Kindle Cost Cut to $139 as Price War Begins – NYTimes.com:
Amazon is hoping to convince even casual readers that they need a digital reading device. By firing another shot in an e-reader price war leading up to the year-end holiday shopping season, the e-commerce giant turned consumer electronics manufacturer is also signaling it intends to do battle with Apple and its iPad as well as the other makers of e-readers like Sony and Barnes & Noble.
The ereader dilemma grows ever more complex. . .
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”: casting the new film version
Marjorie Kehe is reporting on The Christian Science Monitor‘s book blog that Daniel Craig has signed to portray Mikael Blomkvist, the male protagonist, in the Hollywood version of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Meanwhile, the search continues for the film’s Lisbeth Salander. The movie is scheduled for release on December 21, 2011.
After seeing the Swedish films of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, I just wish Hollywood would leave Larsson’s Millennium trilogy alone. The Swedish versions will be hard film acts to follow.
Taming Time Travel – Science News:
Novelists and screenwriters know that time travel can be accomplished in all sorts of ways: a supercharged DeLorean, Hermione’s small watch and, most recently, a spacetime-bending hot tub have allowed fictional heroes to jump between past and future.
But physicists know that time travel is more than just a compelling plot device — it’s a serious prediction of Einstein’s general relativity equations. In a new study posted online July 15, researchers led by Seth Lloyd at MIT analyze how some of the quirks and peculiarities of real-life time travel might play out. This particular kind of time travel evades some of its most paradoxical predictions, Lloyd says.
Any theory of time travel has to confront the devastating ‘grandfather paradox,’ in which a traveler jumps back in time and kills his grandfather, which prevents his own existence, which then prevents the murder in the first place, and so on.
I certainly don’t have the physics background to understand the scientific concept of time travel, but I’ve always found the possibility to be a fascinating literary device. Here’s a bit of the scientific perspective.
International Thriller Writers Announces Award Winners:
Winners include the following:
Harper Lee’s famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published 50 years ago today.
New Biography Claims Emily Dickinson Had Epilepsy : NPR:
Another offering from National Public Radio, this one about the new biography of poet Emily Dickinson that opens the door on a number of skeletons in the Dickinson family closet.
After 50 Years, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Still Sings America’s Song : NPR:
National Public Radio’s contribution to the upcoming 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Top 10 books of 2010… according to Amazon – CSMonitor.com:
Here’s a list of Amazon’s top 10 “must read” books for the first half of 2010. The article also contains links to a few other Amazon lists: a Top 10 fiction list, a Top 10 nonfiction list, and a Top 10 kids and teens list.
In addition, Christian Science Monitor book reviewer Marjorie Kehe adds some of her favorites that didn’t make Amazon’s cut.
And here I thought that “best books of the year” lists only came out in December. . . .
Scout, Atticus & Boo – CSMonitor.com:
Yvonne Zipp, in Christian Science Monitor, reviews a new book issued to honor the fiftieth anniversary–July 11–of the publication of Harper Lee’s iconic novel To Kill a Mockingbird: “‘Scout, Atticus & Boo’ is a lovely celebration of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ And if, in the end, many of the interviews boil down to: This is a really, really good book… well, they’re right. “
