Steven Spielberg Teams with Stephen King for Under the Dome

/Film: “We mentioned last week that Stephen King mentioned that his new book, Under The Dome, might end up as an HBO miniseries. Well, Variety now has word that Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks TV have optioned the book and are looking to set it up as a mini series, likely for cable. Spielberg will executive produce. The story is set in a small vacation town in Maine which becomes covered by an invisible force field which causes the residents to fight for survival, in two warring factions.

Here is the official plot description from the book:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when — or if — it will go away. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens — town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing — even murder — to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

The front of the book features an elaborate town map and list of characters, even including “Dogs of Note”. USA Today called the book “Propulsively intriguing… Staggeringly addictive”, and The New York Times said it was “Tight and energetic from start to finish… Hard as this thing is to hoist, it’s even harder to put down.” And author Neil Gaiman called it one of his “favourite books of the year so far.” The 1088-page book was released on November 10th, and is available on Amazon for $14.50.

Dreamworks is on the search for writers, and will probably begin shopping the project to prospective buyers after the creative details are nailed down.

Spielberg has been trying to be involved in a King production for years. Steven purchased the rights to King’s book The Talisman shortly after the book was published in 1984. The project went through many incarnations, but never went into production. Most recently, Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy announced plans to produce a six-part mini-series based on the book for TNT. The project fell back into development hell due to budgetary concerns.”

8 Reasons You Can Finally Love Ebook Readers

I’m still not getting a dedicated reader until e-ink screens can do color so I can read comics on them as well, but Barnes and Noble’s new Nook reader is definitely an improvement…

Gizmodo:

“I’m an avid reader, studied literature in school, and nerd out over tech, yet past ebook readers have left me cold. The Nook is the first reader I really want, and I won’t be alone. Here’s why.

“It’s cost-effective. Yeah, at $260 it’s the same price as the Kindle 2, but you’re getting so much more for your money: Wi-Fi, native PDF support, an SD slot and that crazy second screen makes it seem out of the Kindle’s league. It makes the Sony Reader and iRex look absurdly overpriced and the Plastic Logic Que look like a shot in the dark.

Lending and Sharing. One of my main objections to the Kindle and other readers is that most of my books come from friends, rather than bookstores. The Nook realizes that and integrates a 2-week lending period—plenty of time for a quick read. Plus, you can lend to tons of different devices: Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod Touch, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile (soon).

Sharing is also done really well: As opposed to the Kindle, which only lets you read purchased ebooks on a same-account iPhone or iPod Touch, the Nook lets you read on any device supported, the most important of which are PC and Mac. So you and your significant other could read the same book at the same time, on whatever devices you each prefer. The Kindle, in contrast, doesn’t support PC and Mac at all—but we’d be willing to bet Amazon is rethinking that decision right about now. Plus, the Nook syncs both your place in the book and any highlights or annotations you’ve made, which could be great for students.

Free in-store reading. You’ll be able to take the Nook to any of Barnes & Noble’s gajillion stores and read one ebook, for free, each time—the same way you might wander into the store, pick up a book and read it for an hour or two. Barnes & Noble is really thinking about how people actually read, which is a great sign: This kind of feature makes the Kindle feel like it’s forcing you to change your reading habits rather than adapting to them.

And potential Nook customers will be able to go into a retail store with which they’re comfortable and play around with the actual device, an advantage not shared by the Kindle. Given Matt’s impressions of the Nook, I think seeing the hardware in person will convince a lot of people to buy it.

Head-turning looks. The Kindle 1 was, um, distinctive, and the Kindle 2 is inoffensive and sleek enough, but the Nook has legitimate style. As Matt said, “it makes even the relatively benign-looking Kindle 2 seem like it was beaten with an ugly stick.” It was clear from the first leak that we were dealing with something very different.

Android. There are two things to be excited about when it comes to Android. First is the legit apps, which B&N seems open to—in today’s presentation, John wrote “They, ahem, ‘haven’t announced’ anything about app development, but they’re comfortable using the phrase “when we do,” which is veeeery promising.” My personal most-wanted app? Pandora (or Slacker, or Last.FM).

Secondly, there’s the more, well, illicit possibilities: The Nook both runs Android (which we already know is easily and enthusiastically modified) and has a microUSB jack, which should make for easy hacking. Imagine user-created skins, apps, games (in case reading gets boring)—the possibilities are just about endless. The Nook already supports PDF natively (yes!) but we could definitely see it hacked to embrace other formats like Word docs.

The second screen. Yeah, it’s weird, and we wouldn’t have believed it if it didn’t, you know, exist, but it just makes so much sense: Browsing for books on e-ink is an exercise in frustration, and touchscreen e-ink is even worse. With its capacitive touchscreen, the Nook offers a keyboard and Cover-Flow-esque browsing without the awkwardness and lethargy of e-ink, but it also opens the door for multitasking. You’ll be able to read a book and control your music at the same time, and because the music browser will be on the LCD screen, it won’t look like e-inked crap. It should also support photo browsing and the ability to set your own wallpaper.

Battery life. The Nook’s 10-day battery life may not be quite as long as the Kindle 2’s 14 days, but 10 days is still insane—especially if we think about the tablets that will vie to make ebook readers obsolete. Whenever the Apple tablet is announced, you can bet its battery life will be measured in hours, not days. Plus, the Nook’s battery is replaceable, always a welcome decision (you could have a spare battery, and when yours does eventually die, it’s easy to replace).

Both 3G and Wi-Fi. I’m not exactly sure about the benefits of Wi-Fi right now (besides international travel, where AT&T may not work), but given the possibilities of Android, it’s essential that the Nook includes it. In the future, we may want to download files bigger than ebooks—apps, games, videos, whatever—and Wi-Fi will be vital once the potential of the Nook is unlocked. Plus, there could well be Wi-Fi-only features of the kind AT&T wouldn’t support: Streaming content, web browsing, VoIP, whatever. Wi-Fi is a killer feature not for what it does right now, but for what it could allow the Nook could do in the future.”

The worst job of the 19th Century: nipple pinchers vs. anal tobacco blowers vs. tongue pullers in reviving the dead

Boing Boing:

“John Ptak, a dealer in rare science books, writes about all the different ways that people in days of yore used to make sure dead people really were dead.

Perhaps the most spectacularly extension of the nipple-pincher was the tongue-pulling idea of Dr. J.-V. Laborde (1830-1903), a research physician with wide credentials, who reasoned that a continued regimen of advanced and strenuous pulling of a patient’s tongue would over time bring them back to life if alive. This is what leads us to the point of this post: Laborde established a mortuary, and in this mortuary, where the dead were waiting to die, he employed a man whose job it was to pull the tongues of these bodies. In the misty picture of all of this that is painted in my mind’s eye, the fellow working his way from body to body pulling their tongues with a heavy pincer seems far worse than nipple squeezing or even being an anal smoke blower, though to choose between the three in a twisted Purgatorial mandate would be hard to so. Although the nipple pincher wasn’t replaced by anything mechanical, the smoke blower was (by a powerful bellows), and so was our friend the tongue puller, who after complaining of the boredom of his task was pushed aside by an electrical device. I am loathe to report that I cannot find a picture of the machine.”

The Worst Job of the 19th Century? Tongue-Pullers, Nipple-Pinchers & Anal Tobacco Blowers Try to Revive the Dead.

Church converted into magnificent bookstore

Boing Boing:

“This breathtaking place is a former Dominican church that was converted into a new retail location for bookseller Selexyz Dominicanen. The architecture firm was Merkx+Girod. From Design Top News:

The store demanded 1,200 sq m of commercial area where only 750 were available.

The initial idea of the client to install a second floor within the church was rejected by the designers, because this would completely destroy the spatial qualities of the church. The solution was found in the creation of a monumental walk-in bookcase spanning several floors and situated a-symmetrically in the church. In doing so the left side of the church remained empty while on the other side customers are lead upstairs in the three- storey ‘Bookflat.’

The ground floor gives room to several different book displays, information desks, magazine-stands and cash registers, all made of standard sheet materials in different colours and surfaces.”

Merkx+Girod Architects: Bookstore Selexyz Dominicanen in Netherlands

Bram Stoker’s Descendant Pens “Official” Dracula Sequel

i09:

“Over the decades, hundreds of authors have imagined the post-Dracula adventures of Van Helsing, Mina Harker, and the vampiric Count. But the Bram Stoker estate is about to release the official sequel to Dracula, based on Stoker’s own notes.

Dacre Stoker, the author’s great-grandnephew, along with Ian Holt, a Dracula historian, has put together Dracula: The Un-Dead, which Stoker’s estate is calling the official sequel to Stoker’s original. The younger Stoker claims the book is based on excised portions of Bram Stoker’s original book, as well as his additional notes. The book takes place a quarter century after the events of Dracula, when disaster befalls the first novel’s survivors:

Dracula The Un-Dead begins in 1912, twenty-five years after Dracula “crumbled into dust.” Van Helsing’s protégé, Dr. Jack Seward, is now a disgraced morphine addict obsessed with stamping out evil across Europe. Meanwhile, an unknowing Quincey Harker, the grown son of Jonathan and Mina, leaves law school for the London stage, only to stumble upon the troubled production of “Dracula,” directed and produced by Bram Stoker himself.

The play plunges Quincey into the world of his parents’ terrible secrets, but before he can confront them he experiences evil in a way he had never imagined. One by one, the band of heroes that defeated Dracula a quarter-century ago is being hunted down. Could it be that Dracula somehow survived their attack and is seeking revenge? Or is their another force at work whose relentless purpose is to destroy anything and anyone associated with Dracula?

Dracula: The Un-Dead arrives October 13, and two studios are reportedly already in negotiations for the movie rights. But it would be nice to see the authors release an annotated edition as well, so we could see to what extent the book comes from Bram Stoker’s own ideas, and to what extent we’re simply seeing another pair of hands tackling the classic characters.”

[ShockTillYouDrop]

Neil Gaiman’s library

Please God, let me have a library like this one day……

Shelfari:

Neil Gaiman’s Bookshelves

“Shelfari has always been a place where people come together to talk about their books.  A place where you can show off your virtual bookshelf and where communities form around your favorite books and authors.  It’s no surprise to us that you can learn a lot about someone by seeing what’s on his or her bookshelf.

Which is why we thought it would be fun to take a look at what’s on the bookshelves of some of our favorite authors.  What books do they love, or consider to have been particularly enlightening, informative or just plain fun? What books do they keep?

So we asked one of our all-time favorites, Neil Gaiman, if he’d be willing to give us a peek into his personal library, and he graciously agreed. 

Gaiman first gained wide acclaim with his complex and literate 75-issue comic series The Sandman, and has since broadened his scope to write award-winning and bestselling novels (American Gods, Anansi Boys), screenplays (“Beowulf”) and yes, he still continues to write comics. His books Stardust and Coraline were both adapted for the screen and his most recent novel The Graveyard Book was awarded the Newbury Medal and, just last month, a Hugo Award for Best Novel. (See the Shelfari author page for Neil Gaiman for many more details.)

Naturally we’d assumed that someone whose work is filled with references ranging from literary to mythological would have a fairly extensive library but even so, we were a bit unprepared for the scope of what he sent us.  In the basement of his house of secrets we find a room that’s wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with books (along with a scattering of awards, gargoyles and felines).  The photo above hints at what’s there, but here are a few close-ups:

Click here for the complete set, and click on any thumbnail to see a high-resolution image (where you can read the titles on the individual books).

One can’t help but look for books in common with our own shelves, or wonder which books were most influential on Gaiman’s own work.  With that in mind, we’ve created the Neil Gaiman’s Bookshelves group where everyone can chat about these questions or anything else related to Mr. Gaiman’s shelves.  Any member of the group can add to the bookshelf so feel free to help build up a virtual equivalent of what’s shown in the photos!”

“The Road” Trailer

From the author of “No Country for Old Men,” starring Viggo? I’m all in…

Guillermo Del Toro To Save Vampires In New Book Series

i09:

“Yet another reason to love Guillermo Del Toro – he’s promising to restore today’s degraded vampires with the the horror and menace they so rightfully deserve with his new book series, The Strain.

The novels are supposed to include a CSI-style procedural feel, which should be interesting on its own, let alone the bad-to-the-bone vampires he describes. It’s comforting to know the vampires in this series will “fill the scary void of an animated corpse that lusts after your blood…breaking and violating our safety with a sense of dread and horror.” Now that is actually sexy. Speaking of sex appeal, Del Toro takes a crack or two at the vamps of today and tells the viewers, quite blankly that his vamps are a “a plague of creatures where you did not recognize their humanity – but our own inhumanity in them.” Sounds like perfection.

Here’s a tease promo from the Harper Collins site:

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.

In two months-the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city-a city that includes his wife and son-before it is too late.

The Strain: Book One of The Strain Trilogy, will be out on June 2nd.”

Amazon launches Kindle app for iPhone, iPod touch

iLounge: “Amazon has released Kindle for iPhone, a new application that lets iPhone and iPod touch users read Kindle books directly on their devices. Kindle books may be purchased from a Mac, PC, or the iPhone using a browser and wirelessly transferred to the iPhone or iPod touch, and users may also download Kindle books they already own for free, adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view annotations created on the Kindle.  In addition, the app includes Amazon’s new Whispersync technology that saves and synchronizes users’ bookmarks across their original Kindle, Kindle 2, iPhone and iPod touch devices, so they never lose their place.

Like the Kindle itself, the Kindle iPhone app is only available in the U.S. iTunes Store, and Kindle content is likewise only available to Amazon U.S. customers, differing from competing iPhone apps eReader and Stanza, which seem to have no country-based distribution restrictions on their apps or their content. Additionally, and unlike the Kindle devices, Kindle for iPhone currently works only with books, and not with other downloadable content such as magazines, newspapers, and blogs that are supported by the Kindle and Kindle 2. Kindle for iPhone is available now as a free download from the U.S. App Store.”

Harry Potter Plot Origin Revealed

He he he…….