The nobility of the human spirit grows harder for me to believe in. War, zealotry, greed, malls, narcissism. I see a backhanded nobility in excessive, impractical outlays of cash prompted by nothing loftier than a species joining hands and saying "I bet we can do this." Yes, the money could be better spent on Earth. But would it? Since when has money saved by government red-lining been spent on education and cancer research? It is always squandered. Let's squander some on Mars. Let's go out and play.
# Permanent link to Let’s go out and play.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrHkKXFRbCI&w=640&h=360]
I so want to go to this bookstore.
Barter Books, Northumberland, England.
# Permanent link to Keep Calm and Carry On
Like Mark isn’t cooler than all of the Apollo astronauts put together.
The Martian by Andy Weir Astronaut Mark Watney is left for dead on the surface of Mars as the rest of his crew escapes a deadly dust storm. But he’s not dead, and now he has to figure out how to let NASA back on earth know he’s still alive and how to get home.…
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Omit needless words!
Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style by Mark Garvey Garvey calls this book “slightly obsessive” and no question he is the nerdiest of Strunk and White nerds. Lots of lovely little tidbits here, including the fact that White earned a D in English in his second semester at…
Update on 6/22/12: Now downloadable from Amazon for FREE!
# Permanent link to Plum Pudding Muffins and S&M
"It was only that Mr. Mollison was such an ass. I'm sorry, sir. But he was. You know what started the rot? It was in Scripture. One of them asked him what a harlot was. Well, really! That's been a standing joke for years. All he had to say was, 'It's the biblical name for a tart,' and they'd have know where they were."
"What did he say?"
"According to those that were present, he blushed and said, 'Well, Paine, it's--um--a girl who has--er--lost her way.' After that they pulled his leg until it nearly came off. When anyone on one of his walks took a wrong turning, they used to shout in unison, 'Come back you harlots.'"
# Permanent link to The Most Underrated Crime Fiction Novelist Ever
Found the good.
Find the Good by Heather Lende Heather asked me for a blurb for this book last May. I warned her that I almost never do blurbs because, well, I suck at them. She sent me the book and that evening I emailed her thusly: Take your pick. Or chose none at all: “A beguiling evocation…
Sir Robert Carey returns for a seventh glorious outing
A Chorus of Innocents by P.F. Chisholm O frabjous day! Here we are on horseback again, galloping ventre a terre over the Debateable Lands between England and Scotland circa 1592. Yes, Sir Robert Carey returns for a seventh glorious outing, and I am delighted to report that this time we get to spend some quality…
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It’s like Darwin wrote steampunk.
The Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan Even better than the first two in this series, and what a beautiful production–wonderful wrap-around cover art, deckle edges, a map, beautiful illustrations, the Dickensian chapter headings change at the top of the page to reflect the action below, and, good lord, blue ink. Lady Trent, excuse…
“…occasional women-only orgies (not that the men don’t benefit thereby).”
Euphoria by Lily King Anthropologist Nell (pretty obviously based on the character of Margaret Mead) studies a tribe in New Guinea where the women have achieved a remarkable level of equality in the running of their lives and the tribe’s life and even in sex to the point of having occasional women-only orgies (not that…
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