Quick note: As part of the new lineup, the iPod Classic features a new 160 GB model for $349. It apparently holds 40,000 songs (twice as many as the previous model), which translates to three continuous months of listening entertainment. Imagine how many mind-expanding podcasts that could include.
Below we have “R.E.M. Live, recorded on the Around the World Tour, which promoted Around the Sun, a studio album from 2004. It is to be released October 16.” (Thanks to Justin for the clarification.)
On the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, it seems fitting to call attention to Don DeLillo’s Falling Man, a recent addition to the growing body of fiction now known as “9/11 novel.” However you may feel about DeLillo’s writing style (we often find that it grates), Falling Man adeptly captures the emotional and physical haze that surrounded NYC in the wake of the attacks. In interviews with Guernica and NPR’s All Things Considered, DeLillo talks about the influences that led him to explore the attacks and their aftermath from the perspective of both a terrorist and a survivor. If listening to the book is more your speed, check out the audio version at Amazon or the download at Audible.
HBO just started airing the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, so it seemed fitting to serve up this lengthy interview with Larry David. The talk is very funny. No shock there. But it also gets into some good substance. How Larry got into comedy; how he struggled during his early standup years and had to scratch together money for a can of Chef Boyardee; how he approaches writing comedy; how he has generated ideas for the most memorable episodes of “Curb” and Seinfeld — it all gets touched on here.
We have included the first part below, plus links to the other seven segments. For more Larry David interviews, check out the 60 Minutes piece on Larry from this past weekend. You can watch it online here.
A few weeks ago, our readers contributed to creating a list of books that left an indelible mark on their lives. You can review the original post here. But we figured why not add them to our “My Library” page on Google, a new product that we briefly mentioned yesterday. You can access the collection here (or get it by rss feed). And, as you’ll see, we also imported to the list all of our users’ comments on the individual books. Explore the list, find a great read, and pass it along to a worthy friend.
What if we disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow? All of us, just like that? What would happen? How would the remaining world survive or thrive without us? That’s the scenario that science writer Alan Weisman works through in his new eco-thriller, The World Without Us.
Based on his considerable research and extensive interviews with experts, Weisman sees things playing out like this (and here I’m quoting from the New York Times book review): “With no one left to run the pumps, New York’s subway tunnels would fill with water in two days. Within 20 years, Lexington Avenue would be a river. Fire- and wind-ravaged skyscrapers would eventually fall like giant trees. Within weeks of our disappearance, the world’s 441 nuclear plants would melt down into radioactive blobs, while our petrochemical plants, ‘ticking time bombs’ even on a normal day, would become flaming geysers spewing toxins for decades to come… After about 100,000 years, carbon dioxide would return to prehuman levels. Domesticated species from cattle to carrots would revert back to their wild ancestors. And on every dehabitated continent, forests and grasslands would reclaim our farms and parking lots as animals began a slow parade back to Eden.” And, it’s also helpful to know, perhaps, that not even cockroaches would fare well in a world without Homo sapiens.
How Weisman researched this big question and drew his conclusions is fascinating, and fortunately it’s all explained in this Scientific American podcast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) that features two recent interviews with Weisman. You can also catch Weisman speaking on John Stewart’s Daily Show in less scientific terms. Watch the video here.
As part of Google’s push into the digital book market (see Friday’s post), the company launched last week My Library, which lets you create lists of your own books, search the content of your book inventory by keyword, and then share your book lists with friends. (You can see examples of these book lists here and here, and also get Google’s official spiel on the project here.) It’s a nice idea for students and scholars, but will it have much take-up with the broader reading public? I’m skeptical, but you tell me? We’ve got many bona fide readers here. Will you be sinking time into building your Google Library? Or are you instead ever-refining your Facebook profile and sharing booklists there? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Check out the Visual Bookshelf app on Facebook, which offers an effective way of sharing your books with your social network. Also be sure to scan Deeplinking’s compilation, The Big List of Bookish Social Networks. Finally, if you create a booklist on Google Library (start making one here), send the urls our way and we’ll post them.
Publisher’s Weekly announced last week that Lars Brownworth, a New York high school teacher, will publish with Crown (a Random House division) a new book that covers “1,200 years of Byzantine history, examining the culture’s forgotten role in preserving classical thought, connecting East and West, and building modern Western society.” It’s expected to hit the bookstores in early 2009.
There’s lots to say about this deal, but we wanted to delve a little into the backstory, and particularly how an unexpected chain of events, all built into Web 2.0, made this deal possible. (And, yes, we’ll also touch briefly on where Open Culture fits into the picture.)
The story begins in March 2005, back when Brownworth started distributing on iTunes an educational podcast called 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire (iTunes — Feed — Site). Released in installments, the podcasts gave users the rare ability to download a complete academic course to their MP3 player, anytime, anywhere, for free. Brownworth was a pioneer, and by late 2006, people started taking notice. In December, Wired mentioned 12 Byzantine Rulers in a short web feature, which netted the podcast a small uptick in downloads. Then, days later, our fledgling blog followed up with a short piece —The Hottest Course on iTunes (and the Future of Digital Education). From there, things got interesting. Our post got almost immediately picked up on Digg.com, a massively popular website, and its users catapulted the story to Digg’s homepage. Downloads of Brownworth’s podcasts surged; the power of Web 2.0 was kicking in. Brownworth speculated during an interview last week that the “Digg effect” widely broadened the exposure of his podcast, and, soon enough, The New York Times was knocking on his door. By late January, the pillar of American journalism published a flattering feature: History Teacher Becomes Podcast Celebrity. Then, it all started again. Podcast downloads spiked higher, far exceeding the previous wave from Digg. More articles and an NPR interview followed. Next came the book agents’ calls. … That’s, in short, how we got to last week’s announcement.
Brownworth’s story, although unusual, is part of a growing trend. Book publishers seem increasingly willing to let the wisdom of crowds identify podcasts that translate into marketable books, and then let the podcasts stimulate book sales. This year, Mignon Fogarty notably inked deals to release spinoff books and audiobooks of her popular Grammar Girl podcast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). And given that 12 Byzantine Rulers has been downloaded 735,000 times just this year, Brownworth and his new publisher felt rightly justified in taking a similar approach.
We’ll gradually find out whether this developing model provides a way for innovative podcasters to monetize their successful content. In the meantime, Lars is giving it all a good go. He recently gave up his New York teaching job, relocated to North Carolina (where his brother Anders provides technology and business support), and is now dedicating himself full-time to podcasting and writing. It’s a big change, but a change worth making. “Web 2.0 has enabled me,” Brownworth says, “to do things that I never would have been able to do otherwise. It’s a bit humbling to find myself on the ground floor of a revolution, but this move is undoubtedly the most exciting opportunity I’ve ever had.”
We’re pleased to have played even a bit part in Brownworth’s success. Keep an eye out for his book and, until then, give his podcast a good listen: 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire (iTunes — Feed — Site).
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Since we talk a lot here about podcasts and mp3 files, it seems worth flagging this Yahoo gadget review that pits the new iPod lineup against its rivals. Here, we’ve got the new iPod Touch v. the Samsung Yepp YP-P2; the new Nano (with video) v. the Sansa View, and the iPod Classic v. Microsoft’s Zune. The net result is that the new iPods come out ahead, but not by much. Get review here.
