Category Archives: books

JG Ballard died this morning

The author of such books as Crash, High Rise, and Empire of the Sun JG Ballard died today at 78

Despite being referred to as a science fiction writer, Jim Ballard said his books were instead “picturing the psychology of the future”.

His most acclaimed novel was Empire of the Sun, based on his childhood in a Japanese prison camp in China.

The author of 15 novels and scores of short stories, Ballard grew up amongst the expatriate community in Shanghai.

During World War II, at the age of 12, he was interned for three years in a camp run by the Japanese.

He later moved to Britain and in the early 1960s became a full-time writer.

Ballard built up a passionate readership, particularly after Empire of The Sun, a fictionalised account of his childhood, was made into a film by Steven Spielberg.

There’s more at the link above. I loved his work, especially his short stories.
and more on Wikipedia

phrase from nearest book” meme

Via Agile Testing

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open it to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

My quote is from Richard K. Morgan’s Broken Angels (which I happen to be reading right now).

Immaculate.

Mark Twain’s The Curious Republic of Gondour

This story is about democracy and why a limited (voting) franchise is better than an unrestricted one. It was first brought to my attention in Robert Heinlein’s book of essays Expanded Universe, and is quite hard to find, since it’s probably not as popular as some of Twain’s other stories. I found it online after being pointed to a different story by a different author. That is why the internets are so great.
The Curious Republic of Gondour by Mark Twain

Noah Scalin

from SkullADay was on the Martha Stewart show today, promoting his book Skulls! (of which I was one of the lucky winners drawn for the signed copy for my papercraft skull–see my previous post), which looks real nice from the glimpse we got on the show, showing off some of his Skull_A_Day creations, and making skull potoato stamps.  Looks like a fun time was had by all.  There’s more about his experience on his blog.

Can’t wait to get my copy of the book!

Chuck Close: Self Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, 2000


I went to see This show at Colby College yesterday. Really nice show, nominally based around the etching of the title, whch you can see the whole process here.
Description of the show from the Colby site (since I don’t know how long it’ll stay there)

Chuck Close has been making self-portraits since the late 1960s. These efforts are invariably based on photographs that he makes of himself and famously translates into paintings, drawings, prints, and other media—typically a methodical, labor-intensive process. His investment in such processes forms the subject of his Self-Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, 2000, a set of twenty-five prints that illustrates the steps required to produce a single, twelve-color etching. It is also the focus of this exhibition, which uses that portfolio as a lens through which to examine the intersections and parallels that structure Close’s artistic ideas. Accompanied by a full-color catalogue featuring a new interview with the artist. Organized in conjunction with the Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University and The Mead Art Museum, Amherst College

It closes at Colby in a couple of weeks,, and I’m not sure if it’s headed anywhere else (it looks like Colby was the last stop on the tour).
This tapestry was also in the show, and is from Colby’s permanent collection:

This is also the 2nd thing on my 101 in 1001 I get to cross off. Yippee!

Probably one of the best definitions of what a book is, that I’ve ever read.

Cool Tool: Five Good eBooks

1) A book (even without its paper pages) is a long argument that coheres as a whole, and whose argument or story is made by integrating well-selected parts.

From Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of The Well (The WELL was an early, influential, and pioneering outpost in what later came to be called cyberspace.), an editor of Whole Earth Review 9and actin publisher after Stewart Brand left), and one of the founding editors of Wired magazine, among other things (for those who don’t know who he is). This is from his Cool Tools blog which is about Cool Tools for everyday living–sorta a continuance of the Whole Earth Review.
Check out the blog, and his other stuff.