Digital Black and White Landscape Photography - Gary Wagner

A nicely done, technical but clear guide to working with RAW images and supporting software to create b & w images.  Built around examples of finished photos, with the various steps and software manipulations itemized.  Finished style worth learning for starters.

Other books to find again:

Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield  - thorough but software references may be a bit outdated

Compete Digital Photography - Ben Long

Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield

A focused guide to working with RAW images and the software you use.  Thorough but a bit dated. (2009)

Blood of the Celts - Jean Manco

A look at the origins of celtic languages and peoples.  A bit of a confusing narrative, I suppose because it is hard to pin anything down definitely in such remote periods.  The book does confirm the link between the bell beaker people/culture and the ancient celts.  Also their link with metal working, as you the the bell beaker culture jump from one locale to another, each locale a source of minerals for iron working in particular, rather than cover an entire large home area.  There does seem to be an original movement from the east, perhaps north of the Balkans to a homeland around Hallstat in southern Germany, but then the culture pops up all over Europe, even down into Italy at times.  There also seems to be some later movement from Spain back towards the original homeland.  Apart from that, it is hard to really get anything clearer from this book.
One surprising thing is that the genetic sequence of the European copper age population influx seems to originate around Lake Baikal in Siberia.  This genetic group is also related to North American native populations that seem to have spread across Beringia around the same time.

The Nature of the Beast - Louise Penny

Latest mystery novel by Louise Penny.  Her best book yet from a structure and stylistics point of view.  She finds the most intriguing forgotten histories in the Eastern Townships to weave into the plots of her books.

Adrift on the Nile - Naguib Mahfouz

Another more political short novel.  Rather than being a larger chronicle of a vast array of characters, it is a deeper look at a small group of middle-class friends and how they go adrift after the Egyptian revolution tears up the former social fabric and accepted norms of life. An exploration of nihilism and social withdrawal through drugs, sex and social frivolity.

Karnak Cafe - Naguib Mahfouz

A short novel very different from Palace series - less human drama and more a novel of ideas.  And as such less of a compelling read.  Looks at the social and political changes and also the political repression after the Egypt revolution with Nasr.  It is partly an exploration of how the young middle class became disaffected through unjust repression and persecution of social and political groups.

Fifteen Dogs - Andre Alexis

An intriguing book on several levels.

First, the encounter between the modern world and the world of the Greek gods - a wonderful flight of imagination.

Second, the imagining of the life of dogs with a human intelligence.  It is interesting that self-consciousness is the primary effect, a disabling kind of self-consciousness.  Another primary effect is the development of trickery, deception and violence.  There is also the dog who becomes religious as he can imagine a great Pack Master in the sky mirroring his own role on earth.  Also, the dog who becomes a poet, who develops an self-conscious awareness of language as something to play with. Interesting mirror of early human development?  Also, the way he weaves language and consciousness into the the daily lives and activities of dogs.

There is also a lot of reflection on the nature of love and relationships.  Alexis uses this to pull us in finally at an emotional level in relationship to the character Majnoun (interesting choice of name - a Persian character in a love story who is driven divinely mad by thwarted love).

I must search out the rest of his "philosophical novel" series.