8 Practical Uses For The Giant Graphic Novel 'George Sprott, 1894-1975'

George Sprott:Seriously, it's really big. Glen Weldon

 

by Glen Weldon

... Once you're done reading it, that is.

And you really should read it; it's pretty great. Mononimal cartoonist Seth delivers an intriguing, multifaceted meditation on the life and death of a fictional small-time television personality.

It's a thoughtful, quietly compelling read: His omniscient narrator keeps apologizing to us for getting the details wrong, while a parade of Sprott's colleagues and family members offer up eulogies that intersect in oblique, surprising ways.

George Sprott was originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine, but now that it's been bound in a handsome single volume, you can pick up on the momentum of the thing, the intricacy of its structure and the melancholic grace of the writing.

Seth mixes in flashbacks from Sprott's life as an Arctic explorer -- we turn a page, and a coldly beautiful blue-white landscape stretches before our eyes. Turn the page again, and we're back in the sepia-toned routine of television's golden age.

And then there's the sheer size of this great honking slab of a book. At 12 inches wide and 14 inches long, George Sprott is only the latest in a slew of graphic novels that seem to have been proportioned for natives of Brobdingnag. Last year's mammoth comic anthology, Kramer's Ergot 7, clocks in at a massive 16 inches by 21 inches. Seaweed, Ben Balisteri's loopy all-ages seafaring adventure, measures 12 inches by 15 inches; even DC and Marvel's regularly published Absolute and Masterworks collected editions are super-sized.

Titantic tomes repurposed, after the jump.

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10:11 AM ET | 06-24-2009 | permalink

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'The Shelf Of Constant Reproach': Best Books You Never Read

The Shelf Of Constant Reproach: Somehow, it's never quite the right time... iStockphoto.com

 

by Lynn Neary

I'm on vacation this week. Of course, I took a pile of books with me to our cottage on a pristine lake. I have to read one of those books before the week is out. Another, I should read. I might be able to squeeze in a third, but the rest? Well, they're likely to land on what my colleague Luis Clemens calls his "Shelf Of Constant Reproach."

Surely some of you know what we're talking about: that shelf filled with books you meant to read or, more likely, fully intend to read some day. When Luis introduced that phrase at a meeting last week, we all admitted to some revered works of literature on our shelves. "Anything by Proust!" some of us shouted out. Then we wondered what titles our book-loving listeners might have on their shelves of shame?

So to get things going, I sheepishly offer this short list of the books I know I should have read...but haven't.

Get Lynn's list of guilt-inducing masterpieces, after the jump.

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12:48 PM ET | 06-16-2009 | permalink

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'The Strain' Liveblog: Gulping Down All The Horror In A Day

The Strain: Can one arts reporter devour it in one day? We're pretty confident.

 

by Neda Ulaby

[Ed. Note: Arts reporter Neda Ulaby took today to read The Strain and write about it as she went. At the bottom of the post — which is where we started with Chapter 1, so if you're just joining us you should start there too — you'll find some background on the book. She's now finished with the book. Obviously, massive spoilers follow.]

Where We Stand: The End

Chapter 15: The Clan...And Epilogue

I'm combining these two because they're both really, really short. It becomes clear that Eph will never get back together with his ex-wife, mostly because he's not into her new squidlike tongue and desire to gnaw upon their son's tender neck.

We meet a bunch of other aged vampires, who've retired to a Pennsylvania asbestos mine. Their Zen-like centeredness comes as a huge relief after all the shrieks of "Nooo!" fading from Manhattan. As befits the first part of a trilogy, the plotline simply goes slack.

Thanks for joining me in this liveblogging experiment. I hope you read The Strain, not in an office chair, under florescent lights, but on a beach or a porch, uninterrupted, reading until the sky darkens and the air chills. Enjoy.

Chapter 14: Lair

The Master has kidnapped Eph's ex-wife, making not a speck of sense. Why would an ancient supernatural entity need to borrow tactics from a drug cartel?

Finally, we get a good gander at the Master, and guess what--he looks a bit like a beast from Pan's Labyrinth, with a hairless, colorless head and worn, washed out apertures. Maybe for the screen version, GDT plans on throwing some work towards Doug Jones, whom he's used in several of his films.

Society is totally disintegrating, by the way, with most everyone in New York undead, and vampire gangs hunting each other by the light of burning buildings. It's a bit silly.

Our heroes' plans for mass immolation of the vampires is thwarted because Eph is so eager to rescue his ex-wife, even though her kidnapping makes no sense. Even more irritatingly, his rush to storm the Master's penthouse means they have to pass up a chance to destroy the Master's coffin. Which makes no sense. No sense. Hundreds of souls.

I'm a little disappointed. What started off as a tight, smart scary book has devolved, in my view, into high camp, with language along the lines of "You will taste my silver, strigoi!" and repetitive vampire/human evisceration. It's fine and even admirable to evoke the flavor of B movies but this tips over into the realm of straight-to-DVD.

More of the liveblog, after the jump...

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10:35 AM ET | 06- 8-2009 | permalink

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The Geeky Dreamboat: Is He Under Siege By Regular Dreamboats?

Michael Cera: He's one of the actual Geeky Dreamboats in a book of the same name. Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

I recently got my first look at Geeky Dreamboats, an oddly adorable little amuse bouche of a photo album showing...well, geeky dreamboats.

Written by Sarah O'Brien and Lacey Soslow (Soslow is, wonderfully, billed as the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Michael Cera fan club), Geeky Dreamboats is styled to look like an old-school issue of Tiger Beat or Bop, and it comes with a nifty little puffy cover that really does make you feel like you're caressing one of your possessions from junior high. (Which is also how you can tell it's aimed at women who are too old for unironic discussion of dreamboats.)

I have to say, while the book does cover the usual suspects (Cera, Jason Schwartzman, Justin Long), what it really demonstrates is that "geeky dreamboat" now means "regular dreamboat who is not obviously a complete potato-head."

The evidence, after the jump...

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9:59 AM ET | 05-27-2009 | permalink

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Question: Who's the Longest-Running Fictional Character Ever?

Long-running fictional characters: Sure, there are a lot of candidates, but who takes the prize? iStockphoto.com

 

by Glen Weldon

"Longest running" is open to interpretation, so let's define our terms:

In any medium, what character has been consistently featured in continuous new adventures over the longest stretch of time?

Got that? Just the three criteria, here:

Consistent:

Makes regularly scheduled appearances — no yawning gaps between adventures.

Continuous:

The character's adventures form a central narrative that builds on what has gone before. (Read: Katzenjammer Kids, I know you've been around a long time, but you're a gag strip, not an ongoing narrative. Thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts.)

New:

The constant churning out of fresh content, not simply adaptations, retellings or reprints.

So: Guesses?

After the jump: We review the top contenders, provide The Answer, and explain why The Neverending Story should really have been a horror film.

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11:59 AM ET | 05-20-2009 | permalink

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Culturetopia: Must-Listen Arts & Entertainment (Princess Edition)

by Linda Holmes

If it's Wednesday, this must be Culturetopia we're in. Yup, it's time for NPR's weekly arts-etcetera podcast, a roundup of our favorite NPR arts and entertainment stories from last week.

In this week's installment, arts reporter (and jazz enthusiast) Felix Contreras and I talked about:

• the Hunt For Gollum fan video released this past weekend;

• Anika Noni Rose's upcoming gig as a Disney princess;

• Terry Gross's Fresh Air interview with Gabriel Byrne of HBO's In Treatment;

• author Colm Toibin's new novel Brooklyn, about a journey from Ireland to ... well, Brooklyn;

• a recent installment of the NPR Music jazz-sampler series Take Five, in which NPR editor Tom Cole talks about the recordings that introduced him to the genre;

• a commemorative ride on New York City's fabled A train, to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of "Take The A Train" composer Duke Ellington; and

• from right here at Monkey See, the amazing kids of the PS 22 chorus, with their performance of "Eye Of The Tiger."

Sound good? Have a listen right here, if you like:

Or if automation is your thing, subscribe to Culturetopia from its podcast home page.

If you have reactions to the new podcast, please let us know below. What works for you, what doesn't?

2:20 PM ET | 05- 6-2009 | permalink

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Faster Than a Speeding Bullwhip: Superman Creator's Kinktastic Art

Secret Identity: Turns out the co-creator of Superman was up to some things you might not know about. Abrams ComicArts

 

by Glen Weldon

We've previously noted that the creators of some of America's most noble comic book characters got up to some decidedly ignoble stuff themselves. And yet the artist Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman, is a special case.

I don't refer here to his 1940 arrest in a Miami hotel lobby for "loitering hatless," although God knows that any man who'd indulge in acts of flagrant public hatlessness merits close watching. There's the children to think of.

No, what makes Shuster's case special — and the subject of a new book by comics historian Craig Yoe — is the newly-discovered fact that 16 years after Superman's first appearance, when faced with dire financial straits, Joe Shuster turned his artistic talents has to, well, smut. Dirty, depraved, utterly hatless smut.

After the jump: "Tales of terror and thrilling spiciness that will leave the reader spellbound!"

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10:51 AM ET | 04-15-2009 | permalink

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Amazon Learns A Painful Lesson About The Twitter Hashtag

The Twitter hashtag: See this bullhorn? The hashtag is a little like this. Just ask Amazon. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

It looks like Twitter will only show you the last 100 pages of tweets covered by a search. Right now, that means you can only see the last three hours of tweets submitted under the hashtag "#amazonfail."

A hashtag is basically a little identifier you attach to a post on Twitter to allow people to search for it. It enables wider conversations, because you can follow the discussion about a particular topic by searching for all the tweets -- everyone's, not just the people you know -- for that tag.

In this case, "#amazonfail" was developed to track tweets about the fact that Amazon.com has apparently removed the sales rankings of many books with gay and lesbian themes on the theory that they are "adult." (This is the explanation Amazon gave to author Mark Probst early on.)

Removal of sales rankings has several effects -- it stops your book from appearing in best-seller lists, but more to the point, it interferes with searching, causing the book in some cases not to show up even when you specifically search for it.

Though it was, in early stories, referred to as an issue about "erotica," this does not only apply to fiction. As of this writing, they've also de-ranked this edition of The Mayor Of Castro Street: The Life And Times Of Harvey Milk (though some other editions are available).

Note that the edition of The Mayor Of Castro Street that's de-ranked seemingly includes "Gay & Lesbian Biographies" as one of its assigned categories, while the one that kept its rank only lists "Literature and Fiction: General."

Another edition oddity, and where we're going from here, after the jump...

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8:37 AM ET | 04-13-2009 | permalink

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'America's Next Top Model': The Book. For Real. A Review.

America's Next Top Model: The Tyra Banks-hosted show has a book now. And it doesn't just have pictures! Brad Barket/Getty Images

 

by Mark Blankenship

I've watched every season of Project Runway, I know more about RuPaul's Drag Race than anyone in my family, and even though it pains me, I slog through Make Me a Supermodel every week, mostly to see what flimsy premise the producers will devise to make the boys take off their shirts.

Yet despite my taste for fashion reality, I've never seen an episode of America's Next Top Model. That's partly because modeling shows without shirtless guys strike me as wasted opportunities, and it's partly because ANTM started airing when I was in graduate school. I was just too busy reading obscure plays by cloistered nuns to get attached.

Fate's a strange mistress, though, and a few weeks ago, I opened my mail to discover an advance copy of America's Next Top Model: Fierce Guide to Life. Yes, that's right. Even though I never found the show, it finally found me.

And you know what? I decided to read the thing. I mean, I could use more fierceness in my life -- who couldn't? -- and since I'm the opposite of the book's target audience, I figured it could give me a new perspective on how to live like I mean it.

Fierceness, snacking, and much more, after the jump...

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8:59 AM ET | 04- 8-2009 | permalink

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Thank Goodness Stephen King Is Making Backbreaking, Indulgent Doorstops Again

Stephen King: Later this year, he will make a welcome return to writing doorstops set in Maine towns with serious difficulties. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Stephen King is a writer who's easy to both overestimate and underestimate.

He's easy to overestimate because he's sold something like 300 million books, and because his books regularly become high-profile movies, and because if you ask an American who doesn't really envision himself as a big reader who his favorite novelist is, you have a fairly decent chance of getting the answer, "Stephen King."

He's easy to underestimate because if you remember that he wrote Christine and Cujo and that short story where the guy eats his own foot, you might forget that he also wrote Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption and Misery and a lot of other things that are really...pretty good, and are barely, if at all, "horror" fiction.

(Okay, the one where the guy eats his own foot is also pretty good.)

But if you enjoy King's writing, you eventually have to decide how you feel about the doorstops.

The next doorstop, after the jump...

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9:25 AM ET | 04- 6-2009 | permalink

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Unearthing A 'New' Short Story By Walker Percy

Walker Percy: Years after his death, a new short story has come to light. Associated Press

 

by Linton Weeks

Being a fan of the late Walker Percy, I was intrigued when my friend Logan Browning, a lecturer at Rice University, discovered "A Detective Story." It's a Percy short story that apparently has never seen the light of day. Until now.

It's being published in the April 2009 issue of The Hopkins Review, a literary quarterly produced by Johns Hopkins University Press.

For those who have never heard of Percy: He was a bourbon-smooth blend of Southern novelist, keen-eyed semiotician and worldly existentialist. He published a half-dozen exquisite novels - and several volumes of essays -- about the unsettlingness of being human. He was heavily influenced by the writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Soren Kierkegaard. He died in 1990, at age 73.

For those who have heard of Percy: "A Detective Story" is a breezy tale of William Pinckney, a Mississippi businessman who goes out for a pack of cigarettes and never comes home. The yarn is narrated by Jamie Rodgers, a long-time friend of Pinckney's. At the request of Pinckney's wife, and to appease his own curiosity, Rodgers sets out on a quest - to Memphis, Atlanta and other places -- to find the vanished man.

The pleasures and perils of posthumous discoveries, and how this one was made, after the jump...

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10:13 AM ET | 03-27-2009 | permalink

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A Bittersweet Listen, And Why Authors Needn't Worry About The Kindle 2

Audiobooks: The loss of a beloved narrator drives home the value of a great voice. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

I am an audiobook person and also a kicky chick-romance-novel person (at least some of the time), and for the several years that I've been carrying audiobooks around on my various MP3 players, I've been listening to romances by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Comforting and entertaining in a way that's harder than it appears, these are reliably diverting and very silly stories I tend to listen to while I'm walking or riding the Metro or doing the dishes, and the first six or seven I heard were narrated by an actress named Kate Fleming, who recorded many (many, many) audiobooks under the name Anna Fields.

[Side note: Coincidentally, Fleming also read Molly Ivins' book Who Let The Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known, which was one of the first audiobooks I ever heard. If you were to invent a voice you'd give Molly Ivins based solely on her writing, it would be the one Kate Fleming used for that book. (You can hear a sample here.)]

Kate Fleming drowned in the basement recording studio of her Seattle home during a flood in December 2006. (You can hear an NPR remembrance here.) Obviously, projects spend a lot of time percolating, and my particular audiobook provider doesn't necessarily get everything right off the bat, and old books and recordings have a way of bubbling back up. So for almost another two years, there would still be a Phillips book now and then that featured Fleming. But I knew it wasn't going to last.

A sad little change in my routine, after the jump...

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2:00 PM ET | 03-11-2009 | permalink

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Open Questions: Books Into Movies, For Better Or Worse

You Mustn't Read This: Linda didn't much like Benjamin Button, but there are those who argue the movie's still better than the book.photocredit

By Linton Weeks

The literati can't stand to hear it, but sometimes a movie is better than the book it's based on. Even when the book is pretty good: Jaws comes to mind. And, arguably, Forrest Gump.

This year theaters are teeming with movies based on books. And some reviewers who've had a look at both are saying that the movies are better.

Take The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The tale, about a man who ages in reverse, is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Having seen the movie and read the story," writes Fritz Lanham in the Houston Chronicle, "I'd say there's no comparison. As a book guy it pains me to admit it, but the movie is better. A lot better."

The film critic for the Montreal Gazette, meanwhile, avers that the movie Slumdog Millionaire is better than the Vikas Swarup book it's based on.

When it's the other way around, after the jump ...

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11:17 AM ET | 02-25-2009 | permalink

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True Confessions: I'm Kinda Into 'He's Just Not That Into You'

Seven-year itch? Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston in He's Just Not That Into You. Warner Bros./New Line

 

By Alison Bryce

He's Just Not Into You opened in movie theaters this weekend, to scorn from critics and a box-office take of $27.5 million. The critics' dismissals were probably to be expected. But I'd say the cash haul that made the movie No. 1 this weekend was, too.

See, I was living in Montana about four years ago, and I was totally into a guy that wasn't into me. He called all the time to hang out, but just wanted to be my friend. I wanted more.

Then one day I got a package in the mail from my mother. You can guess which book it was: He's Just Not That Into You. I opened it, sobbing.

But here's the thing: Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. Seriously: As lame as it may sound, that book changed my life.

The how and why, after the jump ...

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12:37 PM ET | 02- 9-2009 | permalink

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Neil Gaiman Wins The Newbery Medal

Neil Gaiman: A big award at kind of a convenient moment. HarperCollins

 

by Linda Holmes

The American Library Association has given Neil Gaiman the Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book, a novel about a child raised by a collection of ghosts. The ALA calls the book "a delicious mix of murder, fantasy, humor and human longing."

It's good news for Gaiman, certainly, but it's also nice for Focus Features, since it comes just before the release of Coraline, a film opening February 6 that's based on Gaiman's 2002 novella of the same name. It can't hurt to have another award to feature in your campaign.

1:21 PM ET | 01-26-2009 | permalink

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Are We Readers? And Are We The Right Kind Of Readers?

Let's see that book: Is that a novel? Then you may be a reader. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

During a recent vacation, I happily devoured Nixonland, an 800-plus-page behemoth that I stuck to with such constancy that I'm fairly sure that toting it around and clutching it awkwardly with my short-lady fingers actually injured my wrist. Not kidding.

As L.A. Times book editor David L. Ulin points out today, this would not help me contribute to American "reading" under the definition used by the National Endowment for the Arts in its series of studies on reading in America. The last couple of reports had stated that reading was on the decline, but the one released this week, called "Reading On The Rise," shows that the trend is reversing itself. American "literacy," they say, is improving.

What's the catch? After the jump...

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8:03 AM ET | 01-14-2009 | permalink

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A New Year's Resolution For The True-Crime Author

True crime? It is to laugh: David Samuels' The Runner is more a true-confessions kind of book. The New Press

 

by Sarah D. Bunting

A new year brings with it New Year's resolutions — to lose weight, to quit smoking, to cap the impractical-shoe budget once and for all. It's easy to make these resolutions, then break them as the second week (or hour) of January dawns.

It's even easier to suggest resolutions for other people, so I'd like to propose a New Year's resolution for David Samuels, the author of The Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue, to wit:

"The next time I write a true-crime book, I resolve to write an actual true-crime book, not pad a con-man profile I already wrote for The New Yorker with indictments of Ivy League admissions policies and our haves-versus-have-nots society."

In fairness to Samuels, such indictments have their place. And the book is not bad or anything; it's quite well written.

But I don't read true crime for good writing, and neither does anyone else. (Fortunately, because it's in short supply). I read it because I want to learn about a given case. Ann Rule hasn't sold a bajillion books because she's such a fantastic wordsmith; her prose is mediocre at best. But she knows how to identify a juicy story, she knows how to get access to everyone involved with it, and she knows how to keep it moving.

What happens when you don't keep it moving, after the jump ...

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2:24 PM ET | 01- 5-2009 | permalink

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Contagion!: The Shocking True Story of a True-Crime-Audiobook Accent Sponge

Listening to books: It's got some occupational hazards you might want to take into account. iStockphoto.com

 

by Sarah D. Bunting

I have a problem. I founded an online true-crime book club, but believe it or not, that isn't the problem -- it is highly unseemly, and bound to make my parents regret picking up the tab for my college education (I've still never read Hamlet), but the actual problem is that I prefer to consume my true crime via audio book. While it does make long trips in a teensy car without cruise control more palatable to listen to faraway detectives bungle a murder case, it has an unwanted side effect, to wit: at some point in the duration of the narrative, I will unconsciously but inevitably begin mimicking the book's narrator in my own speech.

I can't help it. It's an issue for me generally, this accent-sponginess. I grew up in Jersey, but somehow, I don't have an accent of my own -- so it's as though other speech styles rush in to fill the void. A 45-minute conversation with a Louisiana friend leaves my speech studded with chicken-fried might-coulds and my-starses for a full day afterwards (and she doesn't even use these expressions herself); a conference call with my British boss and his IT team...if I don't learn to tone down the tally-ho-guvnah, I'll lose my job.

But the true-crime speech-pattern absorption is far more ridiculous, because it's impossible to explain without appearing bonkers -- but then if I don't explain it, I seem even more bonkers.

Phony Italian accents and surprising Kris Kristofferson references, after the jump...

Continue reading "Contagion!: The Shocking True Story of a True-Crime-Audiobook Accent Sponge" »

8:09 AM ET | 12-15-2008 | permalink

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Michael Crichton, 1942-2008

Word's getting around about the death of Jurassic Park author (and ER creator) Michael Crichton, who'd been battling cancer but had kept it mostly quiet.

The news was announced earlier today at Crichton's Web site. (Which is apparently crashing under the traffic hit -- as I'm typing this, it's timing out and refusing to load.)

We'll have an appreciation in a little bit Here's an appreciation, courtesy of our guy Linton Weeks.

Also, here's this:

2:22 PM ET | 11- 5-2008 | permalink

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'Garfield Minus Garfield': What's A Cat Comic Without A Cat?

Garfield Minus Garfield: Without Garfield's retorts about how glad he is the day is over, things look a little more bleak. Ballantine Books

 

by Laurel Maury

Early in 2008, Irishman Dan Walsh started posting online copies online of Garfield -- with Garfield removed. The goofy, 30-year-old comic strip featuring the lasagna-loving tabby and Jon Arbuckle, his girlfriend-less owner, has been adored since the early '80s. Without the cat, a dark humor emerged that resonated through the growing world of webcomics. Within a few months, www.garfieldminusgarfield.net was receiving 500,000 hits a day.

Garfield creator Jim Davis became a fan and asked Walsh to work on a book. Now accompanying the rather lavish Garfield: 30 Years of Laughs and Lasagna, by Jim Davis is a small green book, Garfield Minus Garfield.

How the project started, how the fan mail looks, and teaming up with Jim Davis, after the jump...

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9:51 AM ET | 10-30-2008 | permalink

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Sucking The Joy Out Of Reading, The California Way

Sure, she looks like she's having a good time, but how much is that book worth?

iStockphoto.com

 

This opinion piece in the L.A. Times got me thinking about the way I read as a kid. The basic thesis is that California's system of measuring and scoring every bit of reading that students do is making it impossible for them to explore their own interest in reading. And I have to say, that argument makes a certain amount of sense to me.

When I was in middle school, probably somewhere around 6th or 7th grade, the school librarian gave me a copy of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, the first piece of fiction aimed at adults that I had ever read on my own.

She chose it for me, not because of the length of the sentences or the difficulty of the vocabulary, but because she thought I would like it.

And she was right. I read Gone With The Wind shortly thereafter, as I recall, and big, brick-like romantic paperbacks kept me company through much of my teenage life.

And, okay, my life now, too.

Stephen King, Jackie Collins, and why books don't need points, after the jump ...

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1:25 PM ET | 09-30-2008 | permalink

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How Great A Victory For J.K. Rowling?

J.K. Rowling: Winning the battle, but not the way she hoped.
Daniel Barry, Getty Images

You may have heard that on Monday, a federal judge stopped publication of a Harry Potter fan's reference guide to the series. J.K. Rowling herself appeared to testify — rather dramatically — about the agony she would suffer if the unofficial guide were to be published. There was a fine discussion of the case on Talk Of The Nation yesterday, which lays out the basics.

What's interesting about the case, and you can read the judge's decision for yourself, is how Rowling won the case while losing the basic argument she was making.

The author's argument throughout the case, at least in her public statements, was that she was entitled to control the use of her characters and books, and that it was unfair to allow anyone else to capitalize on it.

She explained that she wanted to write a reference guide for charity and said, "I cannot, therefore, approve of 'companion books' or 'encyclopedias' that seek to pre-empt my definitive Potter reference book for their authors' own personal gain."

This kind of sweeping "my books; my reference guides" theory was not embraced by the judge, whose decision was far narrower.

Two things got Steve Vander Ark, the writer of the lexicon at issue here, in the most trouble: he quoted and paraphrased too much of the books directly in writing his encyclopedia entries, and he not only created a reference guide to the information in the novels; he created a reference guide to two companion books — really encyclopedias themselves — that Rowling had created to further explain aspects of the novels.

What would make a reference book less dangerous? After the jump...

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10:14 AM ET | 09-10-2008 | permalink

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Date Me! I Read!

"Yeah, I used to read mysteries, but I found the plots a little fishy." "Speaking of a little fishy, want to grab a bite to eat?"
iStockphoto.com

Ever since The New York Times ran a piece in March about dumping prospective suitors because of what they read (or don't read), there's been more talk than usual about the way literary tastes may influence our choice of romantic partners.

Now, inevitably, a publisher has started a dating site where you can search for people to date who read the same books you do.

Discouraged by love? Saddened beyond anyone's ability to console you? PenguinDating is there to help you find that Proust-reading person of your dreams.

The pleasures and perils of PenguinDating, after the jump ...

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9:50 AM ET | 09- 2-2008 | permalink

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Books That Are Out Of Print, But Not Out Of Mind

Howard Hughes: Don't worry; it's really him.
Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Courtesy of the Paper Cuts blog at The New York Times, I wound up at the Bookfinder.com list of the most searched-for out-of-print books.

While Paper Cuts not-unreasonably refers to the list as something of a "carnival of obscurity," some of the books are out of print because they were controversial or, in the case of The Autobiography Of Howard Hughes, because they were total frauds. Oops.

What else is on the list? We explore, after the jump...

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12:10 PM ET | 08-27-2008 | permalink

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