After my post about Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I figured it might be time to do a list of 5 books that I feel everyone should read. Some of these are fiction, nonfiction, and even a comic book or two. So now, onto the list.
5) Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen: While it’s no secret that the history textbooks of today’s schools are little to be desired, if even close to factual, there are books like this one to fill in the gaps. It is my belief that every student entering into their freshman year in high school should read this book. It tackles 10 various topics ranging from America’s “discovery” to the Vietnam War. And while the author does let his own views slip in early on and well into the book, the knowledge gained here is interesting if nothing else. If I were in high school now, I could have some serious fun with my history teacher.
4) Good Omens by Neil Gaimen and Terry Pratchett: If the Left Behind series was a fictional account of the Tribulation from the Biblical book of Revelation, then Good Omens is the Douglas Adams version of the first three books of Left Behind. While Good Omens is not written by the man that brought us Ford Prefect, his style and humor is abundant so much that you would believe that Gaimen and Pratchett are channeling Adams. In this story about the end of days, two spiritual beings (an angel and a demon) attempt to prevent an apocolypse (because they like the world so much) that is already doomed. Everything that could go wrong does, from the Anti-Christ being switched at birth to be raised by normal suberban parents to the misplacement of the only text to actual predict the end of the world, it’s all here and the characters are to die for. Imagine the four horsemen as a gang of motorcycle riding hells angels, and you just begin to get the picture.
3) The Company or Jennifer Government by Max Barry: There’s a reason both of these books are at number three, that reason being is they are both equally good and I could not decide between one or the other. My friend and I have labeled Max Barry “the new Chuck Palahniuk” because his writing is very similar but about different topics. Where Palahniuk will take on the slightly weirder side, Barry takes the more ironic view. Barry’s nitch is big business and the destruction it usually causes itself. In The Company, a young, fresh out of college, twenty something male enters the business world. Taking a job with the Zypher Corporation he quickly learns that things are not always what they seem in the business world. While in Jennifer Government, the world is a strangely different place. America owns several new terretories including Austraillia and big business is king including the NRA which is a publically traded company. When a gurellia marketing plan goes bad, someone is going to pay and if Jennifer Government has her way that someone is going to be John Nike. I highly recommend both of these books.
2) The Simpsons and Philosophy by William Irwin: Have you ever wanted to learn more about philosophy but didn’t want to sit through a boring lecture by a professor who is probably only teaching the class because he could not teach anything else? The Simpsons and Philosophy is the book for you. Edited by William Irwin, the book contains 18 essays on every aspect of the Simpsons from Homer’s character, to Maggie’s silence, to the sterotyping of “Goodfellas”. Every essay is simple enough to read and if one has any familiarity with these lovable characters, they will be able to wrap their heads around some of the hardest philisophical points. An interesting read if there ever was one.
1) The Watchmen by Alan Moore: As far as comics go, they seem to get a bad reputation from the literary groups as being “mind-numbing”, it’s something kids read to pass time, and none of them are written with any kind of intelligence. The Watchman by Alan Moore (also writer for V for Vendetta the comic not the movie) is anything but that. A serious book about a time when costume heros were outlawed and forced to make their secret identity thier only identity (long before The Incredibles did it) because some of them were out of control. But what happens when some of these former heros turn up dead? That’s what one “hero” wishes to find out. In a chilling story about what some people will go through to acheive a goal, the basic question is asked “Who watches the watchmen?” and while the book might not give any real answer to the question the story is the best that Moore has probably ever written. The Watchmen proves once and for all that comics can be legitimate literature. The purchase links for The Watchmen are all for the Absolute Edition which is a very nice hardcover in a slipcase with DVD-like extras. If you would like to purchase just a regular trade paperback (non-hardcover) click here.
[Technorati Tag: Books]
Michael Koby 
Why Microsoft’s Zune Could Fail
Microsoft has announced their iPod rival, it is called Zune. The new digital audio player (DAP) is rumored to sport WiFi, a fast processor for gaming, and a satellite radio receiver. While all of this sounds great on paper it has been proven in the past that digital audio players that do lots of different things do not do one of those things very well.
What has made Zune’s biggest competiter, the iPod, such a major success is that it is first and foremost a music player. Sure the iPod recently added video support, but if you look closely at how this iPod is marketed it read “iPod with Video” not “Video iPod” and while the distinction might be small it makes a world of difference in the long run. To understand the difference you must first understand that the iPod never set out to be more than an digital audio player. And at this it succeeds very well. It plays Mp3s, M4a, M4p, and unproceted WMA files perfectly. You can easily navigate to find the song you want and the integration with iTunes is top notch. While some power users will argue there are missing features that they deem important (gapless playback, OGG format support, etc), for the beginner who just wants to load thier music and go, it’s perfect and pretty much hassle free. Sure, there are extra features like contacts, notes, and a few games. But these are very simple to use and they, by design, are not meant to be replacements for a PDA or gaming device. The iPod plays music, that’s it, that is it’s sole purpose. Now when Apple introduced the iPod with Video, they were very strategic in the content they offered. First off they offered television shows, music videos, and video Podcasts. This was to prove that given the right content people could watch video on an iPod and they made it easy to download content via iTunes.
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