The Fourth Fisherman

When the story of the fishermen hit the news a few years back, I was intrigued (as was much of the world, obviously). So when I had the opportunity to review this book, I jumped at it. While the story was interesting, it left me feeling a little "meh."
Joe Kissack weaves the story of the fishermen with his own life story. Theirs is a beautiful story of dependence and faith in God; his is a story of a rich guy realizing that he needs God. I had a hard time understanding why or how the two fit together.
Honestly, his parts kind of annoyed me. I know he was only talking about his success to make his point, but it kind of left me wondering what (if anything) he really did to help the fishermen. Ultimately, the book isn't really about the fishermen - it's about Joe. The fishermen almost play supporting roles to his story, which I feel is kind of unfortunate. He went in promising to get their story out to the world, but it almost feels that he used it as a springboard for his own.
I don't want to criticize this book too harshly, as I did enjoy much of it. It kept me interested, and the message was good in many ways.
Disclaimer: I received this book free from Waterbrook Multnomah through Blogging for Books - their book review program. I wasn't required to post a positive review. These are my own opinions on this book.

Linux Pocket Guide by Daniel J. Barrett

I’ve got quite a bit of programming experience; however (oddly enough) I’d done very little work with Linux. On starting a new job, I needed to learn Linux FAST. I needed to quickly understand the language and the power of the command line.

As a stroke of luck, O’Reilly happened to be offering a review copy of the Linux Pocket Guide by Daniel J. Barrett to their bloggers. I snapped that thing up fast and blazed through it over the weekend. Though I’m no pro, I’d have to say that just about anyone who uses Linux would benefit from this guide. It’s not a huge, unwieldy reference book (less unwieldy still if you have it on your iPad/reader), and it’s easy to find just about any shell command you’re after.

This book does cover the basics, though it does assume that the reader has some familiarity with Linux already. It goes into descriptions on logins/logouts, filesystems, system directories, etc. which was handy info. It also lists general Linux commands with their syntax and an explanation of what each command does. I like that it’s written simply enough for beginners to understand, but offers enough solid information to be a decent reference book as well.

It’s a really handy book to keep nearby as you work. It’s nearly impossible to remember every single command, and while I can certainly go and Google whatever it is I’m looking for, this is a quick reference and saves me a lot of time.