Tag: books

Mrs. Beeton’s Ad of the Day

Borwick’s was founded by George Borwick sometime in the 19th century–there are old ads for it all over the Web, including at the British Museum–and you can still buy their powders today. It was obviously a successful business: George Borwick got a barony out of it.

"Is the universe expanding or contracting?"

The science fiction universe, that is: Publisher’s Weekly has a cover story on the state of SF and fantasy publishing. My publisher, DAW, gets a mention although, alas, my book is not the “hot title” from them that gets mentioned.

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management…

…is one of many interesting things I’ve found in my mother-in-law’s house, now my house. This 1915 housewives’ hanbook, which belonged to my wife’s grandmother, is (as you can see from the title page) “A Guide to Cookery in All Branches,” plus “Daily Duties, Mistress & Servant, Hostess & Guest, Marketing, Trussing & Carving, Menu …

Continue reading

A "new" book by J.R.R. Tolkien due out this year

It’s The Children of Húrin, begun 89 years ago, left unfinished (like so much else) when Tolkien died in 1971, and now painstakingly recreated from Tolkien’s manuscripts and notes by his son, Christopher. This story from The Independent, though, has a terrible title: “Tolkien Jr. completes Lord of the Rings.” The Children of Húrin takes …

Continue reading

The latest additions to my oeuvre…

…arrived this week, to whit my thrill-a-minute educational books Neon and Magnesium, both published by Rosen Publishing. The books are part of Rosen’s series “Understanding the Elements of the Periodic Table.” It looks like I’ll soon be working on another Rosen book plus two more for the other educational publisher I do quite a bit …

Continue reading

Replacing the u-word with the z-word

YA fantasy author Justine Larbalestier does not like unicorns. Just today she posted: What is it with you people? I tell you what an abomination in the sight of the Lord unicorns are and how much I love love love zombies and what do you do? You send me an endless stream of unicorn-related stuff. …

Continue reading

And the nominees for oddest book title of the year are:

How Green Were the Nazis? Proceedings of the 18th International Seaweed Symposium The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification Tattooed Mountain Woman and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan Di Mascio’s Delicious Ice Cream: Di Mascio of Coventry, an Ice Cream Company of Repute, with an Interesting and Varied Fleet of …

Continue reading

Books that influenced today’s technologists…

…are rounded up in a survey by IEEE Spectrum. Robert A. Heinlein is well-represented, but even J.R.R. Tolkien gets a mention. (Via The Website at the End of the Universe.)

Final ballot for Nebula Awards announced

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have announced the final ballot for this year’s Nebula Awards, made up of the top vote-getters from the preliminary ballot, which is a list of all the stories that received at least 10 recommendations from active members of SFWA by the end of 2006. The final …

Continue reading

What J.R.R. Tolkien means to me

I went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings last week. That’s hardly news; it’s been the number-one movie for three weeks now, so lots of people have been going to see it. But I did want to set down my impressions of the film–and some thoughts on what J.R.R. …

Continue reading

P-books and e-books

The Saskatchewan Book Awards, honoring the best books by Saskatchewan writers, is coming up on November 30. The short-listed nominees are all worthy, but they’re also all a little old-fashioned, in that they’re all printed on paper. “Paper?” I hear you say. “What else would they be printed on?” To which I reply, who says …

Continue reading

E-books

Here’s a conversation starter for you. “So, do you think e-books will replace p-books?” Of course, you may have to first define your terms. An e-book is an “electronic book,” a book in a computer file format so it can be read on an electronic device, while a p-book is, of course, what you call …

Continue reading

Easy AdSense Pro by Unreal