The book I read to research this post was Promote Your Business Or Cause Using Social Media by Dennis Smith which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book which is around 170 pages is a reasonable length and a good introduction to this subject although if like me you are quite savvy about social media it might not offer that much new information. There is quite a large section on Facebook which is quite interesting and something I didn't know is if you promote a business or cause on a personal profile page which is quite common that is a serious infringement of their rules. Also if you have a page like a product you don't need to authorize every like button message you get which is the equivalent of a friend's request on a personal profile. There is a substantially shorter section on pinterest and this site boasts predominantly women users and apparently the average user clocks up 89 minutes on this site every month. The figure for Google+ is 3 minutes per month. Twitter is another powerhouse on the social media front with micro blogging which they call tweets which has now become a part of our language. I did quite enjoy reading this book and there is some interesting stuff on BlogTalkRadio where you can upload a podcast and there is the option of using the website which is free or downloading the software which you pay for but has additional features. There website is http://blogtalkradio.com.

The book I read to research this post was Grow Your Own Fruit And Vegetables For Dummies by Geoff Stebbings which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is a how to guide to growing fruit and vegetables but also covers extensively the wide variety of crops that aren't available in the shops and also the different varieties available of well known fruit and vegetables. These varieties will often grow in a climate that the conventional type won't grow in but often have differences like colour and taste. An example of this is the ben species of blackberry from Scotland which are named after mountains. These plants are hardier and more disease resistant than conventional species while still providing similiar fruit. Another fruit is the loganberry which was the result of crossing the raspberry with the blackberry. These fruit are considered to be the earliest example of a hybrid fruit and still retain the white centres of raspberries which means few are eaten raw. Another plant some people are tempted to grow is the kiwi fruit tree which can grow so huge it can swamp your entire garden so wants to be cut back quite aggressively regularly. This plant is actually from Asia although some are grown in New Zealand and the name kiwi is a blatant marketing ploy having nothing to do with kiwis. It is a close relative to the gooseberry. I really enjoyed this book which is quite a decent length and packed with information. A final interesting thing in the book is fertilizer has a special code on it by law. On a typical fertilizer it might say 7N 7PH 7K and this relates to the amount of chemicals in it in order of Nitrogen, Phosphorous & Potassium. These letters are the same as the symbols on the periodic table. If you want a fertilizer with extra nitrogen it will say something like 14N 7PH 7K and it's a similiar case with the other 2 chemicals. This is relevant if you grow certain crops or have certain soils where the chemicals have to be balanced out.

The book I read to research this post was Digital Disruption by James McQuivey which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book looks at a growing trend in marketing for businesses where they are becoming more focused on pleasing customers above else. At one time what dictated the markets was the scale a company could manufacture something on and the price but now we are getting into a level playing field where a small company with a good product can compete on equal terms. This is scary for big companies but also you can compete using social media and with a small budget but still market a product successfully. The book mentions an author of thriller ebooks priced at 99 cents called Amanda Hocking who is making more than many established authors. Also a 12 year old boy who is writing iphone apps from the software development kit or SDK and got his parents to pay the $99 to sell them on itunes but who is making a nice profit and for him his age is a bonus because many youngster buy his apps. I enjoyed reading this book although it is only around 150 pages but I think was only free or quite cheap on kindle. Of course many people start using computing as a hobby and then move on to developing a product and marketing it. This means that the competition a well established company faces can come from anywhere not just within the industry. We are also seeing products that have always demanded a high price losing a few features and a product that is still quite good being marketed at a much lower price.

The book I read to research this post was The Complete Idiot's Guide To The Criminal Justice System which is an excellent book which I bought from kobo. This book is about the criminal justice system in the USA and is very interesting although I am British. The book keeps your interest throughout and is fairly long. One thing they have for example in America but which we don't have in England is the victim of a serious crime can write a letter to the court which is taken into account when sentencing. Certainly in Britain it's often said the criminal has more rights than the victim. This book doesn't cover every law in every state which vary quite wildly but does a good job of presenting it in general. An interesting thing is generally if something worth less than $500 is stolen in most states it's called larceny and lower amounts are called theft. They have very strict kidnapping laws where if a gang holds up a bank they have a good chance of being done for kidnapping or false imprisonment if they hold people against their will. In America if you drink or take drugs and drive and it results in a fatality it will probably get you a murder conviction. If you are convicted of possession of crack they come down much harder on you than if you have cocaine powder although if you have paraphenalia for drug dealing regardless of the quantity of drugs found you get prosecuted for drug dealing. There was a bit of a scandal over several cases where things happened like someone was drunk and went in the wrong house and was shot dead. The law which used to say you could protect your home with deadly force has changed so you can shoot someone forcing their way through a window but not a fleeing burglar.

The book I read to research this post was The HTC Guide which is a very good guide which I bought from a local newsagents. This guide is probably only available in Britain and is published by Android Magazine although hopefully even if You can't buy this guide you will find this post interesting. The company HTC formed in 1997 and has been at the forefront of Android smartphones from the start. The current really popular one is the One X but they were also given the first Google named franchise with the Google Nexus One which was also very popular. There are some 600,000 applications available for Android smartphones and many of them are free. We are seeing the price of smartphones come down to a reasonable level a process we saw with mobile phones in general some years ago. With these smartphones they do far more than just place phonecalls and also do MMS & SMS messaging, skype, integrating with social media and even do video calls either directly or via your wireless network. Skype is good because you can download the program free of charge and can call other skype users free of charge. There is even an integrated office program called polaris and there are also alternatives you can download like one called write. You can download or rent movies,listen to internet radio, download podcasts and even read ebooks many of which are free and open source. One program I'd particularly recommend is spotify where you get a free download but then for £9.99 per month can access a huge catalogue of music albums over the internet. They seem to have most of the latest albums and their catalogue is enormous and particularly good for niche music.

I am reviewing the novel Doctor Sleep by Stephen King which is a very good horror story and which I bought from a local supermarket. This book is the long awaited sequel to The Shining and primarily follows the story of Dan Torrance the young boy who tells his parents there is an evil presence in room 217 of the hotel where his parents are caretakers and his dad has a drink problem. The name The Shining refers to the gift the son has and the energy force he detects is called steam and is given off by people. In this book his mother was badly injured by the explosion at the end of the book and has obtained damages from the company who owned the hotel but these weren't as substantial as if she had held out for more. This book follows on from the story in the book rather than the film which obviously had to be shortened. Dan has this gift and in this book tells his mother to keep out of the bathroom due to another evil presence but spends long periods without eating or speaking. The other survivor out of The Shining helps care for him but they have become drifters and encounter other people who are mostly getting on in years but live on the steam the living people give off and that person or victim inevitably dies as they absorb their energy. This story reminds me of Desperation also by Stephen King and although not a sequel to that book there are certainly similarities. There is a happy ending and I think it is a reasonable sequel although not as good as the original. Apparently when they made The Shining film originally Stanley Kubrick wanted to make a film about Napoleon Bonaparte starring Jack Nicholson and when that fell through because it had wasted quite a bit of Jack's time they decided to do The Shining. I did read they did a survey of the best horror film and 1st was The Exorcist, 2nd was Halloween & 3rd was The Shining. I enjoyed reading this novel but it's not a classic.

The book I read to research this post was The Hayling Railway by Peter Paye which is an excellent book which I bought from a specialist bookshop. This is a new book which has only recently been published. This is the 3rd edition. Hayling Island is a moderately successful seaside near Portsmouth & Havant. It's not as popular for holidays as it was and in the 19th century there was a railway linking it to Havant. There is a fine beach on the south coast of the island and much of the surrounding sea only makes it an island at high tide so it isn't a true island. Having said that the island is a substantial size. The Hayling Railway Company leased the railway from the London, Brighton & South Coast Company in 1872 & much of the railway was single track and ran on an embankment to avoid flooding. Nearby Portsmouth is a major naval base & from Havant the railway is linked to the rest of the South Coast Network. Havant station & Hayling South station were expanded and platforms were added. Some of the track was upgraded to dual track which enabled a more frequent service to be run. Alas in 1962 along with many other railways it was closed. Havant & Portsmouth which are both quite sizeable are still connected by railway to the rest of the network. I really enjoyed this book and it kept my interest throughout. Also it's a reasonable length at around 150 pages. Peter Paye is something of an expert on East Anglian railways and has written quite a lot of books about that. His books are consistently good. Finally Hayling Island isn't that far from the Isle of Wight which is a bigger island off Southampton and more well known as a holiday resort.

I am reviewing the novel Daughter Of Smoke And Bone by Laini Taylor which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. I haven't got a lot of experience of reading teen fiction but although this book is good I think there are other authors who do it better. Also because many of the characters are meeting for the first time there is more emphasis on that than the story which is not all together a bad thing but I think maybe the sequels might be an improvement. I do think it is quite original having the heroine fall in love with a devil who is quite a good character and her having a mother who did the same thing and that is how she came to be born. The ending is a cliff hanger which is obvious when you realise this is a fantasy series. Much of the story is set in Prague the capital of the Czech Republic. I did quite enjoy reading this book which is around 350 pages so is a decent length. I don't like it if a book is really short as I think it reflects how much effort the author put into it and I can speed read so have no problem reading a long book.

I am reviewing the novel The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. I wouldn't normally read this kind of book but I think it is regarded as a bit of a classic and Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress Oscar for the film based on the book so I was curious about the book even though I haven't seen the film. The plot is that a young man who is in a psychiatric hospital at the beginning and hardly remember anything about the last few years is trying to get around his mum to get him released. He is released soon afterwards and wants to get back with his ex-wife even though she has a restraining order and they are calling the current situation apart time. He is mostly trying to keep fit and healthy. He is desperate to make contact with his ex-wife and an opportunity appears to present itself. A friend of his called Tiffany wants to enter a dance competition and says that if he partners her she will contact Nikki his ex-wife on his behalf. He agrees to this and Tiffany is apparently an accomplished dancer but up until wouldn't let her friends and family see her compete until now. Also she is going to write the replies from Nikki herself and try and give him closure. Nikki doesn't want anything to do with him. They do well in the dancing competition but with his ex-partner things don't go so well. There is a happy ending however and the book is very funny. I really enjoyed this book and at around 300 pages it is a reasonable length.

The book I read to research this post was Boost Your Vitality With Ayurveda Made Simple by Sarah Lie which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. Sarah has been interested in this subject since 2000 and enrolled on the 1st graduate degree program outside India on this subject. This subject is almost a way of life rather than just an alternative therapy. It is over 5,000 years old and would probably integrate well with other sacred arts like vaastu. They divide the subjects into groups like whether they are fat or thin, active or inactive, have moist or dry skin & how well they sleep. It's important when assessing this to select what is usually true about you not just since you fell ill. There are then various treatments given according to what type you are and what the imbalance or illness is. These treatments tend to follow of either adding something or taking something away or purging the body. It's interesting with the latter that in old western medicine leeches used to be used for this precise reason and are making a little bit of a comeback with a small group of doctors. They sometimes recommend dietary supplements like garlic or milk and the former is a great item for curing most things. By supplements I mean they are taken in a raw form and supplement your diet. In Ayurveda one of the great principles related to what is wrong with you and the type of person you are is the taste centres on your tongue and the types of food they relate to. Another important principle especially when treating something is focusing on your eating or mindfulness. This means focusing on the taste, texture and taking your time chewing something and sitting somewhere quiet. I think I learned a lot from this book and enjoyed reading it. It's also around 400 pages so is a decent length.