Content tagged with [books] on DuncanMackenzie.net

Three Cups of Tea is a great book…

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:40:00 GMT

One positive side to being stuck at home for two weeks is that I was able to do a fair bit more reading. For the most part, I read magazines and watched movies, but my wife also brought me the book “Three Cups of Tea” about Greg Mortenson’s work in Pakistan building schools for the children of poor rural areas. Mr. Mortenson, an avid mountain climber, ended up spending time in a small village near the base of K2 in Pakistan, barely making it down alive after a failed attempt to reach the summit. Spending time with those people made quite an affect on him and from that point on he was on a mission to build schools and otherwise help out the people of that area. The book is great reading, dealing with exciting events, perilous adventures and important issues … all taking place in an area of the world that is completely foreign to many of us. Check it out, read more reviews or buy it here “Three Cups of Tea” in paperback from amazon.com.

Xbox Dad article on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is up

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:23:00 GMT

I was a bit surprised to find that I enjoyed this game, although I enjoyed the last few books in the series and the latest movie, I really figured the game would only appeal to kids. The pace is slower than most adult/teen games, but that makes it into more of an exploration instead of just quickly moving from one task to the next. My wife watched it and thought it was similar to a much more interactive and complex form of the game Myst... there are some action elements where you have to move quickly, target the bad guys, etc... but for the most part you are figuring out puzzles, perfecting your spells and exploring a very open set of environments. You can see more of my thoughts on the game in this Harry Potter article on Xbox.com.

Zune for Dummies hits the bookstores

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:29:00 GMT

Brian was in town a few days ago and we ended up at a local bookstore... of course, since Brian hadn't even seen our new book, we looked around and found a copy... :)

The Deverry Novels by Katharine Kerr

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 07:49:00 GMT

I've recently begun re-reading the Deverry novels; I just went through Daggerspell, Darkspell and I'm onto The Bristling Wood (basically 'Act 1' as the author has described the books as being the various parts of a long play). This is an excellent series, but one that I found quite by accident.

Back when I was a fairly young kid, maybe 12 or 13, a friend of my mother was visting our house and upon realizing that I read the same type of books as him, offered to trade his set of books by David Eddings for my 'Deryni' series by Katherine Kurtz. Now I read my books over and over again, so I didn't understand what he meant... it seems perfectly logical to most folks that since we had both read our books once, this was a permanent trade, but I was quite surprised when I eventually figured that out. Of course, I could have just asked for my books back, but that didn't seem appropriate and I certainly had enjoyed the Belgariad (although the second set of books by Mr. Eddings seemed way too much of a retelling of the first... right down to the same characters... sure they were the descendants of the first set, but really... would they all end up with roughly the same personalites?). Anyway, I've always wanted to pick up the Deryni series again so I tend to look for them in bargain bins at bookstores and the like. Well, when I thought I had discovered a whole new series by the same person I immediately bought the first four books in the Deverry series. Of course, it was not the same person at all, Kerr instead of Kurtz, but I didn't figure that out right away. So, I ended up reading a great series of books completely by accident.

How do you decide what to read? As a kid, I used to pick up the first book in a ton of new series and decided which ones I liked from there, but now (with the notable exception of Robert Jordan's series) I haven't picked up a book by a new-to-me author in ages. I know I could just go and grab some recent books from the library, but are there any good/great blogs/sites focused on the fantasy genre?

Into comics but also like books with more words?

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 06:31:00 GMT

I'm a big comic book fan, or at least I was. Now I generally pick up a graphic novel or a compilation every once in awhile (just read this and this, great writing and visuals) mostly Marvel although the Watchmen and some of the Dark Knight stuff can't be passed up... Recently though, my wife read a book and strongly recommended it to me: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (also the author of Wonder Boys, Summerland and more)

Now, this book (like most books) isn't really about the events taking place in the story, it is about the people involved, but it happens to take place through the birth of comics as we know them today. The author interviewed Gil Kane, Stan Lee and many others to really get a feel for that period of time. It certainly worked for me, not only did I love the book so much that I read it across only a few nights (staying up way too late) but I also went out the next day and started looking at buying comic books again (picking up the X-Men books that bring together a whole set of issues with writing by Joss Whedon)... and when I interviewed Ed from GeekTragedy a few days later and saw comic books around his studio, I just had to recommend the book to him as well!

I think I'm not the only one who ordered the Prima Oblivion Guide

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 01:33:00 GMT

That Elder Scrolls Oblivion guide book I mentioned in an early blog post today, I just saw that it was #20 on Amazon today. That's just crazy!!

Frankie @ Bungie mentions XBox 360 for dummies...

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:57:00 GMT

He also talks about using a picture, (off of your computer, a CD, a digital camera, or even a USB drive) as a custom background... a very cool feature.

Check out his full post here.

Ok, I think I can stop book-spotting...

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 15:41:00 GMT

It may not be everywhere, especially outside of the US, but it seems to be on its way....

More book spotting... front table spot in a local Borders...

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 02:46:00 GMT

From Brian's blog (via his wife)

Book is making its way to local stores...

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 17:18:00 GMT

I was in a local Barnes and Noble, the one in downtown Bellevue (WA), and I spotted our book on the shelves. It wasn't at the Woodinville B&N as of yesterday, but at least it is showing up in some stores!

I now have a 'blog' on Amazon...

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 19:25:00 GMT

Well, I have dated entries... with comment support... umm, I guess it is a blog.

You can see it here... sorry, no RSS that I can see.

Finished "Knife of Dreams", with a bit of sadness as usual

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 08:09:00 GMT

Don't misunderstand, I enjoyed the book... but just like watching an episode of your favorite TV show and knowing that it will be another week until you can see another (or watching the Pegasus episode of Battlestar Galactica, knowing that it will be months before you see the conclusion of that story), I'm always sad to see it end.

I put off reading the book at all for quite some time, figuring that once I started I would neglect other responsibilities (including some sleep) until it was done, and I also thought that it would be good to go back and re-read #10, so that the story flowed better for me. I didn't end up re-reading the previous book, that would have taken way too long, but the reduction in sleep as I read the book was certainly the case.

Cover for the Xbox 360 book has been updated with my name and with our gamer tags ...

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 05:25:00 GMT

from Brian's blog....

Nice mention of the upcoming Xbox 360 for Dummies book on xboxtoday.ca

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 03:24:00 GMT

Xbox 360 for Dummies
By Sean Lennox
A new book entitiled "Xbox 360 for Dummies" might be exactly what some of us need

The new Xbox 360 will be released on November 22nd here in North America. To help you along the process of setting up and using your new fangled contraption, the creators of the best selling "For Dummies' series have written a book for the not so savvy Xbox users entitled "Xbox 360 For Dummies" The book is a basic how-to manual. Topics covered include...

More info on the book will be available online soon at http://www.xbox4dummies.com

Ordered a book from Amazon today, expect a dip in my productivity

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 06:32:00 GMT

I remembered that the 11th book in the Wheel of Time series, Knife of Dreams, was coming out sometime in October so I checked for it on Amazon today and it turns out it came out on the 19th. So (despite being fairly busy and having a real problem with reading non-stop through every single book I get the moment it shows up) I ordered it. Maybe I can get it in time for my trip down to DevConnections in Las Vegas in November, then I can read it on the plane and in the hotel, it would help keep me out of trouble.

Of course, I could leave the book closed and do some writing instead of reading. I could work on chapters for my own book project, articles for this site, code for MSDN, or...

Ok, so I'm doing work for Murach's marketing dept... but it is free content!

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:03:00 GMT

Free chapter on master pages from new ASP.NET 2.0 upgrade guide

Murach Books is offering a free chapter from their new book, Murach's ASP.NET 2.0 Upgrader's Guide: VB Edition, at their web site at www.murach.com/books/ugvb/index.htm. Chapter 3, "How to use master pages," shows how to use the new ASP.NET 2.0 master pages feature to easily include banners, navigation menus, and other elements on all of the pages in a web application. It's a powerful, time-saving feature that most developers will want to use in every new application they create.

Remembering one of my favorite books from my youth...

Sun, 12 Jun 2005 04:31:00 GMT

My wife commented tonight that my son (4) was going on at length about which planet was where in the solar system and how if you lived right next to the sun it would be too hot to live, etc... and suggested we get him some books on the planets from the library. This got me to thinking about a book that I used to spend hours and hours reading, I probably read it through cover-to-cover over a hundred times over the years... and a few searches later I found the title and author, Roy A. Gallant, "Our Universe"... but it wasn't until I found a picture of the book's cover that I was sure it was the same one.

I probably spent most of my reading time in all my various 'youth fiction', like Piers Anthony's Xanth series, but the runner up would be the World Book encyclopedia set my parents had bought... it was the place I learned all about the Maginot Line, for example... and various picture-filled books like this one and others on World War II aircraft, etc... so many things to look at and to fill your head with thoughts.

Of course, I'm a geek, so we'll have Encarta around, but I just don't think you can beat the enjoyment of a full-color oversized book to dig into a topic

Interested in Investigating Indigo?

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:25:00 GMT

Scott Seely, a former MSDN co-worker of mine and now a member of the Indigo team, is working on a new Indigo book with Brian Nantz. The book won't be out for a while, but you can get a lot of advance information (including some of the chapters), by watching for updates on www.thatindigobook.com. Should be a great way to get a free taste of some Indigo content right from someone who works on the code...

Received my first book from Zooba.com today...

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:46:00 GMT

If you sign up for one of the sites created by Gratis (free flat screens, free ipods, free handbags, etc...) then one of the available offers is Zooba.com, and I have to say it is one of the best offers I've tried. Basically, if you are someone who likes to read then you probably won't mind the 'requirement' to complete this offer. You sign up for a membership with Zooba, which costs around $10 a month and for that fee you get one hardcover book each month with no shipping costs. I'm not positive, but it seems to me that $10 is a good price for a hardcover book, and not even all that bad if you are used to paperbacks. I filled my queue on their site with 5 books that I liked, but my understanding is that you can cancel after only two book purchases, so the only real question is whether or not there are at least 2 books available through their site that you want to get anyway...

The book I received, by the way, was The Last Light of the Sun by one of my favorite authors: Guy Gavriel Kay. If you haven't read any of his other books, I would definitely recommend Tigana, The Fionavar Tapestry (3 books) and all the rest of his writings :)