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Author: Geraldo Rivera

Genre: Nonfiction

Rating: **** (4 Stars)

Summary:


His Panic is, as the title suggests, about immigration, immigration reform, and the prevalent negative attitude of Americans toward Hispanic immigrants.  Geraldo Rivera sets out to to address many of those perceptions and make a case for a more liberal immigration policy.

The author compares the current wave of central and south American immigrants to the past migrations of Europeans, including the Irish after the Potato Famine.  He cites the example of violence toward Irish immigrants in New York City, and suggests that current attitudes are simply history repeating itself with the hatred focusing on a different group.

Geraldo addresses a number of negative perceptions surrounding Hispanic immigrants, asserting that most immigrants are law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic and benefit the United States by their presence here.  He also accuses certain radio and TV commentators of spreading misinformation to sway public opinion against immigration reform, citing and refuting several examples.

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Author: Joel Comm

Genre: How-To, Business

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)

Summary:


For those who don’t know, Google AdSense is a context-based advertising medium, through which website and blog owners can make money by showing advertisements on their sites. Google’s software reads, or “crawls” each page, figures out what type of ads are appropriate, and shows them in spots designated by the site owner. Site owners are usually paid per click, although some ads pay based on “impressions” – how many times they are seen.

The AdSense Code is exactly what the title suggests – a strategy book for optimizing your use of AdSense on a blog or website in order to make the most money possible. The author, Joel Comm, speaks from his own experience making hundreds to thousands per day with his own websites. Comm takes the attitude that the “AdSense pie” is big enough for everyone to participate, and that one person’s success with it does not in any way detract from his own.

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Author: Timothy Ferris

Genre: Self-Improvement

Subject: Financial freedom, Achieving your dreams

Rating: ***** (Five stars)

Summary:

The Four Hour Workweek has been getting a lot of buzz on the internet over the past year. It tells the remarkable story of how its author transitioned from working 15 hour days to traveling the world, ignoring his business except for a few hours on Mondays, while still making more money than ever before. More importantly, Ferriss doesn’t just tell his story, he shares step-by-step instructions for duplicating his results, challenging his readers to escape the daily grind and live their dreams.

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It

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Author: Stephen King

Genre: Horror

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)

Summary:


It consists of two stories involving the same group of characters. The first story happens when they are children in Derry, Maine, in 1958. The second occurs in 1984, when most of them have moved away, and are highly successful in their careers. Both stories revolve around a monster known simply as “It.” It takes various forms, and can only be seen by children. To some of them, It looks like a clown, others see a werewolf or a giant bird. In almost all cases, the children who meet It are brutally killed.

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Author: Michael Connelly

Genre: Crime/ Detective Fiction

Subject: Organized Crime, Murder Investigation

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)

Summary:


Trunk Music is one Connelly’s many “Detective Harry Bosch” novels. They follow a rough chronological order, but they also stand alone. You don’t have to read them in order for them to make sense, but you can see a chronological list by clicking here.

In Trunk Music, Detective Bosch responds to a crime scene where a body is stuffed in the trunk of an abandoned Rolls Royce. Predictably, the Rolls and the body belong to the same person, Tony Aliso, who turns out to be a shady character involved in money laundering and the production of bad movies.

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Author: David Baldacci

Genre: Thriller

Subject: Politics, Law, Military Justice

Rating: **** (4 Stars)

Summary:


Like John Grisham, David Baldacci writes thrillers that prominently feature lawyers and legal proceedings. The Simple Truth is set in and around the U.S. Supreme Court, where Michael Fiske is a clerk. His brother, John is a former police officer turned defense attorney. Rufus Harms is an inmate at a military prison, sentenced to life for the brutal killing of a little girl years before. The story begins when Harms obtains new information that could lead to his exoneration. He writes an appeal and asks his lawyer, Sam Rider, to file it with the Supreme Court.

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What is an Ebook?


An Ebook is a book in one of several electronic formats that can be read on a computer or PDA. One common format is Adobe PDF. Another is Microsoft Reader, which I have on my Toshiba e330 Pocket PC.

What is Kindle?

Kindle is a dedicated ebook reader: it doesn’t have the other functions of a computer like word processing or web browsing. It exists solely for reading, which enables the manufacturer to address many of the drawbacks associated with reading on a computer or PDA screen. For example, according to Amazon:

  1. Kindle can be read in full sunlight without glare.
  2. The device is ergonomically optimized, meaning that it is more comfortable to hold and read from than a laptop or PDA.

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Author: Dan Brown

Genre: Action/Adventure

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)

Summary:


Rachel Sexton works for the National Reconnaissance Office as a “gister.” Her job is to take complex information from multiple sources and reduce it to one-page briefings for the White House. One day, Rachel is called away from her job by the President, Zach Herney, who sends her to the Milne Ice Shelf in the Arctic Circle, where NASA has found a meteorite containing fossil evidence of extraterrestrial life. There, she meets Michael Tolland, an oceanographer and documentary host, who has been hired as part of a team of civilian scientists to verify the discovery.

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Author: Robert Crais

Genre: Mystery

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)

Summary:


Max Holman has just completed a ten year prison sentence for bank robbery. Upon being released, he learns that his son, Richie, a Los Angeles police officer, was one of four officers killed in a shooting. The police close the case as a revenge killing, but Holman, feeling that the facts don’t add up, starts looking for more information.

While seeking the truth about his son, Holman attempts to re-establish contact with Richie’s mother, Donna Banik, only to learn that she has died. His only remaining connection to Richie is Liz Holman, Richie’s widow. From Liz, he learns that Richie and the other three murdered officers were investigating a pair of serial bank robbers named Marchenko and Parsons, who were killed in a shootout with police. Curious as to why uniformed officers were conducting an investigation that was officially closed, and that would normally be assigned to detectives, Holman enlists the help of Katherine Pollard, a retired FBI agent. Together, they learn that over $16 million from the Marchenko and Parsons robberies was never recovered, and that the four murdered officers were looking for it.

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