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Hold Tight

lkmills@gmail.com — 2008-12-11T21:18:21-06:00

Hold Tight is a riveting piece of fiction. I think most of its compelling force emanates from my own experience as a parent of teenagers. Let's face it, teens are risk-takers whose judgements are suspect. They embrace their independence but are often ill-equipped to wield it safely. The world they encounter is full of dangers. This book underlines a few: sociopaths, drugs, prosperity, mobility, computers, and peer pressure. What teenagers aren't telling you is what you have the most to fear.

Harlan Coben weaves together a story not only of teenagers but also of parents, some good, some not so good, most just struggling to juggle their jobs, their marriages, and their children. In the story, there are doctors who debate telling secrets, parents who debate learning their children's secrets, and teens who don't debate much, they just act and try to keep secrets from their caretakers.

There's also a character in the novel who is a psychopath. Now normally I don't want to read about depraved or evil characters. I know they're out there, but I don't go looking to immerse myself in their world. Coben's psychopath, though, is one who has a twist in his twisted brain: his malevolence springs from a misguided sense of family loyalty. Odd, slightly unbelievable, but interesting nonetheless. This guy is also someone you could meet anywhere, such as in the parking lot at say, Target.

I highly recommend this novel, especially for parents of teens or teens to be. I'll leave you with just one question. If you don't know the answer, you better read this book. Do you know what a "pharm party" is?? After I learned the answer, I immediately made a change in one particular household practice in my own home.

Simple Courage

lkmills@gmail.com — 2008-12-11T20:49:59-06:00

Frank Delaney has written a story of one man, the captain of a commercial freighter, who in 1951 single-handedly attempted to save his ship from sinking on the high seas. It is a story from a simpler time, presented as a portrait of one man who did what he did because it was, in his mind, the right thing to do, despite significant personal risk. Doing his job was the captain's main motivation. Doing it well was his modus operandi. Doing it without angling for personal gain or fame was assumed. In short, a tale of heroism by an ordinary man in a battle against Nature doing what he was trained and employed to do, albeit in extraordinary circumstances.

The writing style of this book leaves a little to be desired. There are discontinuities in the narrative which I found irritating. The author also, almost embarrassingly so, inserts part of his own story into the story of the protagonist. Delaney's childhood was not a happy one, apparently, and he connects his fascination with the sea captain's tale to his own father's failure to connect his with son the author. It just seems out of place.

Nonetheless, despite these faults, I recommend the book, especially if one has an interest in seafarers and the struggles between the elemental forces of water, weather, and human determination.

The Shack

lkmills@gmail.com — 2008-09-05T13:09:44-05:00

The Shack was recommended to me from the pulpit. The deacon warned the congregation that the first sixty pages were tough to read, but that there was good stuff to follow. He was right. Especially for you with young children, the first sixty pages tell a frightening story that seems all too believable in the context of recent news stories. This tragedy is, however, the crux of the book's premise: that God can create good out of what seems bad. Or, as one of my previous pastors put it: "There is nothing that God can't redeem."

This is an ages-old question: theodicy. It has been the source of many creative outputs from writers and theologians for hundreds of years. Essentially, this book summarizes for a modern audience the major Christian viewpoints regarding God's seeming acceptance of incredible evils in our life on earth. This is not a polished meaty theological treatise; it is a popular retelling of the ancient conundrum with a modern-day, somewhat New Age flavor. It's not a book for the young; they usually haven't experienced enough tragedy in their lives yet. And it invokes a deus ex machina (in triplicate) to restore the faith of the protagonist, which may negate its value for many. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. The story made me cry, the writing amused, but the theology stimulated me to employ my highlighter frequently. Now I may go back and consult some of the original sources.

HeadFirst HTML and CSS

lkmills@gmail.com — 2008-08-18T21:58:08-05:00

OK for my first review I wanted to begin with the latest book I’ve read. Mostly because I’ve been trying to organize and create this website, I thought I’d share with you a little of my inspiration. For some reason I decided to learn something about HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) HTML is the programming so to speak behind all web pages. HTML tells the browser how to display the web page content. If you choose “View source” from the menu of whichever web browser you’re using, you’ll see the HTML code for the page you’re viewing. This is the language used to arrange the different elements of text, images, links etc for the page. To be able to create a web page from scratch or to modify a page that needs tweaking you have to understand the language.

Needless to say, as in learning any new language, the vocabulary and rules of HTML are strange. There are lots of good resources on the Web that are available free, but I wanted something written to which I could refer. Plus, I was intrigued by the concept of this particular book Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML (I’ll try to explain those later). In the intro to the book the authors underscore principles of active learning. That is, what are the proven methods of increasing the comprehension and retention of new subject matter. For any educational endeavor, these include:

Make it visual
Put images next to the words that they pertain to
Use a personal and conversational style
Engage the learner with challenges, exercises, puzzles, and the like
Be different: catch the reader’s attention with the exotic, the discrepant, or silly associations

In other words, help your brain learn how it learns. As the authors put it "take responsibility for your brain. Your brain on this content."

OK, so I dive into this book. It is quite varied in its typography, layout, graphics, and methods. It makes use of all the elements above, with a good splash of humor and savoir faire thrown in. For example, when explaining “doc types” the authors eventually just say: “at the end of the day, it may not make sense, just put it at the top of your webpage and move on [to more important things].” There are numerous exercises where you need to write part of the code for the page. They supply a website where the code for each chapter is archived, and include the images used as well. There are crossword puzzles (to cement the new vocabulary), variation exercises (to show how different snippets of code affect the page), brain teasers, and places where the reader is encouraged to actually write in the book. In short, the authors adhere to their educational principles and I think the results prove the validity of the method. This HTML business can be very dry, but this book makes it fun. I wanted to keep reading it and learning new parts.

Now by no means am I a web design expert after reading this book. But I’ve received an excellent introduction. I would highly recommend it to any beginner who wants to learn more about the subject.

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