Short profile of Jared Diamond, author of
Short profile of Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse.
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kottke.org posts about books
1996 NY Times review of David Foster Wallace’s
1996 NY Times review of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and a profile of Wallace from that same month by current Times food critic Frank Bruni.
List of science books up for the 2006
List of science books up for the 2006 Aventis Prize. Need. More. Time. For. Reading.
Why do boys like girls books like
Why do boys like girls books like Little House on the Prairie? When I was a kid, I read a lot of “girl” books (mostly my sister’s), including all the Little House books, all the Anne of Green Gables books, a few Nancy Drews, some Judy Blumes, and, uh, even the first several Babysitter’s Club books.
LibriVox provides free audiobooks of works in
LibriVox provides free audiobooks of works in the public domain. Includes Robinson Crusoe, Call of the Wild, Treasure Island, and Pride and Prejudice.
The NYC Dept of Health is cracking
The NYC Dept of Health is cracking down on the practice of sous vide (low temperature cooking of vacuum packed food for better tenderness and flavor) in the city’s restaurants. Also this tidbit: Thomas Keller is doing a sous vide cookbook…is Rulhman involved?
Gelf Magazine has an interview with the
Gelf Magazine has an interview with the Smoking Gun’s William Bastone about their expose of James Frey.
Part 2 of the Bill Simmons/Malcolm Gladwell
Part 2 of the Bill Simmons/Malcolm Gladwell conversation is even better than part 1. They really rip into what Isiah Thomas has done as GM of the Knicks. “The mess [Thomas] is creating right now in New York will be studied by business school students 50 years from now alongside Enron and pets.com.”
DIY book publishing
37signals has published their latest book, Getting Real, as a PDF download that they are distributing themselves. After more than a day, they’ve sold over 1750 copies at $19 apiece:
That’s exciting. These numbers demolish the sales pace of our first book, Defensive Design for the Web, which was released through the traditional publisher/bookstore model. DIY publishing: There’s a new sheriff in town.
If you do the math, that’s ~$33,000 in sales in one day. I don’t know what the advance would be on a book like that, but they’ve got to be approaching it, and if/when they reach that figure, the profit margin on subsequent sales will be much higher than the royalties paid by a publishing company. Interesting experiment.
Meghann Marco, the woman who was upset
Meghann Marco, the woman who was upset at her publishing company for 1) not putting her book on Google Print, and 2) instead suing Google, has finally gotten her book listed on Google Print.
Short interview with David Foster Wallace in
Short interview with David Foster Wallace in the San Antonio Current.
Pre-order Subversive Cross Stitch, the book. (via hc)
Pre-order Subversive Cross Stitch, the book. (via hc)
New trailer for A Scanner Darkly, Richard
New trailer for A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel. (via rw)
If you’re running out of travel ideas,
If you’re running out of travel ideas, perhaps you need to read 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. (via nelson)
Book covers inspired by Rene Magritte art. (via do)
Book covers inspired by Rene Magritte art. (via do)
Christopher Hitchens takes Garrison Keillor to task
Christopher Hitchens takes Garrison Keillor to task for slamming Bernard-Henri Levy’s take on the US, American Vertigo. I’m patiently waiting for someone to take on Hitchens on Keillor on Levy on America.
Robert Birnbaum interviews physicist Lisa Randall about
Robert Birnbaum interviews physicist Lisa Randall about string theory and science popularizers.
Blockbuster films are getting more expensive and
Blockbuster films are getting more expensive and accounting for less of Hollywood’s box office take…is Hollywood’s emphasis on big movies nearing its end? I’ve always thought it was dumb that the movie industry put so many of its eggs in so few baskets. (ps. Chris Anderson’s Long Tail book is available for preorder on Amazon.)
In an age of media fragmentation, here
In an age of media fragmentation, here are ten cultural events that are still shared collective experiences among US citizens, including the Super Bowl, Harry Potter, and The Da Vinci Code.
Regarding my question about the first superhero
Regarding my question about the first superhero back in October, Peter Coogan sent word about his upcoming book, Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre. “An exhaustive and entertaining study of the superhero genre, this volume traces the roots of the superhero in mythology, science fiction, and the pulps, and follows the superhero’s development to its current renaissance in film, literature, and graphic novels.”
I feel like I’ve pointed to this
I feel like I’ve pointed to this before, but in case I haven’t, here’s a list of the 100 best first lines from novels. I’m partial to those of Pride and Prejudice, Lolita, and Anna Karenina.
Well, Garrison Keillor sure didn’t like Bernard-Henri
Well, Garrison Keillor sure didn’t like Bernard-Henri Levy’s American Vertigo much. I’m about halfway through…review soon (hopefully).
James Frey is on Oprah today and
James Frey is on Oprah today and Gawker had someone blogging the show while it was being taped earlier today. Oprah hammers Frey pretty hard and he admits that most/all of the Smoking Gun’s allegations were true. (thx, hillary and mike)
Email correspondance between members of The New
Email correspondance between members of The New Yorker staff and one of Caitlin Flanagan’s sources in writing this story about Mary Poppins’ author P.L. Travers. The source, Travers biographer Valerie Lawson, wrote a letter to the editor complaining that Flanagan had not properly attributed items in the story to Lawson. “The exchange offers a glimpse at the sausage-factory aspect of how the magazine handles complaints, and raises interesting questions about what journalists owe, in terms of recognition, to their sources.”
Quality editorial
Two weeks ago, I wrote:
In terms of editorial and quality, I am unconvinced that a voting system like Digg’s can produce a quality editorial product.
Lloyd Shepherd, Deputy Director of Digital Publishing at Guardian Unlimited, has been thinking along similar lines:
Everything we do to “edit” the [Guardian Unlimited] site seeks to keep a balance between editorial instinct and the desires of the audience, and that, in doing that, we may be reflecting the “community” more fairly, both mathematically and ethically, than the likes of digg.
So how do you reflect the community more fairly? Paging Mr. Surowiecki:
In order for a crowd to be smart, [Surowiecki] says it needs to satisfy four conditions: 1. Diversity, 2. Independence, 3. Decentralization, and 4. Aggregation.
Much of the online media we’re familiar with uses a mix of humans and automated systems to perform the aggregating task. Human editors choose the stories that will run in the newspaper (drawing from a number of sources of information as Lloyd illustrated), blog authors select what links and posts to put on their blog (by reading other blogs & media outlets, listening to reader feedback, and sifting through already aggregated sources like del.icio.us or Digg), and the editors of Slashdot filter through hundreds of reader submissions a day to create Slashdot’s front page. Google News uses technology to decide which stories are important, based primarily on what the publishers are publishing. Digg and del.icio.us rely almost entirely on the crowd to submit and determine by a simple vote what stories go on its front page.
Some of these methods work better than others for different tasks. The product of 50,000 diverse, independent, decentralized bloggers is probably more editorially interesting, fair, and complete than that of 50,000 diverse, independent, decentralized Digg users, but the Digg vote & tally approach is less time-intensive for all concerned and the information flows faster. A site like Slashdot sits in the middle…it’s a little slower than Digg but offers a more consistent editorial product. A hybrid Digg+Slashdot approach (which is not unlike the one used by individual bloggers) would be for Digg to produce a “Digg digest”, a human selected (could use simple voting or let the most highly respected community members choose) collection of the best stories of the day that incorporates what was said in the comments and around the web as well. Actually, I think if you wanted to start a blog that did this, it would do very well.
How do audiobook producers deal with things
How do audiobook producers deal with things like footnotes, photos, interesting punctuation, and the like? “The voice manipulation, for which audiobook producer John Runnette used a ‘phone filter’ — a voice-through-the-receiver effect used in radio dramas — was an attempt to aurally convey Mr. Wallace’s discursive, densely footnoted prose.” Includes sample audio with examples. (thx, bill)
A list of the top 100 most valuable
A list of the top 100 most valuable books. Signed first editions numbered 1-100 of Ulysses go for 100,000 pounds apiece. More about the list.
A Natural History of the Senses
When I posted about a cold of mine back in December that completely killed my sense of smell and taste (they’re both back now, thanks), I asked:
I remember reading a book or article once that mentioned a person who lost their sense of taste and when it would briefly return, that person would drop whatever they were doing and go eat a great meal. Anyone know where that story is from?
In response to that post (but not that specific question), I got a nice email from a reader inquiring about my recent preoccupation with smell (I’ve posted a couple other things about smell in the past months) and identified herself as having thought about smell recently as well. I wrote her back and recommended a favorite book of mine, A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, specifically the chapters on smell (my favorite part).
I first read this book back in college for a class and it’s one of the few books I keep going back to every few years to reread[1]. After I sent that email, I went to find my dog-eared copy and started reading it. On page 40, in the section about anosmia, I found the answer to my above query. After a year-long fit of sneezing, Judith Birnberg lost her sense of smell and taste, which returned sporadically thereafter:
The anosmia began without warning… During the past three years there have been brief periods — minutes, even hours — when I suddenly became aware of odors and knew that this meant that I could also taste. What to eat first? A bite of banana once made me cry. On a few occasions a remission came at dinner time, and my husband and I would dash to our favorite restaurant. On two or three occasions I savored every miraculous mouthful through an entire meal. But most times my taste would be gone by the time we parked the car.
I knew I’d read that somewhere!
[1] Other books I’ve read more than once in adulthood[2]:
1984
Contact
Several Roald Dahl books
LoTR series
The Hobbit
Genius
Dark Sun
A People’s History of the United States
1984 I’ve probably read 9 or 10 times since I was 10. With the exception of A People’s History (I think I got the gist the first two times around), I’ll probably continue to reread those books indefinitely. Books I hope to reread soon: Lolita, Infinite Jest.
[2] I reread so many books as a kid, including the Roald Dahl books alluded to above, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
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