Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.

Dominick Dunne, Writer Who Chronicled High-Profile Crime, Is Dead at 83

Obituaries / By /

Dominick Dunne, Writer Who Chronicled High-Profile Crime, Is Dead at 83 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com: Dominick Dunne, who gave up producing movies in midlife and reinvented himself as a best-selling author, magazine writer, television personality and reporter whose celebrity often outshone that of his subjects, died Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was […]

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Book Review – ‘Get Real,’ by Donald E. Westlake

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Book Review – ‘Get Real,’ by Donald E. Westlake – Review – NYTimes.com: The New York Times offers a review of Donald Westlake’s final novel: After watching a bare-chested dentist trekking through the jungle by torchlight to shake a spear at a sunburned accountant in a loincloth, you might think television reality shows were beyond

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“I shall not be Kindled”

Ebooks / By /

I shall not be Kindled | csmonitor.com: Earlier in the decade, before the so-called ‘tech bubble’ burst, then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned of ‘irrational exuberance’ in the stock market. I feel the same way about electronic readers. And I feel that articles like this miss the point. I have always been a fan of

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Time-travel romances abound onscreen — latimes.com

Film / By /

Time-travel romances abound onscreen — latimes.com: This review of the recently opened movie version of The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger contains a list of other time-traveling films.

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Phones, PCs put e-book within reach of Kindle-less | csmonitor.com

Ebooks, Publishing / By /

Phones, PCs put e-book within reach of Kindle-less | csmonitor.com: Thanks to Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle, e-book sales are finally zooming, after more than a decade in the doldrums. But the pioneering device may not dominate the market for long. As Castaldo found, many phones are now sophisticated enough, and have good enough screens, to be

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Nonfiction Tweets: 70+ Authors to Follow on Twitter

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Nonfiction Tweets: 70+ Authors to Follow on Twitter: I’m so deeply entangled in preparing to do my dissertation research that I haven’t had time even to figure out exactly what Twitter does. But for those of you who are more adept at social networking than I, here’s a list of nonfiction authors who Tweet. The

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Marilyn French, Novelist and Champion of Feminism, Dies at 79

Obituaries / By /

Marilyn French, Novelist and Champion of Feminism, Dies at 79 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com: Marilyn French, a writer and feminist activist whose debut novel, ‘The Women’s Room,’ propelled her into a leading role in the modern feminist movement, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan. . . . With

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State of the Art – Amazon.com’s Kindle Goes From Good to Better

Ebooks / By /

State of the Art – Amazon.com’s Kindle Goes From Good to Better – NYTimes.com: Starting today, there’s a new Kindle. Amazon calls it the Kindle 2, but Kindle 1.1 would be more like it; the changes are fairly minor. Fortunately, they’re exactly what was needed to turn a very good reader into an even better

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Flexible electronic books to hit market soon

Ebooks / By /

Flexible electronic books to hit market soon – tech – 23 February 2009 – New Scientist: GADGET-makers have long promised us a flexible electronic book, but actually producing a robust, bendy screen has proved tough – until now. Plastic Logic, a display technology company based in Cambridge, UK, says it will launch the first flexible

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Remembering John Updike

Author News, Obituaries / By /

This week’s Scout Report has a good round-up of items about the death–and life–of John Updike: John Updike, Critic and Author, Dies At Age 76 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author John Updike Dies at Age 76 [Real Player] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99942825 Remembering Updike http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/remembering-upd/ For better or worse, John Updike produced a nearly endless stream of work http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-mew-updike-appreciate28-2009jan28,0,6965396.story John

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