Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, by Bill Bryson. One of his earlier works. Not as funny as his others but still good, particularly if you've ever travelled to Europe.

South: The Endurance Expedition, by Ernest Shackleton. The author's first-hand account of the expedition. Actually, I'm horrified to admit that I found this a bit hard to get through. I've already read and re-read the story so slogging through the details of being ice-bound in Antarctica was trying at times.

A Voyage for Madmen, by Peter Nichols. Very, very good. It is the story of the first successful solo circumnavigation and, simultaneously, the first round-the-world race. If you have never read Moitessier's Long Way, read it as well. This one doesn't get you into Moitessier's zen-like mindset.

5:17:26 PM    

Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
This is the story of America's first trans-oceanic expedition. The story is very interesting but I felt like the book really wallowed too much into the mundane detail. I found myself really pushing to finish it. The detail behind Wilkes' leadership, however, is a great anti-pattern (an example of what not to do), particularly when compared to the outstanding performance of Shackleton.

Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, by Margot Morrell, Stephanie Capparell.
The explicit leadership advice is mostly common sense but it does offer insight into Shackleton's thought process as well as additional biographical and historical details not found in the Lansing text. It definitely inspired me to (1) think about Shackleton's leadership style and attempt to apply it day-to-day and (2) read more about the Shackleton story. The rich depth and detail provided in some of the books anecdotes is illustrative of the partiular point they are trying to make, but I want to learn the whole story at that level of detail rather than the segments that suited the authors needs. (That's not a dig on the book at all).

The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic, by Gay Salisbury, Laney Salisbury
I gave this as a gift to someone who then lent it back to me. It completed a hat-trick of ice cold adventure tales. Cruelest Miles is the story of the race to save Nome, Alaska during a diptheria outbreak in the early 1900's. The story of the dog sled relay to get the serum to Nome is actually short enough to be covered in a long magazine article, but the authors expand it to book-length by detailing the history of Alaska's frontier days, the evolution and technical details behind dog sledding, and biographical details on the significant people involved in the drama. The details grew tedious at times but overall it was exciting and interesting.

6:16:05 PM    

The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd, Richard Zacks. A very good, very engaging read about a man you only think you know something about.

The Long Way, Bernard Moitessier. A quintessential sailing story. It's the story of the author's year-long journey alone in the Round the World Race. Moitessier could have won the race but decided instead to continue halfway around the world again to go hang out in Tahiti. There's not a lot of edge-of-seat suspense here--it's much more of a study of aloneness and of someone who does something for the love of it, rather than the money or glory.

Deep Blue: Stories of Shipwreck, Sunken Treasure and Survival, various authors. This is a compilation of excerpts from (supposedly) classic sailing novels. I'd read many of the classics contained within and while I did enjoy revisiting them I felt a little ripped off. The other stories were, for the most part, mediocre.

A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. I love Bill Bryson. He tells a great story. Unlike the other books of his I've read, this one contains no humorous sidekick. Actually, except for a couple of spots (I laughed out loud twice), it really isn't that funny. But it is a fascinating read. It took me into the details of subjects I hadn't delved into since High School and College. He covers everything from the minuteness of quantum physics to the vast reaches of the Universe and everything in between.

Professional XML Development with Apache Tools: Xerces, Xalan, FOP, Cocoon, Axis, Xindice, Theodore W. Leung. This is a good introduction to the technologies mentioned in the title. If you are starting a web project and you are using some or all of these, I think this is a good place to start. But, unless you are doing something relatively straightforward, you will still need a deeper reference on each. These technologies are just too complex to exhaustively cover in a single volume. Still, I recommend it.

Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg. My cousin mentioned this book to me when he was visiting for Thanksgiving so I put it on my Amazon wish list and it wound up in my stocking. What luck! This is a very short, very quick read that encourages the reader to start a "writing practice". The author weaves Buddhist teachings with advice on learning to find your own voice as a writer. The main thrust of her teaching is to write each and every day in a deliberate way. She provides advice on how to come up with topics, how to spark creativity, how to make your writing interesting, and so on. She's inspired me to give it a try.

9:27:14 PM    

I opened up Java & XML recently because it had some references to Cocoon. The Cocoon examples are pre 2.0, so instead I worked through some of the XML-RPC chapters which were good. I'd recommend working through the whole book to anyone who's just getting started using Java and XML together.

Before I made it to my intended destination (the SOAP and web services chapters), I decided to pick up Cocoon: Building XML Applications. I had previously seen this one but passed up. So far, it is pretty good--I'm glad I came back around. They seem to do a better job explaining the architecture than some of the articles I've read recently. I like the examples I've worked through so far. The authors spend a little too much time on the evolution of the net and web applications--I wish they would have devoted that space to some of the more advanced features. It definitely gets me excited about using Cocoon on some real projects. This is a good book for anyone starting out with XML applications with Cocoon.

I'm noticing there are a few other Cocoon texts out there but I haven't taken a look at them yet. They are:

• Cocoon 2 Programming: Web Publishing with XML and Java, Bill Brogden
• Professional XML Development with Apache Tools: Xerces, Xalan, FOP, Cocoon, Axis, Xindice, Theodore W. Leung
• Cocoon Developer's Handbook, Lajos Moczar, Jeremy Aston

11:11:45 PM    

Read a couple of books over the break. Life of Pi by Yann Martel is outstanding. It is the best fiction I've read in a long, long time. It originally piqued my interest because of its lost-at-sea theme (check out my Listmania list for more seafaring books). When Reverend Kanter quoted it during church one morning, I added it to the wish list. I wasn't disappointed. The book starts out exploring the life of a boy searching for his spirituality. He ends up being a Hindu-Christian-Muslim. That alone is pretty interesting, but he also grows up a zookeeper's son. These two world's collide as Pi ends up a castaway during a disaster at sea. I won't give away any more than that. My advice is to not read anything more about the plot--just open up the book and dive right in.

The other book I read was The Mothman Prophecies by John A. Keel. It's a non-fiction account of John's experiences chasing UFOs and other strange phenomena in the 60's and 70's. It's more like a collection of case notes than a single cohesive story. A lot of the stories sort of ran together. I haven't seen the movie upon which the book is based, but maybe in this case, the movie pulls it all together better than the book.

9:40:31 PM