What the goth Goddess of Time has to do with elephant head transplants and Pixar’s pastimes.

What if you could cross The Night Life of Trees, the magical artwork based on Indian mythology, with The Ancient Book of Myth and War, that delightful side project by a team of Pixar animators? You’d get The Little Book of Hindu Deities: From the Goddess of Wealth to the Sacred Cow — an impossibly charming illustrated almanac of gods and goddesses by Pixar animator Sanjay Patel. These beautiful stories from Indian mythology span the entire spectrum of human experience — petty quarrels and epic battles, love and betrayal, happiness and loss — with equal parts humor and respect, pairing each full-color illustration with a lively profile of that deity.

In the book’s introduction, Patel notes his fascination with Japanese animation, which influenced his style in depicting the Hindu deities — a curious case of creative cross-pollination across cultures. For an added smile, Patel originally self-published the book before Plume picked it up.

A playful morphology of a mythological pantheon, The Little Book of Hindu Deities is as captivating and entertaining as it is informative without being encyclopedic — a light and joyful journey into Hinduism by way of the contemporary pop culture aesthetic.

Patel’s follow-up, The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities, featuring 12 stunning removable prints, is also very much worth a look.

HT @ShamilaJiwa; images courtesy of Sanjay Patel

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From Morocco to Mongolia, or what we can learn about climate change from Inuit whale hunters.

What is it about Dutch photographers that makes them so visually eloquent at capturing the human condition? From Jeroen Toirkens comes Nomad — a fascinating and strikingly beautiful visual anthropology of the Northern Hemisphere’s last living nomadic peoples, from Greenland to Turkey. A decade in the making, this multi-continent journey unfolds in 150 black-and-white and full-color photos that reveal what feels like an alternate reality of a life often harsh, sometimes poetic, devoid of many of our modern luxuries and basic givens, from shiny digital gadgets to a permanent roof over one’s head.

Since the beginning of time, nomadic people have roamed the earth. Looking for food, feeding their cattle. Looking for an existence, freedom. Living in the wild, mountains, deserts, on tundra and ice. With only a thin layer of tent between them and nature. Earth in the 21st century is a crowded place, roads and cities are everywhere. Yet somehow, these people hold on to traditions that go back to the very beginning of human civilization.” ~ Jelle Brandt Corstius

Zuun Taiga, Mongolia, 2007

Tiniteqilaaq, Greenland, 2009

Altai Mountains, Russia, 2006

Tiniteqilaaq, Greenland, 2009

Nuuk, Greenland, 2009

Zuun Taiga, Mongolia, 2007

Zuun Taiga, Mongolia, 2007

Arghangai Aimag, Mongolia, 2007

Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2007

Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2007

Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2007

Kola Sami, Russia, 2006

Nenets, Russia, 2005

Baruun Taiga, Mongolia, 2004

Kazakh, Altai Mountains, Russia, 2004

Berbers, High Atlas Mountains, Morocco, 2002

Kirgiz, Kyrgystan, 2000

Yörük, Bolkar Mountains, Turkey, 1999

Sami, Karesuvanto, Finland, 2001

Kola Sami, Russia, 2006

This video of what the “Eskimo” life really means, made in the settlement Tiniteqilaaq hunters, will give you a taste for the project’s breathtaking mesmerism:

Because of climate change, we can see and feel winter days get colder and the sea, it’s warmer. And, because of that, it’s more difficult to hunt in the winters.”

A stunning exercise in perspective-shifting, Nomad invites you to see the world — our world, and yet a world that feels eerily other — with new eyes, embracing it with equal parts fascination and profound human empathy.

Images courtesy of Jeroen Toirkens

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What Leo Tolstoy can teach us about curation.

Understanding creative influence is essential to understanding remix culture and a centerpiece of combinatorial creativity. I recently collaborated with illustrator extraordinaire Wendy MacNaughton and Michelle Legro of Lapham’s Quarterly of a subjective visualization of creative influence in literature and other arts, but this ecosystem of cross-pollination is far more layered and complex than a playful graphic could possibly convey. The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life is Harold Bloom’s ambitious effort to peel away at these many layers. Bloom, who for the past half-century has been exploring that ecosystem as a Yale literature professor and contemporary culture’s most significant literary critic, offers insight on 30 of the world’s most iconic writers, from Shakespeare to Joyce to Emerson, and examines issues ranging from the role of “creative misreading” in the joy of literature to the supreme fiction of the romantic self to the influence of a mind on itself.

Literature for me is not merely the best part of life; it is itself the form of life, which has no other form.” ~ Harold Bloom

The book is a follow-up to Bloom’s 1973 classic, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, and was inspired by Robert Burton’s 1621 masterpiece, The Anatomy of Melancholy. Of that influence, Bloom writes:

Traces of Burton’s marvelous madness abound in this book, and yet it may be that all I share with Burton is an obsessiveness somewhat parallel to his own. Burton’s melancholy emanated from his fantastic learning: he wrote to cure his learnedness. My book isolates literary influence as the agon of influence, and perhaps I write to cure my own sense of having been overinfluenced since childhood by the great Western authors.”

But the part that captivated me the most was this quote from a Leo Tolstoy letter in the book’s epigraph, which articulates the essence of my own curatorial sense of purpose better than I ever could:

For art criticism we need people who would show the senselessness of looking for ideas in a work of art, and who instead would continually guide readers in that endless labyrinth of linkages that makes up the stuff of art, and bring them to the laws that serve as the foundation for those linkages.”

A true treat for literati and remixologists alike, The Anatomy of Influence is an exquisite paean to the love of literature, one that pulls you into its enthusiasm with equal parts mesmerism and cunning precision.

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Steve Jobs's black turtlenecks helped make him the world's most recognizable CEO. But the Apple co-founder wouldn't have worn them if his employees had accepted the nylon jacket he proposed as a corporate uniform instead. Before he died, Jobs himself explained his sartorial signature to biographer Walter Isaacson, in an interview published for the first time below. More »

Exclusive: Flipkart.com, among India’s largest online retail businesses, is entering the digital distribution domain by acquiring Mime360, a Mumbai based business digital content platform company which hosts music streaming for labels like Saregama, Universal Music and Inreco. Mime360 delivers music content to publishers like Gaana.com (Indiatimes), Myusic and iMusti, but it also allows for distribution of video (TV and Films), Games and Music. Last week, Mime360 began informing labels of the acquisition by Flipkart.

Confirming the development to MediaNama, Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal said that that they were talking to Mime360 about powering their digital music launch, and they liked the team and the technology platform that had been built. “We’ve acquired them for the team, because they’re strong in both business and technology. That is coupled with their strong domain knowledge, because they’ve been been at it for the last two years. They have strong relationships (in the music business). The digital distribution platform that they’ve built helps us with the time to market.” It’s a 100% acquisition, and a part-stock, part-cash deal; Bansal declined to comment on the valuation of Mime360.

Flipkart will begin with launching digital music distribution, for which the company is in talks with labels, and eventually roll out ebooks and games. Bansal declined to comment on specific plans, since they’re still in discussions with potential partners, saying that a concrete plan is not in place.

Mime360 has around 11-12 people, and the technology team will eventually shift to Bangalore, while the business team will remain in Mumbai. Sameer Nigam, CEO of Mime360, will head lead Flipkart’s digital distribution business. There are plans to expand both the business team and technology team.

Also read: How Mime360 Is Trying To Change Music Distribution In India
*Reach India’s Digital Industry Decision Makers: Advertise on MediaNama. Contact sales@medianama.com. For more info, click here.

Thank you for your excellent guide to independent bookshops included with this Saturday's Guardian. We were pleased to see that it included our own small shop along with so many others in all parts of the country, all much loved by their customers and hopefully most of them flourishing.
In the same paper (1 October) you report that Jamie Oliver is set to top the Christmas bestseller charts yet again – odds-on favourite according to William Hill. Readers may be delighted to learn that Amazon is offering this £30 book for a mere £10, a bargain indeed and a huge slap in the face to small bookshops like most of those in your guide, who will buy it from their wholesalers or direct from the publisher at considerably more. In our case we will pay £18 a copy (unless, of course, we order from Amazon) and feel impelled to discount to compete with the likes of WH Smith and the online giant.
Where is the sense in this, and how can small booksellers survive? The stark answer is that, like the Harbour Bookshop in Dartmouth, which closed a few days ago, most will not. Most of us have loyal customers who will buy from us whatever the price, but with the economic squeeze this state of affairs can hardly continue. Perhaps a new project for the Guardian might be to talk to publishers and attempt to find out why they feel impelled to give suicidally large discounts on the very books that people most want to buy. I believe most European countries have some form of net book agreement that protects small shops like ours. I wonder how many of the bookshops in your guide will still be trading a year from now.Patricia AbrehartKingsbridge, Devon
BooksellersPublishingAmazon.comJamie Oliverguardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

‘Lit for Life’ panellist Anjum Rajabali speaks about cinema and literature.

Do you remember the first book you read?

While I don’t remember the first book that I ever read (must have been an Enid Blyton), the first book that I remember reading is [Charles and Mary] Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. It had three comedies and three tragedies, including the greats – The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, Julius Ceasar, Macbeth and Hamlet. Even without grasping the nuances in Hamlet’s character, I do remember being very moved by his predicament and identifying with his sense of confusion. And, after that, Rajaji’s Mahabharata and Ramayana.  Needless to say, these wonderful books left a deep impression on me and initiated a lasting interest in the classics and in mythology.

Are you a big reader? Do screenwriters necessarily have to be big readers?

Not of late, frankly. In the last few years, I’m afraid I have allowed my reading time to get heavily compromised by other commitments. It’s not a situation that I’m happy with, and I need to rectify that at the soonest. Because for any meaningful creative work, regular enrichment of one’s inner life is important. Now, while this happens mostly through a vigorous engagement with life’s experiences, literature is a huge stimulant. Yes, reading helps enormously.

What kind of books do you like to read now, especially when you’re scoping for ideas for films?

I’ve never read books with the aim of tapping ideas for films. If I do come across something that I can see a film in then I try sometimes to contemplate a treatment for a screenplay. Non-fiction, especially a study of narrative traditions, seems to have preoccupied me more the last few years.

Is there any book that grabbed you by the lapels and made you want to attempt a film version?

It’s crazy, but the one book that made me feel that way was the one that actually is near-impossible to script: The Perfect Spy, by John LeCarre. It is a fascinating book – a superb character study of a man ridden with dilemmas that he struggles to resolve in vain. The way LeCarre conveys the impact of the father’s personality on the son is so vivid and identifiable that I wasn’t surprised to learn that he had based Richard Pym’s character on his own father.

And then of course, I share every Indian screenwriter’s dream – of being able to script the Mahabharata someday. It’s a gargantuan task undoubtedly, but it is a script that is waiting to burst out from India. And I assure you that even as we speak there must be half-a-dozen writers out there working on this! I intend to get down to it myself at some stage soon. Sometime back, I did work out the character sketches and a broad outline in three parts. Also, as it happens, a director was keen on making the Ramayana a few years ago. So I wrote the step-outline for that in two parts. Unfortunately, that project fell through.

The epics apart, whose archetypes we still see in our cinema, why do you think so few books make it to the screen these days?

Frankly, Hindi cinema has never really drawn from literature in any steady way. There are good examples, yes, but very few, and those are by litterateur-screenwriters themselves, like Rahi Masoom Reza, Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Gulshan Nanda. But after them, I’m afraid, in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, Hindi cinema went through a phase of near-illiteracy. Screenwriting hit its nadir, mostly with cynically cobbled-together formula passing off as scripts. Those were the dark ages of Hindi films! As a result of that, we did see an upsurge in quality in the ‘90s with screenwriting gaining importance. And yet, perhaps reflecting the characteristic of their generation, not many screenwriters were influenced by literature. Moreover, the producers’ reaction to suggestions of adapting literature was that the ‘masses’ wouldn’t appreciate such ‘intellectual’ stuff. I’m serious!  But, now, in this precedent-driven industry, big commercial successes like 3 Idiots have helped reduce their allergy to adaptations. Several films based on novels are already underway. Books are back in vogue, it appears.

What about western literature? Do you think “their” stories could become “our” movies?

Why not! That is why it’s called adaptation. If the essential story has universal resonances, one can always recontextualise it and adapt the characters to our milieu. I mean, writers like Gulzar sahab and Vishal [Bhardwaj] did do so with Shakespeare, didn’t they? And given how adept we are at ‘adapting’ American cinema, why can’t we use the same skills on their literature!

Who, in your opinion, best straddled the worlds of literature and cinema?

I guess that would have to be Raymond Chandler. Here, Dr. Rahi Masoom Reza or Rajinder Singh Bedi.

An edited version of this piece can be found here.

Copyright ©2011 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.

Filed under: Books, Cinema, Cinema: Hindi

The Daily Telegraph: 80 Years of Cryptic Crosswords was published in celebration of the Telegraph crossword's completing eighty years of publication. Beautifully packaged in hardbound cover, this is a true collector's item.
Not being a regular Telegraph crossword solver, I might have given this book a miss had a thoughtful friend not gifted it to me. I am glad I got to read it.
The book contains 80 crosswords in all, one to represent each year of the Daily Telegraph crossword's existence during 1925-2005. Interspersed with the crosswords is a narrative by Val Gilbert, editor of The Daily Telegraph crossword for thirty years till her retirement in 2006.
The book is organized into sections decade-wise, starting with 1925, the year when the first Daily Telegraph crossword was published. Each section has its own preface – this is the part I most enjoyed: Val Gilbert ties together news of the decade with changes within the Daily Telegraph setting team, evolution of the crossword's style and popularity, anecdotes and personal reflections on these matters in amusing ways.
Sample an excerpt from 1945-54:
…civil servants, like compilers, were developing a language all their own. In the post-war years there was an outbreak of officialese that could verge on the incomprehensible. The only similarity between a good cryptic clue and official gobbledygook (as it came to be called) is that both challenge the reader to make sense of it, the main difference being that that the good clue does it with wit!
We follow the progression of the cryptic crossword through the economic depression of 1929, the World Wars I and II, the advent of crossword software, 9/11 and beyond – and marvel at the influence of external climate on our pastime. In the chapters about the early decades, the narrative does an additional job of warning solvers of the rawness of cryptic technique. The first-ever Telegraph crossword of 30 July 1925 looks nothing like the cryptic crosswords of today. Those were the days when clues like "A muddled life" = ILFE made it to print, two-letter words were accepted, definitions and indicators could be missing.
Each crossword is captioned with a news headline from the day it appeared in print. I'm not sure if the choice of the crossword was made according to its quality or the significance of its date of publication. In any case, those 80 headlines give an interesting, if highly subjective, sketch of the world's recent history. [Since the book is by a British author for a primarily British audience, I will not dwell on the point of choosing only these two events related to India as captions: Partition of India announced (3 June 1947) and India attacks Pakistan (6 September 1965).]
The most riveting parts of the book are the anecdotes. The famous case of the coded D-Day crosswords is demystified, and there are others I hadn't heard about before – a woman who left her will scrawled on a crossword; a rich man, full of disbelief over the superfast solving times claimed by people, who issued a challenge to solvers to finish a puzzle publicly in 12 minutes. Then there are illuminating behind-the-scenes insights: technological advancements change the process of typesetting and compiling post-1985; the appearance of the crossword in the paper is affected by cost-cutting measures in 1939 - and a bomb scare in 1992!
Also fun are the tongue-in-cheek references to the Times crossword. The Telegraph makes it a point to rub in their seniority:
In January 1930, The Times finally succumbed and published its first crossword puzzle. Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph compilers, with their five-year lead, were now exploiting to the full the double meaning and the illusory pun.
…and take credit for their editor's prowess :)
In January 2003, Richard Browne’s last puzzle appeared in The Daily Telegraph - he had been appointed crossword editor to the Times (trouble is, of course, that the Telegraph trains them so well!).
The crosswords themselves aren't uniformly entertaining. I enjoyed the ones from the last decade, and tried one or two each from the previous decades but didn't feel enthusiastic enough to attempt all. Many of the clues aren't fair enough by the standards we follow today, and though that didn't interfere with my enjoyment of Afrit's work, here the older puzzles didn't click for me.
The final puzzle in this book is a special one, and pretty good – the crossword is made of clues sent in by solvers. This was published on 30 July 2005, the 80th anniversary of the Telegraph crossword.
I had expected bigger biographies about the crossword setters; surely they deserved more space in a book celebrating their creations? I now find that Val Gilbert has devoted a separate book for the setters: A Display Of Lights (9): The Lives and Puzzles of the Telegraph's Six Greatest Cryptic Crossword Setters.
Looking at the interactivity the Telegraph encourages with its readers, I am not surprised at the enormous popularity of their crossword. I dare any Hindu crossword solver not to feel a pang of envy on reading these words by the Telegraph crossword editor (p.194), about their search for a new crossword compiler:
Six new compilers were used in as many weeks and solvers were invited to assess the puzzles that appeared during this time. Not that the Telegraph solvers have been backward in informing the paper what they thought of its puzzles. But in this case, I was actively asking their opinion.
Related Posts:
Pretty Girl In Crimson Rose (8) Tim Moorey's How To Master The Times Crossword Wordplay (DVD) If you wish to keep track of further articles on Crossword Unclued, you can subscribe to it in a reader via RSS Feed. You can also subscribe by email and have articles delivered to your inbox, or follow me on twitter to get notified of new links.

Imagine if you'd seen everything good, or if you knew about everything good. Imagine if you really got to all the recordings and books and movies you're "supposed to see." Imagine you got through everybody's list, until everything you hadn't read didn't really need reading. That would imply that all the cultural value the world has managed to produce since a glob of primordial ooze first picked up a violin is so tiny and insignificant that a single human being can gobble all of it in one lifetime. That would make us failures, I think.

Ayn Rand was out of her Vulcan mind.

This is a simple fact that can be verified by anyone with even minimal Google skills. She was the Albert Schweitzer of Selfishness and the Mother Theresa of Greed all rolled into one. This, naturally, makes her a hero to the Right and qualifies her for sainthood. Too bad she was an Atheist.

And to think that I considered 'The Fountainhead' one of my favorite books in college. Now, of course, I know better.

"Maybe people who grow up reading online, where every book is identical, don't know what they're missing."

Seeing Around is a 36-page essay about optical and analytical experiences in the 3D spaceland of landscape sculptures.

Edward Tufte announces his new book which focuses on landscape architecture.

"Today, I am the proud owner of approximately 20 books – six of which are craft books. To move from one extreme to the other took some serious work, and was not an overnight process. It started with the realization that I was not so much attached to the stories and words themselves, but the physical books sitting on the shelves. Once I had that realization, I began to let go of some of my books, and moved slowly towards a more minimalist reading collection."

As we move toward ebooks or reading online, physical books retain is a nostalgic reminder of an activity that we once enjoyed. Mind you, that we still enjoy reading however, the mode of reading has changed. And it should. After all, shouldn't the content matter more than the medium? Admittedly we are not there yet but are definitely headed that way.

"Franklin W. Dixon never existed. Franklin W. Dixon was a "house name," owned by a company called the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which created and published the original Hardy Boys. From 1927 through 1946 each Hardy Boys book was secretly written by a man named Leslie McFarlane."

Sigh! And to think that I used to hunt down every Hardy Boys book ever written although I passionately hated the Case Files.

"After we exclude serials, we can finally count all the books in the world. There are 129,864,880 of them. At least until Sunday."

Google counts all the books in the world and explains how it did it. This does not however represent all the human knowledge which may be contained in mediums other than books. Yes, that includes blogs too.

We wondered how we could compete with Rove on the bestseller list. We don’t have the luxury of friends in high places. We don’t have national TV exposure. So how we could we be Rovian and beat him at his own game? One thing immediately came to mind: An attack ad.

RT @a__muse: Lomborg gets pawned - I bet this does not feature in Ms. Ghose's reading list.

WTF "Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food. "

How asking a book to be banned is always counter-productive. Last week, jury selection began for the Cheshire murder trial, a process that might take months. Could a controversial book cause a miscarriage of justice?

We can sit here in our geeky little dorkosphere arguing about it all day, but as much as Apple clearly enjoys our participation, the people Jobs wants to sell this to don't read our rants.

Here’s a riddle: How do you make your book a best seller on the Kindle?

Answer: Give copies away.

It's basically a list of all the "best ofs" from the 2000s.

how copyright extension has banished millions of books to the scrapheap of history

Given their emphasis on cold, hard numbers, it’s noteworthy that Levitt and Dubner ignore what are, by now, whole libraries’ worth of data on global warming. Indeed, just about everything they have to say on the topic is, factually speaking, wrong. Among the many matters they misrepresent are: the significance of carbon emissions as a climate-forcing agent, the mechanics of climate modelling, the temperature record of the past decade, and the climate history of the past several hundred thousand years.

Gladwell is no fad. He is a brand, a guru, a fixture at New York publishing parties and in the spiels of literary agents hoping to steer writers toward concepts that will strike publishers as "Gladwellian."

When you build it for me, run the bookcase end-to-end. Thank you.

I’m not sure I knew the details of all these lives when I was 29, but I did begin to guess that happiness lies less in our circumstances than in what we make of them, in every sense.

Launching in London today, the Espresso Book Machine can print any of 500,000 titles while you wait

"Well, someone had to do it, and I think I’m the first. I’ve archived my first two years of twittering to a hardback book."

"These days you can find all sorts of things online, from audio books to flash files, from sound effects to CSS templates. Below we compiled a list with over 100 download sites that serve that purpose."

Book Chronicles Quest to Answer 'Ultimate' Question

Scroll down to the last one.

Checking books out for the library is a good strategy for reducing book clutter in your home. However, if you check a book out from the library, you can’t write in it.

After a 10-year run, and less than a year after the seventh and final book in J. K. Rowling’s series was published, the Harry Potter books have fallen — as of the May 11 issue of the Book Review, which went to press last night — off The Times’s be

Save up to 55-65% on books by renting.

Online Books, Poems, Short Stories

Explains how statisticians think about data, introduces modern statistical computing, and has lots of real examples.

Big crowds are potential incarnate. They're exciting, frightening and transformative -- often simultaneously. This photo-driven book surveys an extensive range of events, happenings, densely-populated locales and visually-arresting traditions throughout t

A Netflix for books

J.K. Rowling has been spotted at cafes in Scotland working on a detective novel.

People seem to be lying to the opinion polls, as well. They claim to go to church in much larger numbers than they actually do (there aren't enough churches in the country to hold the hordes who boast of attending)

If only it was that easy.

Rowling has been far more successful, critically as well as financially, because the Potter books grew as they went along.

Super Index of Free Children's Books Online

Each time a new Harry Potter book or movie comes out, Bradenton resident Harry Potter starts getting phone calls from children, interview requests from the TV networks and autograph requests.

JKR gives details on events after the book’s final epilogue

Why are the Weasleys poor? Why would any wizard be? Anything they need, except scarce magical objects, can be obtained by ordering a house elf to do it, or casting a spell, or, in a pinch, making objects like dinner, or a house, assemble themselves

SPOILER! How the Book Ends—and What I Thought Of It

“Everyone would love to get their hands on a Harry Potter first edition. You are unique – you’re the only person in the world who turned one down.”

Potter fanfic varies dramatically in style and quality, but you can always find a shower scene.

Jim Dale is either one of the luckiest men in America or one of the most tortured.

Don't click if you don't want potential spoilers.