How much do you want North Korea to know about science and technology? “In a bid to boost development of science and technology, North Korea held an international science [and] technology book fair in Pyongyang,” reports the Korea Times. “According to the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the 5th Pyongyang International Science and Technology [...]
Saigon doctor and internationally renowned “faciotherapist” Bui Quoc Chau is outraged because a book he wrote in 1984 about treating patients based on the locations of their facial moles has recently appeared in Spanish, French and German editions with someone else’s byline instead of his. The byline is that of Le Quang Nhuan, one of [...]
Summer Hayes owns over 1,200 My Little Ponies. Remember those little mass-produced plastic horses with lush plastic manes that were marketed with corporate precision to preteen girls in an era of soulless toys and synthetic identity? Neeeiigh! Which one was your fav? April Mist, Heatherwinds, Misty Blue, or Penny Candy? Indiana collector Hayes has been [...]
You saw this coming. It was just a matter of where and when. The latest answer is: India! Members of the Mizoram Producers’ Guild, a filmmakers’ organization in the northeastern satate of Mizoram, protested both the book and film versions of The Da Vinci Code, calling them blasphemous, and burned Dan Brown in effigy, according [...]
Fifty years ago, animals with the wrong numbers of heads or legs would have been taxidermed and turned into sideshow exhibits. But now one such creature appears on daytime talk shows. Does that mean we’re more kindhearted — or that we still love gawking at sideshow freaks but we just can’t admit that’s what we’re [...]
C. Max Magee’s entertaining literary blog with the unlikely name The Millions consistently serves up relevant book news and incisive commentary on selected new books. Touching on both the content of the books themselves and their significance within the culture at large, The Millions makes itself an indispensable read for the savvy book-blog aficionado. The [...]
Intellectuals — ya gotta love ‘em. Who would have thought to write an academic treatise linking the ouevre of zombie-film maestro George Romero with classic themes of hell and death from literature and religion? Well, who better but a professor of religious studies whose previous books include The Truth Is Out There: Christian Faith and [...]
When he wasn’t busy rehearsing, playing riffs, engaging in affairs with thirteen-year-old girls, scribbling in his journal or metal-detecting, ex-Stones bassist Bill Wyman was snapping photographs. Selections from his 22,000-image archive will go on exhibit at the San Francisco Art Exchange tomorrow, launching an international tour. The photos depict Wyman’s famous friends as well as [...]
The current fad in which parents make kids feel like omnipotent geniuses is not just a fad but an industry whose players include such self-publishing “print-on-demand” (but I ask you — demanded by whom?) Web sites as lulu.com. The parents of homeschooled North Carolina eight-year-old Thomas Little have issued press releases announcing that their son [...]
You know him from The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas and Biodome. “I feel like I have gone skydiving and I’m falling from the sky toward earth at 120 miles per hour,” says Stephen Baldwin now, anticipating the release of his new memoir about finding religion. “The wind is howling in my ears and whipping [...]