Old Front Page Stories

Dear readers, I am pleased to welcome you to the Amazon detail page for BB-67 MONTANA, U.S. Navy Battleship: Why She Matters Today This is one of my favorites in the ever-growing Nimble Books list. The cover looks terrific--very realistic, just as if the Navy had really built the U.S.S. Montana! The interior of the book includes:

• pictures and information about the various design concepts that were explored
• the specifications of the final Montana design
• color pictures of a beautiful 1:700 scale model of Montana by Imre Somogyi
• a beautiful color painting of Montana by author and artist Wayne Scarpaci
• a picture of her never-built 1920's predecessor, BB-51 Montana
• an essay on "Why She Matters Today"; and
• a discussion of Senator Jon Tester's efforts to get the U.S. Navy to name a capital ship after his home state of Montana.

In short, this presents a unique package of art and text devoted exclusively to one of the most interesting hypothetical ships ever designed. I'm very happy to see that this book is selling well. I hope you enjoy it. Cordially yours, Fred Zimmerman Publisher, Nimble Books LLC P.S. if you are interested in reading other stuff about Montana, I recommend two major studies of U.S. battleships: U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman and Battleships: United States Battleships, 1935-1992 (Battleships) by Garzke. Both of these books rely on archival sources to give a highly technical history of the ten or twenty different designs that were considered for Montana. My book's different in that I tackle the issue of "why do we care about this today" head-on. [gallery=3]

O’Reilly Media | Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality A Practical Guide

By Stephen Cawood, Dr. Mark Fiala
First Edition January 2008
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
Pages: 328
ISBN 10: 1-934356-03-4 | ISBN 13:9781934356036

This new book from Pragmatic Bookshelf (distributed by O’Reilly) made me feel

1) scared ! what a subject for a book — is this real? and
2) deprived — I don’t have the money to buy whatever cool stuff this is about …

Why I detest Burt Reynolds and Nicolas Cage by Kathleen Turner | the Daily Mail

Kathleen Turner made her name as a screen femme fatale in the classic thriller Body Heat. Her new autobiography reveals with unflinching honesty how crippling illness and the pressures of fame tipped her into alcoholism and despair. Here, in the last of three extracts, she recalls some of the more outrageous moments from her movie career…

The extract reads pretty well. I like the way she talks.

wfzimmerman's review: "What I have learned from the LibraryThing reviews: 1) no one really liked the book very much, and some people really hated it; 2) the structure, content, and style, which was a conscious experiment, wasn't a very successful one; 3) people really hate seeing Wikipedia listed as a source. Fair enough! Onward... Cordially, Fred Zimmerman"
Nimble Books (2007), Paperback, 188 pages

wfzimmerman's review: "A beautiful new edition from Tor of Isaac Asimov's first novel. I can't wait to re-read this!"
Tor Books (2008), Hardcover, 256 pages
tags: sf, science fiction

United States Patent Application: 0070300174

A unique monitoring system and method is provided that involves monitoring user activity in order to facilitate managing and optimizing the utilization of various system resources. In particular, the system can monitor user activity, detect when users need assistance with their specific activities, and identify at least one other user that can assist them. Assistance can be in the form of answering questions, providing guidance to the user as the user completes the activity, or completing the activity such as in the case of taking on an assigned activity. In addition, the system can aggregate activity data across users and/or devices. As a result, problems with activity templates or activities themselves can be more readily identified, user performance can be readily compared, and users can communicate and exchange information regarding similar activity experiences. Furthermore, synchronicity and time-sensitive scheduling of activities between users can be facilitated and improved overall.

What a PITA and resource hog. It would be interesting to see whether this comes out of the Microsoft Research usability team.

Review of: Tanner on ice by Block, Lawrence

Brilliant premise, but title character & I failed to click. Wound up skimming last 2/3 of book and tossing aside.

Dear readers,

If you enjoyed this book, you may enjoy
  Historical Atlas of Indonesia by Robert Cribb.







I have no hesitation in saying that his book is terrific, and I also have no hesitation in saying that my book is quite a bit more cost-effective than his (which rings up at $268.91!) -- and even has nicer color printing!

Of course, you may also want to take a look at:


  Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia





Best,

Fred Zimmerman
Publisher, Nimble Books LLC

George MacDonald Fraser, 82, author of ‘Flashman’ novels - International Herald Tribune

George MacDonald Fraser, a British writer whose popular novels about the arch-rogue Harry Flashman followed their hero as he galloped, swashbuckled, drank and womanized his way through many of the signal events of the 19th century, died Wednesday on the Isle of Man.

This is very sad news. He’s an author whose oeuvre I’d like to own in its entirety.

wfzimmerman's review: "Tor's usually sure-footed publicity team stumbles a bit by identifying William H. Drinkard as a 12-year veteran of the Alabama State Legislature. I am sure that the Alabama State Legislature of today is not the Alabama State Legislature of fifty or a hundred years ago, but it's still not exactly a confidence-inspiring background."
Tor Books (2008), Hardcover, 544 pages
tags: science fiction, sf, ARC