Everything is getting worse. Cory Doctorow gave it a name three years ago: enshittification. Now he has written the best business book of the year, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It. It will help you understand many things, oh so many things, about how and why the massive platforms are breaking…
The most valuable book in my collection is a copy of Neuromancer published in 1986 by Phantasia Press. Only 375 numbered copies were signed by the author, bound with gold endpapers, in a white cloth slipcase. It’s tough to find but there are two copies on Abebooks right now, one for $6,500, the other for $8,000. The enduring cultural…
You can read almost any book in print for free, new or old, using an app named Libby. It’s legal! In fact, it’s encouraged. Maybe I’m not telling you anything new. Lots of people use Libby. If you know, you know. But if you aren’t familiar with Libby, this might rock your world and I’ll be…
The painting on the cover of the first US paperback edition of The Hobbit has a lion, a fruit tree, and a pair of emus. There are no lions in The Hobbit. There are no fruit trees or emus. J.R.R. Tolkien was baffled. He wrote to the publisher, “Where is this place? Why emus? And what…