Category Archives for Books

Content is Still King—Even with E-book Readers

Say what you want about e-books. Most people I know are still taking a lot of time to adjust to the thought of reading a book that isn’t on paper.

But the Kindle, Nook, and iPad/iPhone are here to stay. Many of the pioneers of ‘geekery’ are pleasantly satisfied with the tech-read experience. I’m among the satisfied readers with more than six e-books I’ve read now from cover-to-cover in various apps and using e-ink displays as well as iDevices.

The trick to a good e-reading experience isn’t so much in the app as it is in the content. As far as reading books are concerned, the content is especially king. No one wants to pay for a lousy book, as so many books in print and digital are.

For example, I spoke with an acquaintance who is in highschool. He explained that he’s been given a reading assignment, and with iBooks he download the e-pub version of this big book for convenience.

Regrettably, the introduction section of the book in his assignment is more than 200 pages long. The book in and of itself is a snooze. This alone killed his enthusiasm for e-readers. Since it is such a chore just to read his book assignment, it’s dulled any desire he had for the iPad’s e-reader wizardry.

On the other hand, I’ve read several popular fictional works, and a few superb non-fictional business related books. Since I got to pick, I chose books that I knew would interest me that came highly recommended. My e-reading experience—especially with iBooks, which works oh-so elegantly on the iPad—has been some of my favorite experiences with tech in my life.

The burden of a good read with any book is found in the content. Don’t put the blame on an app if you don’t have a positive experience.

Starting and Closing – by John Smoltz

There aren’t many occasions to read a good book about the Atl. Braves. Here is your chance to pickup a good one about one of the best Braves—one of the best pitchers, for that matter—from the last two decades. »

I grew up watching Smoltz, and even had the occasion to meet him a few times. He is a great guy, great ball player, and I admire what he has done in his career.

Apple Showcases Books Created With iBooks Author App

Every week on Thursday, Apple updates its various homepages across the iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, and iBookstore to showcase new featured content and sections. This week, Apple has chosen to feature books “Made with iBooks Author” on the iBookstore’s homepage. »

iBooks is really showing up Kindles. Seriously. Google, Amazon… they have nothing on what Apple has to offer in the way of these technologically advanced releases for the next generation of readers.

And I imagine the selection and features will even improve in iBooks’ case. We have not seen the last of Apple’s plans for literature. They will leave the other booksellers in the dust.

Review of iPad eBook Reader Apps: The Kindle, Nook, & iBooks

An example of eReading a book with the iPad from Apple's guided tour video

There are a popular few iPad apps that we hear about. There are tens of thousands of apps in the iTunes’ app store. There are an overwhelming number that get overlooked, including eBook apps. We hear about the apps like the Kindle, Nook, and iBooks when it comes to heavy-duty reading, but have you heard about Kobo, Stanza, or uBooks xl? Most likely, if you have, you don’t know anyone that uses them anyways.

The eBook apps are abundant, really. Go search for them yourself. There are many on iTunes now. The reason that we have a top two or three favorite apps in this important category is because they truly deserve the attention. As of yet, the likes of Kobo have not impressed the early adopters (no offense, Borders—I tried it out, too). They are feature-less or feature-few. They simply are not as capable as the popular eBook apps. In this case, popular opinion has good insight into the matter.

With that introduction, I’ll give you my take of the top three popular ones: Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks, and B&N’s Nook. Continue reading →

My Review of “The Host”

I have gone without reading any fiction for almost a year. It was high-time I picked up another novel, and with my new iPad, I wanted to test reading an e-book. I shopped around for The Host, and found the edition and price I was interested in from the Barnes & Noble e-reader bookstore.

Reading on the iPad is great. Granted, it was a learning experience, to read a 560 page book on an e-reader has it’s pros and cons. But I foun I had the hang of it before page 100. I’m glad I invested in the e-book format. I know now from experience that I can recommend e-reading. It really isn’t all that different from a hard copy, if your eyes are good.

The Host is the novel by Stephanie Meyer—the author of Twilight—she has written since she finished the  Twilight novels. The Host has nothing to do with vampires. This book is about an alien species that takes over the human race on earth. Really, it’s about one alien of this alien race, and her experiences with the human race, as she comes to favor mankind over her own kind.

In a clever way, the story is an update on the premise of Jekyll and Hyde. The idea with the classic Jekyll and Hyde is that there are two personas in each person; one good, and the other evil. Only one controls the heart of man at any given moment, but these two demeanors are in constant war with each other. This is just the tip of the iceberg with the Hyde story. I recommend you look into it for yourself. It’s a great novel.

In The Host, while there is not this sort of literal split personality like that of Jekyll and Hyde, there is a metaphor for it. The alien’s soul is like that of, maybe, somewhat like the holy spirit, actually. The heart of man is still present, and so the human heart, and the alien soul, are at odds continuously in the main character. Now, this is how the moral values are represented. This is not necessarily how the social and cultural differences of the characters are metaphorically represented. There’s a lot of science fiction to the story of The Host. That said, it’s much more than just a sci-fi flick. There’s drama, romance (not half as much as in Twilight), and suspense.

I like a good story that explores the conflict of the human heart. Man’s soul is basically evil. The Bible says so. It couldn’t be any clearer. However, we are either ‘ruled’ by our fleshed—the evil side of human nature—or we are living in the Holy Spirit, and our Lord lives through us; thus making it possible for us to do good. In so doing, as the Lord lives in us, we are ‘dead’ to the flesh. The metaphor found in The Host is great for expanding one’s understanding of such a spiritual dynamic.

While I do think that the Twilight series is a great work about great characters with a weak story (at times) I think something different about The Host. The Host is a great work about mostly great characters with a great story. So the strength of The Host is the overall story, and some of the characters are weaker than those found in the Twilight stories.

Do I recommend you read The Host? It is slightly more ‘mature’ than the subject matters of Twilight, while still being easier to grasp and easier to discern. A world of vampires with their complex moral ethical controversies are harder to deal with than the pure and simple outrageous possibilities of the aliens in The Host.

So, The Host is good for high school graduates, young adults, lovers of science fiction, and those that simply enjoy Stephanie Meyer stories. I’d give The Host ★★★½ out of five.

Book Review: Inside Steve’s Brain

The book cover caught my eye one day at Barnes & Nobles, and I simply couldn’t put it down as I previewed the book there. I was compelled to read this work because, yes, I’m a Mac fan (if you haven’t noticed), but I think there is a lot to learn from Inside Steve’s Brain. Leander Kahney, the author, is perceptive and detailed on many a subject in the book that is important to the tech-geek global community, and unfolds the many layers to Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s philosophy of computer/life/hub experience and products. Continue reading →

iPad vs Kindle Review by Tim Challies

Tim Challies is a good Canadian. I genuinely appreciate the consistency of his blog [link to his web site/blog] and frequent his it. I trust that you will check out his link.

Tim recently broke into the multimedia (video) scene with this review of the book reading experience on the Kindle and iPad.

Unlike wordy written reviews of these devices, Tim’s video review is a fresh visual perspective of the devices that shows the viewing audience real pros and cons, and not to mention that since the review is in video it doesn’t leave the functions of the devices to your imagination like written reviews with pictures. You get to see first hand accounts of the devices, and you can make a great judgment of the devices for yourself from just watching Tim’s video.

Speaking of reviews on video, I think Tim’s here was superbly done in taping and editing. My high regards are to those that are responsible for this seemingly simple video review. It is well executed.

There’s Room for Every Book and Tablet

Christians collect ways to read the Word of God. We have family Bibles, pocket Bibles, and personal Bibles. When we’re on a trip, we read from the smallest Bible we can carry that’s legible. When we’re in the comfort of home and have ample room to spare, we have family devotions from the family heirloom edition. When we’re in church, we read along with the preacher from our average-sized personal edition—not too weighty and not too small.

This is true of all books. We have many shaped and sized editions of all our favorite literary works. This is now happening to our computing device options. Continue reading →

Interpreting Whole and Individual Scenes in Context

In a family flick, there might be a scene where the six-year-old daughter complains to her daddy that she doesn’t wanna go to a birthday party. First, she wines about it, but quickly this turns into tears and chewing the tips of her fingers; while her Dad struggles to pay attention to something else—like his smartphone telling him that his boss wants his head on a chopping block. Continue reading →