Snippets

Literary Podcast

Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of The New York Times Book Review. He who took over that job in April 2006, having worked for many years as a writer, reporter, and editor. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998 for his biography of Whittaker Chambers.

In his weekly podcasts, you can now listen to him talking to authors, editors and critics about new books. The files are in MP3 format, and instructions for subscribing to the weekly podcasts are are on the website.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/books-podcast-archive.html

Outing Dumbledore

So JK Rowling has outed Dumbledore. Oh, come on, woman, Enough already. We know that it is hip to have gay characters in literature these days. But in all the seven books and several thousand pages you had, you did not mention (nor did you even hint) at any of the characters being gay. Why now? What's the problem? Your last book's not selling very well, or what? If ever there was a publicity stunt ... How low can you go?

Libraries spurn Google and Microsoft

New York Times reports that 'several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies.' They are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort.

The report says: 'Libraries that agree to work with Google (and Microsoft) must agree to a set of terms, which include making the material unavailable to other commercial search services ... The Open Content Alliance, by contrast, is making the material available to any search service.'