Wednesday, January 31, 2007

BOOKS: Just Like a Real Blog

I'm working on a big post (on Oprah, if you can imagine, because that's the kind of bleeding-edge cultural commentary you come here for, right?), but until I finish that, here are a few items of note that I thought were too nifty not to pass along. Look at me! I'm just like a real blogger!

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I'm surprised that this hasn't happened earlier, but a novel consisting entirely of text messages has just been published in Finland, a hive of early technology adopters, it would seem.
The Last Messages tells the story of a fictitious information-technology executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.

"I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would initially think," said [author Hanna] Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in Finland.
[via MSNBC]

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It's the Year of Vonnegut! I knew this joyful, celebratory feeling I've had lately must have a reason.

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Not to be outdone by the bookish nerds at Wired, the bookish nerds at Esquire have recently announced the results of their "Napkin Project," in which they sent out napkins to 250 writers, asking them to pen some kind of tale on the back of each. They offer a sampling of the results here. I've only looked through a few so far, but I can say this: someone should offer to go massage the wicked writer's cramp Rick Moody must be suffering right now.

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If you don't have the time to read that 1200-page biography of Dickens, the good people at the BBC have put together this animated short that pretty much covers the high points.

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And finally, courtesy of Karen at Verbatim, this nifty little exercise will help you remember when and how you broke your Amazon cherry. Apparently, I lost my online book-shopping virtue back in the summer of '99 with The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order and Shiny Adidas Track Suits and the Death of Camp. I must've been going through one of those phases where I thought I was cool.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hooray for the year of Vonnegut! But I'm sad to just be learning of it now. January's over already, and I haven't done a single Vonnegutian thing yet.

Oh, and I look forward to your Oprah post. I have serious and complicated Oprah issues. Not bad issues, necessarily, just ... complicated.

Doppelsis said...

Whenever I pick up a book and her big "O" is on it I actually consider putting it down before even reading the back of the book. If I do buy it I am embarrassed that her "O" is on it. It used to be a sticker you could peel off, but not anymore. You all know what I am talking about.

Anonymous said...

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland is largely, though not entirely, made up of emails. It's very entertaining, and my then dot.com husband found it quite true to life.