Eubie's notes

Cover of The Blue Nowhere

Cover of Whiteout

I like technical thrillers, and finished two good ones recently: Jeffrey Deaver’s “The Blue Nowhere” and Ken Follett’s “Whiteout.” These two titles were suggest by a poster at The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, and the books were just the thing I was in the mood to enjoy them.

“Blue Nowhere” focuses on computer hacking, and “Whiteout” focuses on bioterrorism. The books were written a few years ago and show some touches of age in the technology described, but it’s not too outdated to spoil the story.

I’ve read other books by the authors before and they’re good reads. Follett’s “Eye of the Needle” and Deaver’s “Garden of the Beasts” were also good reads.

Cover of Garden of Beasts

I read “Garden of Beasts” and another book about pre-war Germany, but the author and title of that has slipped my memory. Both were good examples of books that look at murder, etc. within the stage of another great event. The two books reminded me of “Foyle’s War.”

Thriller fiction is one of my favorites, and I’ve long enjoyed reading Crichton and Tom Clancy. Now I have more choices for books I can’t put down until I find out what happens.

WSJ: Five Best — Sense of Ummah — These books are essential to understanding Islam.

Outlier’s may be Malcolm Gladwell’s best book. It is much more intresting and informative than Tipping Point, the book that brough him worldwide attention.

Outlier looks at factors that contribute to success, under his belief that success isn’t something almost magical — where anyone through hardwork, perserverance and some good luck can be successful. Success is based on hard work — lots of it — and other factors, including the culture one is raised in and other factors including period when one was born. For Canadian hockey players, for example, the time to be born is the first quarter of the year.

This book will create discussions about points in the book, such as the value of year-round school compared with big summer vacation schools and if Southerners still have the society of honor as much now as a few decades ago.

Bill Bryson writes great books that are smart and witty. “Shakespeare: The World as Stage” is another great book by him. I learned more about Shakespeare, the period he lived and what we really know and don’t know about him from this book. Bryson has never disappointed me.

Finished two good books this week: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammond and Tribes by Seth Godin.

Maltese was the read-to-sleep book and it helped to be so familiar with the movie. There were a couple of places I would have gotten lost. I think the movie did a great job of casting and was very true to the book.

Tribes was an audiobook. It had some intresting points, but I don’t see it as ground-breaking book. Good things to know, good things to try. It’s best thought of as a different way to operate and be important in an organization.

“How Doctors Think” by Jerome Groopman, M.D. offers insight into how doctors approach their diagnosis and tries to offer suggestions on how patients can use that information to avoid medical mistakes and quicker diagnosis to problems.

Finished “Guns, Steel, and Germs” by Jared Diamond. It attempted to explain why different parts of the world developed at different rates. He looks at various factors including the number of mammals in the area, the diversity of plants and the orientation of the continent (east/west compared with a more varied temperature of a north/south orientation). He viewed those factors as being more of a factor than issues such as religion, race or nature of the people. His book won a Pulitzer Prize.

Stephen Covey: The Greater Identity Theft is Our Cultural DNA

The Long Tail: Does the Long Tail create bigger hits or smaller ones?

Michael Hyatt: Book Review Friday: My Top Ten Favorite Business Books (Several I need to add to my reading list.)

ReadWriteWeb: Compete: Google Docs & Spreadsheets Keeps Growing, But User Engagment is Flat

TechCrunch: Online Ad Growth Grinds To A Halt

NY Times: In Times Square, a Company’s Name in (Wind- and Solar-Powered) Lights

NY Times: Ideas & Trends: How Industries Survive Change. If They Do.

WSJ: Cellphone Makers Brace for Shake-Up

WSJ: Bank Lending Isn’t Easing Crisis

NY Times: The Media Equation: Newspapers Jettisoning Top Talent to Cut Costs — Circuit City fired its best employees and is now in bankruptcy. Are newspapers following the same path?

ReadWriteWeb: Scared Of Technology? You’re Old!

Footnoted.org: Lots of drama at Blockbuster…

Wired: Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cellphone — Pity the makers of PDAs, MP3 players and pocket digital cameras: Their devices have been all but wiped out by the advent of the massively capable smartphone.

Boing Boing: Charles Platt takes a Zero-G flight — being in zero-g is an experience I’d like to have, but it’s still expensive and not practical, so I’ll just read the experience of others.

WSJ: Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Industry

I always looked forward to his next new book. Sometimes they didn’t meet my expectations, but I never stopped looking for the next book. He was 66. Some of my favorites were Jurassic Park, Airframe, Rising Sun and State of Fear, Travels, Timeline.

I liked that his books also had bibliographies if one wanted to read more on the subject. For screen writing, I also enjoyed Andromeda Strain and The Great Train Robbery, but first encountered those as movies.

• Hollywood Reporter: Michael Crichton dies of cance
• NY Times: Builder of Windup Realms That Thrillingly Run Amok
• Crichton’s web site

I love audiobooks. They’re great for the daily commute, the daily walk or even doing certain choirs. I’ve listened to books I’d never bother to read. Thanks to The Public Library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County, I can access audiobooks through netlibrary.

Lately I’ve enjoyed listening to lectures by Michael D.C. Drout, recorded for Modern Scholars: A History of the English Language, A Way with Words: Rhetoric, Writing and the Arts of Persuasion, and From Here to Infinity: An Exploration of Science Fiction Literature. They are informative and entertaining and leaves me wanting to learn more. Drout also has a blog — Wormtalk and Slugspeak.