Category Archives: Book Talk

Book Talk, Upcoming Titles

Fight Club Sequel Finished

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Chuck Palahniuk said yesterday that he has finished his Fight Club sequel and sent it to a publisher for review. I’m glad to hear that Tyler Durden is still clicking along with his reboot society sentiment.

All we know at this point is that Palahniuk’s Fight Club sequel takes place 10 years after the big implosion at the end of the first book and that Tyler is stuck in Jack and bored in the suburbs, ready to make a comeback!

Fight Club cover

Though I have to admit that I’m a little bummed that the story is planned as a seven issue graphic novel release and not as a comprehensive novel/novella. Maybe that will change if things take off for Tyler and crew again? Of course, according to a quote in that Guradian article, Palahniuk is stressed about the graphic novel format and the implications it has on story telling. I’m just curious: I wonder how long of a straight-text book a 210 graphic novel converts into? I’ll have to look up some math on that.

I’m anxious to see what impact Durden (and the books) have, on the world.

Book Talk

The Strain on Fox

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Wait!? What!? How could I miss this? The Strain, one of my favorite sci-fi trilogy series, from a couple of years ago, is being made into a TV-mini-series by the author himself Guillermo Del Toro!

Here is the only teaser or trailer-related bit I could find for The Strain, which apparently will be on the Fox network:

The teaser doesn’t show much, but I have complete confidence in Mr. del Toro that this will be as close to the books as possible. So it has to be good, right? This is all Wikipedia as on it, which seems a little out of date.

The Strain Trilogy

The Strain trilogy was a good blend of classic sci-fi, vampires and tech. So if you like two out of those three you may like these books. But if you don’t like vampires, then I’d pass if I were you. All three books were fun reads and the series ended on a pretty big note. So go read the books. And then get ready for The Strain on Fox TV this Summer.

Have any of you read these books?

Book Column, Book Talk

Ten Books that Stayed with You

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There is a neat thing going on over on a network of Tumblr book blogs where they are sharing Ten Books That Stayed With You. It all started on this site and hasn’t lost any steam. Lots of good books being mentioned.

I like the idea of “don’t think about this too hard” and “take a photo of the ones you have near you”. I don’t Tumbl (or is it Tumblog? How do the cool kids say it?) so I thought I’d just post mine here as I can’t find a way to jump in without being on Tumblr. These are ten books that I have found myself quoting or sharing more than others. There are a couple of others as well, but I borrowed those from the library. So they were cut from the running simply because they weren’t available for the photo shoot.

ten books that stayed with you

In no specific order:

    • Kavalier and Clay by Micahel Chabon
    • The Secret History by Donna Tartt
    • The Information Diet by Clay Johnson
    • Book Business by Joseph Epstein
    • The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
    • Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
    • So Many Books by Gabriel Zaid
    • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
    • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
    • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

How about you? Do you find you have books that have stayed with you?

Book Column, Book Talk, Technology

Reading Technology in Education

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A friend sent me this photo in an email:

reading technology

After Googling around it looks like it comes from a soon-to-be-released book Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age. The book seems to be about technology and schools and reading technology and education, but I’m not sure.

That’s a great find though. No doubt the same argument was made when slide rules gave way to calculators. And of course books to Nooks and iPads.

Though there has been some interesting research lately on how well reading technology devices serve kids and in what areas they fail the students. I wonder what these studies would have turned up had they been conducted when the chalk and slate were abandoned?

Not too mention that with the glut of books in the late Nineties (and Harry Potter) it wasn’t un-heard of for the publishing industry to run out of paper for a bit.

Maybe this principal from 1815 was onto something. Ain’t technology grand?