The Writing Woman: Petra A. Bauer
see Petra A. Bauer, Freelance Writer | German Author, Blogger and Journalist | writingwoman.de
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Saturday, April 03, 2010
The Next Literary Movement is the Brain as the Humanities are Throttled by High Tech
At Next Big Thing - Literary Scholars Turn to Science - NYTimes.com Patricia Cohen writes:
"Literature, like other fields including history and political science, has looked to the technology of brain imaging and the principles of evolution to provide empirical evidence for unprovable theories."
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Copyrights, Originality and Authenticity: Axolotl Roadkill by Helene Hegemann - a New but Partly Cribbed Novel about Sex, Drugs and Clubbing
Copyright infringing plagiarism or literary remix?
In Author, 17, Says It’s ‘Mixing,’ Not Plagiarism, Nicholas Kulish at the NYTimes.com informs us that Helene Hegemann, a mere 17 years old - but daughter of Carl Hegemann, one of the most prominent and innovative dramaturgs in Europe, now a Professor at the Department of Dramaturgy in Leipzig - seems to be following in her father's footsteps and has landed a beststeller in Germany with her first book, Axolotl Roadkill, a novel just announced as a finalist for the $20,000 fiction prize of the Leipzig Book Fair - a nice gesture to one of their own?
It was Carl Hegemann:
One major problem with the book - as it turns out - is that:
In Author, 17, Says It’s ‘Mixing,’ Not Plagiarism, Nicholas Kulish at the NYTimes.com informs us that Helene Hegemann, a mere 17 years old - but daughter of Carl Hegemann, one of the most prominent and innovative dramaturgs in Europe, now a Professor at the Department of Dramaturgy in Leipzig - seems to be following in her father's footsteps and has landed a beststeller in Germany with her first book, Axolotl Roadkill, a novel just announced as a finalist for the $20,000 fiction prize of the Leipzig Book Fair - a nice gesture to one of their own?
It was Carl Hegemann:
"[W]ho developed the theoretical superstructure for this hybrid artistry: "A reality is no longer encountered, but brought forth by the ‘members’ of a culture.”But who really wrote this book?
One major problem with the book - as it turns out - is that:
"[A] blogger last week uncovered material in the novel taken from the less-well-known novel “Strobo,” by an author writing under the nom de plume Airen. In one case, an entire page was lifted with few changes."As written in Helene Hegemann, the art of cut and paste in the Berliner Zeitung in picking the "European of the 'Week":
"Helene Hegemann says she’s sorry, she knows it was wrong “not to mention all the people whose writings helped me”. And yet she stands by her novel: after all, “there’s no such thing as originality anyway, there’s only authenticity”. What’s more, she’s only a “lodger” in her own mind: “I help myself to whatever inspires me.”"One has to wonder about whether the father had his hand in the pie in this one.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Writers Can Prosper Without Intellectual Property - Gennady Stolyarov II - Mises Institute
Writers Can Prosper Without Intellectual Property
by Gennady Stolyarov II - Mises Institute
by Gennady Stolyarov II - Mises Institute
"It is commonly supposed that, whatever its moral and theoretical standing, intellectual property is necessary for creators of written works to make a living and — even more importantly — to continue to create. Here, I will set aside the theoretical status of copyright, which is amply discussed in Stephan Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property and Michele Boldrin and David Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly. I will focus on existing and emerging possibilities for writers to earn a living in a world where no copyrights exist."
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Google Books : Google is sued by Chinese author Mian Mian, China's Literary Wild Child : Sex Drugs Rock & Roll
Everybody is now getting into the act of suing search engines for including scanned excerpts of their books in search results. See, for example:
BBC News - Google is sued by Chinese author Mian Mian
My own book, Stars, Stones and Scholars is found at Google Books and I am very pleased about it, since it makes that book much more accessible to millions of potential readers. Indeed, links are offered to major online booksellers where the book can be purchased. Below is a scan of the front cover website page at Google Books of Stars Stones and Scholars by Andis Kaulins:
People who are interested in the book's amazing subject matter buy the book.
BBC News - Google is sued by Chinese author Mian Mian
My own book, Stars, Stones and Scholars is found at Google Books and I am very pleased about it, since it makes that book much more accessible to millions of potential readers. Indeed, links are offered to major online booksellers where the book can be purchased. Below is a scan of the front cover website page at Google Books of Stars Stones and Scholars by Andis Kaulins:
People who are interested in the book's amazing subject matter buy the book.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Charles Dickens: Looking over the Shoulder of the Creator of “A Christmas Carol” - The New York Times
Charles Dickens becomes more and more actual as Christmas approaches. Take a look at Looking over the Shoulder of the Creator of “A Christmas Carol” - The New York Times.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
First European Prize for Literature Awarded in 2009 to Authors From 12 Countries - 23 to Follow in 2010 and 2011
The first European Prize for Literature, "[a] European Prize for emerging talents in the field of contemporary fiction", was awarded September 28, 2009, to 12 authors from 12 European countries - with 12 more authors from 12 other European countries to be selected in 2010, and 11 more authors from the remaining 11 other European countries to be selected in 2011. The announcing press release stated:
For example, a universally-acclaimed book - not eligible for this award -like the 1995 Der Vorleser (The Reader) by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink is very rare. It was the first German book ever to reach the top of the New York Times Best-Seller Lists and last year the book was even made into a very successful Hollywood movie - The Reader. But most fiction is limited by the audience of the nation in which the author is located.
This European literary award was presented at a gala ceremony in Brussels, Belgium, attended by ca. 800 dignitaries, including European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
The works that received the prize are detailed at this .pdf.
Hat tip to Leigh Phillips at the EU Observer.
"The names of twelve European authors to receive the first ever European Union Prize for Literature were announced today by the European Commission, the European Booksellers Federation (EBF), the European Writers' Council (EWC) and the Federation of European Publishers (FEP).... In recognition of his oeuvre and literary success Henning Mankell, the well-known and bestselling Swedish author, has accepted the role of Ambassador of the European Union Prize for Literature for this year." [links added by this blog]The idea, at the onset of this award, is for the prize to work as a medium of activation for European culture and to "highlight and promote the full diversity of European literature." After each European country has been honored at least once, the award is likely to be reduced to only a few authors, but from our point of view we definitely find the current process to be far more favorable. Very few books, in spite of their literary quality, span all cultures, so that a limited award necessarily involves national prejudices as to content, style and language.
For example, a universally-acclaimed book - not eligible for this award -like the 1995 Der Vorleser (The Reader) by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink is very rare. It was the first German book ever to reach the top of the New York Times Best-Seller Lists and last year the book was even made into a very successful Hollywood movie - The Reader. But most fiction is limited by the audience of the nation in which the author is located.
This European literary award was presented at a gala ceremony in Brussels, Belgium, attended by ca. 800 dignitaries, including European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
The works that received the prize are detailed at this .pdf.
Hat tip to Leigh Phillips at the EU Observer.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Novelists Ken Follett, J.K. Rowling, Nick Hornby, and John Grisham : Scribd and the Issue of Copyrights and the Uploading of Book Texts Online
Scribd is becoming a force to be reckoned with on the Internet.
At ScribdBlog in their posting What ever happened to Fact Checking?, the Scribd Team goes one on one with the Times of London on copyright issues relating to Scribd, involving such famous novelists as J.K. Rowling, Ken Follett, Nick Hornby and John Grisham, who has the current Number 3 Bestseller on the New York Times list of hardcover fiction with his book, of all things, called The Associate, which Patrick Anderson of the The Washington Post calls "A DEVASTATING PORTRAIT OF THE BIG-TIME, BIG-BUCKS LEGAL WORLD."
We were gratified (but of course "legally shocked") at the Times of London article which incurred Scribd's wrath to learn that immensely popular and writingly gifted novelist Ken Follett's World without End (a New York Times No. 1 bestseller) had been uploaded to Scribd and had been viewed 500 times in five months.
We recently uploaded some of our own published works to Scribd. After only one month we have more than 500 views of two of our documents:
The Norse Pharaohs: Astronomical Decipherments re Tanum Hierakonpolis Nazca Sahara Near East DOC
The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt DOC
We are strongly considering entry into the publishing field with a novel of our own. Ken Follett and cohorts, look out, there is competition on the way!
At ScribdBlog in their posting What ever happened to Fact Checking?, the Scribd Team goes one on one with the Times of London on copyright issues relating to Scribd, involving such famous novelists as J.K. Rowling, Ken Follett, Nick Hornby and John Grisham, who has the current Number 3 Bestseller on the New York Times list of hardcover fiction with his book, of all things, called The Associate, which Patrick Anderson of the The Washington Post calls "A DEVASTATING PORTRAIT OF THE BIG-TIME, BIG-BUCKS LEGAL WORLD."
We were gratified (but of course "legally shocked") at the Times of London article which incurred Scribd's wrath to learn that immensely popular and writingly gifted novelist Ken Follett's World without End (a New York Times No. 1 bestseller) had been uploaded to Scribd and had been viewed 500 times in five months.
We recently uploaded some of our own published works to Scribd. After only one month we have more than 500 views of two of our documents:
The Norse Pharaohs: Astronomical Decipherments re Tanum Hierakonpolis Nazca Sahara Near East DOC
The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt DOC
We are strongly considering entry into the publishing field with a novel of our own. Ken Follett and cohorts, look out, there is competition on the way!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Robert Frank classic The Americans published in a new version
The Americans
in German, "Die Amerikaner"
and in Chinese "美国人".
I got this book for my birthday this past December.
If you are down about the American economy and the prospects for 2009 and beyond, don't be. Take a look at this book - and at this first link about that book - to see how greatly much of America has changed in the 50+ years since the mid-1950's. Obama's America in 2009 is a vastly different place than shown in the photographs in "The Americans".
As written by Philip Gefter at the New York Times (Art & Design section online):
"“The Americans,” [is] an intimate visual chronicle of common people in ordinary situations drawn from several trips he made through his adopted country in the mid-1950s."
The Americans, by Robert Frank, a classic photographic study of the United States in the 1950's, was first published May 15, 1958, by Robert Delpire in Paris, followed by an English edition in 1959 via Grove Press in New York, in which the original French language by Alain Bosquet about American history was replaced by an introduction and captions in English by Jack Kerouac.
As written at aloHAA:
"The end result [of Frank's photographic journey through the USA in the 1950's] was the 83 images in the book that no American publisher would touch. It took a Frenchman, Robert Delpire, to publish “Les Americains” in 1958. Progressive publisher Barney Rosset produced the first American edition under his Grove Press the following year. Frank revealed a harsh, sometimes divided America that was a lot different from the rah-rah ’50s dream of “Father Knows Best.” His out-of-the-box compositions paved the way for William Eggleston’s profound color images of America that have garnered unanimous applause in the Whitney’s “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera.” “No one has had a greater influence on photography in the last half-century than the Swiss-born Mr. Frank, though his reputation rests almost entirely on a single book published five decades ago,” writes Philip Gefter in the New York Times. "
The German publisher Steidl in Göttingen,
together with the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
in 2008 published a new version of the book in three languages:
English,
German (translation by Hans Wolf)
and Chinese (see e.g. 罗伯特·弗兰克的《美国人》 “The Americans” by Robert Frank).
Frank, 83 years old at the date of publication - a number which corresponds to the 83 tritone plates in the book, chosen out of 20,000 photographs - worked intensively himself on this new version of his now classic book, including for example using some negatives varying from previous editions.
The 13-character ISBN for the English version of the book is: 978-3-86521-584-0.
The 13-character ISBN for the German version of the book is: 978-3-86521-658-8.
The 13-character ISBN for the Chinese version of the book is: 978-3-86521-657-1.
This book is a "must have" for any library that includes materials on America.
For those of my friends in Nebraska, where I grew up, two of the plates in the book are from Nebraska, one of highway 30 between Ogallala and North Platte, and the other of Hested's department store in Lincoln. I've seen both, and, yes, that's exactly the way it looked.
in German, "Die Amerikaner"
and in Chinese "美国人".
I got this book for my birthday this past December.
If you are down about the American economy and the prospects for 2009 and beyond, don't be. Take a look at this book - and at this first link about that book - to see how greatly much of America has changed in the 50+ years since the mid-1950's. Obama's America in 2009 is a vastly different place than shown in the photographs in "The Americans".
As written by Philip Gefter at the New York Times (Art & Design section online):
"“The Americans,” [is] an intimate visual chronicle of common people in ordinary situations drawn from several trips he made through his adopted country in the mid-1950s."
The Americans, by Robert Frank, a classic photographic study of the United States in the 1950's, was first published May 15, 1958, by Robert Delpire in Paris, followed by an English edition in 1959 via Grove Press in New York, in which the original French language by Alain Bosquet about American history was replaced by an introduction and captions in English by Jack Kerouac.
As written at aloHAA:
"The end result [of Frank's photographic journey through the USA in the 1950's] was the 83 images in the book that no American publisher would touch. It took a Frenchman, Robert Delpire, to publish “Les Americains” in 1958. Progressive publisher Barney Rosset produced the first American edition under his Grove Press the following year. Frank revealed a harsh, sometimes divided America that was a lot different from the rah-rah ’50s dream of “Father Knows Best.” His out-of-the-box compositions paved the way for William Eggleston’s profound color images of America that have garnered unanimous applause in the Whitney’s “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera.” “No one has had a greater influence on photography in the last half-century than the Swiss-born Mr. Frank, though his reputation rests almost entirely on a single book published five decades ago,” writes Philip Gefter in the New York Times. "
The German publisher Steidl in Göttingen,
together with the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
in 2008 published a new version of the book in three languages:
English,
German (translation by Hans Wolf)
and Chinese (see e.g. 罗伯特·弗兰克的《美国人》 “The Americans” by Robert Frank).
Frank, 83 years old at the date of publication - a number which corresponds to the 83 tritone plates in the book, chosen out of 20,000 photographs - worked intensively himself on this new version of his now classic book, including for example using some negatives varying from previous editions.
The 13-character ISBN for the English version of the book is: 978-3-86521-584-0.
The 13-character ISBN for the German version of the book is: 978-3-86521-658-8.
The 13-character ISBN for the Chinese version of the book is: 978-3-86521-657-1.
This book is a "must have" for any library that includes materials on America.
For those of my friends in Nebraska, where I grew up, two of the plates in the book are from Nebraska, one of highway 30 between Ogallala and North Platte, and the other of Hested's department store in Lincoln. I've seen both, and, yes, that's exactly the way it looked.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Case of the Harry Potter Lexicon : J.K. Rowling vs. the Cyclopians (Encyclopedians)
The Harry Potter Lexicon is in the news, as J.K. Rowling battles the Cyclopians (encyclopedians).
RDR Books writes:
"HARRY POTTER LEXICON CASE UPDATE
New York Federal District Court Judge Robert Patterson has scheduled a trial for March 24, 25 and 26 in the matter of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J.K. Rowling v. RDR Books. The judge consolidated a previously scheduled injunction hearing with the trial. The plaintiffs want to block publication of librarian Steve Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon. Here is the RDR Books statement on the case:
In this action, a distinguished and tremendously successful novelist demands the suppression of a reference guide to her works. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, asserts that this reference guide infringes both her copyright in the seven Potter novels and her right to publish, at some unidentified point in the future, a reference guide of her own. In support of her position she appears to claim a monopoly on the right to publish literary reference guides, and other non-academic research, relating to her own fiction.
This is a right no court has ever recognized. It has little to recommend it. If accepted, it would dramatically extend the reach of copyright protection, and eliminate an entire genre of literary supplements: third party reference guides to fiction, which for centuries have helped readers better access, understand and enjoy literary works. By extension, it would threaten not just reference guides, but encyclopedias, glossaries, indexes, and other tools that provide useful information about copyrighted works. Ms. Rowling's intellectual property rights simply do not extend so far and, even if they did, she has not shown that the publication of this reference guide poses a sufficient threat of irreparable harm to justify an injunction. Her preliminary injunction motion should be denied.
Read RDR Books' Opposition Brief filed by our attorneys David Hammer, Lizbeth Hasse, Anthony Falzone, Julie Ahrens and Robert Handelsman. Also filed was expert witness testimony on the Harry Potter Lexicon by Professor Janet Sorenson of the English faculty at the University of California at Berkeley. Have a look at this exhibit, a thank you note from Scholastic Publication Potterologist and editor Cheryl Klein to Steve Vander Ark. All available background information on the Harry Potter Lexicon lawsuit is available here.
Media contacts for the Harry Potter Lexicon Case
One of the great intellectual property law cases of our time, a dramatic work with a platinum cast, has been underway for some time now in the trademark and copyright infringement action by Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling against RDR Books, makers of an allegedly unauthorized Harry Potter Encyclopedia, who we here thus dub the Cyclopians.
Joe Nocera at the New York Times in A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity wrote on February 9, 2008:
"On Friday, a lawyer named Anthony Falzone filed his side’s first big brief in the case of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J. K. Rowling v. RDR Books. Mr. Falzone is employed by Stanford Law School, where he heads up the Fair Use Project, which was founded several years ago by Lawrence Lessig, perhaps the law school’s best-known professor. Mr. Falzone and the other lawyers at the Fair Use Project are siding with the defendant, RDR Books, a small book publisher based in Muskegon, Mich. As you can see from the titans who have brought the suit, RDR Books needs all the legal firepower it can muster."
The Leaky Cauldron informs us that a trial date has now been set.
The Guardian writes on March 11, 2008:
"On one side: global-celebrity author JK Rowling. On the other: an amateur fan site devoted to the world's favourite boy wizard. At stake: the soul of Harry Potter."
We saw a vision of Hedwig bringing in the last issues of US Reports by mail the other day to deal with a case of mysterious first impression?
WHOO can be sure?
As The Guardian writes, all wizards of the legal powers convene:
"[O]n March 24 when a New York court considers the injunction that Rowling and Warner Brothers have taken out against a small, Michigan-based publisher, RDR Books, to prevent publication of the Harry Potter Lexicon, an A-Z guide to all things Hogwarts. It could also be a landmark case, because what is at stake is not just an author's right to control the publication of secondary works but also the right to publish in book form information that has been previously available on the web."
Keep your dragons at bay!
What does the law of superheros tell us about the rights of mere mortals?
Hat tip to CaryGEE.
Update with some links about the case found online:
From Stanford's Fair Use Project
Nice posting and lots of comments at Crooked Timber
P2PNet and P2PNet-again
The Online Harry Potter Lexicon of the Challenged Book
The J.K. Rowling Official Site praising the online website
RDR Books
Steve Vander Ark at the UrbanWire. As written at UrbanWire:
"Steve Vander Ark, 46, a librarian for a K-8 school in Michigan and the resident director for the Caledonia Community Players, and published compiler of an encyclopaedia of Star Trek the Next Generation, is renowned throughout the Harry Potter Fandom online for creating The Harry Potter Lexicon - the first, and only complete online encyclopaedic companion to the Harry Potter books. Started in the year 2000, The Harry Potter Lexicon contains every single fact, feature, character and detail from the books in a systematic catalogue, and was recently awarded the third prestigious Fan Site Award [by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling on her official site.] Steve is also an active speaker at Harry Potter-related academic symposiums held in America."
Read the rest here at UrbanWire.
Library Journal where Rowling says the book is a "Harry Potter rip-off"
Beattie's Book Blog
RDR Books writes:
"HARRY POTTER LEXICON CASE UPDATE
New York Federal District Court Judge Robert Patterson has scheduled a trial for March 24, 25 and 26 in the matter of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J.K. Rowling v. RDR Books. The judge consolidated a previously scheduled injunction hearing with the trial. The plaintiffs want to block publication of librarian Steve Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon. Here is the RDR Books statement on the case:
In this action, a distinguished and tremendously successful novelist demands the suppression of a reference guide to her works. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, asserts that this reference guide infringes both her copyright in the seven Potter novels and her right to publish, at some unidentified point in the future, a reference guide of her own. In support of her position she appears to claim a monopoly on the right to publish literary reference guides, and other non-academic research, relating to her own fiction.
This is a right no court has ever recognized. It has little to recommend it. If accepted, it would dramatically extend the reach of copyright protection, and eliminate an entire genre of literary supplements: third party reference guides to fiction, which for centuries have helped readers better access, understand and enjoy literary works. By extension, it would threaten not just reference guides, but encyclopedias, glossaries, indexes, and other tools that provide useful information about copyrighted works. Ms. Rowling's intellectual property rights simply do not extend so far and, even if they did, she has not shown that the publication of this reference guide poses a sufficient threat of irreparable harm to justify an injunction. Her preliminary injunction motion should be denied.
Read RDR Books' Opposition Brief filed by our attorneys David Hammer, Lizbeth Hasse, Anthony Falzone, Julie Ahrens and Robert Handelsman. Also filed was expert witness testimony on the Harry Potter Lexicon by Professor Janet Sorenson of the English faculty at the University of California at Berkeley. Have a look at this exhibit, a thank you note from Scholastic Publication Potterologist and editor Cheryl Klein to Steve Vander Ark. All available background information on the Harry Potter Lexicon lawsuit is available here.
Media contacts for the Harry Potter Lexicon Case
One of the great intellectual property law cases of our time, a dramatic work with a platinum cast, has been underway for some time now in the trademark and copyright infringement action by Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling against RDR Books, makers of an allegedly unauthorized Harry Potter Encyclopedia, who we here thus dub the Cyclopians.
Joe Nocera at the New York Times in A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity wrote on February 9, 2008:
"On Friday, a lawyer named Anthony Falzone filed his side’s first big brief in the case of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J. K. Rowling v. RDR Books. Mr. Falzone is employed by Stanford Law School, where he heads up the Fair Use Project, which was founded several years ago by Lawrence Lessig, perhaps the law school’s best-known professor. Mr. Falzone and the other lawyers at the Fair Use Project are siding with the defendant, RDR Books, a small book publisher based in Muskegon, Mich. As you can see from the titans who have brought the suit, RDR Books needs all the legal firepower it can muster."
The Leaky Cauldron informs us that a trial date has now been set.
The Guardian writes on March 11, 2008:
"On one side: global-celebrity author JK Rowling. On the other: an amateur fan site devoted to the world's favourite boy wizard. At stake: the soul of Harry Potter."
We saw a vision of Hedwig bringing in the last issues of US Reports by mail the other day to deal with a case of mysterious first impression?
WHOO can be sure?
As The Guardian writes, all wizards of the legal powers convene:
"[O]n March 24 when a New York court considers the injunction that Rowling and Warner Brothers have taken out against a small, Michigan-based publisher, RDR Books, to prevent publication of the Harry Potter Lexicon, an A-Z guide to all things Hogwarts. It could also be a landmark case, because what is at stake is not just an author's right to control the publication of secondary works but also the right to publish in book form information that has been previously available on the web."
Keep your dragons at bay!
What does the law of superheros tell us about the rights of mere mortals?
Hat tip to CaryGEE.
Update with some links about the case found online:
From Stanford's Fair Use Project
Nice posting and lots of comments at Crooked Timber
P2PNet and P2PNet-again
The Online Harry Potter Lexicon of the Challenged Book
The J.K. Rowling Official Site praising the online website
RDR Books
Steve Vander Ark at the UrbanWire. As written at UrbanWire:
"Steve Vander Ark, 46, a librarian for a K-8 school in Michigan and the resident director for the Caledonia Community Players, and published compiler of an encyclopaedia of Star Trek the Next Generation, is renowned throughout the Harry Potter Fandom online for creating The Harry Potter Lexicon - the first, and only complete online encyclopaedic companion to the Harry Potter books. Started in the year 2000, The Harry Potter Lexicon contains every single fact, feature, character and detail from the books in a systematic catalogue, and was recently awarded the third prestigious Fan Site Award [by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling on her official site.] Steve is also an active speaker at Harry Potter-related academic symposiums held in America."
Read the rest here at UrbanWire.
Library Journal where Rowling says the book is a "Harry Potter rip-off"
Beattie's Book Blog
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Science Fiction SFFaudio Blog Reviews Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Live in Concert by Douglas Adams
The SFFaudio Blog has a review of
Take a look.
Off to the Stars of the Galaxy by Kaulinsium.
Take a look.
Off to the Stars of the Galaxy by Kaulinsium.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Spooner or Later : Um ... a New Book on Verbal Blunders by Erard
Um ... er .... ah. Having trouble speaking or writing? Do you suffer from lips of the stung? Do you sometimes write there for their? You are not a loan. Life is a process of communication, beset with surprising linguistic obstacles.
Micheal Erard is "a journalist who writes mainly about language at the intersection of technology, policy, law, and science." He has a new book out Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.
Erard talks about those slips of the tongue that befall most of us at tome sime or another. It is an instructive world of verbal blunders made famous in our own day by US President Bush's "Dubyaspeak", which led to Erard's Um.
But the problem of dubyaspeak is older than President Bush. Former US President Herbert Hoover was, for example, also famed indirectly by a spoonerism, a lexical flip by radio announcer Harry von Zell, who referred to Hoover once as Hoobert Heever (read this account as a general lesson in evidence).
In his review of Erard's book, Dennis Lythgoe at the Desert Morning News writes as follows about "Um" and "Dubyaspeak":
"Erard became interested in the subject of verbal blunders during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush’s malapropisms were referred to as “abnormal” in media reports. Erard thought critics were too hard on Bush, because he believes all of us commit verbal blunders.
He is convinced that making mistakes in speech is not a sign of a lack of intelligence. It is often caused by anxieties — people repeat words and restart sentences if they’re nervous. Or they may simply be accidental."
That may in part be confirmed at the blawg Yayarolly goes to law school, where "a 30-something's adventure in law school writes" in "Stick a fork in 1L, I'm done":
"Seriously. I'm tried. That's really the only way to describe what I am feeling right now. Not euphoric, not relieved, just tired. And a little concerned if my speech will ever be the same again... I've been spitting out spoonerisms over the last week like it's going out of style."
For more details about malopropisms , spoonerisms, and similar verbal blunders, see these reviews of Erard's book.
Micheal Erard is "a journalist who writes mainly about language at the intersection of technology, policy, law, and science." He has a new book out Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.
Erard talks about those slips of the tongue that befall most of us at tome sime or another. It is an instructive world of verbal blunders made famous in our own day by US President Bush's "Dubyaspeak", which led to Erard's Um.
But the problem of dubyaspeak is older than President Bush. Former US President Herbert Hoover was, for example, also famed indirectly by a spoonerism, a lexical flip by radio announcer Harry von Zell, who referred to Hoover once as Hoobert Heever (read this account as a general lesson in evidence).
In his review of Erard's book, Dennis Lythgoe at the Desert Morning News writes as follows about "Um" and "Dubyaspeak":
"Erard became interested in the subject of verbal blunders during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush’s malapropisms were referred to as “abnormal” in media reports. Erard thought critics were too hard on Bush, because he believes all of us commit verbal blunders.
He is convinced that making mistakes in speech is not a sign of a lack of intelligence. It is often caused by anxieties — people repeat words and restart sentences if they’re nervous. Or they may simply be accidental."
That may in part be confirmed at the blawg Yayarolly goes to law school, where "a 30-something's adventure in law school writes" in "Stick a fork in 1L, I'm done":
"Seriously. I'm tried. That's really the only way to describe what I am feeling right now. Not euphoric, not relieved, just tired. And a little concerned if my speech will ever be the same again... I've been spitting out spoonerisms over the last week like it's going out of style."
For more details about malopropisms , spoonerisms, and similar verbal blunders, see these reviews of Erard's book.
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