Sounds interesting!
That's available at Smashwords for free... I'll download it and add it to my list of "To Reads".

Yesterday, I started and finished The Martian by Andy Weir.

Maybe this week I'll stop by the library to see if they have the original Dune.

Signed up at Kobo and purchased a few SciFi anthology collections, some of the Matt Turner series, and also found a free trilogy The Breakers by Edward W. Robertson.
Lot of reading to do!

I just finished reading Germania by Cornelius Tacitus. It deals with some of the Germanic tribal nations during his time and how they differed from each other. I really liked how he talked about German marriages compared to Roman ones in which Germans were not pressured to marry young or for power most of the time and how they frowned upon adultery. I also liked how he distinguished the differences between the groups later in the book and how tribal nations were more noble than others like one that would only use its military in self-defense and would form a formidable one with plenty of cavalry.

I will say that I did not like how he claimed that their gods were the same as the Roman ones by equating Woden/Odin to Mercury.

The book was a short read since it had only forty written pages in the version I have.

Finally finished another book: Console Wars by Blake Harris.

This is a frustrating book. There's a really good history that could be written about this era of video games but despite some cool anecdotes and trivia, this book doesn't pull it off. It begins with Tom Kalinske's hiring as the new boss at Sega of America and primarily focuses on his efforts to drag Sega from single-digits market share to actually overtaking Nintendo, only to have all his hard work undone by his less successful, possibly jealous colleagues at Sega of Japan. On the other side, Nintendo is able to rally and eventually win the 16-bit war because its Japanese rulers were able to give some trust to its western employees, which paid off in the creation of Donkey Kong Country and Nintendo's partnership with Silicon Graphics. On the periphery, Sony is trying to get into the industry by exploring partnerships with both Sega and Nintendo only to be rejected by both and eventually enter on its own.

Most reviews have focused on the narrative style of the book and the quality of the prose. It's certainly true that I'd have to think hard about the last book I read that had such awkward dialogue and tangled metaphors, but that really wasn't the big issue I had. The problem is that I think Harris just flat out misses many of the really interesting parts of the story. After getting a quick start, I realized I was reading the book more and more slowly and it occurred to me that Harris is far more interested in recounting Sega's marketing campaigns more than anything else and while it's true that Sega did some memorable stuff, I'm more interested in the game and hardware side of things. Despite the subject, the book actually discusses software and hardware only in very broad, often downright vague terms, whereas the marketing campaigns are given detailed blow-by-blow summaries, one chapter after another.

The only games that get anything resembling real discussion are Sonic, Mortal Kombat, and Donkey Kong Country. All else seems to exist in a state of delirium, just sort of materializing from the Japanese parent companies and developers, at which point the American companies have to sell them with their incredible marketing powers. If you don't know anything about console video games, you won't really learn much about them from this book, which talks about how amazing DKC is, for instance, but never actually describes why. Same with the hardware - there's a lot that could be said about the pros and cons of each system but Harris doesn't seem comfortable discussing any of it. The SNES's Mode 7 capability is simply and only described as "a primitive 3D effect", and the book never bothers to delve into the sorts of debates fanboys used to have about the systems - better graphics vs. better speed, which system did which genres better, which system's sound was superior, etc.

TL;DR: book is kind of interesting but there's plenty of room left for a more definitive history to be written. Also, despite the hype about it being turned into a Seth Rogen movie, this isn't especially cinematic (and Rogen's forward is atrocious).

Wow, 576 pages, that must have been painful.... :(

Out of curiosity (I don't plan reading it), does it cover the marketing campaigns in Europe and Japan or is it US-only perspective?

Yup, I can confirm that it sold pretty well on the old continent ;)

Concerning, the "luxury car", the only time they made a "comparison ad" (which was illegal in some EU countries), it was to say that Sonic was impossible to make on the SNES because of some technical stuff. But honestly, that kind of ad didn't quite reach the audience back then. What worked much better for their image was giving a more "mature" presentation opposed to the classic Nintendo icons. What went really good (and would have gone viral if social medias existed back then) in this way was the famous series of TV and print ads with the punk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YednbINiEnI
Also, their slogan/motto (at least in French speaking countries) "Sega, it's stronger than you" became a classic punchline which is still remembered today.

*LOL* They didn't have that guy in the U.S. ads but the edgier spirit does seem similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38XNUTJpA7c

* Why your 5-year old could not have done that * by Susie Hodge

It's an attempt at explaining Modern Art. It goes from abstract painting to simple objects put on the floor. The book has a lot works featured but naturally, the given explanations are not always convincing, nut oevrall it's an interesting and helps thinking "outside of the box".

Last week / the weekend
Larry Correia - Monster Hunter Nemesis -> if you liked the rest of the series, still think Alpha is better
Sarah Hoyt - Through Fire
CJ Archer - The Last Necromancer -> meh is the best this gets

Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft (Thor Heyerdahl)

Although his anthropological theory is bunk, thankfully he doesn’t dwell on it overmuch and this is still an enjoyable true-story adventure about a trip from Peru to Polynesia on a balsa wood raft.

I went camping last weekend and finished two more:

The Trouble with Aliens by Christopher Anvil - This collection of short stories was impressive! It started off rather strangely, with a whole story represented entirely in email and radio exchanges. Lots of examples of how aliens could and would be very different than us in unexpected ways. Looking forward to the sequel.

Temporal Contingency by Joseph Lallo - Ok another JL book. I admit I have a problem. Another in the Big Sigma series, with expected hijinks and comedy... but it has a more developed side to it. The characters are growing up.

Updated my list

*** Rwanda : Thousand Hills, Thousand Pains *** by Colette Braeckman

The author is a Belgian journalist who traveled a lot to Rwanda before, during and after the war. She already did a book in the 90's on the genocide. Here in this litlle book (less than 100 pages) she tells more about the history and culture of the Rwandese society from before the colonization up to our current days. Naturally, the genocide still takes a significant part of the book but rather than getting into controversies and theories (like "who has killed more"), she takes a cultural viewpoint and shows how the society was able to destroy and rebuild itself quickly. It's completed by the interviews of a French historian and a Rwandese artist. I think it was a good read and introduction to Rwanda and Rwandese people.

https://www.amazon.fr/Rwanda-Mille-collines-mille-douleurs/dp/2875230557/

Only just seen this post. It was one of the reasons for the success of the Roman empire. Instead of conquering and forcing their ideas, they amalgamated local religions into their pantheon. They did this around the world, identifying common points between the gods and then associate them. Keeps both sides happy. You can find one example here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulis
Bath in the UK was know as Sulis-Minerva, Sulis was the local deity, Minerva brought in by the Romans.. So (and I haven't read the book), I don't think that's the author pushing it so much, as that is what the Romans did.

Włodzimierz Kalicki - Zdarzyło się
Andy Weir - The Martian
William Ford Gibson - Sprawl trilogy
Anthony Rao - The Way of Boys
Stephen Leigh & John J. Miller & George R.R. Martin - Deuces Down
John J. Miller - Death Draws Five
Samuel Willenberg - Revolt in Treblinka
Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man
Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination

Now I'm in the middle of Alfred Bester's Computer Connection.
I'm also at the beginning of Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin.