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pbshoe

pbshoe

An avid reader, I always have two books I'm reading: one fiction and one non-fiction. I am an avid mountain biker and a wanna-be chef...
  • San Jose, CA, USA
  • member since Sunday, August 20 2006

Profile: Reviews

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Displaying 1-10 of 25 reviews
  • Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary
    • Rated 2 stars

    “Not very well written, but a fun romp through the beginnings of Linux. Linus sounds very egotistical at times, but I don't think it was meant to be that way; just his straightforward approach to writing. Who knows, it was still an interesting read. ”

    pbshoe wrote this review Sunday, July 27 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness
    • Rated 3 stars

    “Although this is written for the layman, I found it a very slow read. After all, you're reading about neuroscience, and subtle concepts like consciousness and qualia. Overall, I really like Gerry, but it is a book for the truly inspired.”

    pbshoe wrote this review Friday, March 21 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
    • Rated 4 stars

    “If you like to read about the immense work going on in the kitchens at restaurants you eat at, then this book is for you. Bill Buford was a writer for the NY Times, and ended up taking a long leave to work in Mario Batali's kitchen. They work his ass off, and he travels throughout Italy to learn more. His writing style is good, and you can feel his pain. But you also sense his love of food and cooking. Mario, I could care less about him, but the recipes that you get from reading the book alone (very vague, but easy to put together) have all come out very good at my house. A great read.”

    pbshoe wrote this review Saturday, January 5 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation
    • Rated 3 stars

    “Not a bad book, but filled with a lot of common sense. If you're reading it to learn about the levers that drive a platform, I think that you will find this filled with stuff you already know. If you're reading the book in order to find some good anecdotes about these levers, and platforms in general, then I think you'll love it.”

    pbshoe wrote this review Saturday, January 5 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • The Planets
    • Rated 3 stars

    “As always, Dava Sobel delivers the universe in a very easy going way. This book is wonderfully written, and poetic. I learned a lot in reading this book, and loved her prose. Very intriguing book.”

    pbshoe wrote this review Sunday, October 14 2007. ( reply | permalink )
  • Nature Girl
    • Rated 3 stars

    “I've read so many bad reviews of this book on Amazon, and am wondering why. The writing is the same as all of Carl's other books, and it contains all of the basics: swindlers in Florida, the good guy overcoming the bad guy, proof of the raping of Florida soil, and the quintessential freak! :-) As always, Carl delivers in his standard way.”

    pbshoe wrote this review Sunday, October 14 2007. ( reply | permalink )
  • The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities (Rational Guides) (Rational Guides)
    • Rated 0 stars

    “Wow, an amazingly dull book! I'm in the process of building a technical developer community for my current company, and have been picking up all of these types of books. This one caught my eye for two reasons: 1) the title, 2) it had Rational in the title. I stupidly presumed that the Rational developer community meant the one that Rational Inc (now IBM) created with Eclipse. Boy was I wrong.

    The name is entirely misleading: It has more to do with creating a user group than generically creating a technical user community. This is a HUGE problem.

    The book is dull, it only states things that are absolutely common sense, and there's nothing in it that is good to take away.

    I absolutely do not recommend this book. ”

    pbshoe wrote this review Tuesday, September 4 2007. ( reply | permalink )
  • Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
    • Rated 3 stars

    “I liked this book, and it opened my eyes to many other "community-driven" technologies/companies. While I thought a lot of the ideas were very "common sense", it was well written, and had some great anecdotes. I recommend this book for anyone interested in social networking, building communities, etc.
    ”

    pbshoe wrote this review Monday, September 3 2007. ( reply | permalink )
  • Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
    • Rated 3 stars

    “To think that I'm reviewing ANY Neil Gaiman novel less than five stars! But this one, unfortunately, didn't deserve 5 in my opnion. Granted, some of the short stories (like the one with Shadow) deserves more than 5, I think overall it averaged out to just the three. However, Neil rocks, and I liked this book. As I said, some of these stories were just out of this world, and I find Neil's mind totally incredulous! ”

    pbshoe wrote this review Monday, September 3 2007. ( reply | permalink )
  • The Kite Runner
    • Rated 4 stars

    “I liked this book a lot. I found it had some significant ups and downs. There were times where I was so happy I had goosebumps, and others when I felt like I could cry. An amazing first book by an amazing author. I'll definitely read his next one, as I found this story very riveting. A fast read, definitely not the best prose I've ever read, but it was thoughtful, meaningful, and had great morals. ”

    pbshoe wrote this review Monday, September 3 2007. ( reply | permalink )
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Displaying 1-10 of 25 reviews


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