# Shelfari.com - What are your favorite computer books?



## MrExcel (Apr 16, 2007)

I love books. Yes, I have a shelf full of computer books (Excel, Photoshop, PowerPoint), but I also love books with interesting maps, books about graphic design, and more.

Last night, I read about a new website called Shelfari.com. This is a fantastic new way to discover new books in which you might be interested.

Create an account at Shelfari. Add about 10-20 of your favorite books to your virtual Shelfari bookshelf. The Shelfari search finds many books, but for a few of them, you need to use their "Search Amazon" button. 

Here is the cool part: Once you've added your favorite books, look in the left navigation for a link to your Home page. On your home page, Shelfari will show you other members who happen to have some of your favorite books on their bookshelf. These are sorted so that those with the most books in common show up at the top.

Click on the other members in this list. You might find someone who shares your interest in graphic design books. It is then very interesting to browse their bookshelf to discover books that you don't have in your collection. 

If you set up a list, invite me (my userid is bjele) to be a friend. In a week or so, I can report back with a comprehensive list of the Excel books in my friend's bookshelves.

http://www.shelfari.com

Bill Jelen


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## Richard Schollar (Apr 16, 2007)

Hi Bill

Sounds like fun! Ok, I've bitten - I have only updated my programming/excel books.  Username is RichardS.  Have requested your friendship   I seem to have several of your books


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## RichardS (Apr 16, 2007)

Pinched my user ID


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## Richard Schollar (Apr 17, 2007)

> Pinched my user ID



  I understand RichardSchollar is up for grabs though


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## MrExcel (Apr 17, 2007)

Richard - that is an awesome collection of books that you have:

The "VBA in Easy Steps" is from a series that I've seen in Canada, but never in the U.S. I have their Excel version of the book, but I've never seen the Excel VBA version. How is that title?

The original Excel Annoyances by Woody Leonhard et al is one of my all time favorite Excel books. I wonder if Curt Frye's version is as witty.


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## Richard Schollar (Apr 17, 2007)

Bill

It's actually "Visual Basic in easy steps" - so it isn't specifically Excel related.    It is dated 1999 and I bought it at about Christmas time that year - I originally got it because I wanted to develop some understanding of VBA in Excel!  I didn't realise at the time that VBA and VB were different (the book assumes you have a paid up version of VB - which of course I didn't as the Visual Studio Express editions didn't exist at the time).  I never actually got around to reading it 

The Excel Annoyances book is OK, but is aimed at a simpler level than either your own MrExcel On Excel or Excel Hacks by Dave Hawley.  I skipped over it pretty quickly (if you see some of the reviews/discussion on the web, the book gets criticised for providing commercial (ie to be paid for) solutions to some annoyances - and this is difficult to argue with IMHO).  Got some interesting points, but as I implied there are better books out there.

Of course, my favourite Excel VBA 'book' of all time doesn't technically have an ISBN, so I can't place it on there (Holy Macro! It's 2200 Excel VBA Samples)!!!

I do have another addition to the library coming though - "Special Edition Using Microsoft(R) Office Excel 2007" - it's currently being shipped across from the US   I need it too as I've just taken delivery of a copy of Office 2007 Professional...

Glad you liked the collection by the way - just wish I had more time to read them 

Richard


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## Andrew Fergus (Apr 17, 2007)

Hi Richard

I too cannot load a number of my books because the ISBN number is not recognised.  For example, my reference book du jour is 'Using Visual Basic 6' by Bob Reselman, Richard Peasley and Wayne Pruchniak (ISBN 0-7897-1633-X).  It is packed full of good advice and tips that are transferrable to VBA.  So after multiple 'your search did not find any results' I decided to load a shelf of fiction books instead......again most of my books aren't there.....oh well.......

Andrew



> Of course, my favourite Excel VBA 'book' of all time doesn't technically have an ISBN, so I can't place it on there (Holy Macro! It's 2200 Excel VBA Samples)!!!


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## Richard Schollar (Apr 17, 2007)

Andrew

Did you try clicking on the "Find it on Amazon" (or whatever it's titled) button?  A lot of my books didn't come up on Shelfari, but I could 'import' them to my shelf from Amazon.


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## TrippyTom (Apr 17, 2007)

BAH!  it figures, my workplace denied access to this site.


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## steve case (Apr 21, 2007)

My favorite computer book hasn't been written yet.  I've got two Walkenbach books, and they're nearly useless to me because I may know what I want to do, but trying to find it in those hundreds of pages is some very tough sledding.  

I'd like to see book on Excel that walks you through the construction of a workbook.  One that shows you how some of these functions work together in an actual application.  One that shows how not to do it and why.   

Maybe there is such a book, afterall I haven't looked that hard, besides I come here and get better answers than I could ever get out of a book.


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## Richard Schollar (Apr 21, 2007)

Hi STACase

The following may not meet your requirements exactly (and it only goes into limited detail as to actual functions to use) but for spreadsheet design best practice, it is very good:

http://www.shelfari.com/books/detai...s-for-Business-Covers-Excel-2003-2002-and-200


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## steve case (Apr 21, 2007)

Thanks for the tip.


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## MrExcel (Apr 23, 2007)

It sounds like you need "The Elements of Spreadsheet Style"  by John Nevinson. It is long out of print, but you can find it used at Amazon.


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