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Amazon's Kindle ebooks have revolutionised the way that people can read, write and publish books. The process has been democratised, meaning that large teams of proofreaders, illustrators and designers have been replaced by a single author doing everything themselves — including designing the book cover. But the results aren't always pretty, as the Tumblr blog Kindle Cover Disasters proves. Can you judge a book by its cover? Let's hope not. — Compiled by Peter Yeung Link to book cover gallery.

"Downton Abbey" is losing its Dowager Countess. Maggie Smith, who plays the sharp-tongued Violet on the beloved PBS drama, told the Times of London Sunday that the upcoming sixth season will be her last. Perhaps more alarming to fans, if that’s possible, was Smith’s broad hint that this could also be the finale for the show itself. "They say this is the last one, and I can't see how it could go on," Smith told the Times. “I mean, I certainly can't keep going ... To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We're into the late 1920s."

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures is talks to acquire feature-film rights for the classic sci-fi novel The Stars My Destination for producer Mary Parent. Written by Alfred Bester, the book (better known as Tiger! Tiger! in the U.K. for its opening-page reprint of a William Blake poem) follows a man who is shipwrecked in space for years when one day a rescue crew passes him by. Angered, he channels his energies into seeking revenge and begins scheming. The key art of the book is enough to get anyone intrigued.

As one of the most beguiling characters in English literature, Elizabeth Bennet has been described as high-spirited and honest to a fault. Little wonder, then, that the Duchess of Cornwall has admitted she rather admires the Pride And Prejudice heroine. Asked yesterday which storybook character she would like to be, Camilla initially gave the odd response of Winnie The Pooh. Her reason soon became clear, however, as she explained: ‘I would love to have my fingers stuck in honey’. She then revealed that her all-time heroine is Jane Austen’s feisty Lizzy, who defies social conventions – and her own prejudice...

After 75 years, Selina Kyle is finally coming out of the closet. RECOMMENDED Marvel Unveils Thunder God Police Force in New 'Thors' Series 'Justice League Detroit': The Failed Comic Behind the CW's Superhero Future How the New 'Fantastic Four' Trailer Stays Faithful to the Original Comics In the latest issue of the DC Entertainment’s Catwoman comic book series — No. 39, released this week — Kyle kisses another woman, ending decades of fan rumors and speculation by stating canonically that the character is, in fact, bisexual.

Anthony Horowitz Authorized Bond novel is to be published on September 8th. The book is supposed incorporate unpublished Ian Fleming material. My guess is the material from Fleming's scrapbook. The Hardcopy and the Trade LP Paperback is already for sale on Amazon.

Principal photography has started on the six-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic War And Peace which is being made by BBC Cymru Wales in partnership with The Weinstein Company and BBC Worldwide/Lookout Point. Paul Dano, Lily James and James Norton are already aboard to star, with new additions to the cast including Jim Broadbent, Gillian Anderson, Brian Cox and Ken Stott. The epic drama is written by House Of Cards and Bridget Jones‘ Andrew Davies. Anderson was nominated for a Golden Globe for her turn in his 2007 adaptation of Dickens’ Bleak House.

Dark Market: How Hackers Became the New Mafia audio 39:40

One of Lolita’s first supporters, the great critic Lionel Trilling, addressed what is perhaps a central issue at the heart of this controversial novel, when he warned of the moral difficulty in interpreting a book with such an eloquent narrator: “We find ourselves the more shocked when we realize that, in the course of reading the novel, we have come virtually to condone the violation it presents… We have been seduced into conniving in the violation, because we have permitted our fantasies to accept what we know to be revolting.”

Three years ago, The Los Angeles Times published a story on the Little Free Library movement. The idea is simple: A book lover puts a box or shelf or crate of books in their front yard. Neighbors browse, take one, and return later with a replacement.The L.A. Times followed up last week with a trend story that got things just about right. "two cities have recently cracked down on one of the country's biggest problems: small-community libraries where residents can share books," Michael Schaub wrote. "Officials in Los Angeles and Shreveport, Louisiana, have told the owners of homemade lending libraries...

[I begin] with the story of a series of Socialist scholars conferences that Barack Obama attended when he lived in New York City between the years 1983 and 1985. And when I finally reconstructed what had gone on at these Socialist conferences that Barack Obama attended, I truly was amazed because what I saw was a kind of map of Barack Obama’s entire subsequent political career. It was at this Socialist conferences in New York in the mid-’80s that Barack Obama encountered the groups, the strategies, and the mentors who would guide him throughout his entire political career. [T]hese Socialist...

This Oz sheila newsanchor / movie-critic gives her right devastating review of the movie.

Resourceful. Mysterious background. Domineering. Dark features. Maybe a little grumpy at a party. Sound familiar? In truth we could be describing anyone from Sherlock Holmes to Indiana Jones, Edward Cullen to Fifty Shades of Grey’s titular S&M-loving CEO, Christian Grey. But in many respects the original difficult-to-understand and jerky-on-the-surface romantic hero sprang from the loins of one undeniable and instantly recognizable source. We speak, of course, of Mr. Darcy— Fitzwilliam to friends.

When a black German woman discovered her grandfather was the Nazi villain of 'Schindler's List' An odd series of events led Jennifer Teege to discover that her grandfather was none other than the notorious Nazi Amon Goeth. By Avner Shapira| Feb. 6, 2015 | 7:05 PM In the mid-1990s, near the end of the period during which she lived in Israel, Jennifer Teege watched Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List.” She hadn’t seen the film in a movie theater, and watched it in her rented room in Tel Aviv when it was broadcast on television. “It was a moving experience for...

The 2015 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize will go to winner Harold Holzer of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, for "Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion" (Simon & Schuster). The Prize is awarded by Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Holzer was chosen from 114 nominations as the 2015 recipient. He will receive $50,000 and a bronze replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens' life-size bust “Lincoln the Man” in a ceremony April 23 in New York City. The Prize was co-founded in 1990 by businessmen and philanthropists Richard Gilder and...

Does a book that shows kids how to make homemade guns belong in a science museum gift shop? One gun control advocate says such a book has no place at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, where Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction 2: Build a Secret Agent Arsenal is currently available for purchase

If adopted, these proposals will impact record labels, music publishers, producers, royalty collection groups, terrestrial and satellite radio, and music streaming services. In a 245-page report issued on Thursday, the U.S. Copyright Office is throwing its weight behind what would be the most radical changes to how music is licensed in nearly a half century. Many of the copyright laws governing music were first erected at the time that player pianos became popular and have developed through the advent of radio, new recording devices and, most recently, digital networks. Maria Pallante, director of the Copyright Office, believes the law is...

Kate Bender loved to flirt. The beautiful young woman smiled and batted her eyes at male travelers who stopped during the early 1870s at the tiny inn where she lived in southeast Kansas. But those travelers were flirting with death. Kate and the inn's other keepers -- thought to be her father, mother and brother -- would rob and murder at least 11 people. Often, as a lone visitor sat at a dinner table with his back to a canvas curtain, a Bender man behind the curtain would use a hammer to bash the visitor's skull. The Benders would slash...

This long-anticipated follow-up to Cemetery Dance’s original “Celebration of Halloween” (from way back in 2000!) proves to be a worthy companion volume, filled with fiction that captures the essence of the haunting season alongside essays and remembrances that recall the favorite Halloween memories of a talented roster of horror authors. The editors ...

An independent San Francisco bookstore says it will be closing its doors by March 31, despite having its best year ever in 2014. And it’s pointing at San Francisco’s newly enacted minimum wage law as the reason.

No one loved telling stories quite like Ernest Hemingway loved telling stories. Like most grand storytellers, the writer also had a fervent affection for local legends, which is how he became smitten with the idea of owning a six-toed mitten cat. Back at the turn of the century, sailors believed that six-toed cats, also called gypsy cats, were good luck, and they wanted them aboard their ships. This led to an abundance of six-toed cats in porttowns like Key West, Fla., in the thirties and forties.

It is one of the most hotly-anticipated films of the year. Which might explain why Fifty Shades of Grey fans have been treated to a second clip from the forthcoming 'bonkbuster'. In tense, sexually-charged moments from the first story-line arc, Jamie Dornan's infamous character can be seen making his first moves on Dakota Johnson's alter ego in the fateful interview scene. Looking plain and nondescript, Johnson's Anastasia Steele can be seen getting hot and shifty in the flirtatious exchange with Christian Grey. Wearing a floral blouse with a teal-coloured cardigan, she is - at first glance - an unlikely match...

I apologize for the vanity, but I know that FR is a community of avid readers. Last year, I read "The Hobbit", "The Lord of The Rings" and "The Silmarillion". I read that Arthur C Clarke referred to "Dune" as 'The Lord of the Rings' of Science Fiction. What are Freepers opinion of Dune (the book not the movie) and should I continue with the sequels? I saw the film 30 years ago, I remember receiving a sheet with a primmer at the movie theatre after buying a ticket. also, is there a Gothic horror equivalent to "Dune" of "Lord...

Fifty Shades of Grey is set to feature more sex on screen than the 100 raunchiest films released in 2014 put together, making it the most erotic mainstream movie in a decade. The film, which premieres on Valentine's Day features a dozen sex scenes, which make up 20 minutes of its total 100-minute running time. This follows an interview with actor Jamie Dornan, who plays main man Christian Grey, where he says he 'does not believe it is pornographic or even erotic.'

My twelve-year-old recently finished George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. When I asked her whether she had taken any lessons from the book, she airily replied, “The individual is powerless, so there’s really no point in trying.” Alarmed, I tried to explain that the world was an altogether cheerier place than Orwell, writing in 1948, could have imagined. Unrepentant socialist as he was, he never overcame his belief that the free market was doomed. He would have been stunned by the way that seventy years of exchange and specialization have served not only to make us wealthier, but to make us more...

Dear Diary: A New York City busker is the recipient of love, affection, cheers, kisses and souvenirs from around the world. Or, sometimes, a plaintive shrug when a commuter cannot locate a dollar. Once when I was singing in the subway, such a man walked away dejected, then came bounding back, beaming, proudly offering a fresh yellow apple from his groceries. Yes, the money makes a difference, but I’m thankful for it all. Bills spend easily, but coins accumulate. On a recent night I sorted and rolled over a year’s worth. Among them were a British 50-pence coin, two 5-cent...

Dear Diary: Some people look like their dogs; some like their spouses. You see they belong together, and you smile. This subway rider looked like, and belonged to, his thick book. Ginger hair, pulled back in a tail away from his ruddy baby face, matching his scruffy beard. Youthful and burly, rustic and earthy, dressed for the outdoors in a jacket and a pale red flannel shirt. Not yet spoiled by city life, innocent, unadventured, but poised to begin, clutching his treasured story in readiness. What was that book to him? Fiction? History? Autobiography? No clue from his silent eyes,...

M aster spy James Bond, one of pop culture’s most iconic figures, is now available for dangerous assignments from Canadian writers, thanks to a copyright quirk that allows the writing and publication in Canada of original material based on Bond creator Ian Fleming’s work. As of Jan. 1, the original writings of Fleming, a former British naval intelligence agent who published 12 novels and nine stories featuring 007 between 1952 and 1966, have entered the public domain. That’s because Canada’s view of copyright is that it extends for 50 years after the death of a writer.

US Center of Military History Bookshelves: The US Army in Vietnam -- All of the volumes currently published, except the photo book, by the US Army Center of Military History are available online at: http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/collect/usavn.html Research materials and two chapters from the next Combat Operations volume on Tet are available online at: http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/vw.html

She is famous for her role as Downton Abbey’s Lady Edith Crawley. But fans of Laura Carmichael will see the actress playing the help in her new film, Madame Bovary. The 28-year-old can be seen alongside Mia Wasikowska and other stars in the new trailer for the film which is based on Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 French classic.

The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower Hardcover – February 3, 2015 by Michael Pillsbury (Author) One of the U.S. government’s leading China experts reveals the hidden strategy fueling that country’s rise – and how Americans have been seduced into helping China overtake us as the world’s leading superpower. For more than forty years, the United States has played an indispensable role helping the Chinese government build a booming economy, develop its scientific and military capabilities, and take its place on the world stage, in the belief that China’s rise will bring us cooperation,...

Rod McKuen, a ubiquitous poet, lyricist and songwriter whose work met with immense commercial success if little critical esteem, died on Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 81... Mr. McKuen, whom The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture described as having been, at his height, “the unofficial poet laureate of America,” was the author of dozens of books of poetry, which together sold millions of copies...

Colleen McCullough, a former neurophysiological researcher at Yale who, deciding to write novels in her spare time, produced “The Thorn Birds,” a multigenerational Australian romance that became an international best seller and inspired a hugely popular television mini-series, died on Thursday on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, where she had made her home for more than 30 years. She was 77.

So here it is…drumroll…spying factoid #2…Spying was big business during the Cold War and was deemed important enough by the Soviets for them to construct exact replicas of small U.S. towns within their borders in order to properly train their spies. One such town was Vinnytsia in what is now Ukraine. In these towns, spies in training would buy groceries from a 7-Eleven, watch U.S. television and talk only in English. Once their training was complete, many would head to places like Finland to see if they could pass as Americans before finally being stationed in the States. From my...

Recently I saw a live performance of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", a story about two hobos who are, oddly enough loitering around waiting for a visit from a person named Godot. They are interrupted by Pozzo, a cruel and pompous man, and Lucky, his hapless slave led by a noose around his neck. Lucky performs demeaning tasks on command. At the urging of the hobos, Pozzo commands him to dance, and then to "think". What follows is a run-on rambling speech/rant lasting about four minutes of half-developed themes, nonsequeteurs, stuttering, random interjections, and entertaining nonsense. Here is the link...

Many of my fellow conservatives love Ayn Rand. And many of my liberal friends love to hate her. You can understand why progressives enjoy blasting Rand's presumably nefarious influence on the conservative movement. She makes for a convenient punching bag for progressives, because she embodies the caricatured version of what progressives imagine conservatives really think: that egotism and greed are good and that the parasitic weak deserve to be trod upon by the capitalistic powerful. And then there are people like me: Conservatives who view themselves as Christians first. To us, Rand's worldview is repellent, and the fact that her...

Veteran actor Brian Blessed collapsed on stage with an apparent heart problem while playing King Lear. The 78-year-old had just started delivering his lines at the start of the Shakespearean tragedy when he fainted, toppled off a raised platform and fell heavily, his crown rolling to a halt at the front of the stage. Fellow actor Noel White, playing the Earl of Kent, announced quietly: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is not part of the play. Is there a doctor in the house?’ Indeed there was. A barely conscious Mr Blessed, flat on his back and surrounded by worried cast members...

Attachment disorder is the inability to form loving and lasting relationships, to give or receive love or affection, form a conscience, or trust others. Attachment difficulties are on a continuum of disturbance that range from attachment issues all the way to attachment disorder. Attachment disorder falls under many names and categories. In children, these names include: Reactive attachment disorder or RAD Oppositional defiant disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder Childhood trauma PDD Pervasive development delay In adults, these names include: Borderline personality Histrionic personality Antisocial personality Narcissistic personality Dependent personality Obsessive-compulsive disorder

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Ray Bradbury lived in his 1937 Cheviot Hills home for more than 50 years. After the author of "Fahrenheit 451" died in 2012, the house was readied for sale ... The home, which was purchased in June for $1.765 million, is being demolished. A permit for demolition was issued Dec. 30, Curbed LA reports, and a fan who visited the house over the weekend found it in the process of being torn down ...

Apple's iBooks platform is seeing an average of a million new users per week after the company's decision to ship iOS 8 with the app pre-installed, according to Apple Director of iBooks Keith Moerer, who spoke today at the Digital Book World Conference. efore iOS 8, the iBooks app had to be searched for and downloaded from the App Store, putting it on par with several other App Store-based e-books apps like Amazon's Kindle app for iOS. Pre-installing iBooks made it "so easy" for new users to try iBooks for the first time, said Moerer. Family Sharing, also new in...

Patricia Launneborg’s book Abortion: a Positive Decision is a difficult book for a pro-lifer to read. As the title indicates, it presents abortion in the most positive light possible, sugarcoating the decision and praising women who have abortions. One especially eye-opening quote comes from a clinic worker who says (emphasis mine): In Spain every single abortion is done under local [anesthesia]. It’s walk in, walk out. They come in at 4 clock, by 5 o’clock they have had the operation, the consultation, and are back home. And I was so impressed by it. I said, it’s not possible! I wouldn’t...

Actress and author Lena Dunham joined Bill Simmons on his podcast, The B.S. Report, to discuss the controversy and amount of pushback she received for her book, Not That Kind of Girl, when she aimed a comment at “conservative white men.” She suggested that conservatives were attempting to smear her politically by using her words from within her book at the same time she launched a Planned Parenthood campaign and again right before the midterm elections. “I don’t care what conservative white men think about me. But I do care if anything I write is painful for survivors of sexual...

Over lunch one day, a co-worker grumbled about something being "v. annoying." It took a second for me to understand what the quick, consonant blip pre-adjective was, and when my brain processed it, I realized something: Yet again, we'd contextualized Internet slang into a colloquialism. Or was it as new-fangled as it seemed? OMG, after all, the classic abbreviation—used by squealing pre-teens, shocked parents, and everyone in between to evoke a three-syllabic exclamation of emotions ranging from surprise to ironic excitement—was one of the original text acronyms to be translated from cellphone screen to language (remember those "scandalous" Gossip Girl...

The French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo will publish a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed along with the words "All is forgiven" Wednesday on the cover of its first issue since Islamist militants killed 12 people at its central Paris offices. In a further show of defiance, the fearless magazine announced it would print three million copies – not the usual 60,000 – when it reappears on newsstands on Wednesday. It will also be translated into six languages including English, Arabic and Turkish, editor-in-chief Gérard Biard told a Paris news conference Tuesday. Daily newspaper Libération, which hosted Charlie Hebdo staff as...

Laura Ingalls Wilder is legendary. Her "Little House on the Prairie" series, based on her family's adventures on the Midwestern frontier, have sold more than 41 million copies in the U.S. and have been translated into more than 40 languages. The books spawned a long-running television show and, in 2008, a stage musical. Millions of readers have been captivated by Wilder's childhood on the prairie, but her newest book, "Pioneer Girl," released more than 50 years after her death, offers a new perspective. Annotated with exceptional detail by Pamela Smith Hill, "Pioneer Girl" is Wilder's autobiography, unpublished until now. Hill's...

Skyfall has been labelled “nonsense” by Anthony Horowitz. The author, who is writing a new James Bond novel himself, has admitted he was unimpressed by the latest movie in the famous franchise. While Skyfall, which saw Daniel Craig take on the role of 007 for a third time, was a box office hit, Anthony admits he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

Miep Gies, the last survivor among Anne Frank’s protectors and the woman who preserved the diary that endures as a testament to the human spirit in the face of unfathomable evil, died Monday night, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam said. She was 100. The BBC said Mrs. Gies suffered a fall late last month and died at a nursing home. “I am not a hero,” Mrs. Gies wrote in her memoir, “Anne Frank Remembered,” published in 1987. “I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did and more —...

This is a vanity; a whimsy that I came up with tonight. IF you were going to send a rocket into outer space, that included a little package containing all of the things that YOU wanted to preserve for posterity and communicate to extraterrestrials that might be out there, What would you send? I thought of a few things; not a complete list by far, and not in any particular order (except for the first four ;-) 1. The Holy Bible - OT, NT, Tanakh 2. The Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States of America 3....

Live Action contributor Lauren Enriquez wrote an article a week ago about pro-choice author Magda Denes. Denes, who survived Nazi Germany, held on to a pro-choice viewpoint even when confronted with the horrors of abortion while researching her book, In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death in an Abortion Hospital. Her book, though written many years ago, reveals some basic truths about abortion. Here are some quotes from the book that illustrate key points. Abortion takes lives Denes quotes three different abortion doctors. One says: When you do a D & C most of the tissue is removed by the...