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[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568984480/bujinkanmartia0b/]Thinking with Type[/url] is a great introduction to typography. There is a whole culture around type usage and type design that I never knew existed. Sure, I love to download fonts, but this book, I think, has made me a bit of a font snob. I feel like a few good fonts is all we really need (and as web designers/developers/publishers, we really can only rely on a few) rather than the bloated list that now resides on my machines. So, now I know what [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descender]descenders[/url] and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascender]ascenders[/url] are and the differnce between [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_(typography)]ems[/url] and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_(typography)]ens[/url]. The author also goes beyond just type itself to discuss the methods of using it to create or enhance the material that is to be printed. It’s really a great book that has opened my eyes to a [url=http://www.ilovetypography.com]world[/url] that I never knew existed.
[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416552510/bujinkanmartia0b/]Duma Key[/url] by Stephen King. I seem to be on a bit of a King roll lately. I decided to read this after having read some good reviews on Amazon. I’m glad I did. It’s a tidy little story about a man who loses his arm (and nearly his life) in an accident and “retires” to a little island in the Florida keys to recover. As you can imagine, crazy shit starts to go down. Interestingly, King chose to tell this story in the first person. I’m not sure how often he has done that before, but I can’t think of any that I’ve read up to now. Short stories, yes, but not a whole book. As usual, his characters are so well written and mostly likeable that I read through the whole thing rather quickly. I’d recommend that you take this book with you on a beach vacation.
[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590595335/bujinkanmartia0b/]DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model[/url] – I bought this book a while back but never really made it through the whole thing. I guess I filled my brain on the first two chapters alone and didn’t need to continue for a while. It’s been sitting on my shelf mocking me, taunting me “Come on you loser, you want to know more about getElementsbyId and what makes that shitty [url=http://www.jquery.com]jQuery[/url] code that you’ve been playing with tick.” Ehhh…yeah, so that’s what happens while I’m in my office and my mind wanders.
[*][url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553287893/bujinkanmartia0b/]Rendezvous with Rama[/url] – In tribute to the recent passing of Arthur C. Clarke, I decided to sit down to a few of his more popular novels. This one was on the top of the list. What can I say, the man was a genius and wrote like I would expect a genius to write.
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