Bookraft

Ok Jane Austen fans, here is a departure - an Austen novel with deliberate comic bite. And given the delicious reading by Juliet Stevenson - this novel becomes an outright delight. It is the story of a 17 year old ex-tomboy and 3rd of 10 Morland children [papa is a Parson] - Catherine Morland and her first forays into society. Catherine's neighbours, the Allens have offered to chaperon Catherine on their visit to Bath with its balls, Prom Room, plays, and concerts. That is the setting to which is added some scoundrel women, philandering men and many social settings where all can show their marks and rankings in the World of Civility.

The NYTimes technology section is getting to be one of my favorites for finding out about the latest electronic bling. With the exception of Apple topics, the coverage is not breathless fanboy scrapings of every detail of the Palm Pre or HP Mini Netbook seen on many other gadget sites; but rather very well measured updates of the the broad electronic device/software scene. The recent report on PicoProjectors is an example.

Now our companion blog has already been following the fairly rapid advance of micro-projectors and their ilk - and the news has been pretty good with prices falling below $500 and the projection capabilities reaching HD quality. But there are distinct size, lighting conditions, lamp-life and cost trade-offs - just check the two projectors linked to above.

Well there is a new set of pico projectors [see screenshot at left] that will appear on the electronics marketplace at the beginning of September and they will will be small and targeted for smartphones, video + digital cameras, and video players primarily and will only link to desktops and notebooks if they have the right connectors. Talk about a shift in direction - the smartphone is fast becoming the portable computing device of choice. Even the New Scientist in its stodgy way is recognizing this in spectacle ... spectacular fashion for a respectable science rag. See below for more details.

Google Books efforts to scan "all the books fit to print" has had a stormy history. The book publishers sued and the settlement took 3 years to work out. But now that all parties seemed satisfied it seems that all parties are NOT satisfied. But what could be better than a little intellectual fisticuffs in the literary world? Well when some pretty big Monopolistic pans in the Book and Info Worlds call the Google Pot a Blackass hegemonist, well the stew she is boiling . I tend to agree with the TechCrunchers, this is a Teapot Tempest of Hypocritical Proportions.

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In the long run, Google Books will rise and fall on how well it meets users needs. I think the interface could use some Bing-like help. But so far its a step ahead of what Amazon and the other book sellers give you; but still a bit less than what I expected. You decide. Try Google Books looking up say Northanger Abbey or Descartes Error: Emotions, Reason and the Human Brain. Decide for yourself what you think of the service .

Wolves Eat Dogs is the fifth in the Arkady Renko series of Moscow misertries. This is a portmanteau of 'miseries' and 'mysteries' that seem to abound in the under-world that is justice and detective work in Russia. The author certainly has the beaten down in Investigator Renko whose only strength, principled detective work, is a great liability yet again in the now nouveau resource rich Russia. Even better, the gravelly voice and paced reading by Ron McLarty gives audio-visual strength to our imaginings of the substance and dishevel that is always about Renko. It is sort of a permanent penchant to wobble to off-kilter. This is wonderfully reflected in Renko's refusal to button up a "suicide case" as all the top Moscow police brass want him to. Instead Renko busts the case open when he discovers that the crime scene is so radioactive that maybe the Pasha who committed suicide had every reason to do so.

Imagine writing a Romance novel set in Barcelona, but really situated for story and repressive mood in Franco's Spain of the 1930's to the early 1950's. The story is about a writer, Julian Xarax, and his seemingly lost set of novels that are not popular except with the literary community. Daniel Sempere is taken by his bookseller father to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books where he is to select one book from the many thousands which he must "adopt," and promise "that it will never disappear, that it will always stay alive." Daniel selects Julian Xarax's Shadow of the Wind. Truly a literary endeavor and the start of a Mystery-Romance in which Daniel feels compelled to find out more about Julian Xarax despite a)the fact that he discovers that someone is destroying and burning all the copies of Xarax's novels [less than 2000] not just in Barcelona but in Western Europe and b)some of the tough Francoist police start warning him off the case.

Another book that I never read in high school [or ever], has been Huckleberry Finn. Now I shall redress that with the help of Google Books. And if you have not read it, join me here:

Right away I like this book - with Mark Twain's Notice disclaimer at the beginning and his raucous narrative styling. I hope Mark manages to keep an even keel through the whole book.

Oh by the way, if you click the little black wedge arrows at the top right of the viewer they will turn the pages pretty well exactly. And if you are worried about the copyright material notices just click on Buy this Book .

WordsPlay is to Boggle as Lexulous is to Scrabble - a free, Web incarnation of a popular word game. One caution - the web version is very addictive. WordsPlay also helps build your mot muscles for Scrabble - which is the family pastime par excellence. To have family Scrabble bragging rights - well, its no small gem, akin to a familial Academy Award.

Cant say I like the name of the site - Wordnik resembles beatnik and suggests a slight obsessiveness about words that is discomforting but I digress. In fact Wordnik turns out to be a wonderful word resource:


Sample word look up at Wordnik

There are 21 books in the Captian Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. The books have been cited here before. So what brings the Truelove to the foredeck? Just another suberb reading by Simon Vance and the story of the naval and historical times around 1800-1820 by Patrick O'Brian. There is seamanship aplenty but overlayed is the nature of a stow-away female convict, Clarissa Harvill ... and what she can reveal about the a mole in the British naval service [seems the British have had a bad case of the Philby's disease for hundreds if not thousands of years]. This time the spymanship intrigue is most entertaining - and of course the reading by Simon Vance is a Master and Commander performance.

Here is another example where an audiobook with a stellar performer as reader, really adds value to a book. Medicus is a novel [okay, a mystery novel set in the outskirts of the Roman Empire - i.e. Brittania]. I had come across this book in a antique shop [okay also a used book seller] and had started to read it, got intriqued, but also got pulled away by my companioin on an urgent task [much like the hero of this series, Gaius Petreius Ruso - Medicus/Doctor to the 20th Centurions]. Too may alarm I misplaced the book. I was disappointed because the book had a quirky tone to it and an engrossing proposition - a historically accurate portrayal of the life and times of Roman Britain. But as I told Tanya, for the life of me I could not remember the title.

This past week, I happened to run across Medicus again - but as an audiobook in the Port Hope library. Still I was delighted and cued it up on an auto-trip to a client's site in Southern Ontario. I was hoping that the book in audio-reading would be as good as the one I had misplaced in the antique store. Not to worry - because the story reader, Simon Vance, is a primary reason the book comes off as a potent charmer. Simon has the gift of voices. He can get the low growl of Bassos; the uptight, upright tones of our Medicus, Gaius Ruso; the warbling charms of the ladies at the bar - Daphne, Chloe, and the scheming Marulla; and the cunning banter of Valens and Priscus. In short, Simon gives varied yet natural and believable voices to an already richly described Deva[now Chester], Brittania.