On the Web

Book games

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A rare-book blog has created a couple of bookish themed games. They’re pretty good at burning a few minutes on a lazy holiday afternoon. Though, I think I have the lowest score on the “famous First Lines” game. I faired much better at “Letter-a-ture”. Which is even more fun because of the two player setting.

Posting will remain a little light this week, as I shed my holiday sugar induced shakes and relearn the mechanics of typing.

I hope your holiday season has been a peaceful one!

{via myfinebooks}

Book Talk, On the Web

Challenge me!

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I want a book reading challenge. Some of my favorite posts, over the past year have been those folks participating in some quasi-organized reading challenge. The themes have been great too. So now I’m in search of one. Fortunately…

Continue reading Challenge me! →

News, On the Web

Google’s knol

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I can’t make up my mind just how big of a deal this is. To be honest, I never really dug into Wikipedia, never having enough faith in what the masses would post. But then I discovered the Bhamwiki. It was like a light bulb that suddenly turned on. I got it. Our little local wiki is exactly what the whole Wikimedia is supposed to be about. It’s a great place to look up info on local authors, books,publishers etc.

And now Google is throwing their hat in the same ring. The only difference, that I can find, between Wiki and Google is that:

1. Google will restrict entry editing to a slate of topic experts, to kick things off.

2. Google will allow these topic experts to share in the ad revenue stream generated by their entries.

Are there more differences? I’m certainly not qualified to write anything, but I’ve been a fan of Google for a while and I’m wondering why they keep spreading out into new areas, beyond their core search business. Maybe it is just to stem the people clicking from Google search links to Wikipedia, as this guy’s non-scientific test highlights.

Book Talk, News

Brits banding books

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I was lurking around the net, familiarizing myself with children’s books from the 1940’s (per one commenter’s suggestion) and I ran across an news tidbit saying the UK publishers are going to start rating children’s books. Just like the movies, though this seems more aimed at “reading level” than content. Though, surely, there is some of that too.

The age ranking will go: Early (for five years plus), Developing (7 plus) Confident (9 plus) and Fluent.

When gift buying for nephews, I always wonder which book to get. The reading abilities and tastes seem so hard to figure out at that age. Honestly. I have more faith in my local bookseller’s knowledge about what would be a good purchase, but this would seem to be a step in the right direction to help the clueless (such as myself).

Books, Publishing and Birmingham