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07.31.08 by Widge @ 1:26 pm  Okay, so talk about Stuff You Need to Know. You might remember how at the end of last year, there were handcrafted editions of The Tales of Beedle the Bard from J.K. Rowling, one of which Amazon sold at auction for an assload of money, all for charity. Now there's going to be editions that you and I can afford and--in case you were wondering--it's all going to charity still. The Children's High Level Group will be the beneficiaries of this. So you can drop some coin and drop a little extra coin and not feel too terribly bad about it. Why would you want to drop extra coin? Because the Collector's Edition (pictured) is $100. And it's a replica of the handcrafted versions, apparently. Check this out: Tucked in its own case disguised as a wizarding textbook found in the Hogwarts library, the Collector's Edition includes an exclusive reproduction of J.K. Rowling's handwritten introduction, as well as 10 additional illustrations not found in the Standard Edition or the original. Opening the case reveals a velvet bag embroidered with J.K. Rowling's signature, in which sits the piece de resistance: your very own copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, complete with metal skull, corners, and clasp; replica gemstones; and emerald ribbon. Criminy. I mean, don't get me wrong, you can get the same text in the Standard Edition for less than $8 pre-ordered. But...that Collector's Edition is calling my name, I don't know about you. Anyway, even if you don't grab it, click through to the Collector's Edition to check out all the pics of it. As a work of bookery, it still should be looked over. Both editions are out December 4th. Categorized as: Books
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07.28.08 by Widge @ 3:18 am  Okay, so the most expensive book in the world is priced at 153 million euros. It's called "the task" and is by author Tomas Alexander Hartmann. And I'm going to go ahead and assume that this guy is serious, although I admit freely this sounds like some sort of mildly amusing SNL skit. But I have known people who would be considered this pretentious. Anyway, the book is priced such because the contents of the book are just That Damn Good. It better be, because there's only thirteen pages in it. The author claims to have answered the three final important questions of humankind in less than three hundred sentences: Where do we come from? Where are we going? And: What is the real task we still have to take on? Now, to be fair, I have not read "the task." My request for a review copy was never answered by Mr. Hartmann. But assuming that this is for real--because I'm still having trouble making myself believe it--then I'm sure it's up for the Golden Wanque Award, which I understand is given out each November in Prague. For 153 million euros you get the book translated into your language, inserted into a gold cover and you get all licensing rights. For that sort of price, you should probably get oral sex on demand for life as well. But nobody asked me. So. Categorized as: Books
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07.13.08 by Widge @ 5:41 pm  You know, we post stuff all the time about "Isn't this amazing, I wish we could just go rob a bank and buy it." But I'm going to chuck them all out the window. All of them. The Cartoon Network auction stuff, the Flux Capacitor, the art of AlexCF, and yes, even the Ecto-1. Because AbeBooks is selling a first edition hardback of Hitchhiker's Guide. Um. Along with Douglas Adams' typewriter. Signed by him. I know. I know. We could start a religion with the damned thing. If I were you, I would print out the picture of it, tape it to the wall in front of your keyboard, and anytime you feel like you've got writer's block or you're doing something that won't make you rich so you can afford to shell out US$25K to grab something like this--which is, let's face it, probably the geek equivalent of being offered up the True Cross--you'll get your ass in gear. I know I'm going to. For shorthand, you can simply say "Typewriter." And those of us who know, will nod and Understand. Found via The Steampunk Workshop. Categorized as: Books
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06.24.08 by Widge @ 11:57 pm Here we have the story that inspired myriad others, including Jacob's Ladder and of course, this adaptation which appeared as part of The Twilight Zone. Direct link for the feedreaders. Update: Took me a bit to find it. From Bierce's Devil's Dictionary: BIRTH, n.
The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar. Categorized as: Books
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06.23.08 by Widge @ 8:56 pm The Neil pointed this out. And it will ruin your day. It takes any text and makes a cloud out of it, with the largest words obviously occurring the most often. So of course I had to go play with it. One is T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. The other contains the two Chapter Ones from my novel, Mystics.
Keep clicking to embiggen. Categorized as: Books
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