Adam Shields

Initial Impressions of the Kindle Paperwhite

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Kindle Paperwhite Unboxing

UPDATE: I also have a longer review.

I opened up (my friend’s) new Kindle Paperwhite this morning.

These are my very quick initial impressions. Even though I have seen the statistics about the size and weight, it is smaller than what I thought.  Essentially it is the exact same size as the Kindle 4 (Kindle Basic).

But also as soon as I picked it up I noticed that it feels much more solid.  It is heavier by 2 oz than the Kindle 4 (and one oz less than the Kindle with Keyboard).  The Kindle 4, which is what I primarily use, feels almost hollow when I hold it.  The Paperwhite feels like it is a solid object.  My guess is that much of that is battery.  The Paperwhite battery, with the light on, is supposed to last twice as long as the Kindle 4 with no light.

Visually, the screens do not seem much different. I took a couple of pictures outside in sunlight with the Paperwhite’s light off to show the difference.

Compare Paperwhite ScreenClick the picture to get the full size image. The blacks might be a little darker.  The fonts might be a bit clearer.  But there is not a lot of difference.

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Sex, Mom and God by Frank Schaeffer

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Take Away: Our ideals and reality rarely match up. Frank Schaeffer is the son of Evangelical power couple Francis and Edith Schaeffer.  He is an author of a number of fiction books and several interesting non-fiction books (like his series on the military). But he is probably most well known either for his late 80s … Read more

Facebook is Becoming a Problem

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Over the last few months the Bookwi.se Fan page has been growing.  We have added almost 150 ‘fans’ in the last four months.  But we are actually reaching less people.  I have been able to see that through the metrics that track how many posts are viewed from Facebook.  Today Boing Boing posted an article … Read more

Paperwhite Kindle Reviews

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The new Amazon Paperwhite has started shipping.  A few reviews are out (Cnet, Verge, Kindle Chronicle). A friend of mine needed to replace their kindle because of a broken screen and is shipping the Paperwhite to me so I could play with it a few days before passing it onto him.  I am out of town … Read more

Invitation to Submit Book Reviews

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Bookwi.se is a better book review site when more people contribute reviews.  Over the past year or two nearly 10 different people have contributed at least one book review.  Bookwi.se reviews have been everything from children’s books to serious academic books to light pop fiction to classics.  This post is an open invitation to submit … Read more

Ghost Ship (Theo Waitley #3) by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

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Ghost Ship (Liaden Universe)Summary: Theo meets the rest of the Clan Korval Family and meets her new ship.

How do you review a book that is #3 is a sub-series and number 14 is a larger series?

After all most people will either not be interested because they have not read any of the previous books, or they are not interested because they have already invested so much time reading the series that they are going to read the book regardless of how well it is written.

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Saltation by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

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Saltation (Liaden Universe Novels)Several years ago I was reading a book review; I don’t remember where or what book was being reviewed. I  just remember that the reviewer said that she (I do remember it was a she) rarely reads series fiction.  I thought that was odd, but because I had never thought of books that were written as a series being a category and the fact that you would exclude a type of books because there were more than one.

The longer I thought about it the more I understood.  Series require a lot of investment.  You both have to read a number of books to get to the end.  And quite often the series is drawn out over years if not decades.  (I still have refused to read the fifth book in the Game of Throne series because I am pissed that it took so long for George RR Martin to get around to writing it.)

At the same time, Series fiction has its own benefit.  The reader is able to connect with characters over thousands of pages instead of hundreds.  Usually that means a more well rounded character and a longer character arc to the story.  It may mean a more fleshed out setting than would be possible in a stand alone novel.

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Disability and the Gospel by Michael Beates

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Disability and the Gospel

Summary: “…The world is divided into two groups after all….the line is drawn between those that are aware of their disabilities and those that are blind to them.”

Disability and the Gospel, fortunately, is not another attempt at defining the gospel as an adjective like so many books lately. It is a real, and somewhat dense, look at how Christianity understands both the people that are commonly labeled as disabled and how we as humans are labeled disabled by the gospel. (The gospel here is used as a general summary of Grace, Salvation and the Power of God. And not my preferred definition which is simply ‘Jesus is Lord, Savior and Messiah. See my review of the King Jesus Gospel for a longer discussion of this.)

The clearest summary of this book is about 3/4 of the way through the book where the author says, “…The world is divided into two groups after all. Not however, the normal and the abnormal, or the able and the disabled. Rather the line is drawn between those that are aware of their disabilities and those that are blind to them.”

So throughout the book, the author is using these two lenses to think about disability. On the one hand the traditionally understood disabled (blind, paraplegic, Down’s Syndrome, etc.) On the other hand, all of us as humans are disabled by sin and need to realize that we need God and that God works in us best though our weakness. Relatively early in the book the authors says that the body’s purpose is to show weakness and point toward a future in Heaven. Overall, I like the split focus, but I found the discussion on traditionally disabled far more challenging and helpful.

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The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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The Picture of Dorian Gray | [Oscar Wilde]Summary: A Faustian bargain to keep beauty and youth in exchange for your soul.

One of my reading priorities this year was to read more classics.  I have not done very well on my other reading goals, so when Amazon and Audible released a ton of free classics to promote their new Whispersync for Voice I decided to pick up most of them and try to start reading more classics.

Honestly, other than the reference in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I had never heard of Dorian Gray (and I did not even know there is a Dorian Gray movie until I started looking around for this review.)  I knew that his portrait aged instead of his body.  I assumed it was some sort of faustian bargain with the devil.

The actual book leaves a lot to the reader.  There is a sort of prayer that Dorian Gray says when he is first shown the portrait where he says that he would give anything to keep his beauty and youth as the painting shows.  But there is no explanation, supernatural or otherwise, for why Dorian stops aging and his portrait starts aging.  Similarly, we are not really told whether it is Dorian’s own nature that he becomes evil and depraved or whether there is some connection to his soul being lost in the bargain that causes him to become depraved.  I assume that Wilde just was allowing his reader to make the faustian connection.

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