AUDIO books and PODCASTS 2015

On January 4, 2016December 27, 2015 By Rick McIn audiocasts, books, friends, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Seems everyone I know is now listening to audio books and podcasts. 🙂

In the fall of 2014, the medium of podcasting achieved a milestone moment. The podcast Serial – which reinvestigated the 1999 murder of Maryland high school student Hae Min Lee – became the fastest podcast to reach 5 million streams or downloads in iTunes history. Although the success of Serial – a spinoff of WBEZ’s This American Life – clearly represented a new peak in the popularity of podcasts, Pew Research Center data show that the medium has, in fact, been steadily growing its audience …

journalism.org

I’m currently subscribed to about 70 podcasts. But truly only listen to about a dozen of those. They are all free via iTunes.

I have about 20 audio books lined up into the future. I pay an average of about $10 for those.

I buy from Amazon – Audible.com.

Audible

The advantages of audio over reading are many. But progress in the switch over has been slower than I would have expected.

Sadly, Apple has mostly bungled podcasts. Their apps have been lousy. Yet the competitors have not dented the importance of iTunes in distribution.

Audible is too dominant in the audio book market. They don’t innovate. They charge too much / title. Yet competitors have not dented the market leader, Amazon.

what’s with Adult colouring books?

On December 27, 2015December 25, 2015 By Rick McIn Art and beauty, booksLeave a comment

Adult coloring books, though available in print, are increasingly being offered digitally, via ebooks, digital apps, and coloring pages that can be colored online or downloaded.

Contributing to the popularity of e-coloring books are their de-stressing, relaxation effects and the fact that users’ work-products can be saved and shared. …

A friend of mine, Cynthia, was one of the artists in this one – Coloring Creative Characters: Fun Coloring Pages with Personality. ($12.99)

adult coloring book

14 – a novel by Peter Clines

On December 22, 2015December 18, 2015 By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Recommended for teenage boys.

Though juvenile, this book kept me going.

The story starts when Nate, a guy with no girl, a lousy job and not much ambition gets a tip on an apartment that seems too good to be true.

Before the ink on the lease is dry, Nate starts to notice some strange things about his new home.

His new neighbors clue him in to additional oddities, from doors that are permanently locked to hidden messages in the walls to rooms whose tenants all commit suicide. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Nate and his new friends attempt to unlock the deeper secrets of the Kavach building, not knowing that the consequences of their actions could be catastrophic. …

Amazon review by Justin G.

Clines is very popular in this genre. I’m starting on his most recent book – The Fold.

It’s getting great reviews.

new Calgary Public Library

On December 18, 2015December 16, 2015 By Rick McIn books, internetLeave a comment

Finally. I’ve been waiting all my life for this. 🙂

Providing approximately 240,000 sq ft of usable library space – 66% more than the existing downtown library – the NCL will be home to a physical collection of approximately 600,000 books, special programs and spaces for children and teens, a technology commons and laboratory for innovation, a centre that supports community integration and advancement through skills development, and much more. …

Q4 2018 – Construction Complete

CMLC

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

Rebus – Even Dogs in the Wild

On December 16, 2015December 13, 2015 By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

The Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Ian Rankin. The novels, centred on the title character Detective Inspector John Rebus, are mostly based in and around Edinburgh. …

Ian Rankin’s 20th Rebus novel …

In Even Dogs in the Wild, Rebus is dragged out of retirement – again – to act in the semi-official capacity of consultant detective, assisting in the investigation of a shooting at the house of another retired geezer, long-time foe “Big Ger” Cafferty. …

Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin review – a satisfying return for Rebus

The rumpled detective is back in a twisty, darkly topical and immaculately executed tale of Edinburgh’s underbelly

Author Ian Rankin purchased back the TV rights. He wants the original actor who played Rebus, Ken Stott, to return in a new production.

‘Deep South’ – Paul Theroux

On November 28, 2015November 26, 2015 By Rick McIn books, firearms, travelLeave a comment

… a leisurely, even languid book, reiterative and sometimes simply forgetful. We’re told twice why so many motels are owned by members of the Patel clan from Gujarat, and are twice offered some of Nelson Algren’s well-worn advice to travelers: “Never eat at a place called Mom’s, never play cards with a man called Doc.” …

GEOFFREY C. WARD review – Paul Theroux’s ‘Deep South’

I’ve read all of Paul Theroux’s travel books. He and Krakauer are terrific story tellers. My style of writers.

I’ve always wanted to know more about the U.S. South as well. From my few short visits to Georgia and Alabama, it’s clear my assumptions are mostly wrong.

This one is good. As usual. But he’s definitely mellowed. Sympathetic to Gundamentalists, in fact.

Paul Theroux is in a suspiciously good mood in “Deep South,” his 10th travel book. You begin to wonder if, in his relative old age — Mr. Theroux is 74 — this inimitably caustic novelist and nonfiction writer is mellowing.

“Deep South” recounts road trips taken in Mississippi, South Carolina, Arkansas and elsewhere below the Mason-Dixon line. …

Point the urbane and skeptical Mr. Theroux, who lives on Cape Cod and in Hawaii, in the direction of churches and gun shows (he visits many of each) and you might expect sulfurous ironies. Not in this book. …

NY Times – DWIGHT GARNER – Review: In ‘Deep South,’ Paul Theroux Takes an Eye-Opening Road Trip

Amazon – Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads 2015

related interview – Paul Theroux on ‘Deep South’

In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

On October 30, 2015 By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

Nine Lives: in Search of the Sacred in Modern India is a 2009 travel book by William Dalrymple. …

… the lives of nine Indians, a Buddhist monk, a Jain nun, a lady from a middle-class family in Calcutta, a prison warden from Kerala, an illiterate goat herd fromRajasthan, and a devadasi among others, as seen during his Indian travels. The book explores the lives of nine such people, each of whom represent a different religious path in nine chapters. …

The book was published by Bloomsbury to great acclaim, The Observer remarking that it “ranks with the very finest travel writing”. …

Pico Iyer, in TIME Magazine, praises the “powerful restraint and clarity” the book brings to “precisely the two subjects — India and faith — that cause most observers to fly off into cosmic vagueness or spleen. The result is a deeply respectful and sympathetic portrait.” …

It is extremely well written. An astonishing look at how normal people go to extremes of religious practice. The first story is of nuns who starve themselves to death as ritual.

book review – Driving Over Lemons

On October 16, 2015October 16, 2015 By Rick McIn books, product endorsements4 Comments

Last week I was hiking the white mountain villages called Las Alpujarras. I was reminded of this excellent book series.

repost from 2009 ___

Christopher ‘Chris’ Stewart (born in 1950), was the original drummer and a founding member of Genesis.

stewart_lemons Unexpectedly, he has become a very successful author.

… Chris transports us to Las Alpujarras, an oddball region south of Granada, and into a series of misadventures with an engaging mix of peasant farmers and shepherds, New Age travellers and ex-pats. The hero of the piece, however, is the farm that he and Ana bought, El Valero – a patch of mountain studded with olive, almond and lemon groves, sited on the wrong side of a river, with no access road, water supply or electricity. Could life offer much better than that?

It is laugh out loud hilarious. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia

Chris was not really serious about becoming a musician and left the band in the summer of 1968. … After travelling and working throughout Europe, Stewart settled and bought a farm “El Valero” in the Alpujarras region of Andalusia, Spain where he lives and works with his wife Ana Exton and daughter Chloe. He came in last place for the position of local councillor in the 27 May 2007 local elections in Órgiva representing the Green Party, where he received 201 votes (roughly 8%).

He is now better known for his autobiographical books, Driving Over Lemons (1999) .. and the sequels, A Parrot In The Pepper Tree … and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society (2006)

… The first two are also available as audiobooks … narrated by Stewart.

Pico Iyer – Where do I come from?

On October 15, 2015October 14, 2015 By Rick McIn books, education, ethics, things getting better, travelLeave a comment

The world is changing. Perhaps faster than we realize.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

In Retrospect – Ellen Larson

On October 14, 2015October 13, 2015 By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

In Retrospect is a good old-fashioned whodunit set in a compelling post-apocalyptic future.

Former elite operative Merit Rafi suffered during her imprisonment at the end of a devastating war but the ultimate torment is being forced to investigate a murder she would gladly have committed herself.

In the year 3324 the Rasakans have attacked the technologically superior Oku. The war is a stalemate until the Oku commander General Zane abruptly surrenders. Merit a staunch member of the Oku resistance fights on but she and her comrades are soon captured. An uneasy peace ensues but the Rasakans conspire to gain control of the prized Oku time-travel technology.

When Zane is murdered the Rasakans exert control over Merit the last person on Earth capable of Forensic Retrospection.