Bossypants by Tina Fey

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Kindle book dropped to $5.99 so I am reposting the review.

BossypantsTakeaway: Funny memoir, and surprisingly insightful discussion about the role of women in entertainment.

Tina Fey is a great writer.  I have never watched that much Saturday Night Life.  It is past my bed time (I usually wake up between 5 and 6 even on weekends.  Yes I am an old man.)  And I have never watched 30 Rock (although I am going to try it out after reading this book.)

But I have seen enough of Tina Fey that I was interested.  My Sister-in-Law passed on the hardcover months ago after she read it, but it was a hard cover and I never got to it.  Last week I picked up a free audiobook in a promotion (the promotion is dead now) and decided to listen to it as a change of pace.

I finished it in less than 24 hours.  It is not long, less than 6 hours unabridged.  But it is read by Tina Fey and she does a good job acknowledging that she is performing an audiobook, not just blandly reading the text.  There is even the audio clip of her first Sarah Palin SNL skit.  I love authors that read their own audiobooks.  The vast majority of the time it is so much better than a random narrator.

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Offsite Review: 4 Theology Books for Youth Ministry by Andrew Root

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There is a upsurge in attention on strengthening youth ministry.  Many people (youth and leaders) are no longer interested in youth ministry as entertainment.  Instead there is real interest in bringing youth into the heart of church ministry.  More involved in outreach ministry, more involved in evangelism, prayer and theology.  Jasmine Smart reviewed four new … Read more

Operation Screwtape: The Art of Spiritual War by Andrew Farley

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Summary: A modern take on CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.

I remember reading CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters when I was pretty young.  I am not sure, but I think I was probably 12 or 13.

It was just enough humor and story for me to be able to read, while at the same time absorbing some good theology.  I think that is what Matt Mikalatos is doing with Imaginary Jesus and Night of the Living Dead Christian (Bookwi.se Reviews), but there are not many other books that are trying to mix a light story wrapper on good theology.

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iTunes U Passed 1 Billion Textbook Downloads

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Goodereader.com posted today that iTunesU has passed the 1 billion textbooks download since opening in.  iTunes was launched in 2005 as a partnership with Stanford.  The partnership expanded to more schools in 2007 and then this last 2005 year a dedicated app was released.  Now there are more than 1200 colleges and universities and more than 1200 K-12 … Read more

Second Shift – Order (Wool #7) by Hugh Howey

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Summary: Now that we know the background of the silos, we return to a different perspective, the instigators.

One of the unique perspectives that Hugh Howey brings with this extended series is a way of writing a series that does not primarily rely on affiliation with the main character to move the story.  Instead while there are recurring characters in the books, mostly each new book has a new main character.

Done poorly this will mean that the author has to reacquaint you with the story and draw you into the character that you are now reading (and waste a lot of time for the reader in repetition).  But with the Wool/Silo series Howey has used this method to move through a lot of time and tell the story from a wide variety of perspectives.

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Buying Your Way Onto the Bestseller’s List

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The New York Times logo
The New York Times logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have recently discovered a good blog about ereader news.  There have been several interesting articles, but one that caught me by surprise was post about services that allow you (for a price) to buy your way onto the New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best Seller lists.    it is not cheap, the service essentially buys your book in really large quantities gets you on the lists and then returns or resells your book.

According to a Wall Street Journal article that is cited several books have had 99% drops in sales the week after getting on the list because they paid to be on the list.

I have the same response that the blogger that wrote the article, the best recommendations are word of mouth or real people like Goodreads.

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