November 14, 2005

Exceptionally generous review considering the crime mentioned below, which is not for the sheltered minds of overly gentle book-lovers:

Ann Arbor District Library |:

Jonathan Rowe, Ann Arbor native, two-time Hopwood award winner, lawyer (with a recent appearance before the Michigan Supreme Court), and city tennis tournament champion, has written a comic thriller involving a long-time SDS Weather Underground fugitive, sought for her part in an attempted fire bombing of the University law school and the attendant murder of an Ann Arbor policeman. Set in Ann Arbor with local buildings, alleys and parking structures featured in a chase scene, with local street people, and local restaurants. The main character is a tabloid journalist (and disbarred attorney), who breaks and enters, plants bugs and video cameras, misrepresents himself, and, reader please be forewarned, mutilates and steals Ann Arbor District Library materials.

If I remember correctly, Jonathan Rowe is the son of famed theatre critic Kenneth Rowe.

WSJ on Google Rent-A-Book: Prices Too Low for Book Publishers:

Hey, how about lending me that book online for a week? Sound a little odd? Well, that is the new page in Google’s digital book program, according to an article published on the Wall Street Journal ’s Web site Sunday.

The search giant has approached book publishers to measure interest in a concept to allow consumers to essentially rent books online for a week, according to the article. The books would not be downloadable or printable, but that may change, according to an unidentified publisher mentioned as the article’s source. Although the idea presents an excellent opportunity for book publishers to access the emerging digital book market, the proposed fee to end users–10 percent of the list price–was too low, this publisher said.

As a publisher, I agree. 30 or 40 percent of list per week would be more like it. Most people can finish a book in two or three weeks.

What’s missing from this scenario? A convenient way for users to forget to return the books, to drive the same bonus revenue as libraries and video stores get from overdue items.

Spielberg at a USC Q&A:

He is working with writers on the script to Jurassic Park IV and says that there is going to be a big dinosaur sequence where a pack of motorcycles are forced to out run a bunch of Raptors. Spielberg said that just with the other films in the series, he‘s going to “cherry pick” certain scenes he loved from the books and include them in the new film.

Yes, the highly realistic Raptor v. motorcycle sequence … that’s absolutely essential…

TIME.com: The American Tolkien — Nov. 21, 2005 — Page 1:

Martin isn’t the best known of America’s straight-up fantasy writers. That honor would probably go to upstart Christopher Paolini (Eragon), or Robert Jordan (the endlessly turning Wheel of Time series), or better yet to ageless grandmistress Ursula K. LeGuin (A Wizard of Earthsea). But of those who work in the grand epic-fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best. In fact, with his newest book, A Feast for Crows (Bantam; 784 pages), currently descending on bookstores and ascending best-seller lists, this is as good a time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien.

It would have be a lot more impressive if TIME ran this article after the publication of A STORM OF SWORDS. The MSM is always the last to the story.

TIME.com: The American Tolkien — Nov. 21, 2005 — Page 1:

Martin isn’t the best known of America’s straight-up fantasy writers. That honor would probably go to upstart Christopher Paolini (Eragon), or Robert Jordan (the endlessly turning Wheel of Time series), or better yet to ageless grandmistress Ursula K. LeGuin (A Wizard of Earthsea). But of those who work in the grand epic-fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best. In fact, with his newest book, A Feast for Crows (Bantam; 784 pages), currently descending on bookstores and ascending best-seller lists, this is as good a time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien.

GRRM is absolutely my favorite living fiction writer.