My Word with Douglas E. Welch

I happened upon this book in the Los Angeles Public Library’s e-media (i.e. ebook/audio book) download area. It seeks to give us a picture of Shakepeare through the small evidence found in a court case in which Shakespeare was a witness. There is a lot more in this book besides that, though. I have enjoyed delving a little deeper into the mind and life of this tremendous author.

From Amazon.com…

The Lodger Shakespeare by Charles Nicholl

“In 1612, Shakespeare gave evidence in a court case at Westminster—and it is the only occasion on which his actual spoken words were recorded. In The Lodger Shakespeare, Charles Nicholl applies a powerful biographical magnifying glass to this fascinating but little-known episode in the Bard’s life. Drawing on evidence from a wide variety of sources, Nicholl creates a compellingly detailed account of the circumstances in which Shakespeare lived and worked amid the bustle of early seventeenth-century London. This elegant, often unexpected exploration presents a new and original look at Shakespeare as he was writing such masterpieces as Othello, Measure for Measure, and King Lear.”

A post on Pinterest earlier today lead me to OpenLibrary.org and this book, Home-made Toys for Boys and Girls. The lovely collection of instructions and diagrams was first published in 1915 and harkens back to an earlier age when parents and kids would make toys at home instead of buying everything at the store.

I can imagine a farmer sitting around on a rainy day or night putting something together for his son or daughter or even building something more complex for a Christmas gift. There are projects here that can be assembled by a handy boy or girl themselves, too.

You can read the entire book, including illustrations for FREE in a number of different format including an online reader, PDF, ePub, plain text, MOBI and even have the book sent automatically to your Kindle over WiFi.

OpenLIbrary.org has a goal…

“One web page for every book ever published. It’s a lofty but achievable goal. To build Open Library, we need hundreds of millions of book records, a wiki interface, and lots of people who are willing to contribute their time and effort to building the site.

[…]

Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive, and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.”

Visit the page for Home-made Toys for Boys and Girls

I have listened to Todd Henry’s podcast, The Accidental Creative, for years, so it only made sense to pick up his book from the library.

From Amazon.com…

Have better ideas, faster, without the stress and burnout.

It isn’t enough to just do your job anymore. In order to thrive in today’s marketplace, all of us, regardless of our role, have to be ready to generate brilliant ideas on demand.

Business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to establish effective practices that unleash your creative potential. Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, Henry has created a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm. He focuses on five key elements:

* Focus: Begin with your end goal in mind. * Relationships: Build stimulating relationships and ideas will follow. * Energy: Manage it as your most valuable resource. * Stimuli: Structure the right “inputs” to maximize creative output. * Hours: Focus on effectiveness, not efficiency. This is a guide for staying inspired and experiencing greater creative productivity than you ever imagined possible.

Link: The Accidental Creative: How to be brilliant at a moment’s notice by Todd Henry

Lego-themed Moleskine Journals at Amazon.com.

I came across these new journals from Moleskine via Boing Boing the other day and quickly added them to my Birthday Wish List (Feb 14).

I love Moleskine journals themselves and adding a neat crossover by theming them in Lego makes them a fun addition to the journals I already carry everywhere. they come with a lego on the front cover you can build on as well as stickers to customize it as you wish.

My son is a Lego fanatic and I am sure he would go crazy over these, too.

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by  Sandor Ellix Katz

Description from Amazon.com…

“Bread. Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation.”Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me,” writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. “I invite you to join me along this effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food production.” The flavours of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes-some familiar, others exotic-that are easy to make at home.”

Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

Description from Amazon.com…

Best-selling author and popular speaker Garr Reynolds is back in this newly revised edition of his classic, best-selling book, Presentation Zen, in which he showed readers there is a better way to reach the audience through simplicity and storytelling, and gave them the tools to confidently design and deliver successful presentations.

In this new edition, Garr gives his readers new, fresh examples to draw inspiration from, with a whole new chapter for those who present on more technical and educational topics based on techniques used by many presenters who give high-level talks at TED and other powerhouse events. Whether the reader is in research, technology, business, or education–this book will show them how to take what could look like a really dry presenation and reinvigorate the material in totally fresh (and sometimes interactive!) ways that will make it memorable and resonate with the audience.

Staying true to the mission of the first), Garr combines solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity to help readers along the path to simpler, more effective presentations that will be appreciated, remembered, and best of all, acted upon.

More information from Amazon.com

The Son of Neptune (Percy Jackson series)

My son got me into these books, as well as theThe Kane Chronicles series by the same author, and they are a great alternative read to my usual fare of non-fiction business and history book. Riordan has a lot of fun mixing up the old and new in these books and the characters are quite likable. Not quite Harry Potter quality of story, but excellent tales about loyalty, friendship and sacrifice.

More books by Rick Riordan

Here are the top My Word posts for 2011 according to page views. Check them out!

• Recently Listened Podcasts for March 3, 2011
• YUM! – Ferrero Rocher reviewed on CandyBlog
• Video: Millard Canyon, Angeles National Forest
• Norton Internet Security Problems
• Deceptive Food Packaging – Welch’s Concord Grape
• Protection (and style) for your iBook
• Food: Texas BBQ from Smoke City Market in Sherman Oaks
• Palm Trees Sketch from May 2006
• Photo: Sunset sky
• Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest
• Photo: Old is new
• Photos: LA Friday Coffee at LACMA
• My Instagram photo gallery via Instagrid
• Get My Word via Email
• What I’m Reading…Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Book Five: Last Olympian
• Wolfram Alpha can help parents with children’s math homework — also Khan Academy
• Food: Christmas Oatmeal Recipe and Video
• Book: Berried to the Hilt: A Grey Whale Inn Mystery
• Food: Homemade Ginger Beer
• Audio: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol read by the Podcast Community on Facebook

If you got a Kindle today and are looking for something to put on it, please consider taking a look at my 3 books. You can download a free sample of each on the Amazon web site.

Social Media Self Preservation

7100 Words
Take advantage of social media without losing your mind…
Using social media as part or business or personal life can seem overwhelming and fraught with pitfalls. There is a way, though, to make the best use of social media without falling into the traps of lost privacy and social media burnout.
This guide explains what you need to know as you start your journey into social media and how to make social media productive for you.

Cultivating Your Career Reputations

11,000 Words

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

The High-Tech Career Handbook

30,000 Words

Navigating the special difficulties of a high-tech career can be troublesome for workers, young and old. Career Opportunities, a weekly column for ComputorEdge Magazine in San Diego, California and Colorado Springs, Colorado, has addressed these issues for almost 13 years.

While simultaneously developing his own high-tech career, author Douglas E. Welch has shared his insights, trials, setbacks and successes with his readers. The High-Tech Career Handbook collects the best columns from 1997-2003 into a book for all high-tech careerists, whether they are just starting out, building their career or looking for a new career in the high-tech world.

Topics covered in the columns include getting your career started, ethics, fairness and the benefits of doing honest business, personal development, professional development, and the tips and tricks for transitioning into a mature career.