World Snowboard Guide: Where to Snowboard
After a great snowboarding trip we needed help to plan the next one - this seemed like the perfect answer.
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The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
Unlike Richard, I'm not very good at reading "work related" books. I often find them too dry and academic. Not this one though.
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Asleep
Three short stories, all revolving around the theme of sleep.
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The Stars' Tennis Balls
This book is an interesting read, it's got intrigue, revenge and is a tale that spans many years.
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The Salmon of Doubt
This is a collection of Douglas's articles from magazines, interviews as well as the unfinished Dirk Gently novel "Salmon of Doubt".
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The House of Spirits
From the Back Cover:
"Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters. Together, men and women, spirits, the forces of nature, and of history, converge in an unforgettable, wholly absorbing and brilliantly realised novel that is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature."
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Last chance to see
"After years of reflecting on the absurdities of life on other planets, DOuglas Adams teams up with zoologist Mark Carwardine on an expidition to find out what's happening to life on this one."
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Doctor Death
Another Dr Dellaware thriller from Jonathan Kellerman. I've read quite a few of the Dr Dellaware books and they are always a good read.
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The Salmon of Doubt
Douglas Adams died in 2001, but here's a book from all the stuff they found on his Mac's hard drive.
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The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book
I've been re-reading all my Calvin and Hobbes books.
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Soloing
It's not about freelancing -- it's more than that. It's a whole life thing.
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Some like it Cold
After having read "The worst journey in the world" about Scott's 1910 - 1913 Antarctic expedition, I wanted to read a more modern account. This was the one I found in our local Borders.
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The worst journey in the world
A fascinating insight into what was really a horrific journey, testing the human mind and body to it's limits.
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All Families Are Psychotic
Good story, good characters, good humour. All in all a good read.
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I Am an Oil Tanker
So, Fi Glover decided to go and visit some local radio stations around the world to find out their stories.
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Five Quarters of the Orange
The style is unmistakable. It follows in the tradition of Chocolat and Blackberry Wine. Easy reading, good story.
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The Blind Assassin
I've read quite a few of Margaret Atwood's books over the years, and this, for me, is the best so far.
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Lonely Planet Unpacked
This is a collection of travel horror stories, stories when things weren't going so well, when danger was around the corner - or nearer. All written by the authors of the Lonely Planet series of guidebooks.
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Travel Photography - a guide to taking better pictures
As well as being really informative, there are some really good photographs in this book. The author, Richard I'Anson, is one of the Lonely Planet photographers, and has had his work used in over 150 different Lonely Planet titles.
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Learning Python
I've heard good things about Python, so I thought I'd take a look.
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Learning Oracle PL/SQL
I've had to dabble in PL/SQL on and off for a few years, but I'd now exhausted the limits of grabbing quick fixes from Google. Time to learn this stuff properly.
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Eon
A piece of our own history comes back in time during the cold war, just before the bombs start falling.
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The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies
Maybe we will live forever after all.
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Can You Tell What It Is Yet?
Rolf Harris has been on the TV for as long as I can remember, but I didn't know anything about him until I listened to his autobiography.
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Apache: The Definitive Guide
Don't bother: use the Apache web site instead.
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All Families Are Psychotic
I've got into the habit of liking the way Coupland writes, so much so that I've now lost the ability to
say whether this book (this story) is good or not. "I enjoyed it very much", is about the best I can do.
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Professional Java Server Programming J2EE, 1.3 Edition
Big but packed with useful stuff. Tells you what you need to know.
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The Juicy Guide to the City of Brighton & Hove
A guide for living in Brighton.
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Java and XSLT
The best text covering the use of XSLT from Java.
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Database Programming with JDBC and Java, Second Edition
An OK guide to JDBC.
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Designing Enterprise Applications with the Java 2 Platform: Enterprise Edition
The J2EE "blueprints" book. Good but dull.
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Low Fat, Low Sugar
I own a lot of recipe books, and most of them are bought because they look nice, or have one or two frequently used recipes in. This one was bought for health reasons, cutting down on fat is good right?
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The Thirty Nine Steps
"Richard Hannay gets caught up quite suddenly, on a dull London afternoon, in a situation of extreme danger. Before he knows what is happening he is the obvious suspect for a murder committed in his own flat, and has to go on the run to his native Scotland."
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I Am an Oil Tanker
Travel the world and meet quirky local radio.
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Java Cookbook
A big FAQ of Java coding.
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Linux Network Administrator's Guide
Clues for setting up and maintaining a Linux network.
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Chromosome Six
Action and adventure in New York and West Africa while growing backup body parts inside monkeys.
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MindBend
The second Robin Cook book I've read recently where the ending seems like an after thought.
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Speaking with the Angel
A collection of short stories by some very well known authors - Nick Hornby, Roddie Doyle compiled in this offering to raise money and awareness of The Treehouse Trust, a charity for autistic children.
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Snowball Oranges
Another book about a Brit moving overseas. This time it's a Scottish family who move over to Mallorca.
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Land of Miracles
Cuba is a country which I keep thinking about visiting, and when I spotted this book in Stamfords in London I thought I'd take a look at it.
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No Worries
Knowing nothing of Australia except the lager-ad cliches of sun and surf, ockers and sheilas, kangaroos and didgeridoos, Mark McCrum arrives Down Under. Hitching, flying, by Greyhound and by train, he makes his picaresque way around the vast brown land. From royalist hippies to republican cattle-ranchers, from Queensland jillaroos to Indo-Chinese immigrants, from Perth millionaires to desert Aboriginals, he meets modern Aussies of every kind.
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Rebel Code
The history of the open source software movement.
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Chromosome 6
A typical Robin Cook medical thriller - another real page turner. This is, I think, the first Robin Cook I've read which is about characters I've met in a previous book - Contagion.
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Java Cryptography
A refresher on the basics and a guide to doing cryptography with Java.
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Blackberry Wine
This is another easy to read book. An entertaining tale, and again the characters are brought to life by Joanne Harris.
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Extreme Programming in Practice
They tried XP on a web project, and this is what happened.
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The Brethren
I've read quite a few Grisham books, and this one was dissapointing. It just wasn't as gripping as I normally find them.
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Speaking with the Angel
Collection of short stories from Hornby, Doyle, Fielding, Welsh, O'Farrell....
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Anil's Ghost
Anil Tissera, a forensic anthropologist, has returned to Sri Lanka, a land steeped in culture and tradition, to investigate organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. This is a story of love, family, and identity, set in a country torn apart and ravaged by civil war.
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The Bride of Science: a Life of Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace, daughter of Byron, friend of Babbage, author of the first computer program... this is your life.
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Effective Java
This is the book that makes you go "ahh" and then go running to you Java code to make some quick changes.
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Java Internationalization
Given that most people on the planet don't speak English I thought I should take some time
to learn how to use Java's internationalization features.
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The Essential Guide to Digital Set Top Boxes and Interactive TV
No, it's not about which set-top box to buy, it's a book about the technologies, protocols and
architectures involved in digital TV.
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Extra Virgin
"When Annie Hawes buys a hillside cottage in Italy for no more than the price of a dodgy second-hand car, a capable young Englishwoman becomes a surprisingly incapable Ligurian signorina..."
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
"The summer holidays are dragging on and Harry Potter can't wait for the start of the school year. It is his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and there are spells to be learnt, potions to be brewed and Divination lessons (sigh) to be attended. Harry is expecting these: however, other quite unexpected events are already on the march..."
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban
"Harry Potter, along with his best friends, Ron and Hermione, is about to start his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry can't wait to get back to school after the summer holidays. (Who wouldn't if they lived with the horrible Dursleys?). But when Harry gets to Hogwarts, the atmosphere is tense. There's an escaped mass murderer on the loose, and the sinister prison guards of Azkhaban have been called in to guard the school..."
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
"Harry Potter is a wizard. He is in his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Little does he know that this year will be just as eventful as the last..."
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
"Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The Reason: HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD"
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Playing the Moldovans at Tennis
"It all started in Balham. Tony Hawks is at his friend Arthur Smith's House watching the England football team play the little-known Eastern European state of Modova on TV. The game fails to hold their interest, and, for no reason other than sheer boredom, the pair become involved in a pointless argument about how good Tony is at tennis."
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Anvil of Stars
"82 young people travel the enormity of space on a quest for war and vengeance against The Planet Eaters"
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Around Ireland with a Fridge
Tony Hawks (an English comedian) is bet 100 GBP that he can't hitch-hike around Ireland with a fridge.
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Chocolat
"When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer's wares as the ultimate sin."
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100 NZ Short Short Stories
This book is the result of a 1996 competition to collect together the best short stories of roughly 500 words each (so that's
about one-and-a-half to two pages per story in this book). There's no particular theme, so the stories range
all over the place: funny, odd, sad, love, death.
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XML in a Nutshell
This is the book I have to hand when doing any tricky XML, XSL stuff.
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Learning to Fly Helicopters
Stuff every boy should know.
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The Predictors
The true story of how chaos pioneers, Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard, applied learning algorithms to crack the world's financial markets. Apparently it all works and they're making lots of money.
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Planning Extreme Programming
How to plan, estimate, spec and run projects with extreme programming.
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Almost everyone who mentioned Harry Potter to me also described it as a great read. I tried to get into it,
but I couldn't make it past the first two chapters. It didn't hold
my interest. But the audio version is a very different experience.
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Anvil of Stars
Kids in space to avenge the death of the Earth. Lovely stuff.
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Down Under
It's a Bill Bryson book. If you like any of his previous books, you'll probably like this one.
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Lonely Planet: New Zealand
A useful guide for my brief "make it up as you go along" visit to NZ, but with hindsight I
wouldn't have used the book.
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Playing the Moldovans at Tennis
Looks like Tony Hawks has started a new career as a serial dare-taker with a hint of travel writing. Can't be
long before he takes a film crew with him and turns one of these dares into a TV series. And I'd probably watch.
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The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
It's too easy to gush about this book. The topic is how to display data to get the information across
in the most honest and useful way. To tell that, you learn some history, see some very creative
graphics and also see some very bad graphics.
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Anti-patterns: Refactoring software, architectures
and projects in crisis
Someone said "you learn more from your mistakes than successes". I believe that, so I couldn't resist this book. I've read (well, own) the
patterns book which gives me a collection of coding frameworks or approaches that
have worked before. So I had to look at Anti-Patterns for the list of things which don't work.
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The Forge of God
No messing around: page 6, Europa goes missing. Page 18, alien found.
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Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide
Something I've been dabbling in and thought I'd better find out about properly.
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The Old Man and the Sea
I didn't read this for the
story. I read it because it is supposed to be a classic book. And it
is.
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Blast From the Past
Loved the start, loved all the twists and
turns at the end.
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Refactoring
You try to write the best code you can, but you can't predict the future and when you go back to some
code it has "gone off" and you need to change it (it works, but you can't live with it anymore). You need to refactor.
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Bernice Bobs Her Hair
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is a track on Divine Comedy's Liberation album.
The lyrics sounded so obviously like a novel, I had to go track it down.
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Swarm Intelligence From Natural to Artificial Systems
I'm glad I skim-read this one. Lots of interesting detail
and maths that you'd need if you were building a model.
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Eyewitness Travel Guide to San Francisco & Northern California
I've never bought an Eyewitness guide before. They've always seemed lacking in information and just overly glossy. More
tourist then traveler. Then I realized that I rarely read all of a 1000 page travel guide.
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Lonely Planet: California & Nevada
I've recently found myself preferring the Lonely Planet guides over my old favourites, the Rough Guides.
Does this mean I'm getting old or something?
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Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
It's like the usability of shopping. I don't know how seriously to take this particular science, but it's a great read.
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Miss Wyoming
His best one yet. If you like that kind of thing. Don't know?
Try the first few paragraphs...
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EXtreme Programming EXplained
I want to believe. I really do. I'm almost there: lots of testing, yes.
Refectoring, yes. The simplest thing that works, yes. No to big methodologies.
Pair programming, yes... but all the time? What about teleworking?
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