Luckily, as well as diagnosing an insidious problem this book provides clear and actionable advice that could be helpful to anyone, whatever their current level of communication skills. The authors blend well-observed general principles with specific examples from professional and personal contexts. They have done particularly well to reduce a potentially confusing topic to a single clear model that is simple enough to comprehend and general enough to be useful.

The scope of the book is both broad and narrow. It’s narrow in that it focuses almost exclusively on a single case: people who have violated an agreement or expectation. However, in a sense this still has great breadth since these situations occur in all walks of life. The examples in the book show how the principles apply equally well in work and at home.

I never feel like I’ve written a fair review unless I’ve picked a few holes in a book, and I’m struggling to do so here. The worst I can say is that this isn’t an instant classic, if for no other reason than its narrow scope. However, I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be well advised to give it a read.

I won’t say too much about the physical device itself, which functions very well. The e-paper screen is a pleasure to read from. The slightly reduced contrast means it’s tough in very dim light, but the trade-off of being able to read in bright sunlight is well worth it. The inclusion of a qwerty keyboard is a real marmite feature, but on balance I’m glad it’s there.

What really excites me about the devices is its potential to change the way I read. In the past I’ve left a trail of half-completed books in my wake, as I’ve never had the right one with me. Sooner or later I’d forget where I was in a book or even that I was reading it in the first place. If nothing else, the Kindle works well as a way of centralising my collection and tracking where I am with each one. Could I do the same with a few cheap bookmarks and a large sack to carry the books? Kind of, but the point is that I never did do that.

The built-in mobile phone circuitry that supports “whispernet” (global wireless delivery of books) looks on paper like massive over-engineering, since I purchase books far less frequently than I sit down at a computer. However, it changes the nature of the device from a portable book collection to a portable library, and that starts to feel like something out of a culture novel (the series of science fiction stories set in a high-technology utopia.)

Whispernet really comes into its own for newspapers and magazines, which benefit especially from arriving with you fast and effortlessly, and from old issues not taking up space. At the moment the catalogue of magazines is small and many suffer from the lack of graphics, but there are already some good titles that are very keenly priced. If I could transfer my subscription to The Economist to Kindle I might never read a paper magazine again.

One of the most overlooked things about newspaper and magazine delivery is its potential as a monetisation platform. Because it’s linked to your Amazon account, you can pay large or small amounts for content with ease. It may seem odd to say that I like having to pay for content, but he who pays the piper calls the tune. If I want something, I’d rather pay for it than hope that some advertiser values my eyeballs highly enough to pay for it on my behalf.

Using an electronic format essentially kills the second-hand market: since data doesn’t get worn out like a paper book does, resale of e-books by customers would compete unacceptably with new sales. Therefore Amazon has no choice but to prevent resale from happening. I don’t have a problem with this, provided that publishers recognise it and price their books accordingly. Second-hand sale of a book (whether for money or swapping in an informal economy) helps to defray the high cost of acquiring new books (at least part of which is in printing cost, and cross-subsidising printing of unsuccessful books).

In this sense, a Kindle book is less valuable than a brand-new hardback, since it has zero resale value. In the case of back-catalogue books it is also competing against virtually free copies of the dead-tree version from charity shops or Amazon Marketplace, which further lowers the price I’m prepared to pay. I suspect that the publishers who realise this and price accordingly will benefit.

One last thing about copyright: I don’t like the Digital Rights Management (DRM) of the Kindle. DRM is the technology that binds a copy of a book to a particular physical device, preventing you from lending the book to a friend or using it on an e-book reader not made by Amazon. It’s not unduly restrictive in everyday use, but the prospect of buying my entire collection again if Sony wins the format war is a bit of a downer.

However, I think the best way to ensure DRM goes away is to back up my voice with my wallet. DRM on music is on its way out, and this is not because of the people who forcibly broke DRM, but because the iTunes store proved that there was a market of people who were prepared to pay money and play by the rules. Adhering to the spirit of copyright when safeguards were in place gave the industry confidence in a way that arguing over the letter of the law never did.

The first thing to know about SQL and Relational Theory is that it’s largely a retread of Chris Date’s previous excellent book Database in Depth. The latter is a favourite of mine: extremely readable, yet with enough theoretical clout to change the way I looked at databases forever. The new volume carries over large chunks of the text from the older one, with some minor tweaks. As the name suggests, it brings in substantial additional material to link relational theory in with SQL, the only practical implementation of the model in current use.

In the preface, Date explains that the motivation for the new book was the realisation that practitioners weren’t able to figure out for themselves how to apply his theoretical ideas within SQL. Clearing up this difficulty is an admirable goal, and illustrates well that Date’s approach is practical and not meant as ivory-tower theory, but I can’t help but wonder if one of the reasons he didn’t state was that books sell better with ‘SQL’ in the title.

The additional material has resulted in a book that is roughly twice as long. This isn’t a problem in itself, though it does spoil one of the things I loved about “In Depth”: that it could be read in a couple of evening’s work by a sufficiently motivated person. The importance of making a book light enough that you can sit and read it on the sofa without looking like a database nerd should not be understated.

The prose remains clear and readable, and strikes a nice balance that makes it approachable to relative beginners while avoiding ever sounding patronising. Date’s style is precise to a fault, and some people will find it needlessly pedantic; nevertheless, there isn’t any pointless pedantry here, and if you stick with it you’ll learn why subtle distinctions need to be made.

So how useful are the new insertions on SQL? I find it difficult to tell. On the one hand, it makes it much easier to relate the ideas in this book to discussions of theory that actually occur in the real world, since SQL is the lingua franca. In the old book, it was certainly annoying to have all the examples written in Tutorial D, without a real specification of how the language works. On the other hand, Date’s examples in this book are still in a mythical beast called “Standard SQL”, of which no practical implementation exists. What is good practice in standard SQL might be impossible in your chosen implementation, or there might be a better way to achieve the same thing.

It’s certainly worth buying one of the two books here, but the choice of which is not as obvious. If you already own “In Depth”, the updated version probably isn’t worth buying. If you don’t, then “SQL and Relational Theory” is the thing to buy, unless you’re after a lighter and more portable read.

Secondly, I worry that the books don’t really form introductions to a subject at all, but rather “bluffer’s guides”, that are the first and last book a person picks up on the subjct. To pick one subject I’m reasonably familiar with, I have a long-standing suspicion that teaching mathematics to a casual audience is worse than useless. Even when the reader is an active student of the subject, these books can be used to bypass study rather than to inspire it (at least according to anecdotal evidence from my fellow students).

Happily, neither of these concerns is a significant problem for Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. The author allows his opinions to show through, but is admirably even-handed, even generous in setting out contrasting views.

As regards being an introduction to the subject, this book fulfils its remit very effectively. The area covered is broad enough, and the background information great enough, that the book does little more than scratch the surface on important topics such as euthanasia, genetics and mental health. The necessary background in logic and philosophical rigor isn’t neglected either, with a brief section cleverly slipped in once the reader’s appetite has been whetted by a few philosophical conundrums.

I have very little to criticise about this book. It did feel terribly constrained in what it covered, and stylistically it felt like a longer book cut short to fit the publisher’s requirements rather than a perfectly-turned short book. No sooner had I started to get interested in a topic than the chapter ended—but then of course this is exactly what an introduction should be.

The 2010 edition is labelled the “Hard Times” edition, and spends a lot more time commiserating the fact that you obviously won’t have a job because the economy is so poor. Notwitstanding this reassurance, it’s hard to see what practical benefit is offered by this focus on the bad economy.

The book’s subtitle hints that it is aimed at “job-hunters and career-changers”, and indeed it is a book of two almost unrelated halves. Many (perhaps even most) people will find themselves needing only one half of the book.

The job-hunting advice is solid, but not ground-breaking. The author emphasises networking and building relationships, and has sensible practical advice on the details. The tone is friendly, light and personable. The advice is mostly uncontroversial, but is distinctive enough to be memorable. All in all, you could do much worse if you need help with seeking a job, although the quantity of content is a little light compared to a dedicated job-hunting manual.

The section on choosing a career is where the book really comes into its own. The author clearly feels that a career should be a passion and manages to strike an encouraging tone. There are a number of well-thought-out exercises that help elicit ideas in an area that often leaves people flummoxed. Again, I was left with the feeling of wanting a little more content than I got in this section.

Overall, there’s a lot right and not too much wrong in this book. It’s well worth the money if you’re troubled by the job hunt or want to get yourself out of a career rut.

But wait! Two flaws…

Firstly, this is a book targetted exclusively at the US market. The majority of the contact details provided, and some of the advice, will be of no use to British readers (who I assume are over-represented in this blog’s audience). For a book that sells so many copies, it’s annoying that a UK edition hasn’t been produced. Even if the changes were mostly in removing irrelevant content without adding much, it would make for a less frustrating experience.

Secondly, the author was once an ordained Episcopalian minister, and some may find his religion shows through rather too much in this book. The main body of the book is fine, but the first appendix dives straight in with the Unexpectedly Capitalised Pronouns. In fairness to the author, he understands that many readers will have a different religious perspective or no religious belief at all, and encourages people to interpret his words into their own world view. Nevertheless, the appendix on the Mission that He has provided you in His infinite goodness will polarise the readership, and many people will find it distasteful.

Personally I was happy to see an author speaking from the heart, and felt that this made for a better chance of insight than a soulless politically-correct tract with all the passion carefully removed so as not to cause offence. Having said that, I’ve worked harder to understand religious belief than many atheists, and I found it heavy going and ultimately impossible to connect with. If this ruins the book for you, then you’re probably too sensitive, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

While Net, Blogs and Rock’n'Roll is aimed squarely at the Web 2.0-prognostication market it’s far from being the worst example of this: David Jennings draws on plenty of personal experience as well as interviews and systematic research to paint a picture of the way music will be changed as a result of social changes brought about by web technology. Even so, this is fundamentally an attempt to gaze into a very hazy future, and while I found in it some good inspiration, nothing in it felt especially certain.

A particular problem with this book is that it goes on too long, without enough structure to make the purpose of much of the text clear. The last third of the book didn’t seem to add much value and felt more like an overly-extended summary than anything else, and was very hard work to get through.

If you’re in the music industry or a part of the web industry that overlaps with music, then this book is certainly worth reading as part of gathering a wide variety of opinions. There are plenty of insights to be had, if you approach them critically. If your interest in the future of music is more casual then you’re probably better served by tracking events as they happen on blogs rather than spending effort trying to divine the future.

How to Become a Better Negotiator

It’s a well-structured book and gets to the heart of the matter well, making good use of the space available. It’s not one of those business books where you suspect the author was paid by the word.

The authors rightly focus on a basis of good communication skills before getting into the details of negotiation techniques. There are a few simple self-assessment exercises of the “Mostly C’s” type, which aren’t especially original but do give good insight in a short space of time, particularly if you haven’t done much introspection about your communication style.

Once the book gets into the specifics of negotiation techniques, most of the focus is on negotiating large business deals rather than the smaller one-off situations (such as salary negotiations) that everyone comes across. Though this doesn’t make too much practical difference, I couldn’t help but think that the people who would benefit most from such a light read would be people who don’t negotiate for a living.

All in all this is a good solution if you want a quick blast to improve your skills without investing too much time. If you want to dig deeper this is probably a bit light and offers little that you won’t find again elsewhere.