Currently struggling to get BookQueueToo implemented. It doesn’t seem to want to work with MT2.661, but works well with MT3.x etc. Other places to check: MT Plugins Amazon Web Services Blog WYSIWYG, with a helpful hint about which folder/directory it should be in. I ended up uninstalling BookQueue, BookQueueToo, RE-installing BQ2, and then uninstalling it and trying to reinstall the original BQ. With me so far? The books are still showing up on the blog, but now I can’t access the old interface, probably because David needs to re-set the permissions on the original version. Fooey, I don’t want to…
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… to read this book. It’s true crime, a genre I normally like a lot if well written. But it’s all mixed up with the author’s outlook, personal problems, and some rather shameless self-justifying prose defending his reasons for wanting to gamble, frequent strip joints, and buy glitzy jewelry in the interests of “color” or “background” or “research.” It’s called Positively Fifth Street and I was positively certain I’d never manage to finish it if I read the author’s “background” stories about playing poker in Vegas, so I stuck to the courtroom drama and dramatized reconstructions of a famous Sin…
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Thomas Covenant Books In Film Deal Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I don’t care that Covenant’s character was unique (so far as I know; it’s a long time since I read a lot of fantasy novels) for his unbelief in the world he found himself in. I don’t care that he was a modern-day leper who found himself miraculously cured of his ailment soon after waking up in The Land, forgiven for his many and continuing transgressions by the inhabitants of the fantasy world that he refused to believe was real, and worshiped for his ability to defeat the Big Bad Evil…
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BBC NEWS | Europe | Rare books in German library fire Oh no! I expect my friend Debbie the Librarian will have heard about this already, it’s her field of expertise.
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It’s my pleasure to introduce you to the best book you’ve never read. It was published, posthumously and after great difficulty, in 1981. It won the Pulitzer Prize. It has the distinction of being the one book everyone in Hollywood would like to turn into a movie, but no one can do it, because it can’t be done. In fact, the project may be cursed, because 3 actors once considered for the lead role died shortly after their names were associated with it. What is it? A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. I stumbled upon a reference to…
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I was listening to AAR – Majority Report just now for the first time in a while, and happened on an interesting discussion with George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think. It’s very interesting. He proposes that political views can be categorized by two family archetypes, the Strict Father and the Nurturing Parent. As he spoke listing the attributes and belief systems of each model, it made our current political system of dysfunctional polarism sound more and more like Family Feud. There’s a lot more about how to take back control of the national debate…
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The title of the upcoming sixth Harry Potter book will be Harry Potter ********************, author J.K. Rowling’s official Web site revealed. Fans had to solve a series of puzzles to open a door on the site, revealing the title. Okay, if you want to try to solve the puzzle unspoiled, go here. If you just want to know the damn title already, go to the Sci Fi article cited above.
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I finally finished reading Nine Parts of Desire a couple of weeks ago, and found it disturbing and also enlightening. For instance, this article from the Beeb: Iran’s government has launched a crackdown on women who flout the strict Islamic dress codes during the hot summer months. And according to the book, Iran is actually strangely flexible in its rigidity – Khomeini was always more willing to extend more rights to women, so long as they observed the proprieties. At least they can work outside the home, for one thing. And drive, for another. Iranian women are better off than…
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Well, this is the big news: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bryson wins £10,000 science prize but I think I envy Bill Bryson more for getting to live in a small village in Yorkshire (for a while, at least – it’s not clear if he returned there from his stay in the States). I need to read more of his books as soon as possible.
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I borrowed this book from my MIL the other day when we went down to see their new place: The Nine Parts of Desire. I couldn’t put it down while I was there, and it’s one of “those books.” You know the kind I mean – books you heard about a long time ago, wanted to read, but never got around to it. I like books where the writer has to become a part of a community in order to write about it and the people in it. That was why I liked Nickel and Dimed. I read the latter…