[Via eSchool news]
Four years ago Cambridge, Mass.-based E Ink Corporation and Taiwan’s Prime View International Co. hooked up to create an e-paper display that now supplies 90 percent of the fast growing eReader market, the Associated Press reports. But questions still hang over the Taiwanese-American venture, including the readiness of the marketplace to dispense with paper-based reading, in favor of relatively unfamiliar eReaders. “It’s cockamamie to think a product like that is going to revolutionize the way most people read,” analyst Michael Norris of Rockville, Maryland research firm Simba Information Co. said in an eMail. Americans use eBooks at a rate “much, much slower than it looks.” Another challenge for the venture is the ability of key customers like Amazon and Sony to withstand the onslaught of multifunctional computing devices which have eReader capability, particularly Apple’s iPad, whose five-month sales history has left their one-dimensional models struggling to keep up…
The House at Riverton: A Novel
~Kate Morton
This debut page-turner from Australian Morton recounts the crumbling of a prominent British family as seen through the eyes of one of its servants.
At 14, Grace Reeves leaves home to work for her mother's former employers at Riverton House. She is the same age as Hannah, the headstrong middle child who visits her uncle, Lord Ashbury, at Riverton House with her siblings Emmeline and David. Fascinated, Grace observes their comings and goings and, as an invisible maid, is privy to the secrets she will spend a lifetime pretending to forget.
But when a filmmaker working on a movie about the family contacts a 98-year-old Grace to fact-check particulars, the memories come swirling back.
The plot largely revolves around sisters Hannah and Emmeline, who were present when a family friend, the young poet R.S. Hunter, allegedly committed suicide at Riverton. Grace hints throughout the narrative that no one knows the real story, and as she chronicles Hannah's schemes to have her own life and the curdling of younger Emmeline's jealousy, the truth about the poet's death is revealed.
Morton triumphs with a riveting plot, a touching but tense love story and a haunting ending.
Amazon stocks the book
A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy. ~Edward P. Morgan
10 amazingly absurd 'facts' about books. If you love reading, if you love writing, if you are the bookish type, you may just find yourself grinning at this cartoon promoting the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival.
I enjoyed this little video ... but I'm not sure that the book was disappointed. During its short life, I think it was loved and appreciated a great deal.
Winner of the Miles Franklin Award for 2010: Peter Temple's thriller, Truth
Truth is a novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit. And it is about truth.
Truth is a novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit. And it is about truth.Peter Temple moves into the territory of The Bonfire of the Vanities and JM Coetzee's Disgrace with a masterpiece of modern fiction. A teenage prostitute is found with her neck broken in a bathroom in an apartment in The Prosilio, a new playground for the very rich. Despite the ultra sophisticated security, all systems crashed, the management is hand in glove with high ups in government and Stephen Villani, Head of Homicide, isn't getting much cooperation. Three men are found murdered in a garage, two of them so brutally tortured that it goes beyond the usual low-life revenge story. The suspects are then tipped off and die in a car accident, escaping from Villani. The public and populist politicians are baying for the police to take the blame for violent lawlessness and corruption. In this heartbreaking, nerve-wracking novel, Temple lays bare the soul of a man, Villani, as he faces the moral decline of a society and himself. Incapable of constancy as a father and a husband, damaged as a son and true only to his job and the confrontational stance he knows best, he seems unable to intervene while his teenage daughter runs with drug dealers. And while politicians and businessmen plot to make more money and buy people and their silence, the fires are coming closer from the outback to inhabited country, including where Villani's father lives.
You can buy the paperback for about $16 (and not pay any postage) here
=> http://bit.ly/bXmADo
In Haslett's excellent first novel (following Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here), a titan of the banking industry does battle with a surprisingly formidable opponent: a retired history teacher. Doug Fanning has built Union Atlantic from a mid-size Boston bank to an international powerhouse and rewards himself by building a rural palace in Finden, Mass. The land his house is built on, however, had been donated to Finden for preservation by Charlotte Graves's grandfather, and Charlotte believes she now has a claim on the lot. This book should be of interest to readers fascinated but perplexed by the current financial crisis, as it is able to navigate the oubliette of Wall Street trading to create searing and intimate drama.
Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes
~ Elizabeth Bard
"As charming and coquettish as Paris itself, Lunch in Paris reawakens our tired hearts and palates with a deliciously passionate journey through the city of lights. Be prepared to be seduced by french kisses, the richest chocolate, and the sweet charm of Bard's prose."
[Via The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://bit.ly/9MLMKc]
Ipl2: Literary Criticism [pdf]
Discriminating between the proverbial "wheat" and "chaff" on the Internet presents a number of challenges, and when it comes to discussion about online literary criticism, it's even more difficult. This helpful guide to the best of such resources is made possible via ipl2, which itself is the merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LII). These annotated suggestions are divided into sections that include "Best Starting Places" and "Starting Places for Particular Time Periods". Each resource is profiled in a short paragraph, and the link is also offered for convenience. While some parties might find the suggestions a bit rudimentary, these sites can be quite helpful for persons just coming to this arena.
A 10-Year-Old’s Marching Orders for the Upcoming School Year
" ... kids function best when they're real clear about exactly what's expected of them ..."
