November 7, 2005

The Velveteen Footman by Madonna:

I present to you the cover illustration for Madonna’s new children’s book, The Velveteen Footman:

John Fowles, British Writer of Layered Fiction, Dies at 79 - New York Times:

John Fowles, the British writer whose teasing, multilayered fiction explored the tensions between free will and the constraints of society, even as it played with traditional novelistic conventions and challenged readers to find their own interpretations of his work, died on Saturday, his publisher, Random House, told The Associated Press. He was 79.

Mark Cuban is Apostrophe Deficiient:

For whatever reason if I write about something in my blog, some people think Im mad about it. Im not. I write about the things that I would enjoy sitting down and discussing with someone else interested in that topic.

And on and on. I counted 19 apostrophe-free uses of the term “Im.” What is an “Im?”

Mark Cuban has made a huge and well-deserved fortune as an innovator. This, however, is just plain wrong.

VICTORIA, BC, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ — Abebooks.com, the world’s largest online marketplace for new and used books, has acquired BookFinder.com - the leading price comparison shopping service dedicated to books.

The acquisition unites two pioneering independent forces in Internet bookselling. Both companies are privately owned and profitable. Both companies were initially developed in 1996, support independent booksellers and share the same mission of making online book buying easy.

Great news for book-lovers who like to buy used books online.

Scotsman.com News - Features - Opening the door to the real Rosslyn:

Ian [Robertson] is darting around Rosslyn Chapel, pointing out the areas where Dan Brown got it all wrong in his best-selling book The Da Vinci Code. For he and another historian, Mark Oxbrow, have just published Rosslyn and The Grail, their take on the Holy Grail myth which surrounds the Midlothian chapel and which has spawned a major tourism industry and a Hollywood blockbuster starring Tom Hanks.

What would Harry Potter and Dan Brown fans do without THE SCOTSMAN’s excellent arts coverage?

British-Russian online audiobook publishers AudioBooksForFree.Com PLC
(ABFF), have produced and recorded Koran in East-London accent.

It can be downloaded in MP3 format from:

http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/download/default.asp?refnum=1000580

Amazing.

The most deserving title in today’s Amazon.com Movers & Shakers:

Amazon.com Movers & Shakers - Books:

1388% today ~ Amazon.com Sales Rank: 18 (was 268)
First Man : The Life of Neil A. Armstrong

The sales spike most likely driven by a very positive review in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review.

When we were driving between Dayton and Ann Arbor, we would often stop at the Neil Armstrong Museum in Wapokoneta, mile 111 on I-75, because I wanted to pay honor to this genuinely great man.

THE NEXT ATTACK Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon:

“We are losing.

“Four years and two wars after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, America is heading for a repeat of the events of that day, or perhaps something worse. Against our most dangerous foe, our strategic position is weakening.”

So begins Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon’s sobering new book, “The Next Attack.” The authors, two of President Bill Clinton’s counterterrorism aides, draw a persuasive and utterly frightening picture of the current state of America’s war on terror.

Instant reaction: this would be a far more impressive “Chicken Little” argument if not for the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11. Nevertheless, the rest of Michiko’s review makes it clear that this is an important, well-reasoned book that is worth reading.

A FEAST OF FANTASY: Author has grown-ups clamoring like kids for the latest ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ novel:

About 300,000 hardcover copies of the new book are being released on Tuesday in the United States and Canada, a staggering number for a book that has more than 750 pages and doesn’t have “J.K. Rowling” on the cover. About 2.5 million copies of the first three books are in print here and Canada, and they’ve been translated into 24 languages.

But the raw numbers don’t quite capture the passion Martin fans are feeling. I read the first three books — “A Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings” and “A Storm of Swords” — and I yearned to read Martin’s fourth book more than any other this year.

Excellent article by book reviewer who “gets it.”

Madonna Hearts Harry Potter:

housands of fans including pop star Madonna descended on central London on Sunday for the world premiere of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” the fourth installment of a hugely successful series of films.

I’m not sure I thought I’d ever see these two pop superphenomena in such close juxtaposition.