Digital Books

In Andrew Roe's Retreat, we're introduced to David, a character who yearns to fall into the cracks of everyday life where he can detach, listen to his music, do his mundane job and just be left alone. He even struggles with the point of "don't you need to be somebody first" to then disappear and have it produce the "maximum effect." Maybe his search for solitude is really just his way of reaching out?

David has been through a stage we can all relate to; a place where he can't seem to gain momentum in any aspect of life - work, relationships, creative endeavors and the like - and reaches a point of disconnection where even one of those points of "demarcation" for the entire planet isn't enough to rouse him from his perpetual slumber.

This story made me laugh, pause to reflect a bit and even think twice about saying "hello" to my neighbors when picking up my mail each day (so who's the loner in my building???). I had an instant connection with the character and the settings and stages of his experience are made to seem all too familiar (I hate cubicles too). Andrew Roe has that rare gift every writer seeks - a witty and engaging style that makes you want to read on.

I'm hooked - I want to know more about my new friend David and his plight. Will he succeed in his plans to disappear from society? Will he find solitude and peace? Will he be able to keep his sanity deep inside the gray fabric walls of corporate America? I want to know...

These brief chapters from Andrew Roe's novel are concise, insightful, and funny. He has a great sense of life in a giant mega-corporation, a place where, after four years, someone can still ask the narrator if he's new to the company, and where our narrator can work all morning and not realize until lunch that the building has been abandoned because of news of terrorist attacks. Essentially, Roe is exploring the many ways it is possible to be invisible in our society, and he does so with warmth, humor and honesty. I would recommend this to anyone who has ever had a job.

'Retreat' is a glimpse of a guy named David, whose life is a melancholy cycle of one living as a meaningless figure within a corporate cube-farm. In a sad way, he's a poster-child for an entire populous of single men who are stuck in the monotonous daily cycle of 'work, microwaved lunch, more of the same work, home'.

David lives for nothing of great substance, and doesn't stop his routine of samedom, even as the entire nation stops. In a poignant moment, David realizes (after remembering to remove his ear-plugs the he uses for sleeping) that his entire office is devoid of life--and this realization not only sums up this character in a few short sentences, but also makes me think that his internal narrative must be incredibly loud (even if his external self doesn't reveal as such)...for him not to realize that the lifeless day at his office is Sept. 11, 2001.

This is a brilliant read, and Andrew Roe should be commended for creating this truly touching piece of literary art.

Retreat by A. Roe offers a witty insight to one young professional's disenchantment with everyday life. American culture has lead to a disenfranchisement with the immediate world around him. Rather than have have his obscurity be based on not being 'somebody first', David Leiter takes charge of his own social withdrawal.

This is a funny and well written take on the dilemmas of the modern fabricated-for-you life. It easily conjures up the humor seen in other pop-culture favorites as 'Office Space' and Dilbert, yet doesn't get carried away with its levity.

I found that many of the authors lines were filled with a simple blend of comic poignancy and general observation, such as:
~'...later turn out to be this big before-and-after demarcation, when your life forks elsewhere and you aren't even aware of said forking at the time.'
~'...the cube next to mine had been vacant ever since the welcomed departure of the satanic Matt Henderson...'
~'...yet another report, this one about the cognitive ability of young children to recognize company mascots and logos.'

While this excerpt overall read as the slow downfall of David's worldly involvement, I was lost at times with regard to chronology. If this was meant to be linear, then I missed that. I missed what order this presentation was in, generally speaking.

It starts with an overview of things, then starts to recollect his time from college graduation onward. After the 'are you new here' piece (establishing he'd been there for 4+ years) and the bit about his apartment neighbors, we find out he has a new cube-neighbor. From there, David's still thinking on the new cube person, when, in short order, he's approached by Casagrande (lovely name) about his editing. There's mention that David's 'new' at this point. I reread this sequence four times wondering if I missed the indicator for time shifting. Is this still four years later? Did he start thinking about when he was new again? Did his direct supervisor really think that David was new? It was rather confusing.

Outside of this time slip, I enjoyed reading this piece. The humor, pace and character had a general appeal that kept me engaged as a reader and wanting to see how David finally manages to escape it all.

David Leiter - an anonymous and typically dissatisfied, uninspired and dismayed resident of corporate cubeville, one document processing specialist in a veritable army of hundreds of lacklustre wordsmiths, an English major whose sole editorial task (in the words of his domineering tyrannical supervisor) is "to make shit stink less" - takes us on a meandering, hilarious Seinfeld like tour of the existential angst of his unchallenged intellect and rather forlorn, mundane existence.

Andrew Roe has chosen to let David Leiter tell his own story in his own words - a particularly engaging first person style in which I felt as if I was sitting on a bar stool beside David as he told the story directly to me, a very private and entirely engaging one on one session. Despite David's obviously retiring, introverted personality in which he almost shuns human contact, David is also a VERY funny guy. He is self deprecating, utterly charming and it would seem blissfully unaware of his own wit despite his sparkling mastery of the craft of words.

If Andrew Roe can maintain that style and level of interest throughout his entire novel, wherever it may be headed, then he will have penned a literary prize well worth the reading.

Thanks so much, Mr Roe, and good luck with your writing efforts. I'll look forward to reading the finished product.

Paul Weiss

An excellent beginning - I'd like to read more of this book. I was quickly drawn in and found myself wanting to know more about the main character, her background, and where she's going next. Ms. Reed's writing is descriptive and charming in style, and is very readable. The description of April's childhood upsets with her sisters goldfish and subsequent heart condition is very compelling. I hope this book gets published!

I admit, it took me a minute to recover from my bias against phone psychics but once I got past that, I really wanted to know what April was going to do next and how she would use the info she received to change her life. Publish this book so I can find out what happens next!

I can't wait to read the rest of this book. What a wonderful work of art!

Bravo, Ms. Reed. You have a wonderful gift for tapping into universal themes so that almost any reader would identify with and be entertained by the humanity of your protagonist. Who among us has not envisioned our alternate universe selves, or the mirage of a 'perfect' future life and partner in life? Ms. Reed illustrates so beautifully the fact that so much of who we are is the sum of all the little moments, tragic and happy, of our lives. I can't wait to read more!

I totally enjoyed this book. The protagonist has a very realistic combination of optimism and uncertainty, which makes her entirely sympathetic and easy to relate to. She has a gut belief that there's a great life out there for her if only she can figure out what it is, where it is, whom it's with. And she's admirably resilient each time her sense that she may have found it is thwarted. Her search takes her across the U.S. and abroad, and involves romance, adventure, and countless interesting characters. The narrative also moves back and forth in time, so there's the added texture of her past (the author does a great job capturing what it felt like to be a kid in the 70s) as she tries to understand how it's informing her present life and whether she can ever fully leave it (or, rather, its residual demons) behind.

What a great read! In "Between", Debra Samson shares the intimacies of two best friends on their journey through life together. One is dying, and one is frustrated and aging. Debra understands and articulates the contradictions and ironies of the human condition in its various stages. This is a story of love, loss, surrender, and acceptance. This excerpt leaves the reader wanting to read on and to know more. I applaud Debra Samson on her terrific first effort.

In her first novel, "Beyond", Debra Samson allows her readers to witness the intimate relationship between two female friends, one of whom is frustrated and one of whom is dying. This is a touching, insightful tale of their journey that rings true on many levels. I look forward to reading the complete book, as Ms. Samson has captured completely the feel of best friends facing their own personal losses together. I want to read more!

Ms. Samson has brought together the essence of friendship. A friend knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. There are times in ones life when we feel despair, anguish, hopelessness. The author has captured those moments and shows us the power of a true friend. She writes with feelings that are honest and sincere. I look forward to reading more.

I was captivated by the first paragraph in Debra Samson's wonderful book. I love the heartwarming, and honest relationship between Barbara and Carolyn, it speaks so eloquently about the power of woman's friendship.
I am looking forward to reading more!

This captivating and engrossing story takes the reader on the last spiritual journey of a smart and beautifully complex woman Barbara. The reader is drawn into the story of love, friendship, deep understanding, and spirituality. I found myself absorbed by the book from the very first sentence, feeling and understanding Barbara's pain and counting my own blessings. This is a strong and brave book that leaves a mark in the reader's heart. It left me wanting to see more from Debra Samson.

I was drawn in quickly by Lara and the author's certain voice. Conflict comes early and the backstory is braided and seamless. McCarty stays out of the way of this one, managing complex characters and providing trustworthy dialogue from the shadows. The result is pure story. Throughout the pages burned a fire kindled by the electric spark between Lara and Aedan. Long after story's end I lay in the cinders of that fire cursing myself for reading so fast, and grasping for some way to return to that world. Write more, Ms. McCarty, and either wind me in tighter on your string or release me from the spell Cerridwen's Tears cast over me.

This is a rich story filled with interesting characters who leap off the page. McCarty has done a great job writing a fresh vampire story. Her provocative and witty style had me from page one. I cannot wait to see where Lara and Aeden's chemistry takes them. I will buy this book and any others by this author!

Intrigued, I read this excerpt several times and each time I find myself amazed Ms. McCarty's crafted such believable and realistic characters. Lara is a hard working nurse who knows her job. The coffee addiction juat adds another layer of reality we can all relate to. Her angry personality is profound and well thought out; a result of losing her beloved spouse only a few years before. Now, her only true love is her horses.

Into her life, a life where she has become a bit promiscuous to numb her loneliness, comes Aedan, a vampire of the highest order. Suave and sophisticated, well dressed and well heeled, he is facinated by her. Although his early, formal introduction is a bit awkward, as are all formal introductions between strangers, he senses a way to become a friend. A friend that she needs as she tries to end an unsatisfying relationship.

It is Aedan and Lara's mutual love and respect of horses that finally melts the ice, and leaves me begging to find out more about these facinating people. Aedan and Lara are bound to become classics in the pantheon of fictional characters, and I, for one, want to read more and more about them. If Sheryl McCarty were to write twenty more books in this series, I would pre-order them now, because this is a delightful read!

Sheryl McCarty's got me. I love her provocative, yet witty writing style. I can see the setting and she brings her characters to life so vividedly. Lara, independent, fiesty, so seemingly in control; I can't wait to see where she's going with hunky Aedan. How long do I have to wait for more of this captivating work? YOU GO GIRL!

I Loved it! Its fast paced dialog and well developed characters got me from the start. I read the excerpt twice and I could find no reference to a husband who was afraid of vampires, in fact there was no husband at all so I'm not sure where some other reviewers got that part. I loved Lara's snarky attitude and thought it was refreshing to see a female character who's not stumbling over herself where men are concerned. Rock on, Lara, I want to read more!

I bought this book for reference rather than than study use, but it has served its purpose well. First, this book provides decent coverage of Cisco Pixes. Brief overviews are provided of key technical concepts - enough that you can understand what exactly you're configuring. Secondly, the book provides excellent example configurations, even going so far as to step you through basic software setup. (i.e. A step-by-step guide to setting up the integrated PPTP Windows 2000 VPN client, including screenshots). Finally, it provides some of the best coverage of Cisco Pixes that I've found outside of Cisco's website.

There is only one thing I would have liked to see included in this book: A basic configuration example for those who want to use the Cisco Pix as a termination point for Cisco VPN Client connections. For THAT, I had to go hunting for information on Cisco's website. Thus far, this is my only complaint about the book.

I can whole-heartedly recommend this book for anybody who needs a good reference on setting up, configuring, and managing Pix firewalls.

Excellent book, everything you want to know about the Pix. Very thorough, topics are explaned well, in great detail and with good examples. This is the best Pix book on the market that I know of.

I got this book to configure a Cisco Secure ACS with VPN clients, and i reached my goal. And you can get many other topics in a cookbook style. You can read the technical information or only take ideas from examples. Excellent PIX firewall book.

This book well and truly paid for itself after the first couple of chapters. We found a number of areas where our setup was wrong and this book provided a very indepth look at the PIX product and enabled us to fix this easily and quickly. Good book for all users.

If you use PIX, get this book, it has a LOT of great info.

The first 14 pages are very engaging. I look forward to reading the rest of the book.

"Even the Sparrow" is exactly the kind of story I loved as a girl, historical fiction with a close focus on family. Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Understood Betsy, and other classics will "flock" to this well-written, emotionally engaging story. I'd certainly recommend it! The author's eye for detail, ear for language, and heartfelt connection with her characters makes it a winner.

Even the Sparrow instantly provokes emotion and never relents. Even reader's without a fondness for stories of the Great Depression (a group to which I'm a member)-forced to compassion, I yearn to follow the plight of Meg & Temple and hope for a happy ending.

Very well written, this excerpt provides wonderful visualization. I'm up for the next chapter!

Love the easy flow of this excerpt. Losing my mother at an early age, I empathize with Meg's loss. I am intrigued by the experience and emotions associated with living without her father. I want to read more!!!

The setting and dialogue caught my interest from the start. I could feel the heat and dust, the sticky lemonade, and the emotion that the main character felt as she learned of the changes that were happening in her life. The girls were likeable and the plot line interesting. I would like to keep reading! Very well done!!

Good! A book set in the 1950's (a time I remember well) about a young nurse, about her work in a psychiatric ward, about her conversations with other nurses, and, I am guessing, the possibility of a romance with the appealing Dr. Kerr.

Sounds good to me. I'd buy this book and I would read it.

I love the fifties. There is so much perspective to be gained about today's and tomorrow's challenges and opportunities by seeking insight into the lives led by our parents in that time. The first thirteen pages of Rubies began a journey that I wanted to continue. The restrictions of the period's rules and limitations, the promised security and certainty of those rules, the hints of rising turmoil that would not be recognized for some time to come, all tantalized this reader to go on. I looked forward to getting to know Kate, Rebecca, Sue Ann and June and felt trepidation and anticipation for that which awaited each. I am eager to read more.

I wish more of the story was here. This beginning was very engaging. I want to know what happens to the new young nurses. The setting reminds me of the Chicago hospital where my daughters were born.

There is wonderful insight in this book about the way that medicine was practiced. The writing evokes the old-style relationships between doctors and nurses, between staff and patients. Subtle touches, such as the shared ciagarettes, call up days long past. I'm also impressed by the expectations of these young women, and how different those expectations are from today's young women.

I'd like to read the rest of the story.

This promises to deliver a unique storyline, following the journey of four women in the nursing profession. What sets it apart is that it takes place in the 1950s era...quite a challenge for which the author has embraced. Successfully, I might add. Judging from the scenarios played out in the psych ward, Kate has chosen an extremely difficult field for which I'm sure she will emerge stronger for it. There are phrases like "Freudian theories cast shafts of light" that shine throughout this entry.

I would love to know where this journey takes these women, both in the work force as well as in the social arena. An excellent offering here, Margaret! Great job!

The author did an excellent job of bringing her characters to life in just a few pages -- no small accomplishment. The writing is quite descriptive, but not excessively, so the narrative keeps moving along nicely. And as a nurse working there during that time I can attest to the accuracy of the depictions of both 1950s-era Chicago and its inner-city hospitals.

An impressive effort -- I'm eager to see how the story line plays out.

What a wonderful journey through small town middle America. Growing up in the Midwest I find Patricia Ann Lawson's characters so familiar. I truly enjoy the intermingling of all of the different personalities and I love the frequent bursts of dry and sarcastic humor that she uses in her writings. It truly brings the story to life. --the Buddhist moving company and George's buddy diet with his dogs are my favorites.
Patricia Lawson has me chuckling throughout the story and I find myself roaming the streets of the Il Villaggio subdivision with "Blue Grandma, Red Grandma and Little Bea."
I can't wait for the rest of the story.

What's not to like? A cast of characters out of Flannery O'Connor. A narrator whose eye for detail and understated irony would leave the terminator laughing. Good pacing. What must they be thinking down at Publisher's Weekly? Ah, Roachton, I will heed your siren song.

In a state whose minimal landscape begs the imagination to fly in any direction, whose motto could easily be "The Blank Slate State," finding Il Villagio di Trevi "sitting squarely" on the Kansas plains is more believable than one might guess. In this fly-over state that claims as its own a source for Swedish lutefisk, a tourist attraction whose creator is entombed under glass in a pyramid in the backyard, Brown (and evolution) vs. Board of Education, Dr. Phil, and a thriving herd of camels, why not an Italianate sub-division?
Patricia Lawson's eerily familiar town of Pleasant Outlook, fka Roachton, comes to life through an unseen narrator who is as much a character in the story as is, say, the "we" in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." Try as she might to simply report the facts, this narrator is involved in the goings-on of Pleasant Outlook. She cannot resist the genealogic insertions, the essential third dimension of all small-town gossip, the minutiae that reveal the real spirit of Pleasant Outlook.
By ordering alternate custody of the orphaned Bea Fay to her very different grandmothers, the court imposes a bi-polar existence that leaves Bea unable to "fix her thoughts for long on another person." Lawson approaches the serious repercussions of an unfocused home life humorously, satirically, and absurdly with perfectly nuanced details. We can laugh at the little things that warp a child's psyche far into adulthood.
I want to know what happens. How will the arrival of Bea's first real friend (from Nepal) in seventh grade color the course of Bea's life and the vast canvas of the Midwest? I want to read the whole book.

What great fun. I loved the humor and expanse of "Il Villaggio Di Trevi" by Pat Larson. It is a refreshingly humorous look at the ex-urbs of a Midwest America where small town and city infringe on each other. Bea is being raised by her two grandmothers who live across the lake from each other in a new suburb of the small town where they live. The granddaughter is the only common ground between the two ways of life that each represents--one, staid and rigid, the other free-spirited but in some ways just as fixed in her ways. The humor of the novel lies in Bea's appreciation of the value and richness of growing up in both households.

The success of the novel depends on the author's ability to reveal the complexity of life in the middle: the middle of America, of the simultaneous shrinking and expanding of a small town, of tradition and change, of humor and seriousness. This is a delightful beginning to a novel I look forward to reading to the end.

Il Villagio Di Trevi drops us into Pleasant Outlook, changed from Roachton, a name that displeased the town council. The excerpt treats Pleasant Outlook as a contemporary Gopher Prairie, the town depicted in Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, where faux culture endures during a town's long stagnation. The style is clean and comic. The narrator interjects opinion and frequently chooses to either skip or defer elaboration. The narrator as agent--biased, flawed, opinionated--is a rising, or more accurately, resuscitated theme among a small but growing group of authors in contemporary literature. The story races forward following Bea Fay as she alternates between living with her Blue and Red grandmas; only when I finished reading did I begin to ponder the developing themes in the story. The novel's ironic but easy style and armchair narrator makes for an urgent desire to follow Bea's travails to the end. Can't wait till the book is out.

Do you need help with your photography skills? If you do, then this book is for you. Authors David Pogue and Derrick Story, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that is designed to serve as the iPhoto manual.

Pogue and Story, begin by covering buying, using, and exploiting your digital camera. Then, the authors cover the fundamentals of getting your photos into iPhoto. Organizing and filing them, searching them, and editing them to compensate for weak lighting. Next, they cover the many ways iPhoto can present those photos to other people. Finally, the authors cover a miscellaneous potpourri of additional iPhoto features, including: turning photos into screen savers or desktop pictures on your Mac; exporting the photos in various formats; using iPhoto plug-ins and accessory programs; managing Photo Libraries; backing up your photos using iPhoto's Burn to CD command; and, even getting photos to and from camera phones and Palm organizers.

This most excellent book provides an invaluable grounding in professional photography. Perhaps more importantly, this book gives you all you need to know about digital photography!

Some say lightening can never strike the same place twice. The Missing Manual series proves that wrong. David Pogue and the O'Reilly gang constantly hit the mark and spark creativity and knowledge in a variety of programs.

IPhoto 6 covers absolutely every aspect of digital photography on your Mac, leaving few stones unturned. In order to make sure you get the great photos you need and minimized the editing needed in iPhoto, Derrick Story and David Pogue make sure you buy the right digital camera for your needs and tells you the basics of lighting and composition. After reading that chapter, I looked at my own iPhoto library and understand why I liked certain shots and why others ended up on the digital darkroom floor.

After explaining how to buy a camera and create great photos, the authors take you through the steps of using iPhoto in logical order: importing, managing, outputting and of course backing up. More technical manuals need to do this. Instead of taking you through the features, they take you through the workflow.

The writing was typical of the series: clear, understandable with plenty of screen shots to explain the concepts. While I consider myself an expert on iPhoto, the book was full of subtle tips and tricks to shave hours off my digital photo management.

The strength of the book was definitely the extensive chapters on what to with your photos after they are in iPhoto. Photos are meant to be shared, not locked up in your hard drive. He went over not just the specifics of all the printing options such as photo books and calendars, but also using iMovie, iWeb, and iDVD to share the photos with the world.

The final chapters covered some more advanced options such as AppleScript and Automator. Unlike other Missing Manual books that simply point you to the website to download utilities, Pogue and Story explained some of these programs and how they can help you expand your iPhoto capabilities. The Appendix was definitely the icing on the cake handling practically every iPhoto error and it's solution, as well as walking you through the basics of every iPhoto menu command and its implications.

My only complaint was somewhat weak coverage on desktop printing of photos. I always get confused about the way to feed the photo paper and how to configure settings to get the proper output. iPhoto, the printer's software, the printer, and Mac OS X must all be in alignment to print properly. These days, I simply upload it to the drugstore website and print it there. Printing to services other than Apple's wasn't really covered either.

While iPhoto basics are simple and quick to learn, "iPhoto 6 the Missing Manual" helps you become the hands down master of digital photos on your Mac. Others will tremble in fear of your massive knowledge after reading this book cover to cover.

Pros: Covers every aspect of digital photography and makes everyone an iPhoto wiz.
Cons: Needed more coverage of desktop and third party printing of photos.

ANY question you might have, any project you might conjure up.....this book has all the answsers in the most easy format. A must have if you have an iMac and a digital camera!

As a beginner with digital photography,there is a great deal of iPhoto that is intuitive;however,there are so many options and errors that can be made,at least in my limited experience,that this book is a constant reference guide. I previously purchased "Switching to Mac,The Missing Manual",and found it so valuable that I bought this "Missing Manual".This series of books has been both informative and entertaining.

Might not have much for experienced power users - but for me as a Mac newcomer it did the trick. iPhoto is easy to use and most things you can figure out by yourself, but this book is a big timer saver in doing so and has also some tips that you otherwise might not have figured out

I was drawn in by the storyline and would like to get the chance to finish the story. The setting descriptions are very good and allow a one to form a mental picture. I would hope that the characters would become more dimensional as the story progresses. 14 pages was enough to introduce the characters and start the plot but not good enough to get a good feeling as to what the characters were all about.

Set in present-day Turkey, this novel conveys the history and culture of another country with two intertwined mysteries. What is the secret past of Marta, a calculating executive who reluctantly returns to her homeland? What is the story behind an elderly man who return to Turkey to bury his brother? I was enthralled after the second paragraph and cannot wait to read the entire novel.

I am anxious to read My Bondage, My Freedom, My Country by Dawn Leger. I truly believe that"coindences" are really the hand of God guiding each of us through our life. I am fascinated with Marta and would like to travel with her to reslsove her past relationship with her mother, and with Visilli, to see how he deals with his brother's death and his mother as well. Also, I look forward to reading Leger's descriptive tour through Turkey.

Leger's writing creates a world both familiar and foreign, drawing on the universal experience of revisiting one's childhood to introduce the reader to Turkey's rich culture. Her characters, even in this abridged form, are vibrant. The ending left me wanting more, but only because the time I spent in this exquisitely detailed world was far too short.

Dawn Leger's novel, My Bondage, My Freedom, My Country, is a compelling read that draws you in. Once I picked it up, I could not put it down, and wanted to read more. The characters are well-drawn, attention-grabbing, and make you care about them. Marta's reluctant journey into her past piques the interest of the reader. What impact will the encounter with Vasilli Vassilios have on her well-planned-out life? In a few pages the reader cares about the characters and wants to spend time with them on their journey. Dawn Leger's well-crafted pages are a great beginning to a novel that I will definitely read.