Books « typingincolor.com

Work has been pretty mental for the last couple of months and so I’ve not really had chance to post anything on this blog. I thought I’d make a triumphant return with a review of An Idiot Abroad.

An Idiot Abroad is a series on Sky One where Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant send their “friend” Karl Pilkington around the world to see seven wonders.

I download the book from Kobo as I thought it would be an amusing travel book and it was very cheap. How wrong was I? The book basically 144 pages of Karl whining about how rubbish everywhere is. It doesn’t really go into any detail of any of the places he visited’ I can’t really think of anything positive to say about it.

I hope the TV series was better…

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Starbucked looks at the growth and dominance of the Strabucks chain of coffee shops. It tells the story of the company from the start in Seattle, to them becoming the behemoth they are now.

The history of the company is interesting. The man behind it all, Howard Schultz is a driven individual determined to build the company from a single store to the thousands they now own.

I kind of got the impression that the author is a bit of a Starbucks fan. There is some criticism of their business practices, but he pretty much comes to the conclusion that all in all they’re not too bad.

The book also explains why Starbuck’s coffee isn’t the best tasting coffee out there. Basically, the implication is that they brew it so dark and bitter so that people will pay £4 for a 20oz cup of milk with some coffee in it. It has to be that bitter so you can actually taste it. The discussion of the economics of coffee gives a good background, and basically says you should buy the best coffee you can to improve the plight of coffee farmers. He discusses fair trade coffee and basically says it doesn’t really do anything for the farmers. I’m not sure I agree, but its point of view.

I think the last lines of the book sum it up. Starbucks make pretty ropey coffee, but if you’re in an airport where else are you going to go.

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Bad Ideas asks the question “Does Science always benefit mankind?” and gives a number of examples where it probably hasn’t really. Amongst other things he discusses agriculture, writing and fire; and argues that although they bring us great benefits, there are always hidden consequences.

For the most part I thought the book was well argued. There are a number of points that I disagree with, especially Lord Winston’s views on renewable energy. But for the most part I found it an engaging and interesting read. There is a lot of background information in the book, and I learnt a few new things. Overall a pretty good read…

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Lustrum is Robert Harris’ third Roman novel, and the second looking at the life of Marcus Cicero. They story starts with Cicero becoming Consul, and runs through to his feud with Publius Clodius Pulcher. Through the return of Pompey, the Cataline conspiracy and the rise of Julius Caesar. The story is narrated by Tiro, Cicero’s secretary and slave.

The book seems to follow historical events pretty well; but the author admits that historical accuracy was sacrificed for telling a good story. I thought the it told the story of the fall of Cicero from being hailed a saviour by the people to being forced into exile very well. It also leaves the opportunity for a third book covering Cicero’s return to Rome and eventual death at the hands of Mark Anthony.

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Buy now from thehut.com

In “Shakespeare”, Bill Bryson explores what we actually know about the Bard. It turns out that we know very little, including how he spelt his name.

There is very little documentary evidence for anything much, and most of the known “facts” about his life date from long after his death.

The book is a good read, I prefer Bryson’s non-fiction works in general and this one is no exception. It’s shorter than most of his books, but enjoyable none the less.

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You can buy Shakespeare here

We’re slowly introducing Agile Development at work to help us deliver the systems the business needs to continue our impressive growth.

We’re probably going to end up with a mixture of Scrum and XP, and although we’ve only just started we’re beginning to see the benefit in that we have a long term plan agreed with the business which we are now delivering to.

The Art of Agile Development is an excellent book explaing how Agile Development, and specifically XP can help you. It explains all the XP practices, how to implement them and how they all fit together. The process outlined in the book won’t work for everyone, but I think everybody can learn something from it. Some of the things mentioned are just common sense and best practice anyway, but some of it is quite counter-intuative.

I found the book really interesting and we’re slowly introducing some of the practices. I recommend it to anybody who is interested in Agile Development.

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Buy now from thehut.com In the US? Buy now from amazon.com

I’ve just finished my third graphic novel in quick succession. I really liked V for Vendetta and Watchmen, and had great hopes for the first of the Sandman novels.

I gave to say I was a little disappointed, I’m afraid I just didn’t get it. The story felt a bit rushed, and I just didn’t get into the characters at all. I don’t think I’m going to bother with the later books in the series, but am open to suggestions for which graphic novel I should try next…

Overall Rating: 2/5

My journey into comic books continues with Watchmen… Written by Alan Moore of V for Vendetta fame, it tells the story of a group of costumed crimefighters struggling to cope with retirement and the world they live in.

First of all the book is much, much better than the film (not all that difficult though), but I think I prefer V for Vendetta. The story is well told with some interesting twists and the artwork is also very good.

The story starts with the murder of one of the crimefighers and concentrates on the investigation of this murder by Rorschach. It is interspersed with “Tales of the Black Freighter” which parallels the descent of one of the other characters. The section where Rorschach is in jail is particularly satisfying…

It give this comic a solid 4/5, it’s well worth a read…

Now it’s time for some Neil Gaiman.

After reading Kick Ass and having seen the film, I decided that my second graphic novel would be V for Vendetta.

Having seen the film first and enjoying it I was interested to see how the book compared. The short answer is very well. The film misses great chunks of book, and the story progresses slightly differently but I have to say I enjoyed the book a great deal.

The book tells the story of ‘V’ a mysterious revolutionary working to overthrow a the UK’s totalitarian government. He is also trying to kill the people who ran medical experiments on him in a prison camp.

The book is very dark, and explores a whole host of ideas including anarchism, fasicsm, identity and revenge.

Overall rating 4.5/5

You can buy the book here

The next graphic novel I’m reading is the start of the Sandman series…

Physics of the Impossible explores whether aspects of science fiction are possible. Various things are discussed such as time travel, teleportation and force fields are discussed.

I like science as you can probably tell from the books I review on this blog, but I didn’t really like this book. My main problem was that there was some interesting science in there, but the author abruptly moved on the the next topic. It kind of felt like he got bored in the middle of a paragraph, or that he had a fixed number of words for each topic. It got a little vexing after a while. I would have preferred that he went in to fewer topics, but covered them in more depth.

Overall Rating: 2.5/5

You can buy Physics of the Impossible here.

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Category Archives: Books

An Idiot Abroad – Karl Pilkington

Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture – Taylor Clark

Bad Ideas?: An Arresting History of Our Inventions – Robert Winston

Lustrum – Robert Harris

Shakespeare – Bill Bryson

The Art of Agile Development – Shore & Warden

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes – Neil Gaiman

Watchmen – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

V for Vendetta – Alan Moore and David Lloyd

Physics of the Impossible – Michio Kaku