Erik Raymond offers a few hacks for reading more books. His advice includes making a plan and pushing yourself a bit. I have to draw the line at making a spreadsheet. That seems so Windows 95.
Category Archives: Blogs, Socials
The Editorial We
Who came up with this joke, “Only monarchs, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we’”? The Quote Investigator, um, investigates.
Compromise: A Tennessee Horror Story
Loren Eaton talks about how weird Oregon is and introduces his new short story, “Fostering.”
“You, uh, may not want to watch this.”
Bertrand: Let Me Design a Bible
The Bible Exchange labels J. Mark Bertrand “the most interesting man in the (Bible) world” as a way to soften him up before peppering him with questions. What’s his favorite Bible? The ESV Reader’s Bible
“Every so often people will ask me, ‘Why don’t you design your own Bible?’ I’d really like to. I’ve gone so far as to create the proposal to see whether any publishers are interested in the project. Meanwhile I am staying away from boats and airplanes for fear of being prematurely stranded.”
Shameless quid pro quo
Yesterday I linked to Anthony Sacramone’s announcement of a new edition of the Intercollegiate Review, over at Strange Herring.
Today, entirely by coincidence, he links to my interview at Issues, Etc.
Oh, who am I kidding? He goes into the Norman history of his Sicilian ancestors, and we Sicilians are all about scratching each other’s backs.
That’s a nice photo of me at the top of the blog post, too.
I review ‘Saint Odd’ at The American Culture
I’ve got a review of Saint Odd, the final Odd Thomas book, over at Liberty 21’s The American Culture blog today.
If you’ve read the novels (and for heaven’s sake, if you haven’t read them, don’t start with this one. Start with Odd Thomas, and read them in order), you know what I mean. We all knew it was coming. There is no surprise in it.
But be comforted. All is well. All will be well.
I review ‘Treasure Planet’
Another day, another review. I reviewed Hal Colebatch’s novel, Treasure Planet, for the American Spectator.
The Jim Hawkins character here is Peter Cartwright, a young man who helps his mother run an inn in a remote part of Wunderland. The appearance of Captain Skel, a demanding and dangerous old space-farer, sets off a plot whose general outlines will be familiar to any Stevenson fan. Long John Silver here is “Silver,” a Kzin with a prosthetic leg, and instead of a ship we have, of course, a spacecraft. The treasure in this book is not gold, but an alien library full of technological information left behind by a long-extinct species.
Read it all here..
Presence of ‘Malice’
They’ve revamped our friend S. T. Karnick’s The American Culture blog, and I’ve finally found a minute to write a book review for them. It’s a review of Keigo Higashino’s Malice.
That seems straightforward enough, but Detective Kaga is unsatisfied. The confession has minor holes, ones that nag at him. Gradually, as one peels away the layers of an onion, he works his way down to Nonoguchi’s true, secret motive.
Read it all here.
Advent Ghost Stories 2014
“There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long. long ago.”
Loren Eaton hosts another round of ghost stories centered on Christmastime. There are many here, and Loren has a couple himself. Note this one called “Elizabeth.” Enjoy and post your comments.
Is a Content Creator Required to Interact with Readers?
Matthew Ingram argues that media companies, particularly content creators like Reuters, should allow their readers to comment on articles. If they don’t, they are shutting out potential fan support.
Reuters recently removed its comment section, saying self-policing social networks were already handling lively discussion well so they didn’t need to duplicate the effort. Ingram says by doing this, Reuters is handing a large slice of market value to Facebook and Twitter (among other networks) as well as move any arguments over an article onto other venues where Reuters’ writers will have to decide how to respond on their own. He explains:
Is moderation a pain, and an expensive proposition? Sure it is. Lots of things that matter to your business are expensive. And if you have an engaged community, they can become your moderators, as successful online communities like Slashdot and Metafilter have shown — which in turn helps strengthen your community. Ending comments means removing any chance that this will ever happen.
A news service probably needs all the love it can get. Does Reuters really want their writers to tweet their defense of contentious reports or take the debate to Medium?