Fabulous Majungasaurus pix from Newsday.
This image is what Science Phile is all about!
Inside Google Book Search: New Proof of (Long Tail) Concept
What’s the long tail theory? The idea in the context of book publishing is that online exposure has the potential to capture what might otherwise be lost book sales.
As I observed previously, actual long tail data presented at this Book Industry Study Group conference is rather underwhelming. In most markets the long tail appears to amount to around 25% of total revenue. Significant, to be sure, but the stuff of operating efficiencies, not market revolutions.
Defamer, the L.A. Gossip Rag: First Rumblings Of A ‘Da Vinci Code’ Disappointment
Based on the first reviews trickling in from an eve-of-premiere press screening of The Da Vinci Code at Cannes, this might be a good time for the Imagine assistants to make a busy-work project of re-alphabetizing the office take-out menu binder in anticipation of a possible office-lockdown lunch of shame once their bosses return to LA from their promotional rail tour on the Blasphemy Express. An early Da Vinci Code panning round-up (links in Defamer article):
· “The feeling moved quickly from one of great anticipation to one of, shockingly, great boredom…instead of the film building to a white knuckle conclusion, it was the audience fidgeting as Da Vinci passed the two-hour mark and unveiled the first of its half-dozen endings…by the time the big climactic moment of the film finally arrived, the audience burst out laughing, as if this were yet another classic bit of Tom Hanks comedy. As the credits rolled, not a single bit of applause was heard.” [FilmStew]
· “[R]eaction from Cannes critics ranged from mild endorsement of its potboiler suspense to groans of ridicule over its heavy melodrama. ‘It’s a movie about whether the greatest story ever told is true or not, and it’s not the greatest movie ever screened, is it?’ said Baz Bamigboye, a film columnist for London’s Daily Mail. ‘As a thriller, well,’ he continued, shrugging.” [AP]
· “‘Nothing really works. It’s not suspenseful. It’s not romantic. It’s certainly not fun,’ said Stephen Schaefer of the Boston Herald. ‘It seems like you’re in there forever. And you’re conscious of how hard everybody’s working to try to make sense of something that basically perhaps is unfilmable.’ [Reuters]
· “[D]irector Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn’t exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material; result is perhaps the best thing the project’s critics could have hoped for.” [Variety]
Uh-oh.
This reader knows not the journey he has begun
Reading The Da Vinci Code, “Harry Potter for adults” comes to mind. There’s a sense that writer Dan Brown and Potter author J. K. Rowling attended the same creative writing course.
“Tell the story using the simplest words you can,” their instructor might have advised. “You’re not writing poetry here. People aren’t looking for colour or rhythm or even a bon mot now and then; just tell the damn story.”
Ouch.
The game of Clue is quickly solved: It was the albino in the museum with the revolver.
But wait. Show me a mystery in which a murderous albino works for himself, and I’ll show you a flawed mystery.
Zing! Good one.
courant.com | ‘DaVinci’ A Godsend To Book Industry
Heckuva job, Brownie!
Dan Brown’s novel “The DaVinci Code” – which suggests Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the Catholic Church suppressed that history (and women in general) and the Renaissance genius’s paintings hide clues to the whole story – is a publishing phenomenon. The author may be a false prophet, but his profits are for real, and Friday will mark the book’s second coming, so to speak: the film version starring Tom Hanks.
The release of The Da Vinci Code movie is stirring the creative juices of the world’s reporters. Good one, Brownie!
Official Google Blog: Note this
The copyright policy described here:
Information about publishing content
When using Google Notebook, please remember to respect the hard work (and rights) of the people that created the content. Publishing a notebook is the same as creating your own webpage — don’t include content in your notebook that you couldn’t legally publish on your own webpage.
Is completely disingenuous. The whole point of the Notebook application is to grab other people’s copyrighted web pages and put them in the Google Notebook, where they can be made searchable with a single click.
Google has considerately deactivated Google Notebook on Google Book Search pages like this one (my Harry Potter book): no context menu drop-down is available.
PRESS RELEASE Move Over “Da Vinci Code”
Move Over “Da Vinci Code”
“The Key To Solomon’s Key” Ignites Historical Bombshell of ‘Biblical’ Proportions
MIDDLEFIELD, MA — (MARKET WIRE) — 05/16/2006 — Readers looking for an even more striking revelation will find it in a controversial new book that hits bookstores next week. “The Key To Solomon’s Key, Secrets of Magic and Masonry,” by Lon DuQuette, brings subjects of mystery and intrigue, Freemasonry, Knights Templar and King Solomon, to an astounding conclusion. DuQuette, a celebrated occult author and Mason, reveals for the first time an intricately woven connection between King Solomon’s legend and the Templar/Masonic legacy.
Loon alert.
Not that I shouldn’t take a glance or two in the mirror…
My Notebook
Last edited May 16, 2006
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My first public Google Notebook.
Now, this is a useful book!
PixyJack Press
Colorado author Linda Masterson dispels myths, replaces fear with respect, and lays the foundation for improving human-black bear relations with an inside look at the fascinating world of these highly intelligent, adaptable and resourceful animals.
Almost all bear ‘problems’ are preventable if people have the information and motivation they need to coexist with bears,” says Masterson. “Being bear-prepared protects property and lives, both human and bear. Something as simple as putting your trash out in the morning instead of the night before can cut your chances of a bear visit from 70 percent to just 2 percent.”
Hard Case Crime’s “Say It With Bullets” Optioned By Caribou Films; Blaine Novak (“They All Laughed,” “Strangers Kiss”) to Write and Produce
Hard Case Crime’s March 2006 title — Richard Powell’s “Say It With Bullets” — has been sold to the movies; the screenplay is being written by Blaine Novak, a writer/director who has worked with Audrey Hepburn, Jack Nicholson, and Peter Bogdanovich. Author Richard Powell is no stranger to the movies — Woody Allen based “Bananas” on one of Powell’s books, Elvis Presley based “Follow That Dream” on another, and Robert Vaughn got an Oscar nomination for his co-starring role with Paul Newman in a third. But Powell’s novels had largely been forgotten until “Say It With Bullets” was reissued earlier this year, making it available for the first time in 50 years.
In addition to “Say It With Bullets,” Richard Powell wrote the best-selling “Arab and Andy” mystery novels in the 1940s, about a husband-and-wife team of crime solvers, as well as “Don Quixote USA,” which was the original inspiration for Woody Allen’s movie “Bananas.” He also wrote “The Philadelphian,” which was filmed as “The Young Philadelphians” starring Paul Newman and Robert Vaughn (who received an Oscar nomination for his role), and “Pioneer, Go Home!,” which was the basis for Elvis Presley’s movie “Follow That Dream.” Rights to Richard Powell’s works are controlled by his daughter, Dorothy Powell Quigley, and represented by Curtis Brown, Ltd.
“We’re proud to have played a role in bringing this book, and Richard Powell’s work in general, back into the spotlight where it belongs,” said Charles Ardai, founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, who will also serve as an executive producer on the film. “How often does a book written more than 50 years ago make you laugh out loud? If the book in question is ‘Say It With Bullets,’ the answer is many, many times.”
Old school. Hard Case Crime just keeps getting better and better.
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