blech + books   80

The Death of the Book | Book View Cafe
Usula K. Le Guin: "As for books themselves, the changes in book technology are cataclysmic. Yet it seems to me that rather than dying, “the book” is growing — taking on a second form and shape, the ebook." "It looks to me as if people are in fact reading and writing more than they ever did. People who used to work and talk together now work each alone in a cubicle, writing and reading all day long on screen."
book  books  ebooks  reading  writing  literature  twitter/capture  via:@robinhouston 
8 weeks ago by blech
Adam Phillips - Shaky Ground | LRB
Adam Phillips reviews ‘Understanding Autism’ by Chloe Silverman and ‘What Is Madness?’ by Darian Leader for the LRB (sadly, subscribers only). "For Chloe Silverman, ‘understanding autism’ means understanding how autism has become a diagnostic category and why for some people, in autism advocacy groups for example, it isn’t a pathology at all but just a different way of seeing the world. For Darian Leader, the diagnosis and treatment of madness is something we need to get right, and getting it right means using his preferred version of psychoanalysis."
autism  mentalhealth  books  review  lrb  health  madness 
12 weeks ago by blech
Bones of the Book | n+1
Robert Moor on the (surprisingly long) history of ebooks, and some of the mistakes that keep getting made. Well worth a read.
books  ebook  publishing  interactivity  via:@shashashasha  from instapaper
12 weeks ago by blech
The Design of Symbols | NYTimes.com
Reviews of Otto Neurath, Symbols and Ex Libris, a collection of bookplates. Useful if your coffee table needs a refresh, probably.
books  review  nytimes  design  infographics  from instapaper
december 2011 by blech
Nicholas Spice reviews ‘Repeated Takes’ and ‘Elevator Music’ | LRB 6 July 1995
"On the history of elevator music" but actually so much more: Muzak, technology, and whether music being everywhere distracts from our attention to it. Well worth a read.
music  lrb  review  books  technology  via:@joemoransblog  from instapaper
october 2011 by blech
The Mechanic Muse — From Scroll to Screen | NYTimes.com
"Something very important and very weird is happening to the book right now: It’s shedding its papery corpus and transmigrating into a bodiless digital form, right before our eyes. We’re witnessing the bibliographical equivalent of the rapture. If anything we may be lowballing the weirdness of it all." On reading, scrolls, codexes, and ebooks.
reading  books  history  scroll  screen  linearity  from delicious
october 2011 by blech
The Lifecycle of Software Objects | Subterranean Press
via Damien Walter's Guardian column: "Ted Chiang's brilliant and insightful novella about the emergence of Artificial Intelligence was originally published in a beautiful limited edition from Subterranean Press. It is now available as a free read from the publisher's website. Chiang explores a terrifyingly plausible scenario for the arrival of a new form of life in our midst."
sciencefiction  science  artificialintelligence  books  toread  software  from delicious
july 2011 by blech
Saci Lloyd: 'It's not squids in outer space' | guardian.co.uk
Get past the slightly annoying headline and this looks to be well worth a read. "Her current novel, Momentum, is a fast-paced thriller set in a post-oil age of energy crises and police crackdowns on freedom. It follows two novels, The Carbon Diaries 2015 and 2017, which tackle carbon rationing and environmental meltdown through the eyes of a teenage girl and her family."
guardian  books  interview  peakoil  sciencefiction  novel  from delicious
july 2011 by blech
A life in writing: China Miéville | The Guardian
An interview with China Miéville in the Guardian, talking about genre fiction, London, politics, and all sorts of other things.
guardian  interview  books  sciencefiction  london  politics  from delicious
may 2011 by blech
When the King Saved God | Culture | Vanity Fair
Christopher Hitchens on the KJB. "An unbeliever argues that our language and culture are incomplete without a 400-year-old book—the King James translation of the Bible. Spurned by the Establishment, it really represents a triumph for rebellion and dissent. Accept no substitutes!" A very good (and pretty quotable) read.
language  english  history  religion  books  bible  from delicious
april 2011 by blech
‘What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text’ | NYTimes.com
A good piece on marginalia, and the fact that digital reading platforms have the potential to not just save it, but improve it. (See also: the idea of a modern commonplace book; making Blog All Dog-Eared Pages easier.)
books  marginalia  publishing  ebook  digital  re:stml  from delicious
march 2011 by blech
DELUSIONS OF GENDER by Cordelia Fine reviewed by Carol Tavris - TLS
Cordelia Fine has produced a witty and meticulously researched exposé of the sloppy studies that pass for scientific evidence in so many of today's bestselling books on sex differences
times  tls  gender  science  psychology  neuroscience  books  from instapaper
march 2011 by blech
Chapter One - Beginnings | Outside Lies Magic
There are so many parts of this introduction to John Stillgoe's book, based on a lecture course, that I want to quote that there's no way I can, and no way I can do it justice (not thank britta enough for posting it in the first place). If you want a synposis, it's about colour and light and seeing and exploring and the built environment and being a pedestrian and... magic. Look, just go and read it.
books  exploring  seeing  architecture  colour  light  via:dreamyshade  from delicious
february 2011 by blech
Hidden City | David Long
"Each time I turned a corner I found another gem. Among the seemingly numberless secret gardens, winding alleyways, tiny squares and ancient courtyards I found stories of the old city and its characters, many extraordinary and unlikely architectural survivors, and a wealth of evidence to remind one again that the City - built, burned, bombed, rebuilt and rebuilt again - is still a uniquely fascinating, rich and engaging place to wander through."
london  books  history  urbanism  alleys  via:philgyford  cities  tobuy  from delicious
february 2011 by blech
Bookshop and gallery | powerHouse Arena
Looks like this might be worth a visit if I get to NYC again.
newyorkcity  nyc  photography  gallery  books  via:britta  from delicious
january 2011 by blech
How to hack Amazon with a book | Dr. Wetter
"Whereas the standard example for a stored XSS vulnerability over an out-of-band channel is a web mailer like OWA using SMTP here this channel for the attack is kind of — err, let's put it this way — unusual: One has to write a book!"
security  amazon  xss  books  development  web  from delicious
december 2010 by blech
San Francisco’s Lively Literary Scene | NYTimes.com
"San Francisco, the home of many of the very technologies that have drawn a bead on the book, visitors will find a living, historically rooted literary scene that, though it has surely heard the news of its own demise, isn’t buying it." A very grateful hat tip to Chris for posting this.
sanfrancisco  books  shopping  via:antimega  from delicious
december 2010 by blech
The analogue Facebook | Creative Review
"[DDR Paris] realised that while people may share their most treasured memories and photographs via Facebook, the constantly changing nature of the site means that they can quickly be forgotten, or lost amongst the amount of info stored in a profile. So Bouygues Télécom created the option of turning your Facebook profile into an actual book." Of course, James Bridle did this with Twitter years ago, but it's interesting to see this turned into more of a turnkey application, and as a kick back against the perceived fragility of online data.
facebook  papernet  print  books  via:antimega  from delicious
november 2010 by blech
Islands in the Storm | The New Yorker
If you liked the idea of the Atlas of Remote Islands, the New Yorker has a slideshow of maps of the islands (including two British territories, Ascension Island and Diego Garcia).
newyorker  books  maps  islands  review  from delicious
october 2010 by blech
Atlas of Remote Islands | Head Butler
"Schalansky got interested in maps and atlases for the most personal of reasons. She was born in East Berlin; when she was 10, East and West Germany merged, “and the country I was born in disappeared from the map.” With that, she lost interest in political maps and became fascinated with the basic building blocks of Earth’s land masses: physical topography."
books  review  islands  maps  geography  tobuy  from delicious
october 2010 by blech
Oxford English Dictionary 'will not be printed again' | Telegraph
Simon Winchester, quoted in the article: "Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise. The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed. I have two complete OEDs, but never consult them – I use the online OED five or six times daily. The same with many of my reference books – and soon with most. Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities."
telegraph  books  reference  dictionary  language  print  media  via:preoccupations  from delicious
august 2010 by blech
Making the Physical from the Digital | Random Hacks
Ben O’Steen's talk at the Open Knowledge Conference. Tickles a lot of fancies, this, and announces a "TextCamp". Hmm.
books  digital  paper  papernet  preservation  library  printing  via:zool  from delicious
april 2010 by blech
Embracing the digital book | Craig Mod
A thoughtful, nicely-illustrated post on the design (in general terms) of ebooks, primarily for the two dominant iPad reader applications. Well worth a read (in particular, I liked the aggregate / heatmap idea; once I was thinking of doing something similar for delicious, and may yet).
books  ebook  reader  kindle  ibook  typography  sharing  reading  via:mattb  from delicious
april 2010 by blech
New content for a new device | Snarkmarket
"Apple: you did not invent a magical and revolutionary device so we could read books in ePub format. Think about what the iPad really is! It’s the greatest canvas for media ever invented. It’s colorful, tactile, powerful, and programmable. It can display literally any thing you can imagine; it can add sound and music; and it can feel you touching it." A call to arms.
apple  ipad  design  books  media  culture  content  via:infovore 
january 2010 by blech
Kindle and e-books | ChristianLindholm.com
Compare with Lisa Jardine: "e-books have some powerful benefits: they are small, light. A dictionary is few clicks away. You can have lots of different books with you" "What I did enjoy most was the one-handed effortless usage of reading and clicking next page."
books  ebook  digital  comment  via:blackbeltjones 
january 2010 by blech
Page-turning passion | BBC News
Usually I'm a fan of Lisa Jardine's A Point Of View pieces, but this one strikes the wrong note. Digital books will differ from paper books, but to say that nonlinear reading will vanish (won't Find make it easier?) or that annotation will die (I can get Blog All Dog-Eared Pages posts from anyone, not just friends I happen to live near) seems short-sighted. The implicit criticism of DRM might be well-judged, though.
books  publishing  digital  lisajardine  comment  bbc  ebook 
january 2010 by blech
Borrow a book 'wherever you are' | BBC News
"Millions of book lovers can now borrow items from a public library regardless of where they live, under a new scheme." A scheme across England, Wales and NI. This is good.
uk  books  libraries  lending 
september 2009 by blech
Out of this word | New Statesman
"the main argument of Postproduction fits Moon very well. It is a post-sampling film; it exists, in some way, as a remix of past futures." Toby Litt on science fiction. (Seems like this is of New Statesman is quite heavy on this sort of commentary; there's also a Bonnie Greer review of the new Atwood book, as well as the Banks interview.)
sciencefiction  film  books  comment  tobylitt  newstatesman 
september 2009 by blech
The Books Interview: Iain Banks | New Statesman
Ken Livingstone interviews Iain Banks, although really it's his science-fiction writing M persona that takes up the lion's share. Of course, politics gets a mention too.
iainbanks  interview  newstatesman  kenlivingstone  sciencefiction  books  politics  via:yoz 
september 2009 by blech
Farewell to brutalism | Building Design
"It is hard to believe that it is five years since Portsmouth’s Tricorn Centre (1962-7) was demolished, to the sound of the 1812 Overture. Nothing has happened to the site, but the building’s busy campaigners have produced this affectionate celebration." A good review of an interesting-sounding book.
architecture  books  review  culture  1960s  via:cityofsound 
september 2009 by blech
What’s wrong with eco-stunts | The New Yorker
"Living without a fridge, and other experiments in environmentalism. By Elizabeth Kolbert". Well worth reading, a dissection of experiments in lifestyle from Thoreau to this year.
newyorker  environment  books  review  history  politics  culture 
august 2009 by blech
'The high priest of gothic miserablism' | Guardian
"His latest book is set 6.4m years in the future, he admits to stealing other writers' ideas - and he's just secured a £1m book deal. Stuart Jeffries enters the fantastic world of Alastair Reynolds" (I've mangled the headline a bit.)
guardian  books  interview  sciencefiction  reynolds 
july 2009 by blech
Heroes and Zeroes: Books | The New Yorker
John Lanchester's pocket portraits of the central bankers at the heart of Lords of Finance, a book about the decade running up to the 1929 crash - and the role gold-backed currency played in that crash.
books  review  newyorker  finance  history  economics  politics  via:russelldavies 
february 2009 by blech
Pluck a flamingo | The Economist
Recipes from the Roman empire to Jamie Oliver. "If Beeton’s recipes were not wholly novel, though, the way in which she presented them certainly was." I was reminded of this overhearing Aaron and Chris talking at Papercamp, so I thought I'd better send this.
uk  us  culture  history  books  food  economist 
january 2009 by blech
The Long Decline of Reading | Mssv
"The situation is undeniably bad. What’s going to happen next?" Adrian Hon talks about the future of books.
books  reading  culture  video  internet  games 
december 2008 by blech
Africa Wins Again | Infovore
Subtitled "Far Cry 2's literary approach to narrative", this is an interesting read on the story and choices within a console game. Long, but worth a read.
games  books  story  novel  art? 
december 2008 by blech
He's the King of the Worlds | Wired
Neal Stephenson interview/promo piece in Wired this month, on the occasion of the release of Anathem, a (shock!) actual science fiction novel. It's as big as you'd expect (900 pages) and I still don't trust him to finish a story, or indeed have had any editing, but I'll get the hardback anyway.
wired  sciencefiction  nealstephenson  interview  books 
august 2008 by blech
Why publishing has gone to the dogs | guardian.co.uk
An interesting comment piece on a neglected new work of fiction, book publishing, and its response to changes in the market around it.
publishing  books  magazine  comment  internet  review 
june 2008 by blech
bookshops a photoset | Flickr
Pedro Figueiredo's nice black and white photos of some of London's interesting non-chain bookshops.
london  photography  books  flickr 
march 2008 by blech
John Lanchester: Riots, Terrorism etc | LRB
More LRB, so again a long, but worthwhile, book review, looking at the way the newspapers have become full of recycled PR instead of journalism.
uk  journalism  newspapers  review  books  politics  via:g  londonreviewofbooks 
february 2008 by blech
David Runciman: This Way to the Ruin | LRB
A long but worthwhile post on Britain's constitution, considering election timing, the EU, civil service, local government, the character of PMs, devolution, and finally, the prospects for codifying the constitution before a crisis.
uk  politics  books  review  lrb  history  law  democracy  londonreviewofbooks 
february 2008 by blech
Interview: Iain M. Banks | io9.com
A short interview (with a long title, which I've excised) to go with their review of Matter. Not much new, and I'm almost a little sad that Banks won't write the "Culture Hampstead" novel, even if he's right that it'd be dull.
iainbanks  books  interview  sciencefiction 
february 2008 by blech
Matter Review: Kicks Ass on a Galactic Scale | io9.com
Minor spoilers (and narrative unrolling) in this somewhat uncritical review of Matter from the io9 kids. I did enjoy the book, like they say you will, but the more I think about it the less happy I was with it.
iainbanks  books  review  sciencefiction 
february 2008 by blech
Welcome to the Culture | io9.com
This tries to be an introduction to the Culture, but flubs it with a bunch of errors and spoilers in their book descriptions. Either that, or as a Proper Signed Up Fanboy I'm too touchy to read such things.
iainbanks  sciencefiction  books  fiction  via:blackbeltjones 
february 2008 by blech
Use of weapons | Steven Poole
A review of Matter, the new Iain M Banks novel (as also published in the Guardian, but this is prettier and has comments). He pretty much nails the biggest problems (pacing and naming) without too many spoilers.
sciencefiction  review  books  guardian  comment  iainbanks 
february 2008 by blech
In a parallel universe | Scotland on Sunday
A good review, largely free of spoilers, for the new Iain M Banks Culture novel, "Matter". It's a good read, but it does spend a bit too long setting things up, and it's not for the non-fanboys. Worth hardback? If you're a really big fan, yes.
books  review  iainbanks  sciencefiction  novel 
february 2008 by blech
Bernard might be Shaw but I'm not | Ace Jet 170
Penguin book swapmeets, anyone? Not an entirely bad idea, but why not include the Penguin Collectors' Society?
design  books  penguin  blogcomment 
january 2008 by blech
Web generation heaviest users of libraries | CNN
More refutation, perhaps: Pew report that 21% of young adults use libraries to find out how to do certain things, which is higher than the 12% for the general population. Hm.
books  libraries  internet  via:preoccupations 
december 2007 by blech
The new literacy of television | kottke.org
As a counterpoint to my wibblings of earlier today, here's a (well written, unlike mine) piece arguing that television doesn't decrease literacy. I don't think TV makes us stupid, but I'm far from convinced it helps us be better at reading books.
reading  web  television  literature  books 
december 2007 by blech
Twilight of the Books | The New Yorker
An interesting piece on the retreat of reading. There's some good stuff about literate vs graphical thinking in the middle (I'm kind of obsessed since reading The Alphabet vs The Goddess).
books  reading  newyorker  article  via:preoccupations 
december 2007 by blech
Nobel winner on cultural decline | Ars Technica
A discussion on Lessing's Nobel speech. "One could respond to this in many ways, but perhaps the most fruitful would be to simply accept Lessing's premise. TV and computers and the Internet have changed the ways that people spend their time"
arstechnica  culture  internet  literature  books 
december 2007 by blech
Ace Jet 170: Ladislav Sutnar
More on Ladislav Sutnar, the Czech/American designer I'd managed never to hear about.
books  graphics  design  history 
november 2007 by blech
Kindle Versus The iPhone - Forbes.com
Good scepticism here. "The ability to grab free books online points to the device’s real competition: not paper books but Internet-friendly laptops, tablet computers and smart phones."
kindle  ebook  books  hardware  technology  internet 
november 2007 by blech
Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device
I'm really not convinced by this. Beyond the UScentric network tech, there's the pay-for web feeds, the lack of a route for your own PDFs onto it, and the DRM. They might want this to be the iPod for books, but Sony's Reader won't play its Walkman.
amazon  books  ebook  kindle  reader  sony  technology  us 
november 2007 by blech
London illuminated | Travel | Guardian Unlimited
"Christopher Winn's historic guide to London will not fail to enhance months, even years, of gentle urban exploration" Possibly a successor to the likes of Geoffrey Fletcher, but I already seem to know a bunch of his factoids.
london  books  reading 
october 2007 by blech
Books - Fractured Franchise | The New Yorker
Interesting review of an interesting book about democracy, through the lens of economics. It's not hard to persuade me that democracy is a bit wonky, but the solution seems worryingly close to "let market forces rule" to me.
newyorker  review  books  democracy  politics  economics  us 
july 2007 by blech
Top 10 science fiction novelists of the '00s - so far
"they're not *all* British" but most are. He misses a couple of author blogs, but not a bad list. Spoilt only by comments from idiots who think this is a list of the best still-alive scifi authors, as opposed to new(ish) ones.
sciencefiction  science  writing  fiction  books  recommendations  comment 
june 2007 by blech
What our daily rituals really say about our social history
The Guardian carries extracts from a book about everyday life, on breakfast, office work, and weather.
guardian  food  history  work  weather  article  books  extract 
may 2007 by blech
John Lanchester: Who owns what in the digital age? | Review | Guardian Unlimited Books
On Google Book Search, intellectual property, copyright, and similar matters. Long but a good read, even if some of the material is a bit familar to geeks.
google  books  library  copyright  media  oxford  guardian  comment 
april 2007 by blech
Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
Great review of a book about the emptiness of SDI and Reagan. "[these facts were] carefully kept from politicians and the press who, ignorant of the science, continued to discuss missile defense as if it was a serious proposal".
books  review  military  politics  us  via:yoz 
march 2007 by blech
Will Self Walk - Kennedy Airport - Manhattan | New York Times
Instead of taking the cab (what, no rail service either?) Will Self walks from JFK to the heart of the city. Sounds like just the sort of stupid thing I'd have done once. Walking to London City would have been trivial from East London, though.
walking  cities  books  writing  us  nyc  transport 
december 2006 by blech
Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: Share your shelf help tips
How do you arrange yours? In my case, oddly, haphazardly. My CDs are alphabetically organised, but in boxes.
guardian  books  comment  storage 
november 2006 by blech
Independent Online Edition > Reviews > Pschyogeography
Jah Wobble reviews a new book on the subject by Merlin Coverley. A good overview and looks like it might be an interesting book too
books  review  independent  london  politics  via:antimega 
august 2006 by blech
Book: Some stuff what I read recently.
Review of Beck's Underground Map; I note that it doesn't cover the evolution from '64 or so onwards (you need a second, also good, book for that)
london  tube  books  review  blogcomment 
august 2006 by blech
RSA Fellows' Library
via blackbeltjones, who inexplicably failed to actually link to it from any of his entries
rsa  library  navelgazing  books  review  via:blackbeltjones 
may 2006 by blech
Mappalujo
"A writing game devised by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard" to explore at home
art  books  games  language  literature  jeffnoon  via:blackbeltjones 
may 2006 by blech
Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | Broadening the mind
Mind Hacks gets a spot in the Guardian Review paperbacks roundup
books  guardian  review  science 
january 2005 by blech
Deep Prose Software
£10 for an app that seems to do much of what Delicious Library does, and some things it doesn't
barcode  books  mac 
november 2004 by blech
Amazon.co.uk: Books: Cities
"Cities explores the city’s raisons d’etre, functions and forms, its achievements and problems, from fortifications to sewers, factories to markets, theatres and bars"
books  city 
august 2004 by blech
Review: Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford
"The Poetry Of Science"- now out in paperback
books  guardian  science 
august 2004 by blech
Brain Hacks!
The brain was designed? I never thought of Webb as a creationist...
books  navelgazing 
august 2004 by blech
Guardian Unlimited | Books | A capital city
For future reference, three London books reviewed
books  guardian  london  from delicious
july 2004 by blech
Guardian Unlimited | Books | A capital city
For future reference, three London books reviewed
books  guardian  london 
july 2004 by blech

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