Title: “Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design”

Author: Stephen C. Meyer

Rank: 78

Blurb: “Meyer argues that the theory of intelligent design — which holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection — is ultimately the best explanation for the origin of the Cambrian animals.”

Review: “There was no Cambrian explosion, so there’s no Cambrian explosion to explain.”

Customers Also Bought: “The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery”

Footnote: Nature doesn’t give a shit what you think.

Darwin’s Doubt [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]

Title: “The Eye of Moloch”

Author: Glenn Beck

Rank: 13

Blurb: “On one side, an unlikely band of ordinary Americans ready to make their last stand in defense of self-rule, freedom, and liberty — and on the other, an elite cabal of self-styled tyrants who believe that unlimited power should be wielded only by the chosen few. That group, led by an aging, trillionaire puppet-master named Aaron Doyle, will stop at nothing to destroy the myth that man is capable of ruling himself.”

Review: “It’s as if Glenn sat down, wrote this book over the weekend and rushed it to press.”

Customers Also Bought: “Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies”

Footnote: Don’t go writing about puppet masters when you pull all your characters with strings.

The Eye of Moloch [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]

True story: A few years ago, Silent Creative Partner mocked up a silly matching-tile game app. (Think “Concentration”, if you’re old enough to think that.) Some time later, when we were looking for an excuse to learn iPhone programming, we glommed onto his mockups as a starter project: How the hell would be make this work?

Turned out, it wasn’t that hard — at least for an Obsessive Latent Geek. iPhone programming has an enormous learning curve, but once you reach the summit, it’s easy enough. Only took a couple weeks, and then we had a beta we could show off to clients. Look! We can do this! Pay us to do something else!

But one of our clients wanted that — the matching game. Only with client-specific graphics. “Reskinned”, as we say in the Geek Trade.

Oh, and could we add a virtual bobblehead?

Read more »

Title: “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”

“Author”: Sheryl Sandberg

Rank: 12

Blurb: “Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and is ranked on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2010, she gave an electrifying TEDTalk in which she described how women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers.”

Review: “The best message to take from this book is to be aware of what is going on in the workplace. Take the opportunity to change the inequality.”

Customers Also Bought: “Brag!: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn without Blowing It”

Footnote: Acknowledgements, page 175: “My deepest thanks go to my writing partner Nell Scovell.” As noted by the fucking brilliant Jesus Christ, Silicon Valley, Sandberg’s “writing partner” is nowhere else listed as co-author (or, more likely, ghostwriter). The real message of the book? Hog all the credit to yourself.

Lean In [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]

Title: “Abuse of Power [Bargain Price]”

Author: Michael Savage

Rank: 68

Bargain Price: $0.41

Blurb: “Jack Hatfield is a hardened former war correspondent who rose to national prominence for his insightful, provocative commentary. But after being smeared as a bigot and extremist by a radical leftist media-watchdog group, he ultimately loses his job and finds himself working in obscurity as a freelance news producer in San Francisco.”

Review: “I consider myself conservative, but I grew a bit fatigued being beaten over the head repeatedly with political views.”

Customers Also Bought: Nineteen other books by Michael Savage, and one by Mike Lee.

Footnote: With the price so low, you can buy multiple copies and throw them out as the pages stick together from jacking off to radical leftist media-watchdog groups getting their comeuppance.

Abuse of Power [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]

Title: “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts”

Author: Gary D. Chapman

Rank: 35

Blurb: “Chapters are categorized by love language for easy reference, and each one ends with specific, simple steps to express a specific language to your spouse and guide your marriage in the right direction.”

Review: “A lot of the people who gave it low ratings said it was full of simple common sense.”

Customers Also Bought: “The 5 Love Languages Men’s Edition”, “The Five Love Languages Singles Edition”, “The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers”, “The 5 Love Languages of Children”, “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace”, “The Five Languages of Apology”, “The One Year Love Language Minute Devotional”, “God Speaks Your Love Language”, and “A Perfect Pet for Peyton: A 5 Love Languages Discovery Book”.

Footnote: If we only had no shame, we’d be rich.

The 5 Love Languages [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]

Title: “Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life”

Author: Donald Rumsfeld

Rank: 33

Blurb: “Distilled from a career of unusual breadth and accomplishment, and organized under practical topics like hiring people, running a meeting, and dealing with the press, Rumsfeld’s Rules can benefit people at every stage in their careers and in every walk of life, from aspiring politicos and industrialists to recent college graduates, teachers, and business leaders.”

Review: “The book is chock full of practical tips that are just as useful for a mom running a household as a CEO running a Fortune 500 company.”

Customers Also Bought: “Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America’s Most Underrated President”

Footnote: Don’t buy books from war crooks.

Rumsfeld’s Rules [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon Kickback Link]