The Fine Art of Small Talk, by Debra Fine

Summary: This book describes various techniques for how to improve your conversation skills, better connect with people, etc.

Comments: I think the other book I read with that description was better. The tone of this one rubbed me the wrong way. The focus of the seems to be "Since I figured out how to quit being horrible at the social thing, it's really easy and you can do it too". While believing in yourself is good, some more (or maybe more organized) tips on what to do would be more helpful. Maybe what not to do also, but what to do instead is more valuable.

Also, am I the only one who hates gratuitous use of your conversation partner's name? Or avoids friendly sounding/seeming stores (or at least judges them differently than she does)? Your examples of how to act aren't helpful when I disagree with how they make people feel!

How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends (Revised and Updated), by Don Gabor

Summary: I think the title is a pretty good summary of the book - it's focused on how to have effective conversations and how to make friends.

Thoughts: While I'm inclined to be skeptical about whether self-help books actually have anything helpful to say, I feel like this one actually does. Most of its suggestions are probably obvious in hindsight, but it's helpful to have them in written in one convenient place where it's harder to ignore that that's probably what I should be doing. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who thinks their ability to interact with people could use a pick-me-up. It's probably helpful for other kinds of people also, but I don't have experience to speak from there. Now the next question is whether I'll actually apply what I learned...

A Caribbean Mystery, by Agatha Christie

Summary: After Major Palgrave's unexpected death, Miss Marple can't help but wonder if it was something more sinister than merely a combination of high blood pressure and alcohol as people originally thought.

Thoughts: A riveting tale of mystery and intrigue in a sunny Caribbean island, through the eyes of a nice old lady. It's interesting how the speculation gets horribly messy for a while and then comes together nicely in the end. I don't want to say too much for fear of spoiling the surprise, but suffice it to say, I enjoyed reading this book.

Mathematics in Action, by O. G. Sutton

Summary: a description of the role of math in science, including waves, flight, and ballistics. Very much emphasizes the math - the book is full of formulae, partial derivatives, and the like.

Comments: First off, this book reads like a textbook. Some parts of it are very dense and it has a habit of leaving out steps in the process of transforming one equation into another. Specifically, it would be a college-level textbook, because a number of the concepts are things I didn't learn until upper level college math (and they're also things I may have forgotten - be prepared to go searching through textbooks or wikipedia in order to figure out what they're talking about or else resign yourself to not quite understanding things).

Another thing that detracted from my reading of certain parts of the book (meteorology, and maybe ballistics) is that fact that version I'm reading is the 2nd edition, from 1966, back when "computer" meant a person who computes. It would be interesting to know how much has changed since then, especially in meteorology.

In spite of all my complaints, I did somewhat enjoy parts of the book. The section on statistics was particularly enlightening. I wouldn't recommend it to most people, but if someone made it through the summary and thought it sounded intriguing, I probably would tentatively recommend it to them (tentative because parts of it are almost certainly out of date - if you're interested in meteorology, this book is probably not very helpful). I think knowing what I was getting myself into probably would have helped with my opinion of the book, though maybe not the textbook complaint.

Short-cut Math, by Gerard W. Kelly

Summary: This book has a variety of tricks to make basic mathematical operations easier to complete, such as simplifying a subtraction problem by adding the same number to both of your original numbers.

Comments: I can only assume this book is intended for grade school students, because all of the tricks that are widely applicable are things I've known since I was like 10. The rest of the tricks are so specialized that you would probably have to look them up every time, which would almost certainly take longer than just doing out the long way (eg multiplying two numbers when their end digits add to 10 and their other digits match). If you know any elementary school students who are interested in math or if you need a refresher course in basic math, this might be a worthwhile book. Otherwise, don't bother.

Rules of the Road, by Joan Bauer

Summary: Jenna has had to face many problems in her life, but her job as a salesperson at Gladstone Shoe Stores isn't one of them. When company president Madeline Gladstone offers her a job as her driver, she gets an opportunity to get out of Chicago, and learns some things about life in the process.

Comments: This is an incredibly powerful book. I think anyone can learn something from its message of caring about the little things in life and about people and knowing what you stand for. I originally read this book over 10 years ago, and I enjoyed it as much this time as I did before. Just because it's labeled as a young adult book doesn't mean everyone else can't enjoy it also (though once you get past a certain age, you might identify more worth Mrs. Gladstone than with Jenna). The fact that Jenna had an amusing way of phrasing things certainly doesn't hurt. This book is definitely worth reading at least once, and probably several times.

The Snark Handbook Insult Edition, by Lawrence Dorfman

Summary: A collection of quips/insults from a variety of famous people

Comments: This is rather an amusing book, and quite a fast read. It's also suitable for flipping open to a random page and seeing what you find. I rather enjoyed it.