Some programmers learn through online articles, videos, and blog posts. Not me. I need a throughline—a consistent, expert distillation of the material to take me from where I am to where I want to be. I am not good at patching together information from disparate sources. I need a great book. I have a PhD in computer science education, and I want to know what helps people learn. More importantly, I want to know how we can use such discoveries to write more effective books. The books I appreciate most are those that demonstrate not only mastery of the subject matter but also mastery of teaching.
I used this book for several years starting in 2013 when the first edition came out. It absolutely holds up today. Learning the Python language (the syntax) is one thing. Learning how to design programs using this syntax is another. We need both but, unfortunately, many books forgo the latter for the former. Not this book! I like the Problem Solving and Worked Example sections: they help learners apply a disciplined, step-by-step strategy to programming projects. There are multiple, varied contexts here as well, which helps capture a broader base of learners. Bonus feature: the Computing & Society boxes.
Python for Everyone, 3rd Edition is an introduction to programming designed to serve a wide range of student interests and abilities, focused on the essentials, and on effective learning. It is suitable for a first course in programming for computer scientists, engineers, and students in other disciplines. This text requires no prior programming experience and only a modest amount of high school algebra. Objects are used where appropriate in early chapters and students start designing and implementing their own classes in Chapter 9. New to this edition are examples and exercises that focus on various aspects of data science.
I was a Brooklyn kid who grew up on Long Island. I started hitting the bars and clubs in NYC when I was still a teenager. I found my way to CBGB in 1975, moved to Bleecker St in 1976, and in a right place/right time moment I found myself working the Mudd Club door in early 1979. That moment was a life changer. The Mudd Club book tells the story.
Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth are one of the great rhythm sections and one of the great love affairs in modern music. Chris lives large in my own book and the music of Talking Heads was making me dance and cheer way back in 1976. Remain in Love is the real story, beautifully told and written by Chris Frantz.
'As the Brits say: I'm gobsmacked. I devoured this book... one of the most potent examples of living the dream' DEBBIE HARRY
'A great drummer who has written a great book' BILL MURRAY
'A revealing inside account of the highs and lows of a band who looked and sounded like nobody else' OLIVIA LAING, Guardian
Chris Frantz's memoir tells the story of his life with Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club and his life-long love affair with Tina Weymouth. He remembers the early performances at CBGB alongside the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television and Blondie and recording the…
Richard Niles was born in Hollywood but grew up in London where his 50-year professional career as a composer, arranger, record producer led to work with some of the most acclaimed artists of our time, including Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, James Brown, Tina Turner, Cher and jazz icon Pat Metheny. He has worked on 20 Gold and 28 Platinum records. He has published many books on music including The Pat Metheny Interviews, The Invisible Artist, From Dreaming to Gigging, Piano Grooves, Songwriting – The 11-Point Plan, Adventures in Arranging, Adventures in Jazz Composition, What is Melody?, and How to be an Employable Musician. Dr. Niles' PhD is from Brunel University and he has lectured internationally.
One of the most legendary producers in music history, Visconti enabled the talent and genius of ground-breaking artists such as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, T Rex, Thin Lizzy, Wings, and U2.
This is an insider’s view from a brilliant musician and arranger, an intimate view from a man whose talent earned the trust of the talented. The book is filled with fascinating personal tales of his work, and photos from his private collection.
A name synonymous with ground-breaking music, Tony Visconti has worked with the most dynamic and influential names in pop, from T.Rex and Iggy Pop to David Bowie and U2. This is the compelling life story of the man who helped shape music history, and gives a unique, first-hand insight into life in London during the late 1960s and '70s.
This memoir takes you on a roller-coaster journey through the glory days of pop music, when men wore sequins and pop could truly rock. Featuring behind-the-scenes stories of big names such as Bowie, Visconti's unique access to the hottest talent, both…
As an independent author, I’ve been lucky enough to find a wealth of other independent authors out there. People who are doing things that aren’t quite mainstream. Artists who are experimenting with the written word and doing truly unique things. Where the world is filled with books made for the sole purpose of being turned into movies, these authors are creating works of fiction that are suited for the written word. Masterpieces that will make you think and want to find even more new forms of fiction. Simply put, independent authors are pushing books into new realms that you simply can’t find in the mainstream market.
Loser girl turned punk rock superhero... Those six words should sell you on The Gospel According to St. Rage alone. But that still doesn't do this book any sort of justice because this isn't really a superhero book. Sure, Barbara may have the powers to cause flocks of birds to release their...um...payload onto her enemies with the simple flick of a finger, but she's not out to save the world, she's just out to finally live the life she's been hiding from.
Eisenbrey brought me back to my own high school days with this book that feels like a punk rock song. To those days of trying to make friends, of trying to define who I am. And she does so with rock star class.
Barbara isn't your typical high school junior. She's been invisible since the third grade. But when a magic hat brings her back into the light, Barbara is ready to take on the world. First priority? Start an all-girl garage band. Miraculous super powers were never in her plan, but sometimes you get what you need. Bullies and school shooters don't stand a chance.
Yes, we all love Wonder Woman, Black Widow, and Jessica Jones, but Barbara is the hero her high school deserves.
As an only child of a working mother, I spent a lot of Saturday afternoons with John Wayne. I graduated to movie nights at the theater with Clint Eastwood. My hero-worshipping crush on tough guys combined with my passion for romance novels and my fascination with the history of the American West made me the perfect candidate to write gritty, romantic westerns. My very first book, written over 30 years ago, was a western.
Sexy, lazy, drawling, dangerous, womanizing, gambling gunslinger. Who can resist that? Add in a secret baby, a lost love, and the end to an epic western series.
Sure, I wrote 3 of the books in this 6 book set, but when I read Cash, I bawled. I lived with the Rock Creek Six for long enough that they felt like family and if you read about them, they’ll feel like family to you as well.
Sexy, dangerous, haunted-by-their-pasts family. But family.
If you liked the Magnificent Seven, you’ll love the Rock Creek Six!
Six elite Confederate soldiers band together after the War Between the States, hiring out their guns to protect lawless towns. Violence is all they know, until they make their way to Rock Creek, Texas.
Rock Creek is the only place gunslinger Daniel Cash dares to call home, even though he’s surrounded by constant and annoying reminders that the others have moved on. His friends have made lives and families for themselves, they’ve finally left the war behind. He never will.
As a child, I loved singing and acting and fantasized about what it might be like to be a famous movie star. Though the practical side of my brain led me to become a lawyer instead, my fascination with Hollywood never waned. When I set out to write my first novel, I finally had the opportunity to explore celebrity culture. But I'm just a regular person, living a very normal life. The books I’m recommending lift the curtain on fame and explore the ultimate fantasy: what if a beloved, uber-famous actor or actress actually fell in love with you?
The very opposite of my last recommendation, this book was wildly spicy!
The main character is a mom who has a love affair with a famous and very young pop star, and rumor has it it’s based on the author’s crush on Harry Styles. It was really easy to lose myself in the fantasy; I, too, am a mom in her forties who finds pop stars attractive and certainly wouldn’t mind taking a little vacation from reality.
I got so sucked into this one that I stayed up for hours past my bedtime reading it multiple nights in a row!
When Solene Marchand, the thirty-nine-year-old owner of a prestigious art gallery in Los Angeles, takes her daughter, Isabelle, to meet her favourite boy band, she doesP so reluctantly and at her ex-husband's request. The last thing she expects is to make a connection with one of the members of the world-famous August Moon. But Hayes Campbell is clever, winning, confident, and posh, and the attraction is immediate. That he is all of twenty years old further complicates things. What begins as a series of clandestine trysts quickly evolves into a passionate relationship. It is a journey that spans continents as…
I’m a lifelong reader of picture books who now writes my own. I hope my books inspire kids to hope, love, dream, and wonder – and to see how they fit into the world around them.
This book talks to the readers in second person describing the different types of rocks they may find. But, the book doesn’t use their scientific names. Oh, no. This book tells you if you have a skipping rock, a wishing rock, a splashing rock, a sifting rock, a worry rock, or one of many other types of rocks. It’s illustrated with wonderful photographs of kids and rocks.
Think of all the rocks there are: skipping rocks, splashing rocks, climbing rocks, and wishing rocks. Children can’t help collecting them. With joyful, poetic text and luminous photographs, If You Find a Rock celebrates rocks everywhere—as well as the mysterious and wonderful places they are found.
Call me contrarian, but when most of my school friends were into Bowie, Zeppelin, and Genesis, I was saving up for Muddy Waters’ Greatest Hits and discovering how a single note from Albert King’s guitar could send chills down your spine. The music inspired me to spend a summer in Chicago in 1979, aged 20, and I went back in 1982. It took me 30-odd years to get round to writing it, but this book is the result of those adventures, when a guileless British youth found himself welcomed into the noisy, friendly, creative, chaotic, nurturing, and overwhelmingly black world of the Chicago blues, a long time ago.
A series of profiles of the author’s musical heroes, along with erudite essays on blues, rock’n’roll, and Chess Records, this is an essential primer. You cannot understand the place of the blues in modern culture without also understanding Little Richard, Elvis Presley, the relationships between white label bosses and their black artists, and the ever-present, inescapable fact of musical cross-pollenation. Chess had Muddy Waters on its roster, and Howlin Wolf, but also Chuck Berry, Ramsey Lewis, and The Moonglows. Guralnick’s writing is elegant, informed, and self-aware, and from Skip James to Jerry Lee Lewis, in the 50 years since its publication, the reputations of his book’s iconic subjects have rocketed in value.
Examines the cultural factors which have influenced the musical careers and styles of such individuals as Jerry Lee Lewis, Muddy Waters, and Johnny Shines.
I am a romance writer. I've written four contemporary romances with heat, heart, and humor and have a new series coming out in early 2023. I'm also an avid reader of romance—all genres from rom-com to historical to paranormal. I've been reading them since college and have devoured thousands of romance stories since my loved bloomed for them. I'm a firm believer I need to read stories to be able to write them—or maybe it's just an excuse to read more fantastic books and claim it's part of my writing process. Lol. Either way, it has allowed me to recommend romance stories to you with pleasure and ease.
This is a book that you’ll love to read pool or beachside. Just bring lots of sunscreen as this story is hard to put down. I adore the characters; Jo and Micah were fun and interesting, but so were the secondary characters. I’m also a fan of books dealing with serious issues. This one touched on type 1 diabetes, multi-cultural upbringing, and transgender identity. Marlowe manages to keep it light and even funny while never losing sight of these important topics. Oh, and it had rock stars in it, always a treat for me!
In this irresistible new novel by Mary Ann Marlowe, one woman's up-close and sexy encounter with a tabloid sensation reveals the dizzying--and delicious--dilemma of dating in the spotlight . . .
Celebrities hold zero interest for photographer Jo Wilder. That's a problem, since snapping pics of the stars is how the pretty paparazza pays the rent. So when Jo attempts to catch a money shot atop the broad shoulders of a helpful bystander, the only thing she notices about the stranger she straddles is that he's seriously hot. Only later does Jo learn that he's also Micah Sinclair--one of rock's…
My new book, I Saw Satan at the 7-Eleven, is among other things, a love letter to heavy metal. I am a lifelong music obsessive: a record collector, concertgoer, maker of mixtapes, sewer of patch jackets. When I’m not writing or reading I’m playing guitar with the amp turned all the way up. And I have the tinnitus to prove it. Some of the books on this list are about metal, others are simply imbued with its rebellious dionysian spirit. But every damn one of them goes to 11, I can assure you of that. Enjoy!
If you don’t know Poppoff, you should. He’s a genial Canuck Youtuber who also happens to be the world’s most prolific music reviewer.
An inveterate headbanger with an unquenchable thirst for loudness. In this—the book for which he’ll surely be remembered—Poppoff turns his eye on the whole prehistory of heavy metal, breaking the music down into component parts, and tracing those components backwards through time.
From psychedelia to early rock n roll, blues, jazz, classical music, all the way back to the Vikings, the Ancient Greeks, and the Battle of Jericho in 1250 BC. If there’s a better researched, more thorough, or more sweeping book about loud music on the planet Earth, I ain’t aware of it.
It's one of the great debates in musicology and the answer is as complicated as it is hotly contested. Popoff's Who Invented Heavy Metal? provides the most detailed, well argued, reasonable, ridiculously complete, and most lively and readable telling of the early history of heavy metal yet, arming the argumentative headbanger with all the facts and figures one needs on hand to win those bar room bets around this provocative question. Ultimately, Who Invented Heavy Metal? aims to be a book that doesn't limit itself to heavy metal fans. The book provides wide instructional scope of teachable moments through unfolding,…
