Fever. One wonders how any project such as these could be built now if so much as one person got injured or killed. 265 pages 7.0 10/15/04 FPL
A Rock And Roll Novel
I hated the story but enjoyed reading it?! The story is a fictional 'Forest Gump' look at Rock 'n' Roll through the eyes of two rock critics. One follows and writes the epitat of Neal Pollack- who is the forest-gump-like critic who ran into every major rock star early in their career. Unfortunately,nothing good comes from these meetings. Usually it's just sex and drugs. It seems ripe for humor but there was very little in this book. 260 pages 7.0 10/17/04 FPL
Timothy looks back on his life in Astronomy talks with other Astronomers, both professional and amateur and makes a strong case for Amateur Astronomy. 301 pages 4.9 10/26/04 Suzanne
Traitors, Crooks & Obstructionists In American Politics, Media & Business
A screed about politicians being politicians and demanding more government to deal with it. Parts of it were interesting but it wasn't nearly as good as his previous books. Each topic could easily have been dealt with in an editorial or a column. At chapter length it became to repetitive. The whole 'off with their heads' was tacky. 286 pages 4.7 10/26/04 FPL
The Dublin Saga
A nice long enjoyable read. It's the same style as his other books. The history of Ireland told through a couple of families. Each episode in history is like a short story, so although the book is long, you don't have to read it all at once. 770 pages 6.6 11/7/04 Suzanne
This was a good story but I don't really see the point in writing it. It almost seemed to close the door to sequels, unless you consider moving Ringworld a way to start over. It would have been easier to follow if I had read the prequels recently but it's been years, so I was kind of last. Niven used the action and dialog to sort of fill in that information but much of it was lost on me. 284 pages 7.0 11/13/04 FPL
Well written and not that difficult except for chapter 3 (Which is an overview of Domestic organizations, and is dry as sand.) Everything about the book is balanced and well reasoned. There doesn't seem to be any blame except a lack of coordination and a lack of imagination. We're always fighting the last war. The recommendations sound good, but it all depends on the details and the implementation. My take is better ID (less privacy)and more aggressive border control would have gone a long way to stopping this evil. 428 pages 7.0 12/17/04 FPL
Short Stories By Musicians
Some of the stories were good `Pearlywhite' by Marc Laidlaw and John Shirley. And some were poor: John Entwisle. A number didn't seem to have any plot or much charactor development. Still the book showed rock musicians in surprisingly good light- who knew they could write anything other than doggel lyrics. 328 pages 5.4 12/22/04 FPL
In 1986 (earlier?) to November 1987 I subscribed to Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Like most magazines, I tear out the good articles and save them in a pile. Unlike most magazine, this stack of stories, managed to stay around. Usually I go through my magazine piles and by slowly weeding them everything ends up in the garbage sooner or later. The IASFM stack sat in the attic for 15+ years, and then in my closet for a few more. As the year ended, I ran out of books and realized this was the perfect time to read this collection of my favorite stores. Some didn't age very well, but most were either funny or very cool. 466 pages 7.5 12/31/04 Craig