allconsuming

I spent some time tonight playing with allconsuming.net, a cool site that could use some critical mass. It's basically a collection of info about books people are talking about. The front page lists books recently mentioned on blogs, as well as the most mentioned books of the last week. Clicking on a book will get you a detail page, with blog excerpts and purchase links. (You can use a LibraryLookup bookmarklet if, like me, you'd rather borrow than buy.)

Once you sign up as a member, there are tools for managing lists of your favorite books, books you're currently reading, books you've finished, etc. You can also compile a list of "friends" (allconsuming will recommend people who are reading the same books you are), and sign up to be notified when they mention new books, and stuff like that.

I was planning to add a "current reading" list to my journal, like Chris has on his, but unfortunately getting it updated from allconsuming requires a script tag, and LiveJournal seems to be silently removing my script tags. I've got an alternate plan, but it'll take me a while to get to it. Meanwhile, if you're wondering, here's my page.

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Stephen King has a "fictional essay" in Book Magazine about the wildfire popularity of literary fiction, to the detriment of America's struggling pop novelists. The first footnote:

This quote and this source--like all the quotes and sources in this essay--are, of course, fictitious. One may argue that this to some extent negates the arguments that the essay makes, but since actual sources supporting those arguments don't exist, all I can say is that it seemed necessary.

You'd have to find the magazine to read the whole thing, but the beginning is online.

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So of course the moment my software engineering job ends, all my dormant computer-geek urges flare up. Today I went to WeirdStuff, a business that could only exist in Silicon Valley, specializing in pieces of computer that are useless to almost, but not quite, everyone on earth. Best sight at WeirdStuff: A pile of IBM Thinkpad keyboards wrenched from their former homes in actual computers, with a sign that said: "THESE LAPTOPS ARE MISSING PARTS." I would've said these parts are missing laptops. I didn't buy anything.

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By far the best news story in this Sunday's Times is the one about the king of Cambodia, who publishes a monthly bulletin that "is a photo gallery of the king's public functions, a collection of royal correspondence, a patchwork memoir and a running commentary on current events."

It is scratched with microscopic penmanship around the edges of photocopied newspaper clippings, their texts abuzz with the king's agitated dots, dashes, squiggles, underlinings and exclamation points.

"This is dreadful," he may write, in French, or, "Tragic and revolting," or, "I protest against this twisting of the truth."

"Once the most powerful man in the nation and still, for many, the most revered, the king is reduced to scribbling in the margins of history." He also, apparently, writes sarcastic letters about the prime minister, but signs them with the name of a childhood friend.

There's a great novel to be written here.

( Runners-up... )

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Again courtesy of TMFTML: Business Park Observer ("Keeping An Eye On That Business Park Across The Street").

Thursday, June 26, 2003
A uniformed man, looks like maybe a mechanic, is standing in the shade of the tree by the driveway. Taking a break... Or waiting for a drug deal? He's looking up the street. He's looking back over at the garage, which, perhaps, is his place of employment. Street. Garage. Looking the other way on the street. Arms crossed. What is going to happen? Probably, as usual, nothing.

At last, the Atherton Police Blotter has competition.

NO SPOILERS

Slate gives it away:

In T3, the saga begins all over again: The latest Terminator assassin arrives naked from the future, kills someone for a wardrobe, then goes off to murder the (future) leader of the resistance against the machines. Then a protector arrives naked from the future but manages to get a wardrobe without killing anyone. The rest of the template is intact: chase, breather for exposition, bigger chase, more exposition, then a chase that just happens to lead some place with a handy hydraulic press or foundry.

Sorry.