GeekDad is happy to be able to offer Wired readers a PDF copy of VanderMeer’s upcoming book The Situation, courtesy of PS Publishing (cover artwork by Scott Eagle).

Awesome collection of fairy tales, folk tales and mythology

OK forget the new Star Wars film, forget Indiana Jones, and forget the new Star Trek film click HERE for the great 70's comeback we all have been waiting for

30 of the Most Creative Bookshelves Designs

Where readers and writers click: Bookreporter.com

Have a look yourself!

check out Eric Hobsbawm´s Diary in the London Review of books on Weimar Germany

Red Room - Where the Writers Are: "Through original, author-generated content, we offer a trustworthy and creative social network unlike any other. Here, you can connect with your favorite authors, access current industry news, and comment on engaging features. By fostering true community between authors and readers, Red Room showcases esteemed writers and inspires the next generation."

Techcrunch: "In Japan, half of the top ten selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed on mobile phones."

The future warehouse of unwanted books

Winner of the 1977 Guardian Fiction Prize

Ok, it's Book 4 of The Jerry Cornelius Saga and maybe you better start with the first one, but I just reread this one and it's still a very impressive piece of work. Moorcock is still one of the greatest writers out there.

'The Condition of Muzak considers the process of living as a harlequinade and is, for me, a most moving summation... Here we move through Mr Moorcock's obsessions, the serials of Fantomas, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Arthurian legend, through chronos-zones - behold the pun! - to bi-sexuality, with a small sideswipe at Stanley Kubrick on the way. The realisation comes that Jerry is seeking sanctuary in different universes of Time in separate private mythologies. As indeed, is the implication, are we all.' -TOM HUTCHINSON, THE TIMES

Excellent article by the old man himself. Uhura, could you please bookmark this for the Captain?

Excerpts:

"Though certain techniques borrowed from commercial science fiction and fantasy, have been employed in the mainstream, they have primarily worked to supply a spark of life to existing popular forms as, for instance, magic was introduced to the old-fashioned English school story to give us Harry Potter. I believe that the success of The Lord of the Rings is symptomatic of middle-brow conservatism in reading. Fundamentally, such books, with, say, Martin Amis’s current output, are generic, quite as rigid in what they can say or try to say as the popular generic work of Ian Rankin or Iain Banks. Indeed, apart from Iain Sinclair, fewer and fewer technically ambitious novelists are published in the UK mainstream and even those associated with innovation seem to have fallen back on self-imitation. Only in America do a few ambitious novelists such as Roth, DeLillo, Eggers and Chabon continue to offer work questioning middle-brow assumptions and finding a broad readership but even in America is a tendency to return to safer and more predictable forms. If, as I believe, the medium is the message, this means that in conventional publishing we see little in the way of innovative ideas or analysis and are forced increasingly to search through the internet to find small print publishers, POD publishers and those publishing direct to the web, few of whom can afford to pay an author a reasonable advance.

(...)

   It seems to me that authors as well as publishers will have to take the same risks Dickens took when he published his books as cheap part-works, the same risks authors took when they let their books be published at six shillings, instead of <ampersand/>#8356;1.10.6d, the same risks some of us took when we ignored the posher literary magazines of our day and preferred to see our work appear in vulgar newstand magazines with exotic and brightly coloured covers.  At present POD and other electronic publishing are considered by literary journalists and others to be an inferior form of delivering fiction to readers, on a par with vanity publishing.  This can only change rapidly if we make it change.  In my view we should not merely be seeking new markets for existing forms of fiction, such as the short story.  We should be seeking  personal forms of expression taking risks equal to those of electronic publishers who present us with the means of reaching a growing popular public."

Via that hip multimedia-writer from England

Another one of those books 2.0 projects: "Enter a book you like and the site will analyse our database of real readers' favourite books (over 32,000 and growing) to suggest what you could read next."

What Should I Read Next?

They're also working on a FILM & MUSIC SITE.

Some really cool books!

Wikipedia

Click Here

"Don't go to that boring, dusty computer without something in mind."

Also: "The Cult" - Chuck's Workshop and The Anthology Project

20+ Places for Public Domain E-Books

This site has more than 20000 rare books in ten different formats.

The german site zvab.com has a new name and an english interface by now: ChooseBooks.com - Used, Rare, Antiquarian and Out of Print Books

It's still pretty good for locating books in Germany!

"Double Whammy" came out in 1987, but it's the best book I read this year: "A wacky tale of murder and mayhem at a big-stakes Florida bass tournament delightfully exposes corruption among the rod-and-reel set."

I really can't recommend this book enough. It's hard to put it on the right shelf. It should be filed under crime, humor and fiction in general at the same time. Hiaasen is an incredibly talented writer and if you read one, you wanna read all of his damned books. He's that good. He's funny, he writes great characters and, man, he's got issues. Lots of issues as we can learn from Carl Hiaasen's column for the Miami Herald.

I'm currently reading BASKET CASE, the one with the dead rockstar. Everyone who ever thought about buying tickets for the Led Zeppelin-reunion should check it out. It's probably the only book which has a title-track by Warren Zevon. Get the MP3 here!

Check around the homepage to find out more.

"Double Whammy" - Review from Publishers Weekly: "A Miami Herald reporter who struck a blow against corrupt entrepreneurs in Tourist Season, Hiaasen follows through with this acid satire, a real double whammy. Private detective R. J. Decker is hired to prove that TV host Dickie Lockhart cheats to win fortunes in Florida bass-fishing tournaments. The investigation makes Decker a prey to hired killers who have murdered other "snoops," but the detective also finds a strong if weird ally in a hermit who calls himself Skink. Along with two honest cops, Skink goes with Decker to the lake where a big tournament is under way and the four make a tremendous splash, to the dismay of the assembly. Hardest hit is Reverend Weeb, Lockhart's sponsor on the Outdoor Christian Network, whose generous supporters don't know that he's addicted to prostitutes, profanity and land-grabbing. The cast of bizarre characters and the suspenseful events confirm Hiaasen's reputation for creating singular villains and heroes. While he's probably unpopular among some fellow citizens in his home state, he will certainly please readers who appreciate the Swiftian wit in his cautionary tales. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Read the first pages