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23 Feb 2012 19:27

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Culture: Scifi author shares his series’ ending with terminally-ill fan

  • “You’re going to put him in a coma”: See what happens when one Reddit user surprises his terminally-ill friend with an item that he might not have otherwise lived to see. Prepare to have your faith in humanity restored….and to finish off a box of Kleenex. (h/t 14kgoldnyc) source
Posted by Scott Craft • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Sep 2011 20:57

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Politics: The three craziest claims from Joe McGinniss’ Sarah Palin book

  • one According to a recap of the book by the National Enquirer, Sarah Palin was a former cocaine user, most notably during a snowmobiling trip.
  • two The book also repeats the claim the Palin had an affair in the mid-90s with one of her husband’s friends. She’s already denied this.
  • three Most shockingly, the book claims that Palin had a one-night stand — prior to her marriage — with former NBA star Glen Rice. WTF?! source
  • » Wait, is this stuff actually true?! Well, that depends on if you believe Joe McGinniss, the best-selling author of “The Selling of the President 1968.” McGinniss is no stranger to controversy, and he certainly wasn’t when writing this book — see, he moved to Alaska, within shouting distance of the former vice-presidential candidate, leading to rebukes from Palin’s staff. It will be interesting to see what happens when people besides Garry Trudeau get the book.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Jun 2011 14:41

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Tech: Google’s back on the library-digitization tip — in a big way

  • 250,000 books going digital source
  • » These books predate you by centuries: Google is cooperating with the British Library in London to convert their 40 million pages worth of books from 1700-1870 into digital form. These ancient books are out of copyright, so Google won’t have the same issues they’ve had with earlier digitization efforts. This is all on Google’s dime, by the way: They’ve made similar deals with many other outlets — including Stanford and Harvard.
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 May 2011 17:13

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Offbeat: “Go the F**k to Sleep”: A kid’s book parody with a killer title

  • Know how this book hit No. 1 on Amazon? A great title. Also, a pirated PDF. Really.  source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Apr 2011 23:48

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Tech: Soon, your Kindle will replace your library card

Amazon is rolling out some great new features to Kindle users, including book lending and access to 11,000 public libraries. No word on when they’ll be out, though. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Mar 2011 15:30

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World: Jakarta’s terrorism concerns rise with recent “book bombs”

  • 4 mail bombs sent in Jakarta, Indonesia in just three days source
  • » Thankfully, only one has actually gone off. That occurred as authorities were attempting to disarm it, and it injured four. The bombs are reportedly being sent through the mail within books, the last of which was “The Militant Jewish,” addressed to Ahmad Dhani, a recording artist and vocal supporter of religious freedom. The other people targeted were Gorries Mere, a high-ranking anti-terrorism officer, Ulil Abshar Abdalla, a senior member of Jakarta’s Democratic Party and a vocal critic of fundamentalist Islamic groups, and Yapto Soerjosoemarno, also an advocate for religious freedom. Jakarta has absorbed a lot of pain from terrorism over the last several years- here’s hoping they get this under control right away.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2011 22:10

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Culture, World: More Wikileaks: Steven Spielberg scores the movie rights

  • And Wikileaks is very unhappy about this. The mega-director, known as much for his Hollywood films as his historical pieces, has secured the rights to a book about Wikileaks, “WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy.” (It’s written by two journalists for The Guardian, who have kind of been on the front lines of all this.) Now, Spielberg has done great work before, but he is not a man known for keeping his films 100 percent accurate. For example, “Catch Me if You Can” was based on a real guy who pretended to be a pilot, but Tom Hanks’ character didn’t exist in real life. (Frank Abagnale is OK with this.) It’s understandable, then, that Wikileaks would say, in response to this, that “this is how bull#(&@ ends up being history.” Your move, Spielberg. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

16 Feb 2011 15:28

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Biz: Bookstore chain Borders, as currently constituted, goes belly-up

  • $1 billion in debt for the now-bankrupt bookstore chain source
  • » Sign of the times: In its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the famed chain of bookstores will be forced to close 30 percent of its 600 stores, having been left somewhat behind by the changing nature of the book world (damn you, internet). Many analysts feel a tad downtrodden by the news. “This is the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the book business,” said Albert Greco, senior researcher at the Institute for Publishing Research. “This is really a depressing day.”
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Feb 2011 13:10

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Politics: Julian Assange brings entire governments, cats to their knees

  • Julian assange asserts his human dominance: So says German author Daniel Domscheit-Berg, writing in his new book about his experiences with WikiLeaks and Assange. Domscheit-Berg claims that while Assange stayed with him in 2009, the silver-haired Australian began to abuse and battle his tomcat, which is adorably named Herr Schmidt. “Julian would constantly attack the animal. He would spread out his fingers like a fork and grab the cat’s throat,” the upcoming book says. Assange does have a built-in excuse for this abusive behavior, though, if he can only prove that this cat was a bastard. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Jan 2011 12:24

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Politics: Ex-McCain staffer Mark Salter behind anonymous Obama book “O”

Step One: Write an anonymous novel about your ex-boss’ former opponent. Name it “O” Step Two: ??? Step Three: Profit! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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