Status-Q

The US edition of Rose’s third novel, The Mistaken Wife, is published today.

Rose is in the midst of a flurry of talks, interviews and other events, some of which you can find out about on her site. We had a launch and signing party here in Michigan a few days ago, but today is the official date when it hits the shelves.

Available from Amazon.com and all other good booksellers.

And if you’re a Kindle or an iBooks fan, remember that eBooks are never out of stock!

There was a watershed moment for me a couple of weeks ago.

I was re-reading a book I bought many years ago: Melvyn Bragg’s ‘Credo’. Actually, I bought it just after it was published, and so it’s one of those really large-format paperbacks designed to make you feel that you’ve bought something substantial worth the substantial early-adopter price!

But I don’t really like big, heavy books. I do most of my reading in bed late at night, and in that situation I’m primarily after mental rather than muscular stimulation. So I looked – in vain, as it happens – on both Apple’s and Amazon’s stores to see if I could get it in e-book format.

And then it struck me what I had just done.

I’ve really started to value the fact that my e-books are with me all the time on a variety of devices. But here, in addition, I was willing to pay more money to replace a paper book, which I already owned, with an electronic copy, because I thought I would enjoy the reading experience more on my devices than on paper.

That, I felt, was pretty significant…

I heard today that Sir Frank Kermode, whom I was privileged to call a friend, died yesterday. With his passing, I fear that the pleasing aroma of pipe tobacco has finally vanished from my life.

John Naughton has written an excellent tribute. I too have nothing but good memories of the time spent in Frank’s company.

I remember his surprised embarrassment when I discovered, after dismantling his computer, that the reason he could no longer push a CD into the CD-drive was that on some distant past occasion he had pushed a 5.25″ floppy disk into the same slot.

I remember discussing Tolkien with him after seeing the first Lord of the Rings film, and he said that W.H. Auden had once asked him, “Don’t you think Tolkien is a wonderful writer?” To which he replied that no, he didn’t really think so. “I respect you for saying that”, said Auden, “but I’ll never trust your opinion again.”

Many did trust his opinion, though. Frank was one of the world’s foremost Shakespearean scholars. Yet, as John once remarked, he wore his eminence very lightly. His autobiography, “Not Entitled”, is a delight, and somewhat self-referential: part-way through he drifts off into discussing the whole concept of autobiography, and, if memory serves, doesn’t really come back to his own story much after that, as if to say that we’d probably heard enough about him and the literary concept was probably more interesting anyway; that he wasn’t even really entitled to a full autobiography.

The last time I saw him was when I rounded a corner in Waitrose and our trolleys almost collided. His smile when he saw me lit up my day, as it always did. I shall miss him.

Update: here’s his obituary in the Telegraph

Is there a good collective noun for radio telescopes? Any suggestions? A ‘peer’ group?

Odds of dying by asteroid impact: 1 in 700,000
The overall risk of dying from an impact in your lifetime is 1 in 700,000
Somewhat less than being killed by a fireworks accident
But still more probable than being killed on an amusement park ride
Or by an act of terrorism

Lyrics from George Hrab’s fun track “Death from the skies”.

A friend has one of these digital watches. The digits are binary: LEDs which glow blue when you press the button. Love it. Ultimate retro geekery.

Parents should by these for their kids if they want them to grow up to be Computer Scientists…

More info on the manufacturer’s site.