"Stephenson's very long historical novel, the first volume of a projected trilogy, finds Enoch Root, the Wandering Jew/alchemist from 1999's Cryptonomicon, arriving in 1713 Boston to collect Daniel Waterhouse and take him back to Europe. Waterhouse, an experimenter in early computational systems and an old pal of Isaac Newton, is needed to mediate the fight for precedence between Newton and scientist and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, both of whom independently invented the calculus. Their escalating feud threatens to revert science to pre-empirical times. Root believes Waterhouse, as a close friend to both mathematicians, has the ability to calm the neurotic Newton's nerves and make peace with Leibniz. As Waterhouse sails back to Europe (and eludes capture by the pirate Blackbeard), he reminisces about Newton and the birth of England's scientific revolution during the 1600s. While the Waterhouse story line lets readers see luminaries like Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton at work, a concurrent plot line follows vagabond Jack Shaftoe (an ancestor of a Cryptonomicon character, as is Waterhouse), on his journey across 17th-century continental Europe. Jack meets Eliza, a young English woman who has escaped from a Turkish harem, where she spent her teenage years. The resourceful Eliza eventually rises and achieves revenge against the slave merchant who sold her to the Turks. Stephenson, once best known for his techno-geek SF novel Snow Crash, skillfully reimagines empiricists Newton, Hooke and Leibniz, and creatively retells the birth of the scientific revolution. He has a strong feel for history and a knack for bringing settings to life"

From Publishers Weekly, Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Order it at amazon.com

"Michael Moore is on a mission in his new book: Regime Change. The man who slithered into the White House on tracks greased by his daddy's oil buddies is one of many targets in Mike's blistering follow-up to his smash #1 hit Stupid White Men, the biggest-selling nonfiction book of the year. Now no one is safe: corporate barons who have bilked millions out of their employees' lifetime savings, legislators who have stripped away our civil liberties in the name of "homeland security," and even that right-wing brother-in-law of yours (yes, we all have one) who manages, year after year, through his babbling idiocy, to ruin Thanksgiving dinner."

taken from the promo-page over at Michael Moore's excellent site which is always worthwhile checking out every once in a while

“[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” — Judy Blume

Open Your Mind to a Banned Book

One great website with the collected works available online and stuff like an MP3 of "The Dunwich Horror" as a "Suspense" Radio Show from November 5, 1945 (5.6MB, right-click and download with this link). And don't forget to check out Cthuugle, the complete HP Lovecraft Search Engine And while you are it, here are the Tales of the Plush Cthulhu!

"One of the things that reveals Harry Potter as pure escapist fantasy, rather than - as with the best (children's or not) fantasy - an attempt to imagine a different organization of the world and our relationship to it, is the use of magical artefacts purely as commodities. The wizard world is our world, but with better stuff. The sweets are better. Football is better, because it's on broomsticks. The postal service is better, because there are cute owls who don't go on strike. This is not creating an alternative way of looking at the world; it's inventing gimmicks. Just as some apparently anti-capitalist actions fall back into a capitalist model through a reliance on "ethical shopping", Harry Potter is "magical shopping".

taken from a story by Deva at Barbelith

They got some interesting book discussions over there, friends!

Ten years of free books on the web, whew! Time to drop by!

Talking about books on the web, let's not forget textz.com, the "&" in "copy & paste"