Books

Lifestyle, Sport & Leisure

July 2023

VW Golf

Mk 1-IV

by Richard Copping

When it was launched in 1974, the Volkswagen Golf succeeded in replacing the legendary Beetle and setting new standards for the family hatchback for years to come. It also would become one of the top three bestselling cars in the world. With its stunning design by Italian design house Giorgetto Giugiario, the new car also incorporated significant engineering features such as a transverse engine that allowed for more internal space. In this revealing book, VW expert Richard Copping follows the story of the development of the Golf and the critical management and design decisions that would make the car such a worldwide success. The author shows how the concept of continuous development at Volkswagen led to the appearance of the versions of the Golf that are covered in this book — the Mk 2 in 1983, the Mk 3 in 1991 and the Mk IV in 1997. He explores the various design and engineering changes that took place as the Golf evolved, including increased dimensions, new engines and of course the stunningly successful GTi. The fourth generation Golf also introduced powerful but economical diesel engines. The book also covers variants such as the Jetta, Vento and Boa, which accounted for most sales in the United States. Full of fascinating information, this book is a revealing analysis of the first four versions of the Volkswagen Golf.

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Travel & Transport

April 2020

How to Build a Patina Volkswagen

by Mark Walker

The explosion of Patina Volkswagens on social media has inspired those car fanatics, who realise that you don’t have to restore a car to end up with a good-looking ride. At last, you can stand out from the crowd, even on a tight budget. The look of the cars that result from patina builds is honest, unspoiled, and characterful; it has also inspired the media, movie stars and celebrities. Interest in patination has undoubtedly resulted in increased car values, and turned a brand of cars that had always been a cheap, honest mode of transportation into something cool with a high price tag. The people the look initially inspired have grown with the hobby, finding ways to achieve a great look on a tight budget, and producing a micro-industry that still manages to embrace the 'Built not bought' ethos. This book takes a look at the differing styles of patina VW build, and imparts tips on finding and buying a project car, carrying out a sympathetic patina style renovation, and includes a chapter on recreating a patina finish on repaired areas or missing parts.

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Travel & Transport

February 2019

Patina Volkswagens

by Mark Walker

Since the early 2000s, the apparent explosion of interest in Volkswagens with original paint, rust and patina has inspired a generation of car fanatics, who might not be able to afford to restore a car to show condition, but still want a good looking, cool car that will stand out from the crowd. Once looked upon as being in need of restoration, cars with original paint, rust and patina, especially within the global Volkswagen community, have gradually become far more popular than restored cars. When walking down a line of cars at a car show, it’s easy to see why; these cars are rare, unspoiled survivors – cars that tell a story of an interesting and varied past. The look of the Volkswagens being built in this style is so honest, unspoiled and characterful, that it has begun to inspire the media; even Hollywood movie stars and celebrities. Whilst this has undoubtedly resulted in increased car values, and turned a brand of cars that had always been a cheap, honest mode of transportation into something cool with a high price tag, the generation it initially inspired has grown with the hobby, and produced a micro-industry that still manages to embrace the 'Built not bought' ethos. This book, superbly illustrated with stunning colour photographs, takes an inside look at some of the key car builders, dealers, celebrities and hobbyists, as well as the different styles of build, meaning every single car has a style all its own. Foreword by Drew Pritchard of TV’s ‘Salvage Hunters’ fame.

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Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

September 2006

Anthills and Stars

by Kevin Duffy

It’s 1968 and in Paris the students are rioting but in Broughton, 20 miles East of Manchester the Permissive Society has just arrived, driving a multi-coloured VW camper van and the locals aren’t best pleased. ‘Anthills and Stars is a warm and beautifully observed comedy and very, very funny. Kevin Duffy has Alan Bennett’s fine ear for dialogue.’ Scott Pack, chief fiction buyer at Waterstones and now publisher at Harper Collins.

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Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

March 2004

Hungry Generations

A Novel

by Daniel C. Melnick

At the center of “Hungry Generations” is the great European piano virtuoso Alexander Petrov, one of the émigré geniuses who lived in the incredible community of gifted Europeans in Los Angeles during the Second World War. Fleeing from Nazi Germany, the legendary classical pianist – like Schoenberg, Stravinsky, the Werfels, and the Manns – settled in L.A. and attempted to raise a family there on the edge of the Pacific. In September of 1972, Jack Weinstein – a young composer and a distant relation of Petrov – is newly arrived in L.A., living near Venice beach and seeking a job in the movie studios. Jack develops a friendship with the émigré virtuoso, who is nearing seventy and struggling to maintain his psychic and physical health in the midst of intense conflicts with his wife and his adult children. The renowned pianist tells the young man stories of his life from the thirties to the present, and soon Jack is absorbed into the family life of the Petrovs. Jack becomes a catalyst for confrontations among the Petrovs, as he intrudes on the family’s delicate balances. He falls in love with the pianist’s daughter, Sarah, who becomes Jack’s troubled muse, and in one climax, the father erupts in jealousy and desperation, assaulting his daughter’s lover. The son Joseph Petrov is a gifted, cynical, intense pianist himself, who also befriends Jack; resentments – new and old – build between son and father, and these too erupt in destruction and self-destructiveness. Also, Joseph is gay, and after a surreal New Year’s Eve party at the Polo Lounge, he makes a pass at drunk, dismayed Jack. Then there is Petrov’s wife, Helen, and her confession to Jack is one of the final assaults on the young composer. The remarkable expatriates living in Los Angeles during World War II figure both in Petrov’s stories and in Jack’s inner struggle to resurrect himself in the face of his experience of the Petrovs, of music, of sex, of the movie studios, of L.A. itself. During the year 1972-73, Jack composes a piano sonata infused with his love of Petrov’s famed recording of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata as well as the music of Stravinsky and Schoenberg – those composers even begin to enter Jack’s dreams, simultaneously blessing and critiquing him as he works in his Venice apartment. Hungry Generations paints a vivid portrait of the conflicts and struggles which erupt in L.A.’s singular expatriate community. At the center of the novel is finally the confrontation between émigré parents who survived the Holocaust at the peculiar remove of Los Angeles and their grown children. Each “hungry generations” reveals its yearning for meaning, love, and transcendence.

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Autobiography: general

December 2020

Diese bescheuerte Fremdheit in meiner Seele

Autobiografischer Roman

by Mathias Kopetzki

Mathias wächst in den siebziger Jahren in einem kleinen Örtchen in Niedersachsen auf. Als er mit fünf Jahren durch Zufall erfährt, dass er adoptiert wurde, ist das zwar eine Erklärung für sein »exotisches« Aussehen, doch die Geschichte seiner Herkunft bleibt weiterhin ein großes Rätsel. Auf verschiedene Weise gelingt es ihm, sich gegen rassistische Ressentiments und offene Angriffe zu behaupten. Auch als Erwachsener widerfahren ihm zuweilen absurde Erlebnisse, in denen er als Projektionsfläche für fremdenfeindliche Ängste, Vorurteile oder Sehnsüchte herhalten muss. Kann die Begegnung mit der leiblichen Herkunft Abhilfe schaffen? Mit viel Humor, Sensibilität und Offenheit erzählt Mathias Kopetzki seine berührende und spannende Geschichte, berichtet von Fremdsein und Selbstbehauptung, vom Kampf und vom Loslassen und der jahrelangen Suche nach Identität.

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June 2023

Der Schnee und die Angst

Eingeschneit und gefangen im Haus eines religiösen Fanatikers und mörderischen Psychopathen.

by Klaus Hansen

English:No man had ever experienced anything like it, no man could have imagined such a catastrophe, and no man was on it prepared. One could only watch as the snow inexorably covered and buried all life. It just didn't stop: snow, nothing but snow!The curator Henny Butenschön rents a room at Oltmanns Hof in Dithmarschen to find out whether the painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder hidden there is real. J. comes from the depots of Nazi-looted art. The excessively religious householder who hides more than just a dark secret stands in her way.Another guest at Oltmann's farm: Holm Martens, who is secretly looking for a sign of life from his sister, who disappeared here under mysterious circumstances.At the same time, two brothers are struggling through the snowstorm who have unwittingly come into possession of a shipment of drugs. On your heels: a cold-blooded killer. When the three paths cross, outrageous truths come to light and suddenly it is a matter of life and death.Deutsch:Kein Mensch hatte so etwas je zuvor erlebt, kein Mensch hätte sich solch eine Katastrophe vorstellen können, und kein Mensch war darauf vorbereitet. So konnte man nur zusehen, wie der Schnee unaufhaltsam alles Leben zudeckte und unter sich begrub. Es hörte einfach nicht auf: Schnee, nichts als Schnee!Die Kuratorin Henny Butenschön mietet sich auf Oltmanns Hof in Dithmarschen ein, um herauszufinden, ob das dort versteckte Gemälde von Pieter Brueghel d. J. aus den Depots der NS-Raubkunst stammt. Dabei stellt sich ihr der exzessiv religiöse Hausherr in den Weg, der mehr als nur ein dunkles Geheimnis verbirgt.Ebenfalls Gast auf Oltmanns Hof: Holm Martens, der verdeckt nach einem Lebenszeichen seiner Schwester sucht, die hier unter mysteriösen Umständen verschwunden ist.Zur gleichen Zeit kämpfen sich zwei Brüder durch den Schneesturm, die unwissentlich in den Besitz einer Lieferung Drogen gelangt sind. Ihnen auf den Fersen: ein kaltblütiger Killer. Als sich die drei Wege kreuzen, kommen ungeheuerliche Wahrheiten ans Licht und auf einmal geht es um Leben und Tod. Aber auch um Geborgenheit und Liebe.

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The Arts

September 2021

Strategy: Get Arts 35 Artists Who Broke the Rules

35 Artists Who Broke the Rules

by Edited by Christian Weikop

Edited by Dr Christian Weikop, a Professor in Art History at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), this is the first print publication to consider the remarkable formation of the ground-breaking and oft-cited exhibition Strategy: Get Arts, staged at ECA in the late summer of 1970. At the cutting edge of contemporary art, this was unlike anything seen in the United Kingdom to that date, certainly challenging a Scottish art world still struggling to come to terms with the legacy of the Scottish Colourists. It was an exhibition that received international press attention and had a considerable impact on the public, critics, and other curators who saw it, shaking up the conservativism of the British art scene. Strategy: Get Arts (SGA) brought many figures of post-war art, who were based in the exciting cultural city of Düsseldorf, to the United Kingdom for the first time. These artists, who took over ECA, transforming the college into a ‘total work of art’ through their extraordinary actions and installations, were unknown to a British public in 1970. The roll call of talented participants included the likes of Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Blinky Palermo, Daniel Spoerri, Stefan Wewerka, Dieter Roth, Sigmar Polke, Günther Uecker, Bernd and Hilla Becher, and many others who subsequently achieved international fame. In addition to first-hand accounts of the exhibition by Douglas Hall (the first Keeper of the Gallery of Modern Art, National Galleries of Scotland), Jennifer Gough-Cooper (SGA co-ordinator), and Alexander Hamilton (co-editor of Studies in Photography and SGA gallery assistant in 1970), the publication also includes new essays by the editor, Christian Weikop, on Richard Demarco and the Formation of Strategy: Get Arts; Düsseldorf in Edinburgh: The Importance of the Germans; and Strategy Get Arts and Broadcast Media. It also features short essays on the photography of SGA by Karen Barber (a specialist in the history of photography), the controversy concerning the Palermo Restore project by Andrew Patrizio (Professor of Scottish Visual Culture at ECA), the creation of a 2016 archive exhibition on SGA by National Galleries of Scotland archivist Kirstie Meehan, as well as two fascinating Forewords by Keith Hartley (Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Modern and Contemporary Art), and Professor Juan Cruz (Principal of ECA). Many unknown and rare photographs of the artists and artworks at the art college, especially by the German performance artist and photographer, Monika Baumgartl, as well as eye-catching photographs by George Oliver and Richard Demarco, are presented here for the first time. The publication is a triumph of archival detective work, effectively reconstructing the exhibition, profiling all 35 artists who took part, and fully revealing the challenges and dramatic events that unfolded before and during the course of this unique event.

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Data warehousing

January 2011

Building the Unstructured Data Warehouse

Architecture, Analysis & Design

by Bill Inmon, Krish Krishnan

Learn essential techniques from data warehouse legend Bill Inmon on how to build the reporting environment your business needs now!Answers for many valuable business questions hide in text. How well can your existing reporting environment extract the necessary text from email, spreadsheets, and documents, and put it in a useful format for analytics and reporting? Transforming the traditional data warehouse into an efficient unstructured data warehouse requires additional skills from the analyst, architect, designer, and developer. This book will prepare you to successfully implement an unstructured data warehouse and, through clear explanations, examples, and case studies, you will learn new techniques and tips to successfully obtain and analyze text.Master these ten objectives:Build an unstructured data warehouse using the 11-step approachIntegrate text and describe it in terms of homogeneity, relevance, medium, volume, and structureOvercome challenges including blather, the Tower of Babel, and lack of natural relationshipsAvoid the Data Junkyard and combat the Spider's WebReuse techniques perfected in the traditional data warehouse and Data Warehouse 2.0,including iterative developmentApply essential techniques for textual Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) such as phrase recognition, stop word filtering, and synonym replacementDesign the Document Inventory system and link unstructured text to structured dataLeverage indexes for efficient text analysis and taxonomies for useful external categorizationManage large volumes of data using advanced techniques such as backward pointersEvaluate technology choices suitable for unstructured data processing, such as data warehouse appliancesThe following outline briefly describes each chapter's content:Chapter 1 defines unstructured data and explains why text is the main focus of this book.Chapter 2 addresses the challenges one faces when managing unstructured data.Chapter 3 discusses the DW 2.0 architecture, which leads into the role of the unstructured data warehouse. The unstructured data warehouse is defined and benefits are given. There are several features of the conventional data warehouse that can be leveraged for the unstructured data warehouse, including ETL processing, textual integration, and iterative development. Chapter 4 focuses on the heart of the unstructured data warehouse: Textual Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL).Chapter 5 describes the 11 steps required to develop the unstructured data warehouse.Chapter 6 describes how to inventory documents for maximum analysis value, as well as link the unstructured text to structured data for even greater value.Chapter 7 goes through each of the different types of indexes necessary to make text analysis efficient. Indexes range from simple indexes, which are fast to create and are good if the analyst really knows what needs to be analyzed before the indexing process begins, to complex combined indexes, which can be made up of any and all of the other kinds of indexes.Chapter 8 explains taxonomies and how they can be used within the unstructured data warehouse.Chapter 9 explains ways of coping with large amounts of unstructured data. Techniques such as keeping the unstructured data at its source and using backward pointers are discussed. The chapter explains why iterative development is so important.Chapter 10 focuses on challenges and some technology choices that are suitable for unstructured data processing. In addition, the data warehouse appliance is discussed.Chapters 11, 12, and 13 put all of the previously discussed techniques and approaches in context through three case studies. About Bill Bill Inmon, the father of data warehousing, has written 52 books translated into 9 languages. Bill has written over 1000 articles and conducted seminars and spoken at conferences on every continent except Antarctica. Bill holds three software patents and his latest company is Forest Rim Technology, a company dedicated to the access and integration of unstructured data into the structured world. About Krish Krish Krishnan is a recognized thought leader in Data Warehouse Performance and Architecture. Krish writes and teaches Social Intelligence across the world and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. He provides consulting advice to CxO's on DW Strategy and is an Independent Analyst covering the Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Industry.

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Computer science

September 2013

Extreme Scoping

by Larissa T. Moss

Do your business intelligence (BI) projects take too long to deliver? Is the value of the deliverables less than satisfactory? Do these projects propagate poor data management practices? If you screamed "yes" to any of these questions, read this book to master a proven approach to building your enterprise data warehouse and BI initiatives. Extreme Scoping, based on the Business Intelligence Roadmap, will show you how to build analytics applications rapidly yet not sacrifice data management and enterprise architecture. In addition, all of the roles required to deliver all seven steps of this agile methodology are explained along with many real-world examples. From Wayne Eckerson's Foreword I've read many books about data warehousing and business intelligence (BI). This book by Larissa Moss is one of the best. I should not be surprised. Larissa has spent years refining the craft of designing, building, and delivering BI applications. Over the years, she has developed a keen insight about what works and doesn't work in BI. This book brings to light the wealth of that development experience. Best of all, this is not some dry text that laboriously steps readers through a technical methodology. Larissa expresses her ideas in a clear, concise, and persuasive manner. I highlighted so many beautifully written and insightful paragraphs in her manuscript that it became comical. I desperately wanted the final, published book rather than the manuscript so I could dog-ear it to death and place it front-and-center in my office bookshelf! From David Well's Foreword Extreme Scoping is rich with advice and guidance for virtually every aspect of BI projects from planning and requirements to deployment and from back-end data management to front-end information and analytics services. Larissa is both a pragmatist and an independent thinker. Those qualities come through in the style of this book. Extreme Scoping is a well-written book that is easy to absorb. It is not full of surprises. It is filled with a lot of common sense and lessons learned through experience. Larissa Moss is founder and president of Method Focus Inc. She began her IT career over 30 years ago, and since 1988 she has worked primarily in data warehousing and business intelligence. She is a world renown author, lecturer, and speaker on the topics of data warehousing, business intelligence, master data management, project management, methodologies, data governance, and enterprise information management. She co-authored the books Data Warehouse Project Management, Impossible Data Warehouse Situations, Business Intelligence Roadmap, and Data Strategy.

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Crime & mystery

October 2014

MALICIOUS

by JAMES RAVEN

THE KINDLE BESTSELLER - 70,000 DOWNLOADS IN ONE WEEKSEND! 'Cover up your webcams or suffer the consequences.' He calls himself the Slave Master. He spies on women through their webcams. Then he spies on those who unknowingly reveal their secrets to him. His last victim was brutally murdered. Now he's targeting the cop in charge of the investigation. To him she's perfect prey - because she has secrets of her own.

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Computer science

August 2012

UML Requirements Modeling For Business Analysts

by Norman Daoust

Hear the author, Norman Daoust, talk about his book. This book provides you with a collection of best practices, guidelines, and tips for using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for business analysis. The contents have been assembled over the years based on experience and documented best practices. Over sixty easy to understand UML diagram examples will help you to apply these ideas immediately. If you use, expect to use, or think you should use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) or use cases in your business analysis activities, this book will help you: communicate more succinctly and effectively with your stakeholders including your software development team, increase the likelihood that your requirements will be reviewed and understood, reduce requirements analysis, documentation, and review time. The first three chapters explain the reasons for utilizing the UML for business analysis, present a brief history of the UML and its diagram categories, and describe a set of general modeling guidelines and tips applicable to all of the UML diagram types. Each of the next thirteen chapters is dedicated to a different UML diagram type: Use Case Diagrams Activity Diagrams Interaction Overview Diagrams Class Diagrams Object Diagrams State Machine Diagrams Timing Diagrams Sequence Diagrams Communication Diagrams Composite Structure Diagrams Component Diagrams Deployment Diagrams Package Diagrams The next two chapters explain additional diagram types that are important for business analysts and that can be created using UML notation: Context Diagrams using Communication diagram notation Data Models using Class diagram notation These chapters are followed by a chapter that describes criteria for selecting the various diagram types. The final chapter presents a case study. Norman Daoust is a business analyst trainer, requirements modeler, data modeler, healthcare electronic data exchange specialist, fretted instrument specialist, and organic gardener. He is the principal consultant for Daoust Associates, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. He specializes in business analyst training, information modeling, and healthcare systems data integration.

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Business & management

January 2011

Enterprise Model Patterns

Describing the World

by David C. Hay

Hear the author, David Hay, talk about this book. This book teaches you how to capture and communicate both the abstract and concrete building blocks of your organization’s data, in order to provide a coherent and comprehensive foundation for systems development. “This book presents the most comprehensive treatment of high-level abstractions I've seen. Any event, business, and/or systems analyst should have this book available, both as a learning text and as an indispensible reference book. The knowledge packed away in this book takes decades to acquire and gestate. We are all fortunate to have it in a single volume.”James OdellCo-chair, OMG - Analysis and Design "UML and SoaML" Task Force "David addresses a key, difficult, challenge for data modelling (and ontology) in this book - extracting the common pattern that underlies and unifies the variety of real data models that people use. And, what is almost as important to many readers, he does this in a clear and understandable way."Chris PartridgeChief Ontologist, The BORO Centre "A great data model, one that lays the essence of a business bare, is a thing of beauty. It simplifies process, eases communication, and brings order to chaos. A great data model serves for a lifetime. Powerful stuff, this."Tom Redman, PresidentNavesink Consulting Group, LLC "Finally, choosing a level of abstraction for a data model is addressed methodically. David should be applauded for grasping this thorny issue and producing a wonderfully readable book. Every data modeler should have one".Cliff Longman, PresidentAdaptable Data In 1995, David Hay published Data Model Patterns: Conventions of Thought - the groundbreaking book on how to use standard data models to describe the standard business situations. Enterprise Model Patterns: Describing the World builds on the concepts presented there, adds 15 years of practical experience, and presents a more comprehensive view. This model addresses your enterprise via four levels of abstraction: Level 0: An abstract template that underlies the Level 1 model, plus two meta models: Information Resources and Accounting. Each of these itself represents the rest of the enterprise, so to model it is to “model a model”, so to speak. Level 1: An enterprise model that is generic enough to apply to any company or government agency, but concrete enough to be readily understood by all. It describes people and organizations, geographic locations, (physical) assets, activities, and time. Level 2: A more detailed model describing specific functional areas: facilities and other addresses, human resources, communications and marketing, contracts, manufacturing, and the laboratory. Level 3: Examples of the details that can be added to a model to address what is truly unique in a particular industry. Here you see how to address the unique bits in areas as diverse as criminal justice, microbiology, banking, oil field production, and highway maintenance.

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Data warehousing

February 2012

Data and Reality

A Timeless Perspective On Perceiving & Managing Information in Our Imprecise World -- 3rd Edition

by William Kent

Let's step back to the year 1978. Sony introduces hip portable music with the Walkman, Illinois Bell Company releases the first mobile phone, Space Invaders kicks off the video game craze, and William Kent writes Data and Reality. We have made amazing progress in the last four decades in terms of portable music, mobile communication, and entertainment, making devices such as the original Sony Walkman and suitcase-sized mobile phones museum pieces today. Yet remarkably, the book Data and Reality is just as relevant to the field of data management today as it was in 1978. Data and Reality gracefully weaves the disciplines of psychology and philosophy with data management to create timeless takeaways on how we perceive and manage information. Although databases and related technology have come a long way since 1978, the process of eliciting business requirements and how we think about information remains constant. This book will provide valuable insights whether you are a 1970s data-processing expert or a modern-day business analyst, data modeler, database administrator, or data architect.This third edition of Data and Reality differs substantially from the first and second editions. Data modeling thought leader Steve Hoberman has updated many of the original examples and references and added his commentary throughout the book, including key points at the end of each chapter. The important takeaways in this book are rich with insight yet presented in a conversational writing style. Here are just a few of the issues this book tackles:Has "business intelligence" replaced "artificial intelligence"?Why is a map's geographic landscape analogous to a data model's information landscape?Where do forward and reverse engineering fit in our thought process?Why are we all becoming "data archeologists"?What causes the communication chasm between the business professional and the information technology professional, and how can the logical data model bridge this gap?Why do we invest in hardware and software to solve business problems before determining what the business problems are in the first place?What is the difference between oneness, sameness, and categories?Why does context play a role in every design decision?Why do the more important attributes become entities or relationships?Why do symbols speak louder than words?What's the difference between a data modeler, a philosopher, and an artist?Why is the 1975 dream of mapping all attributes still a dream today?What influence does language have on our perception of reality? Can we distinguish between naming and describing?From Graeme Simsion's foreword:While such fundamental issues remain unrecognized and unanswered, Data and Reality, with its lucid and compelling elucidation of the questions, needs to remain in print. I read the book as a database administrator in 1980, as a researcher in 2002, and just recently as the manuscript for the present edition. On each occasion I found something more, and on each occasion I considered it the most important book I had read on data modeling. It has been on my recommended reading list forever. The first chapter in particular should be mandatory reading for anyone involved in data modeling. In publishing this new edition, Steve Hoberman has not only ensured that one of the key books in the data modeling canon remains in print, but has added his own comments and up-to-date examples, which are likely to be helpful to those who have come to data modeling more recently. Don't do any more data modeling work until you've read it. About William: William Kent (1936-2005) was a renowned researcher in the field of data modeling. Author of Data and Reality, he wrote scores of papers and spoke at conferences worldwide, posing questions about database design and the management of information that remain unanswered today. Though he earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and a master's in mathematics, he had no formal training in computer science. Kent worked at IBM and later at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, where he helped develop prototype database systems. He also served on or chaired several international standards committees. Kent lived in New York City and later Menlo Park, Calif., before retiring to Moab, Utah, to pursue his passions of outdoor photography and protecting the environment. About Steve: Steve is currently a data modeling consultant and instructor. He taught his first data modeling class in 1992 and has educated more than 10,000 people about data modeling and business intelligence techniques since then. Steve balances the formality and precision of data modeling with the realities of building software systems with severe time, budget, and people constraints. In his consulting and teaching, he focuses on templates, tools, and guidelines to reap the benefits of data modeling with minimal investment. Steve is the author of five books on data modeling, the founder of the Design Challenges group, and inventor of the Data Model Scorecard.

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Fiction

January 2018

Victims for Sale

by Nish Amarnath

A fledgling TV reporter fights to expose a crime ring where mentally challenged women are sexually abused and forcibly sterilized. Sandy swaps a TV gig in Mumbai for life as a media researcher and BBC stringer in London, where she arranges to live as a paying guest with the Sawants, The Sawants are a regular quiet Indian family. Or so she thinks. But her first night at the Sawants' home finds her waking up to a young woman with a knife at her throat...and a dark secret. An ominous stranger is found snooping on the Sawants' porch, weeks later. The family seems to be hiding something. It's only after Sandy runs a sting operation on a care home for differently-abled women that she makes a connection between an institute acting as a front for a sinister nexus and the odd family she lives with. Chasing the truth up a trail of brutal murders, Sandy must expose the predators and step up to the deranged kingpin of a thriving sex racket. Before time runs out. For fans of Stieg Larsson's 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' and Sophie Hannah's 'A Room Swept White', this debut psychological thriller and crime suspense novel, set in London, is a strident expose on an under-reported form of social injustice where the line of distinction between the betrayer and the betrayed increasingly fades into oblivion.

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May 2019

Life in Translation

by Anthony Ferner

The narrator looks back on the muddle of his life as a literary translator, moving between London and Lima, Paris and Madrid, Leiden and back to London. He has long dreamt of finding literary fame, and has toiled away at his translation of an important but dauntingly bleak Peruvian novel. He struggles to complete the work, and takes on a series of dead-end jobs to make ends meet. For a while he earns a living at a large multinational company whose hidebound hierarchy infuriates him. At length he discovers his true niche as a translator of the works of a tricky doyen of Latin American fiction. Over the years, friends, family, colleagues and lovers appear, disappear and reappear, but his edgy relationships with them seem to go nowhere. He comes to the painful realisation that he, a translator, is prone to ‘misreadings’: of his own strengths and weaknesses, of the women in his life, of his colleagues, of the viability of his translation career, of the options open to him. Will this bumbling translator succeed in disentangling the knotty syntax of his own life and relationships?

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Fiction

Snakes In Suits

by Hinemura Ellison and Ted D Hughes

Freya returns to Wellington to restore her inheritance, 'Portobello', an Art Deco building in Petone, to her former glory. Only to find dubious dealings with various Snakes in Suits, Lawyers, Bankers, the Council and an unscrupulous property developer who will stop at nothing, even murder, to get what he wants - 'Portobello'. Freya fights back with the help of her childhood friend Zac - who just happens to be drop dead gorgeous, and Simon her cute Bank manager who is also competing for her attention. Reuniting with her besties Sven and Clara, together they navigate their chaotic lives, a massive earthquake and help each other to find love and to solve the murders that plague them. Book Two in the Trinity Trilogy following on from Sharks With Lipstick

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Business & management

October 2013

Business unIntelligence

by Dr. Barry Devlin

Business intelligence (BI) used to be so simple - in theory anyway. Integrate and copy data from your transactional systems into a specialized relational database, apply BI reporting and query tools and add business users. Job done. No longer. Analytics, big data and an array of diverse technologies have changed everything. More importantly, business is insisting on ever more value, ever faster from information and from IT in general. An emerging biz-tech ecosystem demands that business and IT work together. Business unIntelligence reflects the new reality that in today's socially complex and rapidly changing world, business decisions must be based on a combination of rational and intuitive thinking. Integrating cues from diverse information sources and tacit knowledge, decision makers create unique meaning to innovate heuristically at the speed of thought. This book provides a wealth of new models that business and IT can use together to design support systems for tomorrow's successful organizations. Dr. Barry Devlin, one of the earliest proponents of data warehousing, goes back to basics to explore how the modern trinity of information, process and people must be reinvented and restructured to deliver the value, insight and innovation required by modern businesses. From here, he develops a series of novel architectural models that provide a new foundation for holistic information use across the entire business. From discovery to analysis and from decision making to action taking, he defines a fully integrated, closed-loop business environment. Covering every aspect of business analytics, big data, collaborative working and more, this book takes over where BI ends to deliver the definitive framework for information use in the coming years. As the person who defined the conceptual framework and physical architecture for data warehousing in the 1980s, Barry Devlin has been an astute observer of the movement he initiated ever since. Now, in Business unintelligence, Devlin provides a sweeping view of the past, present, and future of business intelligence, while delivering new conceptual and physical models for how to turn information into insights and action. Reading Devlin's prose and vision of BI are comparable to reading Carl Sagan's view of the cosmos. The book is truly illuminating and inspiring. --Wayne Eckerson, President, BI Leader Consulting Author, "Secrets of Analytical Leaders: Insights from Information Insiders" Dr. Barry Devlin is among the foremost authorities on business insight and big data, and one of the founders of data warehousing, having published the first architectural paper on the topic in 1988. With over 30 years of IT experience, including 20 years with IBM as a Distinguished Engineer, he is a widely respected analyst, consultant, and lecturer. He is author of the seminal book, "Data Warehouse-from Architecture to Implementation" and numerous White Papers. Barry is founder and principal of 9sight Consulting. He specializes in the human, organizational and IT implications of deep business insight solutions that combine operational, informational and collaborative environments. A regular tweeter, blogger and contributor to multiple publications, Barry is based in Cape Town, South Africa and operates worldwide.

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October 2013

Data Engineering

by Brian Shive

If you found a rusty old lamp on the beach, and upon touching it a genie appeared and granted you three wishes, what would you wish for? If you were wishing for a successful application development effort, most likely you would wish for accurate and robust data models, comprehensive data flow diagrams, and an acute understanding of human behavior. The wish for well-designed conceptual and logical data models means the requirements are well-understood and that the design has been built with flexibility and extensibility leading to high application agility and low maintenance costs. The wish for detailed data flow diagrams means a concrete understanding of the business' value chain exists and is documented. The wish to understand how we think means excellent team dynamics while analyzing, designing, and building the application. Why search the beaches for genie lamps when instead you can read this book? Learn the skills required for modeling, value chain analysis, and team dynamics by following the journey the author and son go through in establishing a profitable summer lemonade business. This business grew from season to season proportionately with their adoption of important engineering principles. All of the concepts and principles are explained in a novel format, so you will learn the important messages while enjoying the story that unfolds within these pages. The story is about an old man who has spent his life designing data models and databases and his newly adopted son. Father and son have a 54 year age difference that produces a large generation gap. The father attempts to narrow the generation gap by having his nine-year-old son earn his entertainment money. The son must run a summer business that turns a lemon grove into profits so he can buy new computers and games. As the son struggles for profits, it becomes increasingly clear that dad's career in information technology can provide critical leverage in achieving success in business. The failures and successes of the son's business over the summers are a microcosm of the ups and downs of many enterprises as they struggle to manage information technology. Brian started his data modeling career in the late 1970s while working as a consultant to the relational database gurus at IBM. Brian learned from John Zachman at IBM how to use the discipline of engineering when designing data. Brian works at Microsoft where during his 18 years he has served as Microsoft Corporate Data Administrator, Enterprise Architecture Lead Information Architect, Principal Architect, Development Manager and most-fun-one Developer. He spent 16 years with Boeing IT. Brian also worked as Solar Energy Designer, Executive of Boy Scouts of America, musician, comedian and poet and janitor. Brian and his wife and two children live in the Seattle area. He teaches Aramaic in his Methodist church and can be seen on YouTube sounding at times like Jimi Hendrix. He is working on a book of poetry and loves teaching data modeling, database design and data integration. The human brain and the behavior it elicits have provided Brian with years of study in neurology, psychology, sociology and history.

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January 2012

Alvin Lucier

A Celebration

by Edited by Andrea Miller-Keller, other Alvin Lucier, Michael Roth

A tribute to the work and influence of this groundbreaking composer

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