Amazon introduces ad-subsidized Kindle

Amazon recently announced a “Kindle with Special Offers” version of their popular Kindle e-reader. Allowing Amazon to display sponsored messages on the home screen and sponsored screensavers will save only $25, however – they’re selling it for $114, down from $139 for the standard edition.

Posted in Uncategorized |

‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ sells a million digital copies

Knopf announced that the first book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series has sold more than a million copies; combined digital sales of all three books is over three million.

Sales of the first two books were likely spurred by the prices being discounted to $5 each at most ebook stores for a period of time, though they have since increased.

Full story here.

Posted in Uncategorized |

Neil Gaiman's "All Hallow's Read" project

Neil Gaiman lamented the lack of book-giving traditions in a recent blog post and suggested that readers give each other scary books during the week of Halloween. Today, the All Hallow’s Read website went online to support the idea.

Neil notes that it’s still a work in progress and promises to have it polished in time for next halloween; still, it’s not too late to participate this year, and the website is definitely worth a look.

Posted in Authors, Horror, Science fiction/fantasy, Websites |

Jonathan Franzen essay

There’s a new essay up on The Guardian by Jonathan Franzen, author of the recent Oprah book club pick Freedom. He talks about his first book, The Corrections, and about the topic of shame:

When I went to work in earnest on The Corrections, in the mid-90s, I found my way blocked by shame. I was ashamed of almost everything I’d done in my personal life for the last 15 years. I was ashamed of having married so early, ashamed of how strange and singular my marriage had been, ashamed of my guilt about it, ashamed of the years of moral contortions I’d undergone on my way to divorce, ashamed of my sexual inexperience, ashamed of what an outrageous and judgmental mother I had, ashamed of being a bleeding and undefended person instead of a tower of remoteness and command and intellect like DeLillo or Pynchon, ashamed to be writing a book that seemed to want to turn on the question of whether an outrageous midwestern mother will get one last Christmas at home with her family.

Read the rest here.

Posted in Articles, Authors |

First batch of "Hobbit" movie casting announced

Nine of the actors cast in the upcoming Hobbit movie (which will be based, of course, or JRR Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”) have just been announced. As has been rumored for some time, Martin Freeman will be playing the lead role of Bilbo Baggins.

Though most of them aren’t especially well-known, we’ve also got the names of many of the dwarves:

  • Richard Armitage as Thorin
  • Aidan Turner as Fili
  • Rob Kazinsky as Kili
  • Graham McTavish as Dwalin
  • John Callen as Oin
  • Stephen Hunter as Bombur
  • Mark Hadlow as Dori
  • Peter Hambleton as Gloin

Source: Deadline

Posted in Movie Adaptations |

Google's attempt at poetry translation

The Guardian has an interesting article out today about a poetry-translating experiment at Google:

And now their creators are eyeing up the poetry market. According to Dmitriy Genzel, a Google software engineer, the internet’s favourite one-stop shop is now working on the machine-translation of not just words, but meter and rhyme.

The story is actually referring to this post, dated October 5th, from Google’s research blog. Translating poetry sounds infinitely more challenging than plain text, and automated plain-text translators are far from perfect. Still, it’ll be interesting to watch the progress of the project.

Posted in Poetry, Technology, Websites |

New Look for WritingNews.org

The design of WritingNews.org has just been updated – the previous one had been in place for several years now and was beginning to appear dated. Please note that it may take us several days to work out any miscellaneous bugs.

Posted in Websites |

"The Hobbit" movie greenlit

After an extended period of delays, it looks like production of the two films based on JRR Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” is finally going forward. Barring unforeseen circumstances, filming is set to start in February 2011; the first movie will reach theaters December 2012.

And though it’s been rumored for months, we finally have official confirmation that Peter Jackson – who directed the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy – will return in the same role.

Full information is available on theonering.net.

Posted in Film, Movie Adaptations, Science fiction/fantasy |

A new Harry Potter book?

From a Wales Online story published today:

In an interview recorded in Scotland [J.K. Rowling] told chat show star Oprah Winfrey the characters were still in her head and she “could definitely” write several new books about them.

She said: “I’m not going to say I won’t.”

Posted in Authors, Interviews, Reading, Young Adult |

Sci-fi movie adaption: "I Am Number Four"

Another enthralling sci-fi movie adaptation to watch for is I Am Number Four which is based from Pittacus Lore’s masterpiece of the same title.

Posted in Movie Adaptations |