Odds and sods

This is potentially nifty. Random House is releasing Karen Marie Moning's Dark Fever as a free podcast. On the book's website you will get a few chapters per week You can find it here. I don't know a thing about the author, but I like that publishing companies are finding new ways to try before you buy. The podcast approach is nice as well, as you can create chapters more easily on your Ipod or other listening device. Here are a couple of links on how to make CD based audiobooks more manageable on an Ipod. I remember lugging around 24 tapes of the Making of the Atomic Bomb. It would have been much nicer on the Ipod.

Check out this map of the world with country size determined by number of Olympic medal winners. Both Cuba and Australia look to be doing better than their populations would suggest.

Here is Pavement doing Cut Your Hair on 120 Minutes.

Carter Beats the Devil, reviewed here by the Williamsburg, VA regional library blog (which is quite good) is a book I quite liked, but was overshadowed by Kavalier and Klay which I read shortly before it. Like Klay, Devil is set in the early 20th century and tells a well written funny and sad story. I can't say why, but the two seemed quite similar. I should probably take another look now that it has been some years.

Over at Barnes and Noble Paul Paul DiFilippo has a review essay on the peculiar genre known as dark fantasy. I believe James Blaylock writes in this genre. I have a few of his books lying about the house waiting to be read.