I went shopping in town today. Second stop – Galaxy. Robin Hobb has a new book out, which is the first part of trilogy. One of the staff said that it was a good read if you enjoyed her previous work. I might get it next time (if I manage to get through enough of my backlog). One I won’t… Read more →
I stopped at Kings Comics before the movie and found the MirrorMask Illustrated Script book. Expensive, but beautiful with big colour plates of Dave McKean’s work and smaller black and white storyboard illustrations accompanying the script. I think that it’s one of the things I’ll get Neil to sign when he comes to Galaxy on the 20th of July. I… Read more →
I love reading Neil Gaiman’s journal. He always seems to find (or be told about) the quirkiest stuff, including this. Lethem was responsible for The Fortress of Solitude, which I have read an extract of and thought was so-so. Chabon wrote Kavalier and Clay which was really good, and Summerland, which I couldn’t finish and thought was fairly bad.
Kuro5hin has been a bit dull recently, but I found this article interesting. It confirms my suspicions about Orson Scott Card’s politics, and why I got bored of reading his work. Not having read any Hitler biographies, I can’t comment on the parallels between Ender and Hitler, but, the final straw for me was Card’s essay blasting the press for… Read more →
A story about how DRM can be bad for customers. A professor spent $172 on ebooks from Adobe, upgraded Acrobat and now can’t access these books. Amazon (from whom he bought the book) don’t want to know, and suggest that he’s changed computers, or somehow trying to rort the system. Yep. Punish the customer – that always works.
It’s a headline joke that doesn’t work as well as it should. Alan Moore has had a history with DC about creator ownership and corporate attitudes, and hasn’t been happy with the cinematic adaptions of his work. This all came to a head when he was embroiled in a lawsuit over similarities between The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and another… Read more →
He just posted a tentative set of dates on his blog which show that he is in Sydney on the 20th of July. I’mk not sure where yet, but I expect that Galaxy is almost certainly on the list of bookshops he will visit.
Neil has posted an extract from Anansi Boys on his blog. It’s good stuff and I look forward to the book itself.
BoingBoing reports that Andre Norton has died (Boing Boing: Andre Norton, RIP). Farewell to one of my favourite childhood authors. I devoured all I could read of her work from the high school library.
On the weekend I bought the most wonderful book by Christopher J. Moore, called “In Other Words”. It’s a list of words and phrases in various languages that are untranslatable in their full meaning. There are so many great entries including: yoko meshi [yoh-koh mesh-ee] (noun) “As an untranslatable, this one ranks high on my list of favorites. I could… Read more →
As an adjunct to the last post, I thought I’d list the contents of the pile of book already waiting to be read. I also have a lot of DVDs piled up as well. The Locus Awards – bought mainly for a Neil Gaiman story The Shipping news – I haven’t really been able to get into Proulx’s work but… Read more →
(like I don’t have enough to read) I went to Gleebooks today on my way back from getting my tax return done. I was there mainly to renew my book club membership, but also to buy a copy of 1984. Instead of that, I ended up with the following: Eats Shoots & Leaves – a zero tolerance approach to punctuation,… Read more →
