E-BOOK: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow has a new young adult novel out, and it's pretty good. As usual, he's got a Commons-licensed
e-version available.
As to the story...I don't want to give it away. I enjoyed it. I thought it was quite creative, and the hacker stuff was fun. But at times, it was a little too exposition-y for my tastes---the story would pause while the character would educate us on wi-fi, or Linux, or rfids or whatever it was. I know that his goal of educating his target audience on tech empowerment is a noble one, but it's so obvious that it takes away from the story a little. It reminded me of this episode I once saw of tween drama 'Degrassi' where the character goes to a party, experiments with a tiny bit of drugs, and disaster ensues. There is this moment at the end where she is confronted by her friends, looks directly into the camera and says something like 'I realize now that drugs are bad and it was wrong of me to try them.' Noble message, okay. But it smacked a little too much of 'now, the grown-ups will tell you what to do.' That may be educational, but it isn't 'literature.' It's a good story, and for the most part I think it succeeds as what it is. But it as not eclipsed Douglas Coupland's 'Microserfs' as my favourite 'coming of age, techie style' story.
Labels: ebook
MUSIC: New albums by Josh Woodward
The ever-reliable
Josh Woodward has two new albums available for free download. Rock on.
Labels: music
MUSIC: Songs by Allison Crowe
I am back on
Jamendo trolling for some new tunes for my swanky new video ipod, so expect to see some more music posts from me in the coming weeks. My first find was
this wonderful album from
Allison Crowe---kind of twangy folk-pop stuff (you know I like the pop!) and quite a decent find. If you liked my previous posts on
Deborah Dalton and
Jenny Gillespie, you'll like this girl.
Labels: Jamendo, music, netlabel
VIDEO: Story of Stuff
This
20-minute documentary asks some thought-provoking questions on 'stuff.' The documentary is available for free download under a Creative Commons license. According to their website, over a million people have already watched.
Labels: video
EBOOK: Free French Textbook
Liberte is a complete and very polished-looking introductory French texbook by Gretchen Angelo. It is available under a Creative Commons license for free download---only as a PDF, unfortunately, but hey, it's a start :) Looks like a great resource!
Labels: ebook, French
E-BOOK: City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton
City at World's End is a quick, fun read from the 1950's. A small midwestern town gets accidentally catapulted through time to millions of years in the future, where the Earth is a dying, deserted world. The story follows them trying to rebuild their lives and survive what's happened to them. There are some definite 'product of its time' moments in there, especially as regards the characterization of some of the female characters, but all in all, it's a fun story and an easy one to get lost in. Enjoy!
Labels: ebook
E-BOOK: Award-Winning Books On-Line
This page has a list of links to available on-line versions of works by Newberry and Nobel prize winners.
Labels: ebook
