I don’t usually get excited enough about a computer book that I want to tell others about it, but I just picked up my all-time favorite super-geeky book ever.




Defensive Design for the Web
by 37signals

I’ll call this book an advanced web design book, but you won’t find a line of code in it.

The book focuses on how to make sure people don’t hate you too much when they encounter an error on your site.

I’ve never paid much attention to handling errors because my code is flawless . . . no, that’s not true, I’m just lazy. I just checked my host, and at least a handful of people get a 404 message (that’s computer speak for an error page), so I’m actually excited about reworking the 404 pages on all my sites. If you want too see an error on my site click on this link www.dougroyal.com/stupid-error/, and let me know what you think.

I’ve finished listening to and reading the first 10 books in the Unfortunate Series of Events series.

Snicket adds several layers of evil plots in the later books . . . I suppose he had to in order to keep the series going. The series got a little repetitive in the middle, but things pick up after The Vile Village. The orphans start taking control of their lives rather than leaving things up to Mr. Poe, and that makes the stories more enjoyable because they children set out on more adventures.

I’m not sure about VFD anymore.

I started putting together some thoughts about who I thought the real author was, but then I found two books about the real author at the library.

Here were my guesses:
1) Snicket was American, not British (He uses the American spellings of words - thank you Mr. Webster).
2) He was not an English teacher. (I was surprised to learn the real author spent at least some time studding English and poetry. He has a degree in American Studies which sounds like a catch-all History & English degree. I guessed he was a science or math teacher.)
3) He was a punk rocker . . . that was more of a hunch because he is obviously making a statement about fairy tails and children’s literature.

I got one right, and two wrong.

I have books 12 and 13, but I’m waiting for book 11 to be returned to the library. I read book 4 out of order because I was on the waiting list for that one too, but I since I’m so close to the end . . . the denouement . . . I don’t want to miss anything, so I’m waiting. . . which is tough because book 12 is lying right there on the table . . . just a couple inches away from my hands.

I’ve been reading the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. I’m up to Book the Eighth, and my guess is that VFD stands for Volunteer Fire Department and that Count Olaf burned down the Baudelaire home.

They’re not really boring, just boring to talk about. Since I’m switiching to Linux I’ve flipped through a couple million computer books.

Here’s the key to reading books about coding. . .you don’t actually read them. You just flip through them scanning over things you already know and picking out fun pieces of code that you’ve never tried before.

If yout tried to grab a book on Java or C++ at the library and just work your way through it, I’m pretty sure most people would give up before they finished. I suppose you need to have at least a basic understanding of coding, but I got that in college.

Lately, all the books I’ve read have been murder-mystery novels. I decided to take a break and read a regular fiction, so I picked up Williwaw by Tom Bodett.

I love this book. I’ve been reading plot driven books for so long I forgot what it was like to connect with a character (it’s refreshing and makes me wonder why I’m so obsessed with murder-mystery novels). So far this is a simple story about a couple of kids who get into some trouble by just being kids, and are trying hard not to get caught. I’m only a third of the way into the book, but there’s some heavy foreshadowing that the kids are going to end up in some real danger.

Bodett is a brilliant writer. The words these characters say and decisions they make remind me of what I was like when I was 12 and 13. I usually barf (yep that’s right, barf) when I start reading another story about a teenager whose parents are gone (it’s an overused way to write about a troubled teenage life . . . aren’t the teenage years troublesome enough without havening to kill off the kid’s parents?), but the situation these two are living in is unique to me, so I’m curious about their way of life (they live in a bay in Alaska and are almost completely cut off from other teenagers).

I’ll let you know what I think when I’m done with the book, but I’ve read enough that I can recommend it.

Williwaw
by Tom Bodett

We made it back safe. The travel-by-night plan was tough, but with the kids asleep the trip only took us 8 hours instead of 11.

For the trip I borrowed the audio book The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne Duprau from the library. This is the prequel to The City of Ember and The People of Sparks. Both Ember and Sparks were fun books. Gina and I read them out loud to each other a couple years ago. I liked the situations, the characters, and the mysteries in both. But Duprau gets a bit preach in Yonwood. This is actually the third time we tried to read/listen to this book; I think that’s because the book starts off slow (which means she used too much description in the beginning without . It felt like Duprau has some serious questions about God (which is great) and she uses this book to sort them out (which is lame). There wasn’t a strong connection between this prequel and her other two books.

Apparently, the fourth book in the series is coming out in August called The Diamond of Darkhold. The blurb looks good, so I’m not giving up on Duprau. The next book picks up where Sparks left off, so hopefully Duprau will stick to story and tone down the preaching.

This book is funny, not because it’s supposed to be but because I just finished Leonard’s Riding the Rap. Leonard writes some seriously scary characters. Liss’s tough guy is an English gentleman, so when he threatens to beat up someone, it just sounds funny after being authentically scared by Bobby in Riding the Rap.

I’m about half done with Conspiracy and it’s an okay read. I read a lot of British literature in college so I got a little sick of it. Liss is an America writing like he’s English. The back cover says he was trying to get a Ph. D. in English at the time the book was published, so I’m guessing he had to read a lot of English Literature too.

I hope I’m not sounding too critical; The story is interesting and David obviously knows a lot about British culture.

Okay, now this one is probably going to have some blood and guts. Not the kind of book I usually read, but I’ve had 3 different people recommend I read something by Leonard so I’m giving him a chance.

Leonard is supposed to be the universes’s greatest dialogue writer. After only 9 chapters I have to say it’s not just his dialogue; his narrative sounds a lot like spoken English as well. These would be good books to read out loud . . . if my kids were older than 2. . . or maybe they should be older than 18 before they read this stuff. It’s not trashy or bloody, yet, but it is suspenseful in a scary kind of way.

Wrap-up: I finished the book, and I’m glad to say it didn’t get too bloody. Actually, it wasn’t any worse than some of the other mystery novels I read. The big difference is that this isn’t a mystery novel. Our library puts little stickers of Sherlock Holmes on mystery novels, but they got this one wrong. It does have a cop and a bad guy, but there’s no real mystery to it . . . at least not in the main plot. It would be better classified as a thriller/suspense novel than a mystery novel. I was worried I’d have to skip a chapter or two to get past the blood and guts, but that never happened, so I enjoyed the novel.

Riding the Rap by Elmore Leonard

Don’t worry, there is no blood or guts in this novel. And the picture is completely misleading. I’d almost say this book is kind of sweet. Yep, that’s right. Although the book is about an unsolved . . . crime (or maybe not) it’s feels like King is using this book to make a comment on storytelling as much as he is using the story to tell a story. That’s confusing, I know, but I enjoyed the book, and if it were a movie, it would probably get a PG rating, so set aside everything you’ve heard about Stephen King, go to the library, and check out The Colorado Kid.