In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne imagined deep water submarines. In I, Robot, Isaac Asimov dreamed of machines with personalities. J. K. Rowling envisioned an invisibility cloak in Harry Potter. Why take note of this? Because, so often, fiction imagines po
Recently, a reader sent me a blog by Roy A. Barnes, a writer from southeastern Wyoming who devotes his space to the business of getting published. One of his articles provided definitions, in layman’s terms, of the legal rights publishers seek before printing a work. I thought
The other evening, PBS news featured an interview with Lev Grossman who has published the 3rd book in his fantasy trilogy. The new title is, The Magician’s Land. What’s interesting about the author’s work is that it’s targeted to adults rather than to young readers. Gros
One of my blog readers sent me a writer’s comment on the art of blogging. Barry Ritholtz has been producing a financial blog, Big Picture for over 10 years. As chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management and the author of Bailout Nation, the writer has credentials whi
One of my blog readers sent me a writer’s comment on the art of blogging. Barry Ritholtz has been producing a financial blog, Big Picture, for over 10 years. As chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management and the author of Bailout Nation, the writer has credentials wh
Yesterday a friend called and by her hesitant manner, I knew she wanted a favor. Eventually, she got to her point. She wanted me to have coffee with her friend who was writing her first book and who wanted my advice on how to proceed. I agreed to meet this friend, of course. A
Nearly a year ago, I wrote a blog about a group of scientists who decided to break the stranglehold research journals have in deciding whose work receives public recognition and whose work doesn’t (Blog 1/1/13) What emerged was a suite of journals covering all areas of science a
Haruki Murakami’s new book, Colorless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage, is receiving critical acclaim, most recently from Rivka Galchen. (“The Monkey did it,” By Rivka Galchen, Harper’s Magazine, October 2014, pgs. 86-89.) I haven’t read Murakami’s newest work yet,
After the play reading with live actors, I met the director a couple of weeks later. She had organized her notes from that evening and we began reviewing the play, line by line, scene by scene. She added comments of her own, indicating places where the language was too stilted mak
Not long ago, I contacted a friend to ask if he was interested in seeing the new Woody Allen film, Magic in the Moonlight. His reply was terse, something to the effect that he would not support the work of a child molester, a reference I presume to Allen’s marriage to his adop