Z/Web

Author: Philip Roth

I listened to the unabridged audiobook version of this novel and I found it lacking. It’s the first audiobook I’ve heard that actually has technical problems (inconsistent sound quality and volume level) and the reading was poor. This made a remarkable book difficult to follow: from the beginning to the end I was confused and not sure who was who and what was going on. The actor’s voice was the same for all characters — I never could even figure out who the narrator was. I thought it was one person, but the viewpoint kept shifting, so I was forced to conclude that the book was narrated by different people at different times, but that was impossible to tell from the way it was read. Usually when there are technical issues like this it’s disappointing but doesn’t ruin the book; however, in this case, it did serious damage. I’m not quite sure I followed the story. The book itself is amazingly written and tells a character-based story of incredible depth. It’s basically an old man looking back on his life and his family. Initially when we see him he has it all: he’s the superstar high school athlete, he marries a beauty queen in college, takes over his father’s leather glove business and is extremely wealthy, but later, as we piece together the traumatic events in his life, we see that there is conflict and tragedy. His wife hates the stereotype of beauty queen. Their beautiful daughter suffers from stuttering when younger, and eventually she rebells against her parents and runs away from home and is wanted by the FBI for murder. The mom suffers a breakdown and ends up in the looney bin. The dad is haunted by his daughter’s bizarre behavior and his own guilt (which he isn’t even sure he has). It’s a fascinating look into a life. There’s conflicts over personalities, religion, politics, economics, race. Scores of topics are touched upon. Unfortunately, the audiobook was so confusing that perhaps I didn’t follow the novel properly enough to judge it right, but it felt like it peters out into nothing. It’s a long story and I was expecting some sort of pay-off, some dramatic event at the end that would explain or justify everything, and I was given nothing but a “that’s the end.” Disappointing. I still think it’s a remarkable book and I might actually try to read the print edition someday and give it a second chance and see if it was the reading that ruined it for me. I really liked most of what I heard; I just felt the story was confusing at times and the ending weak. Many scenes in the middle were powerful (though they might have been even better if I had a clearer understanding of what was going on). In the end, I recommend it with a “your mileage may vary.”

Author: Jamie Trecker

This book recalls the 2006 World Cup in Germany, telling a lot of the historical background of the event, the behind-the-scenes adventures, and summarizing the results. It’s detailed, fascinating, and an excellent read if you’re a soccer fan. I followed the Cup on TV and didn’t think the book would really add much, but I was suprised at how much I learned. It’s excellently written and highly recommended.

Author: Jack Ketchum

Talk about grim: this is an amazing horror book about genuine evil. Worse, it’s based on a true story. In a nutshell, a psycho aunt locks up her orphaned 15-year-old niece in the basement to punish her, and allows her cousins and the neighborhood kids to visit and torture, rape, and eventually kill her. This would be a worthless story if told that way, however: what redeems it is the narrarator, a twelve-year-old boy from next door who is in love with the girl, and his conflicted feelings over the situation. On the one hand he’s a pre-pubescent kid overwhelmed and confused by the pleasure he finds in seeing his object of lust naked and tormented. On the other, he knows hurting her is wrong, but he’s just a powerless kid, unable to help. The story is helped by being set in the idylic world of the early 1960s in an ordinary suburban neighborhood; you just don’t expect such things to happen in your backyard. The author has also brilliantly shielded us from most of the actual violence — much is implied and not shown, and this allows us to participate from a safe distance. It’s a quite remarkable book. Certainly not for all tastes, but genuinely frightening in a way that makes most horror books seem silly, because this is something that could happen anywhere to anyone because we are the evil.

Author: John Sandford

Strange, rather pointless novel. It’s got a one-shot premise about “invisible” robberies where someone is killing elderly people while robbing them of selected expensive antiques so subtly that no one notices the thefts. But our “hero” cop gets involved and figures things out and tracks the criminals down. What’s weird is the lack of characterization — I suspect these are characters the author has used in previous novels and that’s why they aren’t explained, but I found it jarring and odd. The novel also has a tasteless quality to it: ruthless murders happen almost at random and are described with such dispassion it feels dirty. The ending is equally strange: it’s a decent resolution, but bloody and violent in a way that feels unexpected and wrong. Basically, it’s just a poor novel all the way around.

Author: Neil Gaiman

Wow. This is an amazing book, one of the most remarkable I’ve ever read. Gaiman is a genius, unquestionably. The variety of topics and ideas compressed into this novel is astonishing. I barely know where to begin plotwise, but I suppose the simplest way is to describe the novel’s intriguing premise. Basically, we live in a world where the “gods” (with a lowercase g) of myth and legend still exist, and they exist via the belief of people. These gods are flawed and human-like and mortal, but do have special powers. Most of these gods are weak today because few people believe in them any more, and there are new gods, modern gods, such as Media, a powerful woman-like creature that is the television worshipped by millions. The story is set in modern day America, where we follow the adventures of an easy-going guy named Shadow who’s just been released from prison and gets caught up in scams and cons by a god named Wednesday (Odin). Lots of things happen and the individual scenes are brilliant and incredible, but it takes long while before you can really see any plot or story forming: just stick with it as eventually everything will connect and make sense. The novel culminates in a huge battle between the old gods and the new gods, with Shadow right in the middle. It’s an amazing story, and Gaiman touches on all kinds of aspects of American and modern life, history, religion, belief, and reality, but ultimately I was slightly disappointed at the conclusions because the book doesn’t provide any answers or illumination, it merely stirs the pot and concludes life is a messy stew and then we die. There’s no moral or explanation or belief system advocated; I would have preferred that, even if it was a belief I disagreed with. Instead, it merely seems Gaiman was just finding all this humorous and interesting, with no practical connection to real life. So when I finished the novel I was like, “That’s it? There’s no purpose or explanation to anything?” Gaiman has intriguing ideas, but in the ends just throws out the ideas with nothing to hang them on. Perhaps he didn’t want to step on the beliefs of others, but as it is, I was left wondering what the point of the novel was. I guess you could just say it was mere entertainment, but it feels so much deeper than that and I wanted it to be deeper than that. But ultimately it seems that’s all that Neil’s given us, a good yarn, a tall tale and nothing more.

Author: David Allen

For a while now I’ve been hearing about this book. A lot of computer programmers are into it and aspects of it — like the whole “Inbox Zero” concept — are catching on worldwide. I finally had to check it out. It is extremely impressive. The writing itself is fairly routine, and the book rambles and repeats more than I’d like, but the overall concept is brilliant. Basically Allen starts with the premise that keeping track of projects in your head is a terrible idea because while your conscious mind forgets things, your subconscious does not. Consciously you might forget that you promised to trim the roses or sort those tax receipts or schedule your annual eye doctor appointment, but your subconscious knows and worries and frets in the background. Ever have one of those days (or weeks or months) where you feel like you worked hard and were busy and got nothing done? Or have you ever found it difficult or impossible to relax and watch a movie or something because you felt guilty and depressed about all this vague “stuff” you needed to be doing? Well, that’s your subconscious at work, reminding you of all the things you have left unfinished. I’m extremely guilty of this and I’ve felt like crap about work for a few years now. There are just so many projects I start and want to do, but it’s hard to keep up with everything. It’s so easy to let things slip and get behind and then projects feel like mountains. Allen has some great tips on coping with these problems. There’s nothing earth-shattering about these ideas: most are simple things like filing papers away, having a systematic structure to your workflow and life, etc., but what’s different about Allen’s approach is he reveals the benefits of being organized. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and crappy because you’re so far behind on things, imagine feeling refreshed, revived, energized, creative, and inspired. That’s what happens when you’re organized.

Now most of us have tried to be organized, but we fail, and Allen covers the reasons for these failures. For instance, have you ever made the same “To Do” lists over and over, rewriting the list for a new day after you didn’t finish most of those things the previous day? Well that happens because we don’t know how to make proper To Do lists. First, To Do items (which Allen calls “Action” items) don’t go on a calendar (are not tied to day) unless they really are date/time dependent. Calendars are sacred for date/time related events. Regular To Do items (action items) need to go on your Action Lists, and here Allen has another simple but brilliant idea: you separate your Actions into categories based on the type of task. For instance, have a “Calls” list, an “Emails” list, a “At Home” list, an “At Work” list, an “At Computer” list, etc. This makes much more sense than grouping unrelated tasks together at random on a traditional “To Do” list. This way when you find you’re at the auto shop with 20 minutes to kill while your oil is changed or your colleague called and will be a few minutes late for a meeting, you can pull out your “Calls” list and make a few quick phone calls. You basically can match your environment and your energy level with your tasks. Haven’t you ever been exhausted and though you just wanted to crash, but felt guilty because you knew there was work to be done but the thought of the huge project was too much to tackle right then? With David’s system, if you looked at your list and saw you just needed to send a quick email or check a website for some information or make a phone call, you might decide you’ve got enough energy to do that, and thus the project moves forward a little.

Another great example of the practical nature of David’s system is by grouping tasks by type you are able to only look at the tasks that are physically possible right now. If you are at a restaurant waiting for a date to show, it’s not like you can be doing filing at the office. But you might be able to make some calls or send an email (if you have an email-capable phone). David suggests you create an “Errands” list, which I find incredibly helpful. Here you put every kind of errand you need to do at some point: stop at the bank, go to the post office, pick up light bulbs, groceries, refill the BBQ’s propane tank, get a prescription at the pharmacy, etc. By grouping the errands and checking the list before you go out, you’ll see efficiencies and make several stops in one trip instead of multiple trips. Haven’t you ever gone out and gotten home only to realize you didn’t pick up the dry cleaning right next door to where you just were?

All of David’s ideas are simple, but the benefits are dramatic. The key is that he’s very honest about how completely you must devote yourself to your system. If you rely on your brain to remember things, it will know it can’t be trusted and will do things to remind you, like leaving things out instead of putting them away. Don’t you do that? I have a paper on my coffee table right now that’s been sitting there for over a month. It’s there to remind me to make a phone call, but I have not done it. I only notice the paper at weird times, like at night, when I can’t make the call. And the paper adds clutter and chaos to my home. Wouldn’t it make more sense to file the paper away and add the call item to my action lists?

This is a terrific book and it has inspired me. I’m tackling my own home/life reorg of massive proportions. More on that in a future update!

Author: Lee Goldberg

Another excellent Monk novel, this one classically tongue in cheek about the TV show’s history. On the show, the actress who played Monk’s assistant in the first couple seasons was replaced. In this book, his new assistant meets the former one, and sparks fly. Monk, of course, is so selfish he wants both assistants to cater to his eccentric whims (he’ll pay each only half a salary, of course). But of course there’s a murder involved — several, in fact, and Monk solves the crimes in his inimitable way. It’s well done, though the murderer is quite obvious (I knew the moment the character was introduced), but Monk isn’t about inscrutible mysteries but the fun of Monk using his OCD to figure it out.

Author: Ben Bova

This is the third book of the trilogy and they just keep getting better. I liked the second one better than the first, and I liked this one even more than the second, perhaps. This one combines exciting plot and our hero’s superhuman abilities with thoughtful projection of what technology can mean to humanity. We learn the scientific secrets behind the hero’s superhuman abilities (which now make total sense), but our main characters from the other books now must fight new enemies who seek the alien technology in a quest for power. The plot’s gripping and interesting, though it still moves at the slow pace Bova’s committed to for this series which makes it come across a little more heavy-handed than it should. But overall this is an excellent book and a great conclusion to the original storyline.

Author: J. K. Rowling

Wow. This book is the best since the first, and a terrific cap for the series. If you thought Rowling was making all this up as she went along, this proves she was not, for everything is revealed in this book. All the little storylines are wrapped up and questions answered. There are flashbacks to previous books and we suddenly see all sorts of hints and clues in those that we never noticed before. Rowling knew exactly what she was doing. It is brilliant. I can’t think of another multi-series of books that are so tightly plotted. As for the story in this one, it’s also brilliant. All the books so far have followed a similar plotline: Harry goes back to school, learns stuff, gets into mischief, and stops some evil Voldemort plot. But this one is different. This is a different Harry. In this one, he and Ron and Hermione skip school and set right out on the mission left them by Dumbledore in the last book, looking for additional devices containing portions of Voldemort’s soul. If even one of these is not destroyed, Voldemort can rebuild himself, so all of them must be destroyed before Voldemort can be battled. This all leads to a dramatic wizard war at Hogwarts (I can’t wait to see the battle on film) and the final controntation between Harry and Voldemort. (Come on, that was obvious — I’m not giving anything away by telling you that.) I won’t leak the ending, but I will say that it is exactly as it should be: appropriate, dramatic, and utterly satisfying. It’s the perfect conclusion to the perfect series. This book is one of the fastest reading, too: it’s just non-stop excitement and you can’t put it down. I didn’t start reading until late Saturday night and finished it Monday night. Highly recommended.

Author: Jeffery Deaver

The idea sounds good: a young, quirky cameraperson at a TV network gets a lead on an “innocent man imprissoned” story she wants to cover. She must find evidence to free him, but people and circumstance conspire against her. Unfortunately, the book’s resolution is convoluted and doesn’t make that much sense, and there are distracting personal stories that confuse things even more. The whole thing feels unfocused and directionless, though in the end progress is made. This would be a good novel for condensation. It’s not that bad and it’s got some interesting situations, but the overall story is weak.

Author: David Baldacci

The strange thing about this book is that it takes a long time to get to the real plot. The first part of the book is about a woman struggling with some sort of psychological secrets; her boyfriend bails her out of trouble and gets her into a clinic. Then, to pay for her health care, the boyfriend has to get a freelance investigation job. Slowly I figured out that these two characters were supposed to be familiar to me from previous Balacci books. But since they weren’t, I found this part of the book confusing and pointless. The real plot is the investigation, which takes place at a government think tank where a scientist has been murdered. The murdered man’s daughter is the title character — a semi-autistic or “special” child who’s troubled but can do amazing math in her head. The investigator thinks she’s got a secret code in her head but can’t figure out how to access it. It’s all muddled and the action takes a long time to get going as nothing much happens until toward the end. The ending is even more convoluted and doesn’t really make much sense — stuff about rogue CIA agents running drugs, government conspiracies, and hidden treasure. Yeah, you read right: there’s hidden treasure through in the mix as well. Meanwhile the woman’s working through her psychological problems (and finds something to investigate at the psycho clinic while she’s there), and she ends up joining her partner for the final part of the book where things start to happen. Eventually we find out her psycological secrets, but the whole thing is bizarre and nothing really fits together: it’s like the plots of several books were put into a blender and this is what came out. There are some nice ideas and some aspects of the story were interesting, but the explanations are a letdown and the character development is too dependent upon you knowing them from previous books. Odd.

Author: Ben Bova

I liked this much better than the first book. In that one not much happened, but this one takes place 18 years later when the human astronaut hero of the first book is awakened from being frozen. He wakes to find a new world enhanced by the alien technology discovered in the first book and also learns that he’s got an alien presence in his mind. This presence guides him and reveals new abilities that make him superhuman. He uses these abilities to put an end to war and death, which sickens him (and the alien inside him). He eventually tracks down the real leader and cause of all the trouble and confronts him in the climax. Very cool story, with some interesting observations on human behavior, politics, and society. Recommended.

Author: Ben Bova

The premise of this trilogy is what happens to humankind when intelligent alien life is discovered? That’s a great premise but unfortunately the book is very dated: it was written nearly thirty years ago and a huge part of the plot is about conflict between the Soviet Communists and the USA, stuff that feels archaic today. A lot of the spy stuff is rather cheesy and overly dramatic and there isn’t nearly as much philosophical content about how alien life would impact humanity as I expected: but hopefully that stuff will come in future books. Still, I enjoyed the story, and there are some good characters.

Author: Stephen Frey

This book comes before The Protege, but I read it second. In this one the main character has just been elected chairman of the company and is struggling against conspiracies designed to destroy him and the company. The plot’s overdone (there are several plots going on) and there’s not enough interesting money stuff, but it’s still rather amusing and harmless entertainment.

Author: Neil Gaiman

Wow, what an excellent book! I listened to the unabridged audio book during my drive to California as the movie’s coming out this summer and I wanted to read the book first. It’s the story about a boy who, to impress the girl he thinks he loves, promises to bring her a star they watch fall. But the star has fallen into fairyland, where magical things happen, and the boy eventually discovers the star is a young lady. Their relationship is antagonistic at first, but eventually, as he protects her from harm and discovers his own special abilities, they (of course) fall in love. The magic and adventures are wonderfully done, very clever and interesting and charming, right in line with traditional fairy tales. Highly recommended! I sure hope the movie’s good.

Author: Richard North Patterson

The topic of this book did not interest me at all: I don’t remember how I ended up with it but I wouldn’t have chosen it if I’d known. It’s all about Israel-Arab conflict and that stuff is so confusing and depressing and overdone I can’t stand listening to any of it. It’s like listening to kids squabbling over who sits where in the back seat of the car on a five thousand year drive. Makes you want to leap out the window or crash the car. This book certainly made me feel that way at times, for it is excruciately detailed and proceeds at a snail’s pace. However, I endured it, and the payoff was decent. I learned a lot of fascinating things about the Israel-Arab conflict I didn’t know, some of it helpful in understanding the conflict. The story is intricate: an American of Jewish descent has everything: an Ivy league law degree, a successful San Francisco career, is about to be married to a weathly Jewish family, and will soon be a candidate for senator. But then the Israeli prime minister is blown up in San Francisco and the key suspect is Palastinian Anna Ariff, the lawyer’s former lover at Harvard. Prosecutors think she leaked the prime minister’s route to the bombers, but she claims it’s a frame-up. The lawyer still loves her and takes on her defense even though it costs him his engagement and his political career, for everyone wants to see the terrorists pay for their crimes and he’s defending an obviously guilty Arab. The defense takes months as the lawyer visits Israel and uncovers bits of information, but all the pieces of the plot aren’t put together until the very end. Unfortunately, I saw this ending on about page 100, so having to sit through the rest of the book for something so obvious was tedious and frustrating. The payoff is good, but overall I see this book as more educational than entertaining. I wish I’d gotten the abridged version.

Author: Stephen Frey

Tame but easy to read story about a wealthy chairman of a private equity firm who’s in charge of billions of dollars as he tries to manage his personal life, threats against himself and his company, and deal with some sort of weird spy-novel plot that ultimately didn’t have much to do with anything. Entertaining, despite being over the top in certain plot elements and scenes. At least the financial stuff is interesting.

Author: Tracy Chevalier

Interesting historical novel set a hundred years ago in London around the death of Queen Victoria and involving the overlapping history of several families. The novel takes the unusual approach that each chapter is voiced by different characters. At first I found this off-putting and confusing, since it was hard to keep the characters straight, let alone follow the story, but I soon learned to like it. A lot of fascinating information is passed between the lines via this technique, as we see the same events from different perspectives. The story is primarily about two girls whose families have neighboring grave sites at the cemetary and the girls become best friends. Women’s sufferage is a big part of the story as the mother of one becomes highly political and active in the cause despite the harm to herself and her family. I found that interesting, since I recently saw another film that dealt with the topic, as well as a recent episode of Cold Case on TV that made me realize just how controversial and even dangerous the cause was. This book isn’t quite up to the class of Girl With A Pearl Earring, but it is well-written and interesting — in the end I think the various voices break things up too much and the resulting story feels too choppy for genuine drama.

Author: Michael Connelly

I can’t say I’m crazy about this style of writing: the pace is glacial, almost Dragnet style, with almost every donut eaten and cup of coffee drunk described in depressing detail. Of course it turns out this level of detail is somewhat important, since this is a crime drama, and those details come into play later, but the book takes forever to get going and then keeps on going long after things are resolved. Worse, though the plot is a conspiracy that is significant enough to justify a lot of this time, it doesn’t quite make up for it. Next time I’ll stick to the condensed version.

Author: Scott Rosenberg

This is a book about a “failed” software venture. It reads like a novel, telling about how Mitch Kapor (Lotus 1-2-3 inventor) formed an open source foundation with the vague goal of creating the ultimate information manager, discovered that was a lot more difficult than it seemed, and three years later they’re barely out with a 0.5 release. It’s a fascinating read about the difficulties of software creation, looking throughout history and comparing software development to fields like architecture, art, and engineering. Unfortunately, though an interesting read, the book fails to provide any conclusions, and the dramatic story of Kapor’s company doesn’t end, it just peters out, since Rosenberg didn’t want to wait several more years until Kapor’s software is actually released. A bit disappointing in that respect, but as long as you aren’t expecting a resolution to the story, it’s a wonderful intellectual read that will have you asking a lot of questions about how we develop software.

Author: Edith Wharton

This is an incredible book. I think it will change my writing forever. Wharton has a blunt, clear style encased in poetic metaphors that is a joy to hear (I listened to the audiobook). Every line is full of insightful truths and perceptions. The pace of the story is glacier; a two minute conversation might be spread over dozens of pages as Wharton delves into important backstory of the characters, detailing each’s perceptions of the conversation, so that we are fully aware of the dramatic import each line provides. It’s an amazing way of writing and it’s a kind of writing I would like to do; I feel it’s a style near my own (I tend to be extremely detailed).

The story of the novel is about the clash between money and morals in the early 1900s. It is set in the extremely wealthy New York aristocracy, with a beautiful young lady, Lilly Bart, struggling to find her way. Her whole life she’s been trained to be an ornament, a pretty thing destined to be the trophy wife of a wealthy man, yet that conflicts with something deep inside her which she cannot name. Her suitors are many, yet she is reluctant to marry. Her parents are dead and she’s got expensive tastes and no money; she lives off rich friends, traveling on their yahts to Europe, going to fancy balls and operas and restaurants, and racking up debt to dressmakers for expensive gowns she cannot afford. She is a tragic figure, beautifully lonely, yet her prison is of her own making, for she is too self-centered and naive to see her way out. Wharton paints an amazing picture of old New York society. We get to see, in precise detail, what makes such people click, and how words don’t mean what they seem on the surface. The morals of the day are complex. Sexual standards for a young girl, of course, are strict, and Lilly finds herself in the middle of complicated circumstances. She’s faced with difficult problems: she’s inadvertantly offended wealthy friends who make life hard for her, she’s spurning suitors who could help her, and she’s got deep financial worries. But worse is that there are so many solutions to Lilly’s problems: Should she marry a man she dislikes just for his money? Should she use secret information she has to blackmail a former friend who is hurting her? Should she marry a man she loves though he is not wealthy? These are a few of the moral quandries Lilly struggles with. The story is beautiful, complex, tragic, and amazingly believable. Wharton is witty and wonderful, and this novel is one of the best I’ve ever read (heard). Highly recommended.

Author: Lee Goldberg

Another good Monk book. This one is okay. We don’t get to see enough mystery solving as it takes the whole book to solve the two main crimes. While spending time with Monk is interesting, it’s also tedious, as he is predictably neurotic (and compulsive). Fortunately, it reads quickly. In this story, Monk’s assistant Natalie goes to Hawaii for a wedding and Monk tags along (you’ll have to read it to find out the how and why). While there Monk causes amusing chaos with the hotel staff and solves the murder of a hotel guest. The most important thing in a mystery is the resolution and at least this one has a good payoff, but the build-up is a little long for me.

Author: James Patterson

This is supposed to be the story of detective-psychologist Alex Cross’s most dangerous opponent, the man who killed his wife. Unfortunately I found the antagonist to be weakly done; he wasn’t that scary (he’s merely an efficient mob hitman), and Patterson ineptly plays with the time-line of events making everything quite confusing (like one day his wife is killed and suddenly it’s ten years later). Patterson’s generally a poor writer (so much so that I’ve started avoiding his books), but in this one he has a few moments of decency. A couple times I was shocked to almost hear genuine insight. Unfortunately, all is ruined by the book’s dismal finale, which is competely anticlimatic, boring, and unsatisfying. The book should be cut in half as it’s way too long for the material, with lots of pointless meandering (like whole storylines of his counseling patients that are just dropped with no resolution). The whole thing felt like so much melodrama, overhyped and overdone. Note: I listened to the unabridged audiobook, so some of this could have been the presentation, which was definitely over-the-top, but then again, it’s probably just the poor writing.

Author: Lee Goldberg

Another good read, though not quite up to the level of the first one. It dragged a little in the middle as Monk early on identifies the killer but then has to figure out how to prove it. This gets a little tedious as there’s little suspense. But the resolution is excellent, and there’s plenty of entertaining Monk adventures in the process.

Author: Lee Goldberg

I had no idea there were Monk books. I’m a giant fan of the TV show and quickly bought all three books. This was the first one I read and it’s terrific. The “Blue Flu” is the San Franciso police calling in sick (since they can’t legally strike) and Monk ends up being temporarily instated as Captain, during which he solves a number of baffling crimes with a team of other misfits detectives who’d been fired for being nutty (like him). The book captures the hilarious spirit of Monk just like the show, but there’s a lot more depth here, and I liked that he solves multiple mysteries instead of just one. Excellent!