These are some blogging features that I've wanted for some time, and I think they'd help with the whole cross-pollination aspect of the genre (some would probably say "fertilization", after the hype of the past year)
Posted by brian at 04:37 PM
Books For Soldiers is a soldier support site that ships books, DVDs and supplies to deployed soldiers and soldiers in VA hospitals, via our large volunteer network.
Posted by brian at 03:29 PM
While recovering, Smith writes Babel, her fifth book of poetry.
Posted by brian at 06:53 PM
Unfortunately, I suspect my coworker didn't really start working on the front end until Thanksgiving. And then, you know , there's the holidays. And then, of course, his trip to India.
Posted by brian at 09:24 AM
that time of year, when tiresome "Best Of" lists and endless recaps of events and famous deaths are as obiquitous as "The DaVinci Code".
Posted by brian at 08:00 PM
My guess is that he is fairly proud of his cardboard characters, mishmashed facts and page turning puzzles
Posted by brian at 01:57 PM
Grandpa died here, and he was mean. His ghost is still around here!
Posted by brian at 01:17 PM
`though the "Da Vinci Code" was such a hacked together assemblage that I'm sure he will have a long and prosperous career churning out similar movilizations.
Posted by brian at 11:44 AM
Children's books, cookbooks and "the hard subjects -- math, science, accounting" -- go the fastest, he says. "People take books to learn a skill like accounting. They can't afford to go to school; this is how they're getting their education."
Posted by brian at 04:05 PM
Out of each grouping of 3, choose one to Marry, one to Shag and the third poor bastard gets tossed over a Cliff
Posted by brian at 10:09 AM
But I'm tired of seeing folks my age, with less drive and ability, parading around with small armies under them at work, while I get to play the know-it-all flunky.
Posted by brian at 03:54 PM
One of the most annoying things about "BUCKS" (as some annoying post-collegiate consumers I've encountered call it) is their cheesy little lingo. There's no SMALL, just TALL. No MEDIUM but instead Grande. You can't get a LARGE , only a DURANGO or a ...
Posted by brian at 05:30 AM
My cultural antennae picked up the scent of a literate comedy of manners and I pounced upon the book up like a Bertie Wooster spying a gin and tonic.
Posted by brian at 01:50 PM
A quick take on three bookish subjects
Posted by brian at 03:08 PM
This confirms what I've always believed, people won't pay for something to read just once, but they will pay to own something twice.
Posted by brian at 01:36 PM
I've been on vacation. A sort of forced, working vacation, if you consider taking care of children and the daily deteritus of existential errands to be work.
Posted by brian at 11:44 AM
Brian, thanks again for the great story! As discussed, we have donated $50 to Make A Wish in your name.
Posted by brian at 11:12 AM
e swore everyone to secrecy and even invented fictional biographies for the pseudonymous authors. The Stratemeyer Syndicate went on to publish about 700 titles under more than sixty-five pseudonyms.
Posted by brian at 04:02 PM
And then, as she continued counting each copper penny, he reached into his pocket, and slammed a handful more on the table. ...
Posted by brian at 02:06 PM
I also have the e-mail intruders to deal with and they are another, more difficult, story. I'm going to lock down that address, filter out anyone who isn't on an authorized list.
Posted by brian at 11:27 AM
It came to me without super powers, stripped of cape and tights. Just a story of several generations tied to that most American preoccupation, baseball.
Posted by brian at 02:07 PM
Yet I still feel that there's something counter-intuitive in the way books are currently made and sold. It would be fun to crunch numbers to validate this hunch.
Posted by brian at 03:05 PM
An idea that I believe offers more hope for the possibility of profitable publishing than disintermediation or removing barriers to entry ever did
Posted by brian at 01:52 PM
scammer's might be sleazy and sophisticated, technically, but they aren't too subtle
Posted by brian at 04:29 PM
Google adds the content, and the vain , the insane and just plain avaricious will arrive, agendas and applications in hand.
Posted by brian at 01:15 PM
It is only a matter of time before product placement is employed by less ethical artists, syndicate whores who will pimp out Beetle Bailey or the Family Circus with an eye only for the money shot.
Posted by brian at 12:55 PM
The one title I AM interested in is Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt. I plan to read it, whether it wins or not, because it sounds fucking brilliant.
Posted by brian at 06:44 PM
I had a coworker, a very nice guy, from Indian, ask me the other day "what is this Halloween?".
Posted by brian at 12:15 PM
I'd be down on the Mall between 7th and 14th Streets watching the authors auth and the sponsors sponse.
Posted by brian at 11:36 AM
Posted by brian at 06:44 PM
Each week the audience could see the writers hard at work, drafting and dissecting their narratives by day, judging each other's stories and drinking white wine from a box in the evenings.
Posted by brian at 09:57 AM
If you don't think this is a real issue in America today, then you haven't been paying attention.
Posted by brian at 03:21 PM
This is an interesting distinction, first blog in print. Perhaps dead trees falling on newstands ARE heard after all.
Posted by brian at 04:00 PM
At the bottom of the final page of Fitzgerald's comments Hemingway wrote, 'Kiss my ass.'
Posted by brian at 05:02 PM
Anne Rice is busy losing her cool on the Amazon forums. This has been batted all about the blogs, now the "regular" news has picked up the story.
Posted by brian at 03:40 PM
The goal, devise a simple logo for Automachina.com. Staring at the page long enough I might discern some patterns in these famous online brandnames. If you see any similarities that might translate into a Super Duper Logo Formulo, let me know.
Posted by brian at 10:37 AM
Children that have had to cope with their parent's divorce before kindergarten should be able to understand that "the world is going in a way that's contrary to the rules you're told about"
Posted by brian at 01:24 PM
I'm forever interpreting signs and omens. I'ts surprising, then, that I've never noticed this string of September birthdays before, given that mine just passed one week ago. Still trusting in tea leaves has proven mercurial, much like the writing ...
Posted by brian at 10:19 AM
As you can see, exhaustion is taking its toll on my judgement.
Posted by brian at 09:25 AM
They made their original money the old fashioned way, with rum, sodomy and the lash.
Posted by brian at 07:40 AM
I left unsaid that while some people DO want to talk about their work, unless it involves taking one's clothes off for money, no one else wants to listen.
Posted by brian at 07:00 AM
She's since given up on publishing and moved on to a field that still contains real integrity, journalism.
Posted by brian at 05:24 PM
In genre news, God Sex is apparently the hot new thing.
Posted by brian at 12:10 PM
These documents have been locked down tighter than my employer's purse strings. Now you, me and our ugly cousins are virtually free to paw all over them.
Posted by brian at 10:52 AM
I believe in these artificial divisions about as much as I do those "sky is falling" no-one-is-reading surveys. I think lots of folks are reading, even talk show hosts are discussing Steinbeck and Gabrial Garcia Marquez.
Posted by brian at 04:48 PM
I am not sure why I created the opening animation, mostly to use a bit of javascript abstraction I'd created. If you'll indulge me, I'll outline it here, in full technical gobbledygook.
Posted by brian at 03:18 PM
This is known as "dogfooding", the practise of using the very thing you are selling, in the hope of finding problems or discovering potential improvements.
Posted by brian at 12:30 PM
A prowling cat appeared to be hunting mice, and it was not unreasonable to assume that his search would be rewarded.
Posted by brian at 01:33 PM
Nope, I'll freely call myself a geek because I admit I want this.
Posted by brian at 05:13 AM
A warning to the uninterested: a brief technical summary of how the FreakBlog works follows. I'm documenting the mechanics here, as a double decker bus may just kill ,well if not the both of us then, at the least, me. and there needs to ...
Posted by brian at 04:52 PM
This is the project I am turning into a company, this is the business that I plan to blog.
Posted by brian at 08:48 PM
'You can't sit around and wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.' Jack LondonPosted by brian at 02:20 PM
I've so many links that I'm not bothering to check lately, and I'm adding to the list every day. So I've started using FURL to keep my clicking organized.
Posted by brian at 12:30 PM