Entertainer Dan Aykroyd posts on some ghost stories. Allegedly real ones, that is.
DA: Doctor Hans Holzer, probably the world's most credible and respected ghostbuster, writes in his Travel Guide to Haunted Houses (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers): "A ghost appears to be a surviving emotional memory of someone who died traumatically... but is unaware of his or her death." Wait! So ghosts are just our memories of those who have lived before? More...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Meet the vooks
We're fine with new forms of entertainment, or mixing and matching media, but we also believe that books are fine the way they are as a reading experience (on paper or electronically). David Finkle, from a similar perspective, examines the "vook."
DF: Vooks, in case you don't know, are books that come with supplementary videos to liven up dull old printed text. The idea is that reading is tiresome -- is, in the words of Times reporter Motoko Rich, "an archaic form of entertainment." This, from a journalist for one of our prime newspapers of record who doesn't indicate she's quoting anyone. She's speaking... I refuse to be a beetle-browed, archaic curmudgeon but intend to remain cheerful in the face of the inexorable march of time that throws up innovations like vooks and asks us to be serious about them. Truth is, we must be serious about them. More...
DF: Vooks, in case you don't know, are books that come with supplementary videos to liven up dull old printed text. The idea is that reading is tiresome -- is, in the words of Times reporter Motoko Rich, "an archaic form of entertainment." This, from a journalist for one of our prime newspapers of record who doesn't indicate she's quoting anyone. She's speaking... I refuse to be a beetle-browed, archaic curmudgeon but intend to remain cheerful in the face of the inexorable march of time that throws up innovations like vooks and asks us to be serious about them. Truth is, we must be serious about them. More...
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The modern bookstore
From the Huffington Post, a piece on the place of independent bookstores in community life.
HP: In October of 2008, as the financial world was crumbling, my wife and I bought a bookstore. This might strike some as slightly crazier than buying up the world's supply of phone booths or carbon paper, and at the worst possible time at that. But it wasn't insanity that made us take the plunge. It was our confidence that the physical book will continue as a medium for long-form text...that local bookstores are central to the life of their communities; and that technological developments are, in fact, shifting the economic advantage back to the local bookstore. I'll focus on this last point for now. More...
HP: In October of 2008, as the financial world was crumbling, my wife and I bought a bookstore. This might strike some as slightly crazier than buying up the world's supply of phone booths or carbon paper, and at the worst possible time at that. But it wasn't insanity that made us take the plunge. It was our confidence that the physical book will continue as a medium for long-form text...that local bookstores are central to the life of their communities; and that technological developments are, in fact, shifting the economic advantage back to the local bookstore. I'll focus on this last point for now. More...
How not to write a query letter
A message to aspiring authors: do your homework. Walt Shiel explains why.
WS: If an author can’t (or won’t) take the time to do a few minutes of research and follow the simple, straightforward directions we provide, why would I expect that author to follow any subsequent instructions or to handle himself in a businesslike manner? More...
WS: If an author can’t (or won’t) take the time to do a few minutes of research and follow the simple, straightforward directions we provide, why would I expect that author to follow any subsequent instructions or to handle himself in a businesslike manner? More...
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Reevaluation of E. A. Poe
This interesting article via Critial Mass talks about the decline in Poe's readership, and raises serious questions about his writing.
CM: As we approach the 160th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s death on October 7 – and it seems more fitting to talk about Poe on the anniversary of his death than of his birth – it might be time for a revaluation of sorts. In How To Read and Why, Harold Bloom commented that Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and stories, “despite their permanent worldwide popularity, are atrociously written ... and benefit by translation, even into English.” Ouch! Bloom is right about Poe’s stories and poems being atrociously written; they are often prolix and florid and most of them seem to have been written in a tone of near hysteria – though, considering most of Poe’s subject matter, one could argue that the tone was appropriate. More...
CM: As we approach the 160th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s death on October 7 – and it seems more fitting to talk about Poe on the anniversary of his death than of his birth – it might be time for a revaluation of sorts. In How To Read and Why, Harold Bloom commented that Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and stories, “despite their permanent worldwide popularity, are atrociously written ... and benefit by translation, even into English.” Ouch! Bloom is right about Poe’s stories and poems being atrociously written; they are often prolix and florid and most of them seem to have been written in a tone of near hysteria – though, considering most of Poe’s subject matter, one could argue that the tone was appropriate. More...
Woolf vs. Hemingway
Virginia Woolf reviews Ernest Hemingway, from the Tin House Books blog.
TNB: Of Mr. Hemingway, we know that he is an American living in France, an ‘advanced’ writer, we suspect, connected with what is called a movement, though which of the many we own that we do not know. It will be well to make a little more certain of these matters by reading first Mr. Hemingway’s earlier book, The Sun Also Rises, and it soon becomes clear from this that, if Mr. Hemingway is ‘advanced’ it is not in the way that is to us most interesting. More...
TNB: Of Mr. Hemingway, we know that he is an American living in France, an ‘advanced’ writer, we suspect, connected with what is called a movement, though which of the many we own that we do not know. It will be well to make a little more certain of these matters by reading first Mr. Hemingway’s earlier book, The Sun Also Rises, and it soon becomes clear from this that, if Mr. Hemingway is ‘advanced’ it is not in the way that is to us most interesting. More...
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Check out the latest Big Thrill
The Big Thrill website is updated for October with tons of reviews and features.
BT: The autumn colors are spreading across the landscape and cooler weather is moving in, but there's still heat radiating off the pages of this month's Big Thrill selections. The October list includes 28 exciting new thrillers from some of your favorite authors and features the debut of 4 brand-new writers... More.
BT: The autumn colors are spreading across the landscape and cooler weather is moving in, but there's still heat radiating off the pages of this month's Big Thrill selections. The October list includes 28 exciting new thrillers from some of your favorite authors and features the debut of 4 brand-new writers... More.
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