Book Review: Party Music

Katie October 18, 2013 0 Comments

Party Music is all about the Black Power Era of the late 60s and early 70s and chronicles the time through the music of the era.  Artists like James Brown and Marvin Gaye are featured, as well as many, many others.  A mix of music and history, an interesting book though a bit long.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Examining the culture and politics of the Black Power era of the late 1960s, this book explores the relationship of soul music to the Black Power movement from the vantage point of the musicians and black revolutionaries themselves. The 1960s were a turbulent time for race relations in the United States, but no other area in the country epitomized the radical social change that was taking place more than the San Francisco Bay Area—the epicenter of the Black Panthers movement. This social history introduces fans of soul music and 20th-century U.S. history enthusiasts to the Black Panthers’ own band, the Lumpen, a group comprised of rank-and-file members of the Oakland, California–based Party. During their year-long tenure, the Lumpen produced hard-driving rhythm-and-blues that asserted the revolutionary ideology of the Black Panthers. Through his rediscovery of the Lumpen, and based on new interviews with Party and band members, author Rickey Vincent provides an insider’s account of Black Power politics and soul music aesthetics in an original narrative that reveals more detail about the Black Revolution than ever before.

Book Review: Stinky Sanitation Inventions

Katie October 18, 2013 0 Comments

Stinky Sanitation Inventions tells you all about inventions that you use every day related to sanitation.  Gross to think about – but think about where we’d be without them!  No sewers or flushable toilets? I can only imagine how gross it smelled in medieval times when it got hot out! Ick!  While all the things in this book aren’t things I’d really want to think about because they are gross, I’d hate to think about the alternative.  A fun and interesting book on an icky topic.  Geared towards kids, it shows the importance of invention and how we can use all these things in our daily lives.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Did you know that people with rakes used to do the work of garbage trucks? Or that porta-potties were put on ships to keep workers from running to shore for bathroom breaks? Get ready to learn the odd stories behind inventions you use every day. From the T.P. of Chinese emperors to the landfills of ancient Greece, you’ll find out how we got the sanitation inventions that keep us healthy and keep the world smelling fresh.

The Awesome Inventions You Use Every Day series:

What would you do without deodorant, Band-Aids, or flushable toilets? Can you imagine living in a world with no television, and no microwave popcorn to eat while you watch it? We might take these items for granted now, but they haven’t always been around. Some were centuries in the making. Others were created purely by accident. This fun series reveals the mistakes, coincidences, controversies, and sheet craziness that brought us our modern conveniences and everyday essentials—from your basic sanitary needs to the latest gadget.

Book Review: 2 Busy 4 Love

Katie October 17, 2013 0 Comments

2 Busy 4 Love is about a girl named Christy who relies heavily on her iPhone.  (and is too busy for love!) Then one day on her way to the airport to pick up her sisters fiance that she has yet to meet, she leaves her phone on the train and a guy named Will picked it up! Christy runs her own business as a personal assistant and all her appointments are on the phone.  What should she do now?

When she arrives at the airport she meets up with someone named Antonio, not knowing right away that it is not her future brother in law. He ends up hanging out with her for the day helping her get all her errands done although Toni speaks only Italian and Christy only English – all the while  Christy is talking to Will on an “emergency” phone given to her by an employee of the airport – who carries around THREE PHONES and lets Christy borrow one!

Will is hanging out with his dad’s assistant who is setting up that engagement party for that night.  But he keeps taking Christy’s calls to help her out and seems to be a bit flirty with her as well. There are several other side stories going on – but I don’t really want to mention them in too much detail because they all go along with a twist that I don’t want to give away! (Although I caught on pretty quickly to it – you may too.)

Will they all meet up and Christy get her phone back? Will she end up with more than just her phone? Hmm…

A lot of the situations in the story are incredibly far fetched, but if you get beyond that it is a bit of a cute story.  It’s a fun and easy light read.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

A  handsome stranger almost makes up for a lost phone in a comedy of errors across New York City.

Christy prides herself on her efficiency as a personal assistant, fueled by her ever-present iPhone. When she loses the phone on the train on the day of her sister’s engagement party, Christy is sure the day is ruined – until she borrows a phone to reach Will, the cute guy who picked up hers for safe keeping. Dealing with family emergencies of his own, he can’t meet her until the evening, but maybe there’s still hope. Christy enlists Will as her own personal assistant, feeding her addresses and schedules throughout the day.

Determined to meet the high expectations of her clients, not to mention the preparations for the engagement party, Christy dashes back and forth across New York City saving spoiled dogs from impatient groomers, shoving oriental rugs into too-small cabs, and carefully avoiding Twitter-obsessed socialites, all with Will’s calming voice in her ear guiding the way. Juggling his own misadventures with his cantankerous father and his flighty assistant, Will begins counting the hours until he can be properly introduced to the woman who has drawn him in with nothing more than a sexy voice and an overly complicated phone.

Book Review: Smart Machines

Katie October 16, 2013 2 Comments

Smart Machines starts out talking about Watson – the computer that competed on Jeopardy and first started making people aware of the power of “smart” machines. Computers are being taught to learn new things over time and not just compute simple things any more!

These computers are truly an amazing things and they can help humans do so many things that we otherwise couldn’t do, or perhaps could do but at a much greater cost. The book is really interesting for those who are interested in computers and technology and all that (like me).  It talked about how in the early testing stages Watson made laughable mistake after mistake while the researchers were fine tuning it. I am sure that really helped them learn a lot about how Watson was interpreting things and how they could change him to make things more accurate.

It is amazing to see what developers think that we can be using computers for in just the next 5 years. They will continue to make our lives easier and help out many in the process. I can’t wait to see which of these predictions will end up coming true – and if they all do – I think the medical world will advance the most in leaps and bounds. Especially when patients have problems stumping their doctor – a super computers “brain” could compute all the symptoms and maybe even detect diseases based on SMELL. How incredible would that be?

This is all truly exciting stuff and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.

I received a free e-copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

We are entering a new frontier in the evolution of computing: the era of cognitive systems. The victory of IBM’s Watson on the television quiz show Jeopardy! signaled the advent of this new era, revealing how scientists and engineers at IBM and elsewhere are pushing the boundaries of science and technology to create machines that sense, learn, reason, and interact with people in new ways.

In Smart Machines, John E. Kelly III, director of IBM Research, and Steve Hamm, a writer at IBM and a former business and technology journalist, introduce the fascinating world of “cognitive systems” to general audiences and provide a window into the future of computing. Cognitive systems promise to penetrate complexity and assist people and organizations in better decision making. They can help doctors better diagnose and treat patients, augment the ways we see, anticipate major weather events, and contribute to smarter urban planning. Kelly and Hamm’s comprehensive perspective describes this technology inside and out, and their extensive knowledge illuminates the difficulty of harnessing and understanding “big data,” one of the major computing challenges facing technicians in the coming decades. Absorbing and impassioned, their book will inspire governments, academics, and the global tech industry to work together to power this exciting wave in innovation.

Book Review: Inventing the American Guitar

Katie October 15, 2013 0 Comments

Inventing the American Guitar tells the history surrounding the invention of the american guitar (duh).  The book starts off with 3 parts – Austro-German style, Spanish Style and American Style. There are lots of great images of guitars throughout the book but also some great timelines – starting all the way back in 1792! C.F. Martin was born in 1796 and started with the Austro-German design then Spanish and finally American.  The timeline features tons and tons of information, they are very well done.

If there is anything you want to know about C.F. Martin and the evolution of his guitars then this is the book for you! It has a lot of really great historic information and it is laid out in a really great way – not to mention there is of course all the text history about Martin and his guitars as well!  A really interesting read.

I received a free e-copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in order to write this review I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Inventing the American Guitar is the first book to describe the early history of American guitar design in detail. It tells the story of how a European instrument was transformed into one with all of the design and construction features that define the iconic American flat-top guitar. This transformation happened within a mere 20 years, a remarkably brief period.

The person who dominates this history is C. F. Martin Sr., America’s first major guitar maker and the founder of the Martin Guitar Company, which continues to produce outstanding flat-top guitars today. After emigrating from his native Saxony to New York in 1833, Martin quickly established a guitar making business, producing instruments modeled after those of his mentor, Johann Stauffer of Vienna. By the time he moved his family and business to rural Pennsylvania in 1839, Martin had absorbed and integrated the influence of Spanish guitars he had seen and heard in New York. In Pennsylvania, he evolved further, inventing a uniquely American guitar that was fully developed before the outbreak of the Civil War.

Inventing the American Guitar traces Martin’s evolution as a craftsman and entrepreneur and explores the influences and experiments that led to his creation of the American guitar that is recognized and played around the world today.