For years—perhaps decades—my dad would walk to the flagship Kroch’s and Brentano’s store on South Wabash on Chicago, spending his lunch hour among the famously knowledgeable booksellers and the then-amazing array of inventory. I only remember being in that downtown store once or twice, but the mall Kroch’s and Brentano’s in the town where I grew up was a key setting in my childhood love of reading. We went to the mall almost every night. If I wasn’t scanning the skies for Soviet bombers or taping Top 40 songs off the boombox, I was likely one of three places: the…
Mike Morrow | selected works
From Reading
Vigorous, versatile, zestful
Alfred Bester: Deliver science fiction from any necessity to have purpose and value. Science fiction is far above the utilitarian yardsticks of the technical minds, the agency minds, the teaching minds. Science fiction is not for Squares. It’s for the modern Renaissance Man…vigorous, versatile, zestful…full of romantic curiosity and impractical speculation. (Via)
Keys to the Kingdom
My Kindle arrived yesterday. First impressions were not quite up to the technolust I feel when opening a box “Designed by Apple in California,” but pretty darned good. Amazon has done a nice job with the packaging and merchandising here. I particularly appreciate that the Kindle arrives already linked to my Amazon account. It literally works right out of the box. This also makes it painfully easy to immediately start buying content. After all, I want to read more than just the user’s guide on this thing! I can tell I’m really going to like the ability to download free…
Magazines
When you consider that a fairly hefty slice of the success of my company still depends on the health of print media, it’s a little alarming to note that I’m actually surprised by just how many print magazines we still receive here in the Morrow household. Magazines have been an easy place to cut spending iver the past year, but we still get a bunch. Do we read them? Do you read all your magazines? Us neither. Here’s a rundown of mags you’ll find around here: Currently Receive ReadyMade Locus: The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field Utne…
There’s a Kindle a-coming
I ordered one of them fancypants ee-lectronic book readers from The Amazon, and if their delivery status is correct it will arrive two short weeks. Last May, I wrote the following about my desire (and hesitations) about the Kindle: As someone who always has at least two books on his person at almost all times and who agonizes about which books to bring along on a trip, I really like the idea of a smallish device with an entire library on-board, ready for any reading whim that may strike. I love the idea of decreasing the amount of physical clutter…
Fine and Spooky Things
Sometimes it’s the simple things. Today it’s listening to Neil Gaiman reading The Graveyard Book on a lovely pre-Spring lunch hour.
Big Fat Books
I, too, am in a phase where I relish the pleasures of sinking into a giant book. Ann Vileisis: The Pleasures of a Big Fat Book. (via @RonHogan)