Archive for December, 2007

Smoking in the Boys’ Room

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Self-described “pulp writer” Christa Faust, who recently won an award for her novelization of the 2006 film Snakes on a Plane, celebrates another coup with the January release of Money Shot: the first female writer in Dorchester’s neo-noir Hard Case Crime imprint. How does it feel to break into the Hard Case Crime boys’ club? It’s really fantastic, almost unreal.

Children’s Book Reviews: Week of 12/10/07

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Fiction Reviews: Week of 12/3/2007

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Fiction Reviews: Week of 12/10/2007

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

NBCC Launches Alternative to Bestseller Lists

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

In an attempt to provide an alternative to sales-driven bestsellers lists, the NBCC is launching a monthly list of recommendations compiled based on polls of well-known writers and critics, and NBCC members.

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 12/10

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

In this roundup: celebrity Bar Mitzvahs, the science of Oz, top-shelf drinking stories, the view from Mexico, ancient sex advice and the tragic demise of us, your humble critics.

Fiction Reviews: Week of 11/26/2007

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 12/3

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Featured this week: William Steig, women in Iraq, the mysteries of time, Budweiser’s culinary aspirations, terrorist psyches and the unlikely power of the petite.

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 11/19

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

This week’s list gets salacious with carnal robots, striptease pioneer Gilded Lili St. Cyr and good old-fashioned Bets, Drugs and Rock & Roll; sentimental with family dinner and other people’s dogs; serious with psychotherapy and women’s tales of Choice; and sick fresh with Streewear from around the globe.

E-book standards: Will Bill Gates do a Carnegie act and help books and libraries–or just go for the quick buck?

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Is this guy—yep, that’s a picture of Andrew Carnegie—actually reincarnated in the body of Bill Gates?
Gates’ people have d…

IDPF election results: Positive news for .epub standard for e-books

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Garth Conboy of eBook Technologies Inc., Frank Daniels III of Ingram, Bill McCoy of Adobe and Steve Potash of OverDrive won the latest bo…

Adobe-Amazon DRM snafu shows need for librarians to help e-stores back up ‘protected’ books

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

“I had a system crash two years ago, and after restoring 60 e-books in PDF format I was unable to get them authorized again,” PC Magazi…

E Ink readers: Three promising nonKindles–and a Kindle DRM bypass for owners of legal Mobipocket files (but read the fine print)

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

PW’s Calvin Reid likes the Kindle e-book reader. So do some others, such as a 75-year-old man enchanted with the Kindle’s large-type act. Thi…

No e-reader software needed for novices to enjoy bestsellers and other books from eBooks.com–and the sales stats are ‘the proof of the pudding’

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

E-book novices can be put off by the hassles of installing e-book software and dealing with DRM and the Tower of eBabel, all those clashing e-book …

IDPF, main e-book trade group, draws six more board candidates in December 12-19 election

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

So who else is running for the board of the International Digital Publishing Forum, the main trade group in the e-book industry?
Nominations clos…

Aspiring editors: A bunch of techno-dummies?

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

My friend Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti is hardly a full-fledged geek; rather, a writer-poet-photographer and alum of David R. Godine, Inc., where she wor…

No Newsweek hoopla, but the main e-book standards group is quietly working toward a level playing field

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

While some love the idea of one humongous company offering an iPod for e-books, the main e-book standards group is quietly working toward a more …

Evan Schnittman, OUP: The Kindle’s for my sister-in-law, not techies–and I wouldn’t have it any other way

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Think DRM is a necessary evil? Love the iPod model for e-books–built around Amazon’s Kindle? Today’s your day. E-Book Report’s guest blogger is …

Why the Amazon Kindle is Jeff Bezos’ accidental Christmas gift to federal snoops

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

People who’ve tried the Amazon Kindle tend to say it’s good for e-book novices who want a convenient, easy-to-learn e-book-reader.
But coul…

The Amazon Kindle and the e-book price wars (Part II)

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

E-book prices of even new bestsellers are finally competitive with P–aided by Amazon’s discounting of the hits in Kindle format to $10, typically….

The Amazon Kindle and the e-book price wars (Part I)

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

On Black Friday sales day, I resisted the urge to head to Best Buy for discounted gizmos, and instead I compared the prices of best-sellers from so…

‘An E-Book Thanksgiving’–for Jeff Bezos and his Kindle buddies at Amazon

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the United States. PW readers outside the U.S. can get the real lowdown from an old column by the late Art Buchwal…

Huh? The Kindle e-reader ISN’T ugly? So says Steve Levy, author of Newsweek puff piece–replying to E-Book Report and other killjoys

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

So, gang, is Amazon’s Kindle e-reader really a thing of beauty? The overwhelming reaction online is a big fat No. “Same fugly hot me…

Amazon-sized egos? Kindle reader to shun IDPF e-book standard? And, yes, the ugly box is the FINAL design

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Yikes! Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader will be just as ugly as a prototype hinted–like a prop from an old sci-fi horror flick. But I appreciate the …

An e-book guy sees promise in the $100 children’s laptop (Part II)

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Here is why I see promise in the $100 laptop (yes, prices will eventually fall that low) as an e-book machine regardless of current flaws:
–…