I had Abby Covert's book, How to Make Sense of Any Mess, open in one of my tabs since it was published. I thought about reading it, lingered on buying it, and finally just purchased it last week. It arrived, and I read it quickly.

Abby describes the book as "a book about information architecture for everybody." I would argue the title is more accurate about making sense of any mess than her description is. The steps of "Identify, State, Face, Choose, Measure, Play, Prepare" she has are accurate in fixing any mess, if you adjust them slightly. Consider:

• Identify the mess
• Determine what you really want from this mess
• Face reality
• Choose a direction that takes you to your goal
• Track how far you've come
• Reflect on what you really want, if this goal is still worth the effort
• Adjust (actually adjust) the way you're going (not just prepare to adjust)

More words, same idea. I like how Abby presents the ideas and provides a roadmap. I COMPLETELY disagree with her definition of hypertext, and wonder if her ideas of the hyper* come from a non-technical, didn't-start-with-the-web-from-its-infancy perspective, such that it may be more accurate to younger/non-technical people than I think it should be.

I recommend this book as a guidebook for groups. I can see this being a starting point for teams beginning a clean-up project, and plan on using the suggestions Abby provides for cleaning up this site (yay! a group of one!).

"Harry Bosch," book 7

I finished A Darkness More than Night, book seven in the Harry Bosch series, tonight. To call this book a Harry Bosch book is a bit disengenous, since it really was book two of Connelly's Terry McCaleb series. I didn't bother reading the first McCaleb book, Blood Work, choosing to watch the move which starred Clint Eastwood, and to read the summary on Wikipedia instead. A big *shrug* on that one.

The book, in and of itself, is classic Connelly, with the surprising twist that THE BAD GUY IS NOT A COP. Can you believe it? No, I can't either. The plot alluded to a number of other incidents and cases in Bosch's past, with Bosch being set up for a murder he didn't commit, but didn't prevent either. Given the murder was of a man who was also a murderer and had walked on a technicality, we are presented with a moral dilemma that no one would ever want to face.

Okay, so, the bad guy isn't a cop, but you know what? BOSCH IS STILL A SUSPECT, STILL HAS THE FBI AND IA ON HIM and, good lord, after nearly 30 f------ years of living with that, only a fictional character could survive. 30 years of a hostile work environment where EVERYONE you work with thinks you're dirty, even though the beloved reader would NEVER THINK SO? It has to be extremely wearing.

Yeah, so, book seven of the Bosch series. Good enough I'll read another one. Might have been okay to skip, given that it's a essentially a McCaleb story.

This book came up as a Book Riot book, just as I started reading Book Riot posts. I promptly bought a number of the books from that first list, but this book has been moving from to-do list (yellow card) to to-do list (another yellow card) to to-do list (give it to the PA to buy for me). In a fit of insomnia last night, I opened up my ebook copy and started reading. I had read R.L. Stine years ago when reading his books were age appropriate, though found them inferior to Christopher Pike's works (and learned JUST TODAY, that Christopher Pike is a pseudonym for Kevin Christopher McFadden, who used the Star Trek captain's name - always wondered about that one). Given the recommendation that Fear Street #9: Stepsister was the best of the Fear Street series, I read it. The "you'll read it in 35 minutes" was fairly accurate, though it took me more like an hour, reading on the jostling bus on a small screen.

THAT ALL SAID, it was okay. The style of writing was very, um, juvenile? The sentence structure was monotonous, the plot predictable and the twist anticipated. I found all of the characters unlovable, uninteresting, and, well, to be honest, unbelievable. The mom who doesn't want anything bad said about anyone or anything, to the point of disbelieving her daughter who's been almost killed twice? The stepdad who is such a wet noodle that we have no idea why the mom is even interested in him? The omniscient main character who is so determined to blame her stepsister for everything wrong that she is unable to function even slightly rationally? There were enough clues to understand where the author was going with the plot, fortunately.

If I were 10, I might have enjoyed this book. Related: I'm not 10. It was an okay book for the bus ride to work this morning. I'll move back to reading Madame Bovary for the ride home.

9 books in 20 days, with the four I've started and haven't finished yet.

Harry Bosch, book 6

Oh, look! Another bad cop! In this case, however, we don't know which cop is the bad one. It's this one, no it's this one, no, no, no, it's that one. In reality, this is one of Connelly's better books, in that the bad guy isn't obvious. Well, that, and we didn't have to sit through a boring trial. While the end had a slightly meh part to it, Angel's Flight had enough twists, mystery and action to make it enjoyable. I'd recommend this Bosch book for readers of Connelly's work or crime mystery fiction.

Unrelated to the book, ooooooof, eight books in 12 days. That's a lot, even for me. I'd guess something is going on with me and my life, since that much reading usually indicates I'm avoiding something or I'm doing a lot of physical labor that allows time for my mind to wander or, as is this case, listen to an audiobook.

Harry Bosch, Book 5

Oh, look! Another bad cop! I swear this is going to be how I start every Bosch book, because that seems to be how every Harry Bosch book ends. This one has the very, very obvious bad cop, even if he doesn't end up being THE bad cop. Well, that's not actually correct, because there are a couple bad cops, that don't ever end up being THE bad cop. It's just weird.

The bad cop was just one of the now-classic Bosch elements: bad cop, IAD on Bosch's ass, the dame, Los Angeles. We have a newly introduced Kima Greggs, who was the black woman detective in The Wire, though her name is Kiz Rider in the Bosch series.

Did I mention the mob in this book? Yeah, because the mob would totally let all of this go, right? Yeah.

I'm enjoying the books. I'll keep reading. Not sure I'll keep up this pace, though: 7 books in 11 days.