Book Reviews

Many of you know about the Kindle reader by amazon but I wanted to let everyone know about something new at amazon. They now have a kindle for: PC, Mac, I Phone, Blackberry, I Pad and Kindle for free.

I don't have a kindle reading device yet but I am using the free kindle for PC and Android. I read a lot of books it's something my father taught me to do. I tend to read a little bit of more than one book each day and eventually I manage to finish reading a lot of books.

Recently I downloaded the kindle for PC and started using it on some books and it's saving me some money. The books download to my PC in about a minute and their ready to read. Recently amazon came out with the apps for cell phones and I downloaded the Android app. Any of the kindle apps sync between any kindle device you own and the free download versions. So if I and reading on the PC version and then later in the day I am decide I want to read on the Android version, my last read place in the book on the PC is synced to the android version and back and forth.

Now, the free versions don't have all the features of the kindle reading devices you buy and that it why I am saving to by one of them. But, when I do buy it all the books I have bought for the free versions will be automatically loaded in the new device.

There also is a free software program on the internet named Calibre (don't forget to PayPal this guy a donation} that will take virtually any free book on the Internet in any format and install it on your Kindle reading device.

I said I read a lot of books and for those that are interested I recently finished reading the Overton Window by Glen Beck, and BBQ 25 by Adam Perry Lang. I now am reading the the paper back version of With the Old Bread by E.B. Sledge.

On the kendle for PC I am reading: Samuel Adams by Ira Stoll, The law of Success by Napoleon Hill, The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek and the real "page turner" The Girl with the Dragon Tattos by Stieg Larsson.

Ray Basso

Today the UPS man delivered my copy of "BBQ 15" by Adam Perry Lang. I ordered this book almost a month ago on Amazon.com. It was a pre-order deal and so I got a special low price deal for it. I've really been anxious to see this book as I've heard a lot about and couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

The book came in a padded envelope and before I even opened it I could tell the book was heavy but it seems small. I think I'd expected it to be a big "coffee table" type book and I was a little bit disappointed when I finally opened the package. The book is small 8 X 5 but it was heavy and again first impression was disappointment. But, glancing through the book I realized I had a unique book in my hands, the pages are really thick. I mean the pages are as thick as the cover on most books. The next thing that hit me is I realized that every time you turn the page you have a complete recipe in front of you. Which is really nice and so nearly every page that you turn, reveals a wealth of information from this master chef.

The forward of this book was written by Jamie Oliver and he heaps well deserved praise on Adam in five short pages. Jamie is a great cook himself and so it really means something. 

In this book Adam gives you short but detailed instructions on how to cook many items covering beef, pork, lamb, chicken, fish and other items. If you follow his instructions I am sure you will learn something no matter what your prior skill level is. Most of this book is grilling rather than slow cooking barbecue but grilling is barbecue to most of the world. 

I can't can't go wrong buying this book. After looking at it, I wouldn't part with this book for anything. My only complaint is the print is a bit small for me and I have to use the stronger set of reading glasses on it.

Ray Basso

 

To be honest with you I didn't know much about Glenn Beck until he started showing up on the Fox news network, with his hour-long late afternoon program.  But after watching Glenn for while, I decided he deserved a contribution from me.  I felt like it was my duty to contribute some money to him, for some of the investigative work that he's done lately, so I bought his latest book "Arguing With Idiots."  Now, I'm not a Glenn Beck worshiper because he's just a little bit too weepy for me and just a bit too extremely religious in his views.  Being religious is OK but you don't need to tell me about it all the time.  

However,  recently he's been talking about some things that I think are very important and he won me over, I bought his book Arguing With Idiots.  This is a great book if you want to rile people up and have a lot of fun in your day just carry this book around with you because the cover shows a picture of Glenn Beck in some kind of military uniform.  Just the cover alone will freak out a lot of people.  It's the not a very big book under 300 pages but these pages are really thick, I mean really thick and they are have a lot of charts, drawings and illustrations, which makes for easy reading.  

This book gives anyone the tools they need, so you can argue with "idiots" who are extremely left minded.  Don't get me wrong I am not saying that all politically left leaning people are idiots, just some of them.  After reading this book you will have the information you need to argue with most any idiot you encounter. 

I read this book because I have heard and read many times that this book influenced President Obama when he was younger in Chicago.  Others, that reportedly have been influenced by Alinsky's teachings, include Wade Rathke (Co-Founder of ACORN), Cesar Chavez, and Jesse Jackson and others.

In the Art of War by Sun Tzu: Master Sun Said... "Know the other, know thyself and the victory will not be at risk; know thy ground, know the natural conditions, and the victory can be total."  So, I decided I should read this book.  Quite frankly I found this book to be one of the scariest books I have ever read.  It explained to me why this country has had some of the problems it has had in recent years.  I also felt that we all have a very troubling future unless more people understand why someone would write a book like this.  It's a short book only 193 pages but you should read it and form your own conclusions.

 

I started Reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown because I was really impressed with his last novel The Da Vinci Code.  After reading just a few chapters in the book it suddenly hit me that this all sounded very familiar.  The reason it sounded familiar was the book seem to be following the same storyline of The Da Vinci Code only the names were changed and what was going on and changed.  I thought at this point he had just taken the new book and just change the cast of characters so his readers would feel comfortable with the book.  This is not what I want to see in a book and as I read a bit further I realized that that maybe was a harsh comment, on my part.  In actuality, it turned into a very good read and for the next three hundred pages At times I found this book to be very exciting.

 

But then something else started bothering me as the clues, I was getting in the book allowed me to figure out who the bad guy was, and what was going on before I should have been able to figure it all out.  I think that anybody who has read very many books could have done the same thing.  I don't think my observation was especially special in any way.  This is quite a letdown for me and it bothered me clear throughout the book is the cast of characters started piecing things together, that was quite quite obvious to the reader, a long time ago.  I kept wanting to yell out, what's the matter with you guys, can't you see what's going on.

 

Anyway, towards the end of the book things really got exciting.  I couldn't believe what I was reading and it was quite shocking.  But then that all changed and before long the book had reached the end but I still had a lot of pages to go so I wondered what's way to happen now.  So, as I kept reading the final pages of this book and got to the very end, I found the book was just a great big let down for me.   The final ending was probably one of the worst of any book that I've ever read and I walked away wondering why the hell did I read this book.  I don't know if I'll read another Dan Brown book ever again.