Table of contents for The Complete Norton
Table of contents for The Complete Norton Anthology of Emily Dickinson, Post-Zoloft Prescription. Includes “Oh, the ice cubes are melting” and “Today’s a good day for stuff”.
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kottke.org posts about books
Reimagined covers of romance novels
Reimagined covers of romance novels. My favorites are “For the Love of Scottie McMullet” and “Lord of the Tube Socks”.
Jeff Veen’s The Art and Science of
Jeff Veen’s The Art and Science of Web Design is 5 years old. To celebrate, he’s made a proof of the entire book available for download.
The difficulty of pre-ordering the new Harry Potter book online
The difficulty of pre-ordering the new Harry Potter book online. If the book is ordered online, how much after the midnight release will the book be delivered? Next day or wait until after the weekend?
Snow Crash
When I mentioned Neal Stephenson here in February, several people recommended starting with the smaller Snow Crash rather than plunging head-long into Cryptonomicon or the Baroque Cycle. When I ran across a copy in my own household (who knew that we had one?), I picked it up and barely put it back down until I had finished. I mean — come on! — the main character’s name is Hiro Protagonist, but Stephenson has the chops to back that sort of cheesy bullshit up:
The Deliverator’s car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.
Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a roll model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity…
Roll model!
Aside from the entertaining writing, Snow Crash (excerpt) is packed full of ideas. Stephenson gives the reader as much to think about as do the authors of recent non-fiction books like Blink, The Wisdom of Crowds, etc. And whereas Steven Johnson gets a bunch of shit for winkingly calling his book “Everything Bad is Good for You” and suggesting that this miserable culture we’re stuck with might be good for us in some way, readers of Snow Crash might say, “hmm, that’s an interesting idea” and ruminate on it without feeling the need to completely disagree with the whole premise of the book. Is fiction better at presenting ideas in a non-theatening manner than non-fiction? Maybe Gladwell’s next book should be a novel?
Gothamist interviews The Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler
Gothamist interviews The Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler.
Fun new book from O’Reilly’s Hacks series: Astronomy Hacks
Fun new book from O’Reilly’s Hacks series: Astronomy Hacks. “This handy field guide covers the basics of observing, and what you need to know about tweaking, tuning, adjusting, and tricking out a ‘scope.”
Small corrections (from Dave Eggers) to Neal
Small corrections (from Dave Eggers) to Neal Pollack’s piece in the Times Book Review. Includes a response to the response from Neal.
Neal Pollack on how his literary persona
Neal Pollack on how his literary persona got out of hand. “For the last five years, I’ve lived with a dark, obnoxious fictional version of myself. It’s been an irritating time.”
Cory Doctorow’s new book, Someone Comes to
Cory Doctorow’s new book, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, is out today. As usual, the book is available for download under a Creative Commons license.
A project to offer free textbooks (as
A project to offer free textbooks (as opposed to the $120 ones you get at the college bookstore) is looking for some web design help. “In response to the textbook industry’s constant drive to maximize profits instead of educational value, I have started this collection of the existing free textbooks and educational tools available online.”
Flickr to partner with Qoop to offer on-demand photo books
Flickr to partner with Qoop to offer on-demand photo books.
The Teenager’s Guide to the Real World
The Teenager’s Guide to the Real World. The actual real world, not the MTV program.
Book critic Tanya Gold reads Rebbecca Ray’s 1000
Book critic Tanya Gold reads Rebbecca Ray’s 1000-page Newfoundland in one sitting. Hour 13: “I think my eyes are bleeding. Even commas make my face ache.”
Some additional questions and answers from the
Some additional questions and answers from the previously linked David Sedaris interview.
PBS to air three part series on
PBS to air three part series on Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Collection of Chip Kidd’s book cover design
Collection of Chip Kidd’s book cover design work due out in October.
Rebecca is compiling a list of summer reading lists for 2005
Rebecca is compiling a list of summer reading lists for 2005.
A literary map of Manhattan
A literary map of Manhattan. “Here’s where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked, and looked at ducks.”
Excerpt of The Washingtonienne’s self-titled novel
Excerpt of The Washingtonienne’s self-titled novel. Wow, that’s bad. She should have kept her day job.
Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock has
Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock has a book out about fast food.
New collection of nonfiction by David Foster
New collection of nonfiction by David Foster Wallace due out in December.
David McCullough’s 1776 and the tension between academic historians and popularizers
David McCullough’s 1776 and the tension between academic historians and popularizers. Also apropos to the scientists vs. pop science writers argument I’ve been hearing lately re: Blink and Everything Bad is Good for You.
Steve Leveen suggests that people stop finishing
Steve Leveen suggests that people stop finishing books they aren’t enjoying. Compares books to wine, says that we should “taste” a variety of books and only “drink” the ones we really like.
Gladwell reviews Everything Bad is Good for
Gladwell reviews Everything Bad is Good for You for the New Yorker.
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