Twitter Power 2.0 - Joel Comm (4.5 of 5 Twitterpated Writers)

The long hiatus has come to an end. As college fades with the sunset, I'm looking for new projects. What better way to start the summer than by reconnecting with all my semi-digital friends? While I have continued to read over the past few months, I haven't had the time to post the books reviews. I hope you'll join me in The Great Awakening 2.0.

Twitter Power 2.0 is a terrible title; it sparks flashbacks of watching rabid Powder Puff Girls with my cousins. But don't let it throw you. Joel Comm does a great job of outlining the history, functionality, and potential of Twitter. He also shares helpful insights about picking usernames, designing backgrounds, and crafting posts to establish a solid brand. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on third party software and APIs, which give you greater control over your feed and it's interaction with other websites. The book even gives you a 30-day guide to becoming a professional twitterer. What more could you ask for?

I think it is best to crack open this book with a Twitter project already in mind. As I read through the chapters, I got several great ideas about how to spice up my new Twitter campaign. I anticipate posting new book reviews from this website as well as new chapters from another new project of mine (and yours if you choose to accept this invite) http://opensoresfiction.blogspot.com/. I invite you to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at http://twitter.com/uofuwriter.

What is your perception of Twitter? How would you characterize your experiences with it? Who is your favorite tweeter?

Persuasion - Jane Austen (C+)

Finding myself in need of a soporific, I began reading this book. It worked quite well. For the first quarter of the novel I found myself struggling to become interested, and reading effectively induced sleep. The consequence of that is that it took a while to complete such a short little book.

Once past the chapters that seemed to describe at length how Anne, the main character, was feeling in a particular moment, I found a story somewhere in the narrative, and then it became mildly interesting.

Is it even a spoiler to say that after indecision on both ends of a relationship, the girl ends up with the guy who she liked in the first place? This is Jane Austen after all...

I felt this book was somehow incomplete, as well as formulaic. The characters are a little annoying, and some of the events hard to follow, for example it there is an "accident" which when read seems to say that a girl has died, but then a few pages later she is not dead, and has only sustained a bump on the head. A pedigree is also necessary to understand who is related to whom.

The ending of the book is a "and they all live happily ever after ... except Anne's sister Elizabeth who ends up an old maid ... and the happily part only counts if Anne doesn't get richer than her sister Mary ... if Anne's husband goes to war that would suck too..." It is really quite a downer.

The Codex Alera - Jim Butcher

After reading The Dresden Files books and deciding that Jim Butcher is a pretty amazing author when it comes to urban fantasy, I decided that it was time to read his straight fantasy books which are entitled The Codex Alera.

The Codex Alera consists of six books: The Furies of Calderon, Academ's Fury, Cursor's Fury, Captain's Fury, Princep's Fury and First Lord's Fury. It basically chronicles the ascent of a farm boy to ruler of the human race and unifier of the residents of a planet, which admittedly is one of the more common themes of a fantasy or sci-fi series, but Mr. Butcher does it with style. These books have all of the necessary components of a fantasy world; made up words, names that do not occur in the actual world, monsters, a unique system of "magic", a "big bad" and henchmen, pre-industrial revolution technology, and an underdeveloped character to serve as love interest to the main character whose parents aren't who they seem to be. The evil race trying to conquer the world will also seem awfully familiar to anyone who played Starcraft.

Yep, it is your typical fantasy series and for some reason I could not put these books down. Reader beware, even if you feel like you have read these books/heard this story a hundred and one times, if you pick up a book by Jim Butcher be prepared to forsake sleep, meals, your occupation and other interests and pursuits until you finish reading that book. I don't know how he does it, but for me his books are like crack is to a junkie, Jessica Simpson is to John Mayer, or Lasagna is to Garfield.

Originality: f-
Fun to Readness: A!