Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual

By Lesa Snider
Pogue Press, $49.99, 796 pages

The Missing Manual guides have been in existence since 1999, but it wasn’t until last year that the series set forth to tackle Photoshop, a program the series founder, David Pogue, compares to both a 747 jumbo jet and a monster (“Just opening it is like watching a slumbering beast heave into consciousness.”). Pogue selected photography, design, and technology guru Lesa Snider to author the first book, which covered CS4. When Adobe released Photoshop CS5 this spring, Snider was ready with the Missing Manual to accompany it.

Layering, brushes, color correction, resizing, filtering, text, masks, channels … this book’s nearly 800 pages has it all. With the information arranged in a logical order, self-taught learners can easily substitute reading this book and practicing techniques for online or in-person Photoshop courses. For more experienced Photoshop users, finding help on a specific tool in the book’s index is preferable to conducting a search on Adobe’s online database. Experienced Photoshop users will also enjoy the summary of new features in CS5 and the tables which illustrate the effect options in the Photoshop tools where there are many (for example, one table contains thumbnails of all 23 layer blend modes). This book, for its clever writing, clear instructions, and abundance of bright, easy to understand graphics, is a must-have for all who wish to harness Photoshop’s impressive capabilities.

Originally published through San Francisco Book Review.

If you think your business is on the cutting edge because you have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account, think again! According to marketing, communications, and new media guru Brian Solis, you’re just a novice. In Engage! Solis introduces readers to hundreds of new and lesser-known new media tools and, more importantly, teaches businesses how to join the enigmatic online conversation and measure their success.

New media beginners will love part two of the book, titled “The New Media University.” From “Social Media 101” to “MBA Program—Second Year,” Solis teaches about gradually more complex new media tools and the concepts behind their development and successful implementation. Parts three and beyond relate social media to advanced business aspects of branding, marketing, and customer service. Solis emphasizes the importance of establishing new media plans and goals before beginning and advises businesses to create social media rules of engagement for employees who communicate on behalf of the company, as well as employees who might have an indirect impact by their own personal actions online.

Although many of the concepts Solis discusses in his book seem geared toward large companies with large marketing and communications staffs (in some cases, entire staffs of new media professionals), even small business owners and entrepreneurs will gain much insight from Solis’s expertise, as well as his frequent real-life examples of other companies’ innovative use of social media. 

Originally published through San Francisco Book Review.

Samantha, who created Chick Lit Plus, wrote this about the commonalties she observed and liked while first starting to read chicklit genre books:

Each novel revolved around a woman and her current situation. They talked extensively about love: either the heroine was trying to find love, looking in the wrong place, or trying to get her boyfriend to just propose already. No matter which book I chose, it touched on some sort of subject that I could find interesting to read about: love, family, career choices, pregnancy, addiction, friendships, and so much more. Each book was written with humor and a light heartedness about it; even with a more serious subject I can find myself smiling in places.

What intrigued me about this particular reading challenge is the requirement to read new chicklit books by debut authors.  It’s not always the easiest thing to find new books in this genre.  Out of the thousands of fiction books published each year, only a few make it to the bookstore’s new releases table.  On her blog, Samantha will highlighting these debut chicklit authors and 2011 chicklit releases. 

I’m starting my Chick Lit Reading Challenge with Jennifer Weiner’s “In Her Shoes.”  If you want to sign up, too, click here for the link to the instructions.

This beautiful Sunset design guide is a perfect staring place for homeowners who wish to reduce the environmental impact of their next home improvement project.  The two hundred pages packed with images of gorgeous living spaces and home details serve as an idea catalog while the text alongside provides a clear, enjoyable read, despite many “green” considerations having roots in chemistry and physics.

Whether an upcoming project be a new layer of paint, a kitchen remodel, or buying new furniture, this book reveals subtleties of the various environmental considerations of each. This book also contains basic information on projects targeted at significant reductions in energy and water use, such as installing solar panels and rainwater collection systems, designing water-conscious landscaping, and increasing natural light in your home.  Especially helpful are the “at a glance” spreads that compare products in similar categories, such as wall coverings and flooring. In the countertop section, for example, the author analyzes natural stone, bamboo, ceramic tile, and eight other materials in terms of pros and cons, price, installation techniques, and environmental considerations. Covering a breadth of topics, this book gives homeowners the background information necessary before launching into a do-it-yourself project or hiring a contractor.

Originally published through San Francisco Book Review.

Cassie was widowed at a young age after her elite mountaineer husband died in a Himalayan climbing accident. Three years later, she is still living a transient lifestyle in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with a camper for a home, working seasonal jobs in the tourist industry, and spending as much time outside as possible. Her latest job lands her as the cook at a local dude ranch where the overt advances of the owner’s crass, rancher-turned-movie star son Robbin, make her feel more isolated than she already is.  While Robbin struggles with the Hollywood stresses that put him in his self-prescribed summer of rehabilitation at the ranch, Cassie begins to see more behind Robbin’s off-putting demeanor, and is forced to consider opening her heart for the first time since her husband’s death.

The setting of the book is rich, as it overlays the grandeur of the Grand Teton mountain range with the deeply embedded and sometimes conflicting cultures of outdoor adventurers and ranchers. These conflicts entwine with the plot as the longtime staff of the ranch feel threatened by Cassie’s insistence on recycling and ordering reusable water bottles for the guests. The secondary characters of the book are endearing and the rocky romance between Cassie and Robbin is refreshingly realistic. 

Originally published through San Francisco Book Review

Back to the notecard phase on the third draft.

This week brings good news from Redlands, California.  I finished the third draft of my women’s fiction manuscript. 

From the very rough first draft to my more recent struggle to pare the more polished third draft to an acceptable length (a 23% cut), it’s taken two years.  Next up, I’ll be sending query letters in hopes of finding a literary agent who wants to represent the manuscript.  (If you have a literary agent lurking in your circle of friends, now is the time to speak up!)

Researching agents and the query process is no small task, but hopefully I’ll have a little more time for blog posts.  I’m excited to write about the process of writing a manuscript, as well as posting photos of some of the neat places my husband and I visited this year.  I’m also looking forward to reviewing the latest books by new authors in the women’s fiction genre.

Also this year, I finished another draft of the adapted screenplay I’ve been plugging away at, off and on since 2007.  Literary agents are easy to find because there are huge directories that list their contact information and what types of work they are looking to represent.  Many literary agents also keep blogs and websites that are chock full of helpful hints for rookie manuscript pitchers like me.  Screenplay agents…not so much.  Even locating an agent’s name (let alone an email address) involves digging thirteen pages deep on a Google search and even then you end up at a dead end.  (If you know a film agent, now is REALLY the time to speak up!!).

In the meantime, you can keep up with me here or find me on Twitter.  (@meganjust)  Every since I made the big move to a smart phone this fall, Twitter has been my new favorite thing.  For a long-winded writer like me, a limit of 140 characters is a really good thing!

My Nuclear Family: A Coming-of-Age in America’s Twenty-first-Century Military

By Christopher Brownfield
Knopf, $26.95, 314 pages

From the first chapter of My Nuclear Family, it is clear that former Navy Lieutenant Christopher Brownfield’s memoir is set in a military that is vastly different than the one we see portrayed in the news and movies. With a theme that centers around energy, Brownfield takes readers inside the USS Hartford for a rare glimpse of the life aboard a nuclear submarine, and then on to Baghdad, where he served on a civil-military affairs team focusing on electricity and oil.

Brownfield’s background as an English major and his sharp eye for detail have produced an engrossing memoir that is as well-written as it is humorously entertaining. This young, talented former submariner who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is gives the reader a complete view of the modern Navy by sharing everything from the subtleties of the mundane (the grueling boredom of standing watch) to the moments of tragedy (the 2003 grounding of Brownfield’s submarine) and triumph (helping an Iraqi artist share his paintings of war with Americans).

Along with his personal experiences, Brownfield adds his research on topics such as dependence on oil and the history of the Navy’s nuclear submarine force. Also interesting are Brownfield’s accounts of his interactions with politicians while in the Green Zone, including a dinner with Senator Lindsey Graham, a feast at the home of Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, and his response to an inquiry from Senator Barack Obama.

Here is a short except from the book that had me rolling with laughter. 

As the Kim Collection prepared to depart for Seoul, constellations of Bronze Stars fell from the heavens to grace the heroes of our defunct unit. Mulder put himself in for a second Bronze Star; Wilbur got a big shiny medal with a citation so riddled with fiction that it could just as well have started with “Once upon a time. . . ” Egos swelled as exploits were proclaimed before all. It didn’t matter that most of the citation were base upon good intentions, not upon actual results.

A few officers had performed admirably, like the colonel who established a crisis hotline similar to America’s 911 emergency services. Another colonel–the one who aspired to bring the American porn industry to Iraq–had saved the life of an Iraqi politician during a suicide bombing, earning himself a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and a hefty solid-gold medal from the Iraqi Council of Representatives. These feats, however, were notable exceptions. For the most part, it was an orgy of self-congratulation among aging bureaucrats pretending to be soldiers.

“I’m putting myself in for an Arctic Service Ribbon,” one newly arrived officer laughed.

I cocked my head, puzzled. “Why?”

“Because I’m about as close to the arctic circle as these colonels are to combat.”

The idea for this book stemmed from Mike Wallace’s inspirational 2007 guest appearance during one of Fordham University professor Beth Knobel’s journalism courses.  After witnessing Wallace’s profound impact on the students (and vice versa), the two former CBS colleagues teamed to recreate this intergenerational exchange of journalistic wisdom.

Heat and Light covers the foundations of journalism, research and interviewing techniques, media law and ethics, the future of the news industry, and the basics of creating print, radio, and television reports.  Rich with examples and packed with quotations from notable journalists, this book is much more than a trade paperback version of a Journalism 101 textbook.  Although it seems Wallace and Knobel primarily wrote this book for an audience of young adults considering careers in journalism, this book will appeal to many more.  As Wallace and Knobel often discuss, in the world of the Internet, everyone is a reporter, and for those who have not studied journalism but are serious about fair and ethical reporting, this book covers it all. The Reporter’s Toolbox at the end of the book contains checklists for print, radio, television, and Internet stories, as well as a glossary of journalism terms and a long list of helpful Web sites. 

Originally published thorugh San Francisco Book Review.

Promises to Keep

At a surprise birthday party for Callie, Reece gives a celebratory toast to Callie’s nearly five years of remission from breast cancer. Just fifty pages later, Callie’s troublesome headaches have taken a vengeful life of their own and she is hospitalized with what will eventually be diagnosed as a rare and lethal complication of cancer. But even in the face of this tragedy, Callie’s friends and family band together to make the best of Callie’s last weeks on Earth. An epilogue shows us how the characters are coping one year after Callie’s death. Author Jane Green’s constantly rolling points of view and shifts between sub plots give this story the intimacy of the first-person voice but with the completeness of a third-person narrative.

Originally published by San Francisco Book Review.

Here, Scott teaches the reader to influence news as it is breaking, use new media during crisis communication, use the input of the masses to achieve buy-in with a new product, and build a organizational culture around speed. A wealth of case studies brings life to Scott’s concepts and shows their range of applications. Particularly interesting are Scott’s innovative uses of social media in customer service departments.

This book is a must-read for small business owners and those in the fields of public relations and marketing. The book makes an excellent pair with Scott’s The New Rules of PR and Marketing.

Review originally published with Sacramento Book Review.