The 1958 Orson Welles film, Touch of Evil, is analyzed from a filmmaker’s perspective. Unfortunately, there is little new information here. It reads like a master’s thesis regarding other’s writers’ analyses of the film. 10% of the book is the Notes section referencing other sources. Another 5% of the bookContinue Reading
Most of us have a few minutes here and there to stretch our brains. Sherlock Holmes Puzzles: Math & Logic Games is the perfect book to pick up occasionally for a few minutes. With 104 puzzles testing various thinking skills, it is perfect to keep your mind active. There areContinue Reading
There is definitely a way of Doing Agile Right and, unfortunately, a way to do agile completely wrong. This book describes both so you can quickly see what your agile team is doing correctly and incorrectly. Agile sounds so good. Faster results. Quick setup. Self-management. More innovative solutions. So whatContinue Reading
What is Rosemary’s Baby? The answer is surprisingly much more complicated than a 1969 horror film directed by Roman Polanski. The movie has a gothic woman-in-danger who-can-help-her plot. Newlyweds Rosemary and struggling actor, Guy, find the perfect apartment in New York City. And the neighbors seem so friendly. But thenContinue Reading
By using simple shapes as a base, you can Learn to Draw (Almost) Anything in 6 Easy Steps by reading this book. If you, or more likely your children, can barely doodle a flower, this is the perfect book to up your drawing game. It assumes no prior knowledge ofContinue Reading
If cryptograms are your favorite type of puzzle, you will enjoy the 101 puzzles within Sherlock Holmes Puzzles: Code Breakers. All are based on puzzles used in real life by emperors, spies, and warriors. Each puzzle has a task for Dr. Watson (you) to do. The brief stories and illustrationsContinue Reading
Just glancing through the 30-minute Gluten-free Cookbook, it looks like a good choice. However, when I dug deeper, the flaws kept piling up. First, the positives include flags for other types of allergens and full nutritional information. There is also a great variety of recipes from appetizers to desserts. ThereContinue Reading
In this troubled time of curbside pickup, the Buzz Books 2020: Fall and Winter is an invaluable resource for finding new books and authors to read. When looking for a new book to read in a bookstore or library, everyone reads the blurb on the back or the front flap.Continue Reading
I agree with the author of #ENTRYLEVELBOSS that as you get further into your career, you lose empathy for those just beginning theirs. I think this clearly laid out plan of attack would be very useful. If not for the full-time gamers in their parent’s basements, at least for theContinue Reading
If you love crosswords, you must read Thinking Inside the Box. It started in 1913 with a quick fill-in for a newspaper’s Sunday FUN color section. In 1924, the first crossword book was published, which included a sharpened pencil for $1.35. That same year saw the humble crossword puzzle haveContinue Reading
So what is FOMO? The Fear of Missing Out, of course. It’s not a new fear. It used to be called “Keeping Up with the Jones”. Now with social media everywhere, the Jones are not just your neighbors but literally anyone on the planet. It was renamed by the authorContinue Reading
Scandinavian Noir is a love letter by the author to her beloved Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian mysteries. It is also a memoir describing how she loved the written version of Scandinavia so much, she moved to Stockholm. I have read at least one book in each of the author’s threeContinue Reading
The true tale of The Imprisoned Princess proves that the rich have always been different even in the late 1600s. Indeed the poorer royals, born on both sides of the blanket, were as prone to affairs as the royals at the Court of Versailles. Some like Clara were even havingContinue Reading
As society has moved closer to a service economy, so too has procurement moved from compliance to a value-added service. While not strictly a profit center, every dollar a buyer saves goes directly into the company’s pocket. To keep up with today’s fast-moving economy, procurement must go from a searchContinue Reading
Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds bills itself as a reference book. However, it is much more interesting than that. It contains 100 maps containing intriguing geographic and demographic facts shown on, of course, a map. For example, there is a map of the world with countries colored based on theirContinue Reading
Coming to American after the fall of Saigon, two-year-old Phuc Tran didn’t know the difficult path still ahead of him. For being the only Vietnamese, heck the only Asian, family in small town America, he was bound to stand out. Sigh, Gone is his tale of how he found hisContinue Reading