I sat in a cop car

I sat in a cop car, walked through the detention center and smelled the inside of a jail cell — but I hadn’t done anything wrong. That was just one class at the Broomfield Police Department’s third annual Citizen’s Academy.

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Escaping the Endless Adolescence

The gist of this book is that adolescence has increased in time from a few years to decades. Kids know it, and they don't like it. Along with John Gatto, the authors posit (with research backing them up) that meaningful work can turn around even the most difficult teen.

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After the Fall

I didn't know this book existed until I heard the author, Nancy Kress, reading it at a WorldCon panel. She read the first five or six chapters, and I bought and downloaded the book to my phone before the reading was over.

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Executive Function & Child Development

My origional, expanded review of this book is on PsychCentral.

A husband/wife team, Marcie and Daniel Yeager, both therapists, wrote this book.

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Barking Dogs

Barking Dogs is a science fiction novel by Terence M. Green, written in 1988, portraying a time in 1998. So, even though it was futuristic at the time it was written, its future is pretty old. That said, the book was cool. I wish I had read it in 1988. He talks about baboon heart transplants, hovering cars, and stage one and stage two thinking. (I saw a hover car demo back then, and thinking back on it makes me really wish I read this back then.)

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Getting paid to read

A few years ago I read books for a website, psychcentral.com, wrote reviews, and got paid. It was a great arrangement. I like to read. I like to write. I like to learn new things. And, getting the free book in the mail with someone waiting on me for a review was enticement to not get distracted by all those science fiction and smut books.

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Book Review: Savvy

Savvy is a book focused on a 12-year-old girl in a family of people who have special abilities and it's a great read (or listen) for a family with grammar school children.

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Language Intelligence

I recently read Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga, written by Joseph J Romm.

The book talks about rhetoric and politicians. Abraham Lincoln schooled himself in rhetoric. He studied Shakespeare and the Bible, along with actual books on rhetoric. He memorized great speeches and took them apart. Lincoln taught himself to be good at rhetoric, and he was.

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Castle Diary

This is an entertaining short book and is suitable for a kid at a fourth grade reading level or higher. This story is about eleven-year-old Tobias Burgess, the son of a nobleman's second son, and describes life in the middle ages in ways applicable and fun for children.

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Made To Stick

Chip and Dan Heath, brothers, wrote this book together after they realized they both maintained a lifelong interest in figuring out how to make ideas stick, or how to teach. They combined their years of research, experience, and other people's research into a simple formula. This simple formula correlates to an idea's stickiness and can be used to create and find ideas that will stay around. The formula, S + U + C + C + E + S + S, is explained with many examples, scenarios, and stories that drive their points across.

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Divergent

Few stories make me think about them for days after I read them. Even fewer stories make me cry or laugh. This story not only managed to make me think about it for forty-eight hours, but it also evoked more emotion from me than I am used to emoting. (Luckily, no one noticed.) The book is good, and if you're in the mood for a science fiction story with decent character development and a bit of romance that makes you think and emote, read it.

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Real Food

Confirmed: the grocery store is a war zone.

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Eve and Adam

Eve and Adam is a cute, young adult science fiction book with a few typical questions that occur in genetic engineering science fiction novels.

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Reinventing the Meal

The original review I wrote for this book is located at PsychCentral. This review is a bit different. The PsychCentral review has the zombie perspective.

Reinventing the Meal: How Mindfulness Can Help You Slow Down, Savor the Moment, and Reconnect with the Ritual of Eating.

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Fracture

I generally judge a book as good or not good by how many times I put it down whilst reading. This isn't a 100% accurate method, but it's a good rule of thumb. (I have to put down Charlie Stross books for breaks because my brain might hemorrhage otherwise, but his books are still good.) Oh, and tinkle breaks don't count.

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Righteous Mind

A Ted video captured me a few years ago.

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Nightshade Trilogy

Andrea Cremer wrote a trilogy of werewolf novels featuring a female heroine (Nightshade, Wolfsbane, and Bloodrose). I've read many shape-shifting trilogies featuring female main characters, but this one was a little different.

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Switch

It's all about training the elephant.

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NPR's Top 100

NPR reader's survey for science fiction and fantasy books generated 60,000 ballots, but was reduced into a top 100 list. While this isn't my top 100 list, I think it merits itself as a to-do reading list.

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The Non-Designers Design Book

The Non Designer's Design Book is an excellent read for anyone who does desktop publishing but hasn't had any graphic art classes. The content is broken down into simple, easy-to-read chunks with plenty of examples. It's easy to get without an instructor. While some design fundamentals seem obvious, the author, RobinWilliams, explains the why, whether you just do some business letters for your clients or you design newsletters. There's value to be gleaned from this book.

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Polly & Poddy

Yes, the old isn't necessarily better.

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The Psychopath Test

Except for a few names in psychiatry history, I don't think I learned much from this Jon Ronson book. Despite that, the book was an enjoyable read. I got through it in a day, which is pretty good for me and non-fiction. 

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Rapture of the Nerds

The mass majority of the human population uploaded into a cloud and floats around the solar system doing whatever. "Only" a billion humans remain on Earth, which is sort of a reserve, or a zoo, for those who don't want to upload.

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The Richest Man in Babylon

Before leaving my dad's house, my sisters and I were required to read several books and regurgitate the story, or the lessons in the book, to him. One of the books was George S. Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon. The book is educational and contains much good advice. It's a great book for young adults, or for anyone who hasn't taken an interest in personal finance before.

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Rule 34

This was my first Charlie Stross book. The story was a lot to wrap my head around, and I don’t think I can review it without spoilers. So, spoilers alert. The spoilers shouldn’t be a big deal, unless you want to read it for the mystery angle instead of the science fiction angle.

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The Secret Language of Business

I had a conversation with peers about how virtually we work, and this led to me an interest in body language in business. So, I went to the library and got a book.

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Texas Gothic

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore was a fun book to read. It wasn't a family book, and there weren't many topics of discussions to have with the kids, but it was fun nontheless. The target audience for the book is probably tweens, teens, and young adults, but I enjoyed it as a middle aged woman.

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Why School?

Education and educational theory interests me, so I occasionally read books on school, learning, psychology, curriculum design, and homeschooling. When I saw a short TED ebook called Why School?, I bought it straight away.

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The Dirty Streets of Heaven

The Dirty Streets of Heaven is the Sword and Laser book of the month for November 2012. I watched the introductory episode of S&L for the book and it sounded good. My local library didn't have the book, so I thought about it all day and finally decided to buy it.

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Why we believe in god(s)

Religion is a by-product of evolutionary psychological adaptations. I read the text of the book first and then read the forward and preface. Low and behold, the book is also a video.   In fact, he made the video first and just expanded it a bit for the book. Whilst my family did not read the book, they did watch the video.

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Animal Wise

My origional and expanded review is located on PsychCentral.

How smart are animals? We know that dolphins are smart, but did you know that some ants are incredibly smart and teach each other new routes? Elephants can remember the voices of fellow elephants years after they've died and elephants can recognize another elephant from their skeleton alone.

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Alpha and Omega

Alpha and Omega is a children's cartoon with almost enough innuendo and not quite enough plot to keep tweens and adults entertained. (Teens are probably too old for this movie and unlikely to enjoy it.)

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Beyond Bullet Points

John, a super smart client of mine, asks me to make him graphs and charts. He sends me the whole PowerPoint presentation for context, and I look through them. While I like John's industry (and have great respect for it) and think he's a fine fellow, I would dread to sit in on one of his presentations.

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Planet of the Apes

I want to see the new ape movie, but I probably won't be able to for a while. You see, Quinn is afraid of non-human primates.

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Business planning books

When I saw the theme for IVAA's summer newsletter, Business Planning 2010, I thought "I don't know anything about this topic. Maybe I should skip this month." As I thought about it, I came up with the idea of comparing the different books on creating business plans. So, I logged in to the library and put just about all the business plan books on hold and started reading.

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My new eReader

I've decided to purge a few bookshelves in the house, organize the bookshelves and eReaders, and donate a bunch of books to the library. I'm making the "final" switch to eBooks because. Iwant to be able to take several dozen books with me on vacations and road trips. I never know what will strike my reading fancy. I've been reading books on my iPhone for a while, and I like it. So, I decided to take further steps.

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Destructive math

Recommended at a conference.

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