Enchantress

This was one of the first books I got under Kindle Unlimited. There is a monthly charge, but not a per book charge. I really liked this book. Felt like it was a lesser Lord of the Rings. Brother Milo and Sister Ella live in a world divided by "houses". That is, the people are split up by clan. Although their clan is known for its magic, Milo is an expert swordsman. Ella dreams of uses magic.

Milo and Ella are raised by an uncle or something. Their parents were allegedly killed in a great revolutionary war. They are dirt poor. But Milo shows promise in the fighter training school. Ella sells flowers and works hard to save up to enroll in magic school. Both of these siblings excel in what they do.

We meet the other clans, and also other races that live nearby. It seems that there is treachery afoot. The enemies of Milo and Ella's clan are joining forces to take over the world. And while they think the emperor is behind this, it is actually something else. Something more wicked.

This is the first novel in the Evermen Saga. I am already reading the sequel.

To Pixar and Beyond

This book was written by Lawrence Levy. He was recruited by Steve Jobs to be Chief Financial Officer at Pixar. When Levy was first summoned, he did not know much about Pixar. It was far away from his home. And he knew about the bad rumors about Steve Jobs - got kicked out of Apple, failed with his NextStep company, and was known to be a ruthless leader.

Levy did join. He found out that Pixar was involved in a lot of projects. Most of them were not making money and were not good choices to grow the company. Steve Jobs was funding the company out of his own money. The people at the company were worried that Jobs was going to come in and screw up their magic. Plus the employees were grumbling because they were promised compensation in the form of stock options that never showed up.

The big thing going on when Levy arrived was that Pixar was under contract to produce Toy Story for Disney. Levy studied the situation and came up with a plan to grow the company and take it public. Steve Jobs wanted to do that to make his investment return some value to him. Taking a firm public is a tough job, and only works if people want to buy into your company. Not many people knew about Pixar. And Jobs/Levy were not experts in the Hollywood industry.

As history knows, Toy Story was a smash hit. Pixar did go public at a high price making Jobs a billionaire. And then Jobs went on to return to Apple, get cancer, and die. Levy did spend a lot of time working closely with Jobs. But that is not the entirety of this book. In fact, Levy also traces his path after he left Pixar.

This book was really a slam dunk. It gave many details about what it was like to be at Pixar after Steve Jobs essentially bought the company. There was a lot of dealing with Disney, especially since Pixar was already wrapped up in a multi-movie deal with Disney once Levy arrived. Luckily, the success of Toy Story allowed them to renegotiate go to infinity and beyond with the company.

The Radioactive Boy Scout

This book tracks the tale of David Hahn. He was a boy in Michigan who was on his way to building a nuclear reactor in his back yard shed. The amazing thing was that David was just a below average student. He had trouble spelling relatively simple words. But he somehow got ahold of some books on chemistry and radiation and went to town.

David's first inspiration was the story of Marie Curie and the experiments she did with her husband. He was able to collect items and extract radioactive elements to use in his experiments. Of course he had to do a number of suspicious activities, such as stealing and misrepresenting himself to assorted companies and agencies.

Things came to light when some cops pulled him over one night and found his the trunk of his car filled with strange items. They thought he might be building a bomb. Specialists came in and determined the items were radioactive. Eventually a tiger team came to dismantle the shed in the back of his house where he conducted his experiments.

The real crazy thing is that he has stashed a lot of his materials inside his parents' house. They were worried that the federal agencies involved in the removal might fine them or even take their house away. So they go rid of much of the radioactive evidence into the local trash collection. Fail. Still the book was a great insight in the live and activities of eagle scout David Hahn.

E.A.R.L. - The Autobiography of DMX

This book is the story of DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons. DMX was born in Baltimore, MD. However he was grey up in Yonkers, NY. Most of the book takes place in Yonkers. I am actually a fan of DMX's music. It is very raw. And it seems there is a reason to it.

DMX lived in a strict household when he was young. He father was essentially gone. His mother gave him beatings and restricted him severely. Turns out DMX was a trouble maker in school. He got sent away to schools that deal with troublemakers.

The main takeaway from the story I got was that DMX was a thief. The real downer was that he was stealing from people he associated with. Really wrong. There was a chapter in his life when he came down to Baltimore with some drug dealers to make some money. But he mostly steered clear of selling drugs. Robbery was his game.

DMX had a hard time breaking into the music business. He did not want to sell out like MC Hammer or even Sean Puffy Combs. He wanted to keep it real. This book did a good job of explaining all of DMX's life story.

The book was written by Smokey Fontaine, who was once editor of The Source magazine. So the writing is top notch. It was a disappointment to find out that DMX was a really bad guy. But I guess it comes with the territory. You don't get to be a real gangster wrapper by being an altar boy at church.

Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie

This book was written by Rob O'Hara. He goes by the handle Jack Flack. Rob grew up with a Commodore 64 computer. And he got into running a BBS. Essentially the job was finding new software to pirate and distribute to users who dialed into his computer.

Rob is from Oklahoma. He describes the local BBS scene there. I guess in the old days, you would dial into BBSs in your local area code to avoid long distance phone charges. So the characters in this story are mostly an Oklahoma crew from the old school.

Like most warez dealers, there is treachery afoot in his stories. He is stealing software. Sometimes he is getting robbed. The strange thing is that Rob is pretty good in colorfully describing the scene. He also gives you a glimpse into the method behind the madness.

The Internet came in the late 1990s and made the BBS world essentially obsolete. This book was mid sized. It was entertaining and a quick read. Although I do disagree with many of the antics performed by the author, he was good at telling his story.

Diary of an 80s Computer Geek

In this book, we meet Steven. He is a Brit in high school back in the 1980s. Computers are starting to come out. He wants to study them in high school. But he is not chosen for the program. He does talk his mom into buying him a home computer from Sinclair.

Steven writes some games. They get published in magazines, and then later in the stores. Unfortunately he does not get rich from this. He has to take a job when he graduates college. He works selling computers and software in a store.

Eventually Steven gets laid off when the old computers stop selling. He gets lucky and submits a game to a magazine. Instead of getting paid for that game in cash, he negotiated advertising space in the magazine. Then he makes sure his game advertises his other games.

Wouldn't you know it? Steven's plan works and he is busy fulfilling game orders every day. It was tough to keep up. But for a while he made some cash. All things come to an end. Steven stops writing software, and declines another deal with the magazine.

This book is a trip back to the 1980s, especially for those of us who played games (and wrote games) for 8-bit computers back then. Steven wrote games for the Sinclair. I wrote games for the Radio Shack Tandy. Good times. Good times.

Is Everyone Handing Out Without Me?

Before reading this book, I did not know much about Mindy Kaling. She had a small role on the TV show The Office. I heard a podcast of a guy interviewing her. What I heard was not what I expected. Even though her look indicate she is of Indian descent, she was actually born and raised here in the USA.

After reading just a few pages of the book, I have decided that I am in love with her writing. This comes at a good time for me. I just read a painfully bad book that I had to slog through. This was a pleasant change.

Mindy wrote about her life starting from the younger years. She was a fat Indian girl in a Caucasian neighborhood. Her mom and dad were hard working, busy professionals. She had two older brothers. Mindy attended an Ivy League college.

Then she went to New York to get into show business. She had some odd jobs to pay the rent in the early years. She and a friend put together a play that was successful. Mindy says that was in part due to their guerilla marketing schemes.

Mindy's play went on to a bigger off-Broadway theater, and got picked up to be a TV show. It did not pan out. But Mindy did get asked to write for The Office. The rest is history. I am very excited to read Mindy's follow on autobiography. I already bought the book. Just need to dive in.