There has been great controversy surrounding Amazon's choices for its East Coast headquarters, and, as expected, independent booksellers are up in arms about the online retail giant expanding it's physical domain.Still, I think it is inevitable that Amazon continues to dominate online retailing of everything from books to widgets, as we become a more digital world. I will always hold a reverence for actual print books, of course, but I am a dinosaur in many things these days.
Amazon Picks NYC
and Northern Virginia for HQ2
Instead of having
a single second headquarters, Amazon will split what
it calls HQ2
between two of the 20 finalists in its year-long contest:
Crystal City in
Arlington, Va., across the Potomac from Washington,
D.C., and Long
Island City, in Queens, N.Y., across the East River from
Manhattan.
Citing people
"familiar" with the matter, the Wall Street Journal and
New York Times
both said Amazon will make an official announcement as
early as today.
The Journal added that "other cities may also receive
Amazon has said
HQ2 will bring 50,000 jobs and involve more than $5
billion in
spending. The Journal noted that the two-city solution "came
after Amazon
executives concluded it could recruit more of the best tech
talent if it
spread the office over two locations. And by halving the
size, Amazon would
help ease potential issues with housing, transit and
other areas where
adding tens of thousands of workers could cause
problems."
The Times observed
that Amazon "already has more employees in those two
areas than
anywhere else outside of Seattle, its home base, and the Bay
Area" and
that "the need to hire tens of thousands of high-tech workers
been the driving
force behind the search, leading many to expect it to
land in a major
East Coast metropolitan area."
The three sites
near the capital in Amazon's list of 20 finalists had
been seen as
frontrunners because of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's ties to
the area, which,
besides personal ownership of the Washington Post,
includes a large
home.
The following two obits are sad because Stan Lee was a great storyteller and creator of some iconic comic book characters that will be his legacy for centuries. And Shakti Gawain's Creative Visualization was a revelation for so many people when I read it in the 80s while I was in grad school. Yet both Lee and Gawain were people who lead full and rich lives, and though they will be missed, I feel as if their time here on earth was not wasted. RIP.
Obituary Note:
Stan Lee
Stan Lee, the
legendary chief writer and editor of Marvel Comics who
created many of
the most famous comics superheroes, died yesterday. He
was 95.
The New York Times
called Lee "a writer, editor, publisher, Hollywood
executive and
tireless promoter (of Marvel and of himself) [who] played
a critical role in
what comics fans call the medium's silver age." He
was "a
central player in the creation of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the
Fantastic Four,
Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor and the many other superheroes
who, as properties
of Marvel Comics, now occupy vast swaths of the pop
culture landscape
in movies and on television." The Times added that Lee
and Marvel
"revolutionized the comic book world by imbuing its
characters with
the self-doubts and neuroses of average people, as well
an awareness of
trends and social causes and, often, a sense of humor."
Read the paper's
long obituary, illustrated with all of three photos,
A tribute at
Golden Apple Comics
Lee was a longtime
fan of Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles, whose
Spider-Man statue
outside the shop is now wearing a black armband
to Los Angeles
magazine. Kendra Liebowitz, whose late father-in-law,
Bill Liebowitz,
founded the store in 1979, said, "He will be terribly,
terribly
missed." She also placed flowers around the statue to create a
place for fans to
mourn. One store employee added, "He kind of made this
business. None of
these shops would be around without Stan's
contribution to
the comic book world."
Obituary Note: Shakti Gawain
Shakti Gawain http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38948973,
co-founder of New World Library and a bestselling author, died on
November 11 at age 70.
Originally named Carol Louise Gawain, Gawain met Marc Allen, with whom
she co-founded the publishing house, in 1974. He nicknamed her Shakti,
which is the Sanskrit word for the divine feminine creative force.
The two led workshops together and wrote and produced educational
booklets in the kitchen of their small apartment in Oakland, Calif.
Their shoestring operation began with very little capital and minimal
sales. That changed with the publication of Gawain's first book,
Creative Visualization, which had strong word-of-mouth sales. Then, in
the early 1980s, Oprah Winfrey invited her to be a guest on her
yet-to-be-syndicated television show.
When the Oprah Winfrey Show went national in 1986 and re-aired the
interview with Gawain, Creative Visualization became an international
bestseller--and has sold more than seven million copies worldwide. And
New World Library, which was called Whatever Publishing at the time,
became established.
Gawain wrote several other books, including Living in the Light, Return
to the Garden, The Path of Transformation, The Four Levels of Healing,
Creating True Prosperity, and Developing Intuition. Altogether her books
have sold more than 10 million copies and have been translated into 38
languages.In 1992, Gawain left New World Library to start a publishing company
called Nataraj Publishing with her husband, Jim Burns.
Gawain was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the late 1990s and
later with Lewy body disease. As her obituary recounted, "She lived with
the diagnosis with the amazing strength and grace that made her who she
was. In 2015, Shakti made the hard decision to step back from her public
life so that she could focus on her own healing and spend time with Jim.
With him by her side, she passed away peacefully from complications
following hip surgery."
Shakti Gawain http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38948973,
co-founder of New World Library and a bestselling author, died on
November 11 at age 70.
Originally named Carol Louise Gawain, Gawain met Marc Allen, with whom
she co-founded the publishing house, in 1974. He nicknamed her Shakti,
which is the Sanskrit word for the divine feminine creative force.
The two led workshops together and wrote and produced educational
booklets in the kitchen of their small apartment in Oakland, Calif.
Their shoestring operation began with very little capital and minimal
sales. That changed with the publication of Gawain's first book,
Creative Visualization, which had strong word-of-mouth sales. Then, in
the early 1980s, Oprah Winfrey invited her to be a guest on her
yet-to-be-syndicated television show.
When the Oprah Winfrey Show went national in 1986 and re-aired the
interview with Gawain, Creative Visualization became an international
bestseller--and has sold more than seven million copies worldwide. And
New World Library, which was called Whatever Publishing at the time,
became established.
Gawain wrote several other books, including Living in the Light, Return
to the Garden, The Path of Transformation, The Four Levels of Healing,
Creating True Prosperity, and Developing Intuition. Altogether her books
have sold more than 10 million copies and have been translated into 38
languages.In 1992, Gawain left New World Library to start a publishing company
called Nataraj Publishing with her husband, Jim Burns.
Gawain was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the late 1990s and
later with Lewy body disease. As her obituary recounted, "She lived with
the diagnosis with the amazing strength and grace that made her who she
was. In 2015, Shakti made the hard decision to step back from her public
life so that she could focus on her own healing and spend time with Jim.
With him by her side, she passed away peacefully from complications
following hip surgery."
I've seen several interviews with Michelle Obama, our former FLOTUS, about her wonderful memoir, and Oprah's chat with her is inspiring and candid. I plan on finding myself a copy ASAP.
Oprah's Book Club
Pick: Becoming
Oprah Winfrey has
chosen former First Lady Michelle Obama's memoir
Becoming http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38916096
(Crown), which was released
yesterday, as the latest Oprah's Book Club Pick
"She just
opens up herself; it's so vulnerable," Winfrey said. "It is
Michelle Obama's
personal story, of course, but I believe it's going to
spark within you
the desire to think about your own becoming."
Winfrey told the
Associated Press that the book "is everything you
wanted to know http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38916098
and so much you
didn't even know you wanted to know.... It's so
well-written I can
hear her voice; I can hear her expressions; I can
feel her emotion.
What she allows us to see is how she was able to
discover, define
and then refine her voice."
Noting that
Becoming "is Winfrey's first pick by an author from the
political world
since she started her club in 1996," the AP wrote that
Winfrey,
"publishing's most established hit maker, knows the Obamas
well, to the point
where Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres once teased
each other over
who was closer to her. Winfrey was a prominent backer of
Barack Obama's
candidacy in 2008 and has interviewed both Obamas over
the years."
On Thursday,
November 15, OWN will feature a prime-time special, Oprah
Winfrey Presents:
Becoming Michelle Obama, and an extended unedited
version will be
available on Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations podcast
starting the same
day, with part two following on November 19. In
addition, the full
interview will be streamed on Oprah's Facebook page
November 18.
I'm excited about this new Masterpiece series about a woman who becomes a kind of sleuth by chance. It is produced by the same people who produce JK Rowling's mystery series featuring Cormoran Strike, which I loved.
TV: Mrs.
Wilson
PBS Masterpiece has
released the first trailer for Mrs. Wilson
"a very
personal drama series" starring Ruth Wilson as her grandmother
Alison Wilson,
whose memoir inspired the project. Deadline reported that
the "drama
follows Alison Wilson (Ruth Wilson), who thinks she is
happily married
until her husband, popular spy novelist Alec Wilson,
played by Iain
Glen (Game of Thrones), dies and a woman turns up on the
doorstep claiming
to be Alec's wife. Alison is determined to prove the
validity of her
own marriage--and Alec's love for her--but is instead
led into a world
of disturbing secrets."
Mrs. Wilson, which
will air on Masterpiece in 2019, is a co-production
with BBC and is
written by Anna Symon (Indian Summers). It is executive
produced by Ruth
Wilson, Ruth Kenley-Letts (The Casual Vacancy, The
Strike Series),
Neil Blair (The Strike Series, Fantastic Beasts and
Where to Find
Them), Lucy Richer for the BBC, and Eaton for Masterpiece.
The Devil In the White City by Erik Larson was our November book club for my Tuesday Night Book Group at the library. Because it is non fiction and a true crime story, I knew that the non fiction fans in the book group would probably like it more than those who, like myself, enjoy reading for entertainment and escape from the grim reality of the headlines. So I was unsurprised that after I discussed how much I disliked this tedious story of the building of the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893, coupled with the story of a psychopathic serial killer who preyed on women and children, that several book group members chimed in with their defense of all the 'fascinating' details of getting a huge worlds fair mounted, and of the mind of a truly evil man who mesmerized his victims and took everything from them, their money, land and lives. For some, reading about evil isn't chilling, but for me it's nauseating and terrifying, and I prefer not to be frightened by events that took place over 100 years ago. Here's the blurb, via Publisher's Weekly (reviewing the audiobook): This is a steady performance of a book that, while gripping in its
content and crisply paced, isn't quite a gold mine for an audio
performer. It relies on journalistic narration and includes almost no
quotes, so there isn't much chance for interesting characterization.
But it is excellent nonfiction, chronicling the hurly-burly planning
and construction of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (which did, as the
title suggests, include building what amounted to an entire city) and a
cruelly calculating sociopath who used the event's tumult and crowds
to serve his homicidal compulsion. Goldwyn is an experienced narrator
with a keen dramatic sense, and his resonant voice is well-suited to
the project. Music is used only sparingly, but the few subdued, creepy
bars Goldwyn reads over in the beginning do an excellent job of
creating atmosphere for a tale that is subtle but often genuinely
unsettling. Listeners will also be fascinated by descriptions of the
sheer logistics of the fair itself, which serve as not only carefully
crafted and informative history, but also as welcome breaks from the
macabre and relentless contrivances of the killer. In all, it's a
polished presentation of an intriguing book that outlines the heights
of human imagination and perseverance against the depths of our
depravity."
Larson's prose is clean and precise, however, he rambles on with historical detail that slows the book down to a crawl several times, particularly in the beginning chapters. The plot starts moving faster about halfway through the book, but I still struggled to maintain my interest by the end. So I'd give this book a C, and recommend it to anyone who is interested in historical true crime novels.
This Cruel Design by Emily Suvada is the sequel to her futuristic medical/scientific thriller This Mortal Coil, which I read months ago. The first book moved at a breakneck speed, and there were so many twists and turns I was shocked that I'd read the whole book in one sitting by the time I put it down, but honestly, I just had to know what happened next. Suvada is a masterful storyteller, and her prose is as sharp as a scalpel. The plot of this sequel takes very little time to get onto that same track, and then it moves along at speed until the head-scratching end of the novel. It's hard to get medical science fiction right, because there are novels like the Andromeda Strain that set the bar fairly high early on, and technology has come so far into the digital age that projecting the future of genetics and viral pandemics is no easy task. Suvada is more than equal to the challenge, however, and I was riveted to this story until the final pages. Here's the blurb: Cat thought the Hydra epidemic was over, but when new cases pop up,
Cat must team up with an enemy to fix the vaccine before the virus
spirals out of control in this thrilling sequel to This Mortal Coil, which New York Times bestselling author Amie Kaufman says “redefine’s ‘unputdownable.’”
The nightmare of the outbreak is finally over, but Cat’s fight has only just begun.
Exhausted, wounded, and reeling from revelations that have shaken her to her core, Cat is at a breaking point. Camped in the woods with Cole and Leoben, she’s working day and night, desperate to find a way to stop Lachlan’s plan to reprogram humanity. But she’s failing—Cat can’t even control her newly regrown panel, and try as she might to ignore them, she keeps seeing glitching visions from her past everywhere she turns.
When news arrives that the Hydra virus might not be as dead as they’d thought, the group is pushed into an uneasy alliance with Cartaxus to hunt down Lachlan and fix the vaccine. Their search takes them to Entropia, a city of genehackers hidden deep in the desert that could also hold the answers about Cat’s past that she’s been searching for.
But when confronted with lies and betrayals, Cat is forced to question everything she knows and everyone she trusts. And while Lachlan is always two steps ahead, the biggest threat to Cat may be the secrets buried in her own mind.
The nightmare of the outbreak is finally over, but Cat’s fight has only just begun.
Exhausted, wounded, and reeling from revelations that have shaken her to her core, Cat is at a breaking point. Camped in the woods with Cole and Leoben, she’s working day and night, desperate to find a way to stop Lachlan’s plan to reprogram humanity. But she’s failing—Cat can’t even control her newly regrown panel, and try as she might to ignore them, she keeps seeing glitching visions from her past everywhere she turns.
When news arrives that the Hydra virus might not be as dead as they’d thought, the group is pushed into an uneasy alliance with Cartaxus to hunt down Lachlan and fix the vaccine. Their search takes them to Entropia, a city of genehackers hidden deep in the desert that could also hold the answers about Cat’s past that she’s been searching for.
But when confronted with lies and betrayals, Cat is forced to question everything she knows and everyone she trusts. And while Lachlan is always two steps ahead, the biggest threat to Cat may be the secrets buried in her own mind.
SPOILER ALERT: I found the ending to be a terrific let down, though I enjoyed 95 percent of the rest of the book. The fact that Cat had been fighting to keep her identity, only to unleash a mind-wipe along with a vaccine for the latest incarnation of the virus, just made me feel disgusted that Jun Bei's personality/ID won out in the end, and Cat is seemingly gone and forgotten forever. Even her lover doesn't recognize her in the end. Despite the disappointment, I'd give this novel a B+, and recommend it to anyone who has read the first book, This Mortal Coil. Be prepared for heartbreak, however.
Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus, Cat Magic by Lydia Sherrer is a fun short novella about a talking magical cat named Sir Edgar Alan Kipling who is the familiar to a wizard named Lily Singer. This slender volume really packs in the pleasure, especially if you're a fan of cats and their overweening egos. Here's the blurb: Saving the world is such a bother when it makes you late for your nap.
Blessed (or cursed, depending on who you ask) with human intelligence, Sir Edgar Allan Kipling, magical talking cat extraordinaire, spends most of his time keeping his human out of trouble. Of course, having a wizard for a human means that trouble is never far away.
When Sir Kipling’s human goes away for the weekend and leaves him to guard her magical library, things start out quiet. But when he discovers a witch smelling suspiciously of demon magic snooping in his human’s office, quiet goes out the window and chaos looms on the horizon. Will Sir Kipling be able to outwit the intruders before their mischief causes permanent damage?
If you are a cat person, you will adore this book. If you are a dog person, you will also adore this book, and upon completion will be inexplicably compelled to go out and adopt a cat. You have been warned.
Blessed (or cursed, depending on who you ask) with human intelligence, Sir Edgar Allan Kipling, magical talking cat extraordinaire, spends most of his time keeping his human out of trouble. Of course, having a wizard for a human means that trouble is never far away.
When Sir Kipling’s human goes away for the weekend and leaves him to guard her magical library, things start out quiet. But when he discovers a witch smelling suspiciously of demon magic snooping in his human’s office, quiet goes out the window and chaos looms on the horizon. Will Sir Kipling be able to outwit the intruders before their mischief causes permanent damage?
If you are a cat person, you will adore this book. If you are a dog person, you will also adore this book, and upon completion will be inexplicably compelled to go out and adopt a cat. You have been warned.
I found Sir Kipling to be a delightfully droll kitty cat, and I enjoyed his ferocious protection of the magical archives in the library, and his teaming up with an old wizard to save them while his mistress Lily is out of town. I did, however, find the prose to be a bit glib and goofy, with to many cliches written into the dialog. The plot was steady and true, however, and it sailed along like a swift boat on a blustery day. I'd give this enjoyable slender volume an A, and recommend it to all those who enjoy fantasy, magic and cats in their fiction.
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