An ezine is a periodic publication distributed by email or posted on a website. CULT OF THE DEAD COW claims to have published the first ezine, starting in 1984, with its ezine still in production more than 20 years later. While this claim is hotly debated, the ezine craze certainly began in the BBS days of the 1980s. Phrack, which opened its doors in 1985, is another surviving ezine of unparalelled technical quality. Unlike CULT OF THE DEAD COW, which publishes articles individually, Phrack published collections of articles in a manner that was more similar to a print magazine. Phrack ceased production in 2005.

Ezines are typically tightly focused on a subject area. Ezines in concept are reworkings of the popular magazine format of seasonal, monthly, or weekly topical publications, in an electronic format.

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L.A. Times - Books & Talks

'The Second Plane' by Martin Amis
Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700
September 11: Terror and Boredom IT would be too easy to read Martin Amis' slim book on Sept. 11 in a day and to dismiss it with a politically correct glare. The dozen essays, columns and reviews and two short stories in "The Second Plane: September 11, Terror and Boredom" are more illuminating than that, though deeply, sometimes self-indulgently flawed.
'The House of Widows' by Askold Melnyczuk
Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Family secrets lie at the end of a dark and twisted path FROM its puzzling opening line ("The most common grammatical error is the lie"), there's an ominous vibe to Askold Melnyczuk's third novel, "The House of Widows," and the sense of unease lingers until the final sentence. It's a mysterious, masterfully taut story in which dread plays a prominent role.
'Marco Polo' by Laurence Bergreen
Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0700
An account of the adventures of the celebrated 13th century world traveler. MARCO POLO was only 17 when he departed for China in 1271 with his father, Niccolò, and his uncle, Maffeo. Those two merchants of Venice were known to the boy primarily as storytellers of their fabulous exploits, writes award-winning biographer and historian Laurence Bergreen, for they had been absent more than 16 years, Marco's entire childhood. The pair had followed trade routes east, encountered exotic countries and customs and survived many perils; they had even lived for a time at the court of Kublai Khan, the leader of the Mongol Empire. Eventually they agreed to accompany his emissary west to the pope, vowing to return to Cambulac (Beijing) with several items the Great Khan had requested.

NYT > Books

The Future of Reading: Using Video Games as Bait to Hook Readers
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:56:47 -0000
Publishers, authors and even libraries are embracing video games to promote books to young readers.
Ideas & Trends: Lost in Translation? A Swede’s Snub of U.S. Lit
Sun, 05 Oct 2008 06:31:38 -0000
The Nobel Prize has eluded America’s writers. Insularity is one unflattering explanation.
Books: Cloak, Dagger and Abuses of a New Era
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:36:17 -0000
John le Carré’s new novel examines spying in the post-9/11 era.

Fiction & Poetry

Yiyun Li: "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl"
Yiyun Li Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0000
He was raised by his mother alone, as she was by her father. She wondered if his mother, who had set up their date, had told him about that. Siyu was thirty-eight, and the man, Hanfeng, was forty-four. Siyu’s father, after supporting her through college, had remarried, choosing . . .
Spencer Reece: "Eclogue"
Spencer Reece Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In Juno Beach, on Pelican Lake, Joseph Saul ate potato chips off a paper plate and fed the broken bits to a duck. He was accompanied by Laurie McGraw, whom he met at the Alzheimer’s Support Group-- she had been a caregiver, he had a diagnosis, and together their eyes . . .
Albert Goldbarth: "The Way"
Albert Goldbarth Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0000
The sky is random. Even calling it “sky” is an attempt to make a meaning, say, a shape, from the humanly visible part of shapelessness in endlessness. It’s what we do, in some ways it’s entirely what we do--and so the devastating rose of a galaxy’s being born, the . . .

London Review of Books

Don't Ask Henry · Alan Hollinghurst: Sissiness
The story of Belchamber's publication is probably better known than the book itself, which, like its author, has suffered the ambiguous fate of becoming an accessory to the life of a more important writer. It is his friend Henry James who keeps Sturgis's novel distantly in view, at the same time as casting a long shadow over it. James read it in proof, and wrote a characteristic sequence of letters to Sturgis about it, beginning with neat praise and mild demurrals, but quickly building up to such fundamental criticisms of the book that the demoralised author said he would withdraw it altogether; at which James protested and pleaded, successfully though not with any retraction of the criticisms he had made.
Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill · Jonathan Raban: Sarah Palin's Cunning
Sarah Palin has put a new face and voice to the long-standing, powerful, but inchoate movement in US political life that one might see as a mutant strain of Poujadism, inflected with a modern American accent. There are echoes of the Poujadist agenda of 1950s France in its contempt for metropolitan elites, fuelling the resentment of the provinces towards the capital and the countryside towards the city, in its xenophobic strain of nationalism, sturdy, paysan resistance to taxation, hostility to big business, and conviction that politicians are out to exploit the common man.
The Khugistic Sandal · Jenny Diski: Jews & Shoes
Great shoemakers of our day: Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, Christian Louboutin. None of them, I think, very Jewish. And if there had been any great pre or postwar Jewish shoe mavins they would certainly have been pointed out to me by my parents, who identified any Jewish achiever in any sphere as one of the family: Alma Cogan, Einstein, Marx, boxing promoter Jack Solomons (the Sultan of Sock), it didn't matter what they were known for, everyone counted. Even, like the Kray Twins, a little bit Jewish and murderers would make them ours and make us proud - but there was never a mention of shoe designers.

NPR Topics: Books

NBA's Alonzo Mourning Touts 'Resilience' In Memoir
Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:02:00 -0400
In 2000, the muscular, 6-feet-10-inch NBA star was diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening kidney disease. Alonzo Mourning made a full recovery following a transplant. Now, he's written a memoir about the obstacles he had to overcome on the road back to the NBA.
Doris Lessing Revisits — And Rewrites — The Past
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:01:00 -0400
As she nears the end of her own life, Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing is attempting to make some sense of her beginnings: Her new novel, Alfred And Emily, imagines a better life for her parents — one in which they marry different people.
The Real Couple Behind The 'Infinite Playlist'
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:00:00 -0400
The film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, is based on an award-winning book by the same name. Rachel Cohn and David Levithan wrote the book together — almost by accident.

Slashdot: Book Reviews

Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis
samzenpus Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:02:00 -0000
cgjherr writes "If the recent financial meltdown has left you wondering, 'When does exponential decay function stop?' then I have the book for you. Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis is the kind of book that only comes along every twenty years. A tome so densely packed with scientific and mathematical formulas that it almost dares you to try and understand it all. A "For Dummies" book starts with a gentle introduction to the technology. This is more like a "for Mentats" book. It assumes that you know Excel very well. The first chapter alone will have you in awe as you see the author turn the lowly Excel into something that rivals Mathematica using VBA, brains, and a heaping helping of fortitude." Read on for the rest of Jack's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Working Effectively with Legacy Code
samzenpus Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:17:00 -0000
Merlin42 writes "I recently took a Test-Driven-Development (TDD) training course and the teacher recommended that I read "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" by Michael Feathers. First things first, a note about the title. Feathers defines "Legacy Code" a bit different than you may expect, especially if you are not into the XP/Agile/TDD world. I have heard (and used) a number of definitions for "legacy code" over the years. Most of these definitions have to do with code that is old, inherited, difficult to maintain, or interfaces with other 'legacy' hardware/software. Feathers' definition is 'code without tests.' For those not into TDD this may seem odd, but in the TDD world, tests are what make code easy to maintain. When good unit tests are in place, then code can be changed at will and the tests will tell automatically you if you broke anything." Read on for the rest of Kevin's review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Clean Code
samzenpus Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:10:00 -0000
Cory Foy writes "As developers, system admins, and a variety of other roles in IT, we have to deal with code on a daily basis. Sometimes it's just one-off scripts we never have to see again. Sometimes we stare at something that, for the life of us, we can't understand how it came out of a human mind (or, as the book puts it, has a high WTF/minute count). But there is a time when you find code that is a joy to use, to read and to understand. Clean Code sets out to help developers write that third kind of code through a series of essay-type chapters on a variety of topics. But does it really help?" Read below to find out.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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