Category: Books

  • Quick book review: It’s not news, it’s Fark.com

    Drew Curtis, overlord of Fark.com – probably my favourite site on the entire internet – has written a book about “how the mass media tries to pass off crap as news”. He’s right, it does, and the book does a superb (and superbly funny) job of identifying and skewering the various ways in which they…

  • It’s not news, it’s FARK: the book

    Just a quick book recommendation: It’s Not News, It’s FARK: How the mass media tries to pass off crap as news, by Drew Curtis of Fark.com fame. It’s very good and very, very funny. I’ll scribble a quick review when I finish it; if you’re interested, you can read chapter 1 online.

  • A quick book recommendation for dads-to-be

    As you’d expect, most of the books about pregnancy and being a new parent are written for women. If you’re lucky, the dad gets a passing mention – “make sure he helps with the housework!” – but most of the time you don’t even get that. Maybe it’s because dads aren’t interested; more likely, it’s…

  • How to make an audiobook for iTunes

    Fancy making an audiobook to sell on iTunes? Here’s what you will need. A script A microphone A filing cabinet A chair Two buckets (ideally metal ones) A sound editing program And here’s how to do it: Plug the microphone into your sound editing program. Move the filing cabinet to the farthest corner of the…

  • Attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks

    The new Christopher Brookmyre novel, Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, is top fun. Unless you’re into psychics or Intelligent Design. I’m ashamed to admit I got the geeky in-joke on page 124 immediately.

  • Book joy

    Idly wandering around Amazon last night I discovered that not one, not two but three of my favourite authors have new books out or coming out in the next week. Yippee! They are: Hurricane Punch by Tim Dorsey. Serge Storms is back! The Watchman by Robert Crais. Elvis Cole is back! Well, Joe Pike is.…

  • Biffo’s book

    Mr Biffo’s book of chatroom silliness, Confessions of a Chatroom Freak, is very funny. I laughed so hard I ended up in America! Admittedly I was on a plane to America at the time. Not so funny: the tacked-on “blog entries” that were clearly the suggestion of the publisher. And the typography’s a bit crap.

  • Kurt Vonnegut dies

    So it goes. NY Times obituary is here.

  • Scott Kelby isn’t very funny. Just as well the rest of his book’s good

    My quest for a decent digital SLR book took me to Borders at the weekend where, after a bit of swearing – “all these books are thirty quid and written in gibberish!” – I found something that (a) looked decent and (b) wasn’t thirty quid: The Digital Photography Book, by Scott Kelby. And it’s very…

  • Get a brain! Morans*

    This is wonderful: Amazon user reviews of Orwell’s 1984. “If you like reading about old people think they are beating the system by saving a PAPERWEIGHT, then by all means…” “You might like this book if you are interested in predicting the future and you can read lots of difficult words and know what they…