BOOKS & COMICS
Backto 1997 EDUCATIONAL LINKS... by Nanis
http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk
As well as the standard online catalogue and publishers'details, there is information about future titles, such as theCambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.
Top of Page |
http://www.maxis.co.uk/xpress
A welcome addition to the Web from Hackney's hardboiled blackpulp fiction publishing house, X Press. This is the company thathas single-handedly developed a controversial but highlycontemporary, popular publishing genre in whose ranks reside theblockbuster crack gangster trilogy that includes Yardie, thegritty Manchester guns saga Moss Side Massive and the equallyexplosive domestic struggles of Single Black Female, OPP and theBaby Father novels. Alongside the catalogue and order form thereis a page of news and reviews that introduces the company to theuninitiated. If the 'guns and gals' stuff isn't for you, there isalso a section of 'classic' books in a more conventionalhistorical black struggle mode.
Top of Page |
http://www.writepage.com
Purportedly in praise of genre fiction, The Write Pageachieves this only in a roundabout way. In essence, it's severaldensely typed pages of potted biographies and long-windedbibliographies of historically neglected women writers Üreformers, missionaries, do-gooders, diplomats, diarists, gossipsand, most especially, romance writers. Hidden away on the ModernWomen's Romantic Fiction page are links to Regency Reader and theWestern charms of Rawhide and Lace. Work that one out!Confusingly titled, appallingly signposted but tremendouslysatisfying and informative nevertheless.
Top of Page |
http://www.io.com/~aylott/SpaceCrime.html
A very fine name for a science fiction and mystery bookshop.As you'd imagine it is based in the US but each week it has aWhat's New section which is worth perusing to find out what youmight want to read next.
Top of Page |
http://www.db.dk/dbaa/jbs/homepage.htm
A dedicated crime fiction fan from Denmark has collated apage of links which might look a little dry but is actuallydeceptively good. Some of the Web sites are a bit of a let downbut it's the gossipy exchange of gore and gripping plot lines insome of the ListServ groups that look most enticing. The range ofmaterial goes from the ubiquitous Nancy Drew to Kinky Friedman,with a nod to Rumpole, Ian Fleming, Patricia Cornwell and JamesEllroy along the way. The compiler has devoted a whole section toSherlockiana with details on crime conventions, Internet murdergames and other mysteriously related resources. Curiouser andcuriouser.
Top of Page |
http://www.iac.co.jp/scooterboy/index.html
An exclusive story for the Internet, Scooter Boy is notpublished anywhere else. The year is 2015. Analog has beenoutlawed and Hirlem, aka Scooter Boy, risks incurring the wrathof the authorities if they find out he's been playing vinylrecords in his bedroom. All he has is his music, his 1958 Vespaand a companion called Monie. Together they ride through thebleak city, avoiding the blank faces and bombed out minds of thestreet youths, who appear bored and vacant and are called Trenz.A love of mod culture and a sentimental attachment to vinylcannot fail to make you fall in love with the wonderful ScooterBoy. As far as Internet is concerned, this comic book could runand run Ü return every two weeks for a new episode.
Top of Page |
http://www.tecc.co.uk/twin/pulpfact
Techno Pagan is an online outlet for authors in PulpFaction's stable, let loose to give you "some of the mostdaring and exciting fiction writing today." Judge foryourself from extracts and entire stories to print out, includingSimon Lewis's title tale from last year's compilation, Skin."I am punctured and pffw! I deflate like a balloon and lieon the floor until she picks me up and puts me in hercollection." Site's lack of imagination reflects thefiction, and the dust is settling on announcements such assubmission deadlines in Feb '96. A plus point, though, is thefascinating list of banned books from Aristophanes Lysistrata toE for Ecstasy and attempts to ban Net newsgroups.
Top of Page |
http://www.penguin.co.uk
To be recommended without reservation, the stylish design andclassy simplicity of Penguin's online presence perfectlyencapsulates the company's sense of Englishness, accessibilityand quality, but with a lack of patronising literary pretension.The formula of searchable catalogue, previewed titles, mailorder, company history, competition etc is now fairly familiar,although an interesting twist encourages users to submit bookreviews themselves. A rich and rewarding online experience.Congratulations to all those involved, includingFutureNet!
Top of Page |
http://www.randomhouse.com/neanderthal/
Book-publishers Random House use this site to promote theirnew title Ü a thriller called Neanderthal Ü with an onlinegame. You're in with a chance if you can crack the genetic codeto validate whether a fresh corpse is human or (shock horror!) aNeanderthal. So, what do you win? A copy of the bookƒ now,there's a surprise. Links take you to an anatomy chart depictingthe differnce between a Neaderthal and a human being\\\,information on Random House (equally entertaining, I'm sure), ora chat with the author.
Top of Page |
http://www.visualradio.com/migraineboy
Having transcended Seattle's successful mag, Hype to gracethe inner sleeve of REM's 'Monster' LP as well as the pages ofSpy, The Baffler and The Village Voice, Greg Fiering's grumpy,gritted teeth creation, Migraine Boy has graduated into awonderfully bashful bundle of skewed boyhood logic. Theseexcellently presented strips, with winning wide-eyed RealAudiosoundtrack have all the cutsie, nostalgic, mixed-up-kidness ofPeanuts combined with a wickedly undercutting contemporaryperspective. To the simply stated ""Let's eat pop rocksand drink a bunch of coke,"" our frown-faced, baby sorehead says...""That's a stupid idea. How do you think Igot this headache?""
Top of Page |
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~churchh/janeinfo.html
Widely acknowledged as the best Austen resource on the Net,this is for enthusiastic fans and scholars alike. All ofNorthanger Abbey in ASCII form; annotated, hypertexted versionsof Pride and Prejudice; notes from a recent conference onMansfield Park, stuff about Clueless which, it has been remarked,is a crypto-Emma; excerpts from essays and articles; a fullbibliography and heaps more. The appetite for Austen grows andgrows. Keep up.
Top of Page |
http://www.u-net.com/~bev/
Music doesn't have a monopoly over the arts in Manchester, atleast if the HayFever fiction site is anything to go by. Thecredits page stakes a claim to the literary high ground, but itwould be a shame if that deterred anyone in search of a good readbecause the short stories are accessible and really veryentertaining. Poetry, on the other hand, is strictly a matter ofpersonal taste and as the editors themselves concede, it'ssomething people tend to write rather than read. However, with atitle page which delights in all manner of puns on the namehayfever and a free ads section where you can plug anything atall, I say bless you hayFever!
Top of Page |
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/voyager/
Set up to promote HarperCollins' Voyager science fiction booktitles, this site is presented as a weekly magazine covering theworld of sci-fi at large. The designers have avoided the sort ofnaff paintings adorning many genre novels and gone for slicklogos instead, with tasteful backgrounds in shades of purple.However, with just three news stories each issue and featureswhich are little more than book extracts, the editorial side willhave to improve to make a return visit worthwhile.
Top of Page |
http://www.dillons.co.uk
Having a well established Internet access area in the storehas obviously benefited Dillons in London's Gower Street. Thepages are well ordered by section with a bit of blurb about eachbook and the recommended retail price (in-store bargains arechanged online). Ordering is easy and they'll giftwrap your booksfor an extra pound. These pages also highlight some interestingstuff like new novels, prize winners and special promotions.
Top of Page |
http://www.westfolk.org/
Yee-hah! Spawn of home page for the Western Folklife Centre,with audio-enhanced and illustrated Cowboy Poets on the Internet.It features poets and other artists ñwho keep the culture of therange alive and kicking.î Token cowgirl Teresa Jordan joinsfellow poets including third-generation rancher Rod McQueary.Sample ditties like, ñIf life should be one April day, I'll notpine for a morning lost/Nor mourn some teenage innocence.î Linksto the online shop, a Western radio show and examples of cowboycrafts, such as ""ultimate brush buckaroo""Randy Stowell's rawhide art. ñHe makes twisted horsehair ropesand cinches, hackamores, bosals, hobbles, headstalls andreatas.î Well, he would, wouldn't he!
Top of Page |
http://www.cosmicvisions.com
In the pulp paperback tradition of fantastically far-fetched,1950s sci-fi, Cosmic Visions is a monthly fantasy-based fictionezine publishing short stories and serial thrillers. It managesto combine a reassuringly old brand of monstered out plotlineswith modern day sci-fi scenarios. Primarily for the afficianado,a print copy of the magazine is available for download in PDFformat, so go get that Adobe Acrobat reader. The old classics arereviewed alongside modern bodice-ripping mad science screams.
Top of Page |
http://www.comicsworld.com/
Comics are never kids stuff, especially since they startedcalling them graphic novels, and the strong content, superbdesign and straightforward attitude make ComicsWorld anything butsad. It's the sort of place where you can find out about plans toreprint the rare original Duckman black and white or that aBeatles comic book is in the pipeline. In-depth reviews,interviews with top comic types like Neil Gaiman, articles andopinions, too. Good value for comics fans.
Top of Page |
http://www.question.co.uk/ismcomics/
This is a must for anyone into mischievously offbeat andslightly screwy comics, Ism showcases some of the bestindependent comic talent around at the moment. From WillAllison's teen transvestite, Malcolm in the mini-manga antics ofThe Pervert Club to Mark Greene's flatulent fun-and-gas-filledshenanigans in Stinky Comics, the writing and drawings are all ofa unique and thrilling standard. Inevitably it is slow to loadbut truly, it is worth the wait.
Top of Page |
http://www.csd.uu.se/~d94her/calvin/jumpstation.html
Exactly as described, the Calvin and Hobbes Jumpstation is ajumping off point for many of the Calvin and Hobbes Web sites andarchives that exist on the Internet. Quite how creator, BillWatterson, could attempt to call in the copyright on all thesesites is impossible to imagine, but needless to say, there arefew characters more popular on the Web than six-year-old Calvinand his cuddly, cloth-eared, tearaway tiger pal, Hobbes.
Top of Page |
http://www.randomhouse.com/
Monster conglomerate publishing house, headed up by HaroldEvans Ü Random House has so many differnet divisions it's toobig for its boots. Navigating the site is a nightmare. You haveto know what you're looking for and head for the catalog search.Apart from big PR pushes and projects like Seussville, which isCat in the Hat Central, there's no way to check on best-sellingauthors, the most popular paperbacks, crime novels or anythinglike that. Inadvertently stumbled on Michael Crichton, but littleelse. Poor show.
Top of Page |
http://www.bdd.com/
Featuring the combined strength of three affiliatedpublishing houses, Bantam, Doubleday and Dell, this is, inessence, a really strong site. As well as a catalogue,highlighted new releases and stuff on author tours andappearances, there are areas focusing on some of their more wellknown writers like John Grisham, Elmore Leonard, Isaac Asimov andSara Paretsky. You can mail them if you want. In addition there acouple of information rich specialist forums - one for Star Warsand another for sci-fi in general all with related Web links.It's likely that it'll be in these areas that some of the moreinteresting, opinionated ideas will come. There are plenty ofpuzzles and competitions to keep you amused as well.
Top of Page |
http://www.orma.co.uk/intabs.htm
Mail order firm offering a pretty comprehensive catalogue ofbooks on cassette. Email what you want but wait for your creditcard details to be taken over the phone.
Top of Page |
http://werple.mira.net.au/~amcgee/cot_home.htm
This recently developed site supplements a growing number ofplaces entirely devoted to one boy and his quiff. There's nothingespecially interesting about the facts and figures here, exceptperhaps a chance to get in touch with other Tintin fans. It's thelinks to the lists of issues at 'Welcome to Marlinspike' and thegreat gifs at Sony.com that, all in all, make it tops for Tintintrivia.
Top of Page |
http://www.mindspring.com/~walter/mystzone.html
Magazine devoted entirely to mystery, suspense and crimefiction. Kind of conventional and less interested in some of theclassier American urban crime novels, it nevertheless has ahandful of reviews, '50s pulp fiction first edition covers andlinks to other online criminal activity.
Top of Page |
http://www.iw.net/~mind/Review/index.html
This quarterly, independent book review magazine continues tomaintain a commitment to the old-fashioned printed page. Theonline version reproduces the original's woodcut artwork, as wellas high quality reviews and essays from some of America's finestwriters. Read.
Top of Page |
http://www.demon.co.uk/ulysses-books/index.html
Quite an eclectic mix of books can be found at Ulysses, as itseems to specialise in rare and out-of-print travel books, 20thcentury fiction and poetry first editions, as well as illustratedbooks ie. anything from 'Everest The Hard Way' to The SelectedPoems of Ted Hughes. A treasure trove.
Top of Page |
http://www.easynet.co.uk/compbook.htm
Still looking for that difficult-to-find book on Cprogramming or that tome on Mortal Kombat? Then look no further.Here you can browse or search the thousands of titles on offer,plus videos and software. Orders can be emailed and will be dealtwith in a couple of working days.
Top of Page |
Discover Sun Tzu's The Art of War with or without a guide. At2400 years old, it's believed to be the world's oldest militarytreatise. Like other Chinese wisdoms such as the teachings ofConfusius, much of it still rings true and its adages can beapplied to any conflict. So much so, that it became the Yuppie'ssurrogate bible. Oh well, battles do have their casualties.
Top of Page |
Dedicated to the wonderful Chronicles of Narnia children'sbooks and their author, CS Lewis. There is biographicalinformation, a comprehensive bibliography, sound clips andexcellent pics, plus details of the CS Lewis mailing list and the#Narnia IRC channel. Lovingly maintained, this site is for fansand scholars alike Ü magical.
Top of Page |
http://www.blackwell.co.uk/bookshops/
Oxford's big famous bookshop now has a site on the Web. Itis fantastically user-friendly because choosing books is justlike browsing through them in the store and, naturally, it'spossible to search using title, author, publisher or ISBN.
Top of Page |
http://www.nhbs.co.uk
A specialist mail order environmental bookstore with over40.000 titles, the service is searchable by subject andgeographical area as well as title or author. Perfect forbrowsing if you're into botany or even marine biology, geology,ornithology or palaeontology...and so on.
Top of Page |
http://www.bogo.co.uk/limetree
Although it is possible to order any British book in print,Lime Tree actually offers a concise, non-searchable selection ofnew titles. Among the choice of biography, novels andnon-fiction, there are a limited number of signed first editionsfor true bibliophiles.
Top of Page |
http://www.thomson.com
International Thomson Publishing is something of a giant. Asthe world's second largest English language publishinggroup in the areas of science, engineering, technology,business, medicine, humanities, social sciences and defence, whatit has to offer is a load of information - a searchable databaseof more than 20000 books and links to related discussion groupsand newsletter lists.
Top of Page |
How to build your own explosive devices, rockets, cannons andpyrotechnic displays, using easily found chemicals andimplements. It's a large file, so if your browser won't load it,FTP to ftp.std.com and download it from there.
Top of Page |
It's best to save this long, single page catalogue as a textfile, and read it off line. It's crammed with reviews andordering details of subversive, strange and even downright nastygems of anarchic and alternative writing.
Top of Page |
http://www.vmedia.com/
Order online from Ventana's range of popular computer texts,or download programs from its companion disks. There's also auseful software archive of DTP, Internet and AutoCAD shareware.
Top of Page |
http://www.clark.net/pub/atomicbk/home.html
The bizzaro director John Waters recommends this Baltimoreshop for its insane books about every kind of extreme. He saysit's just like his own library. It's also a great place to ordersuch oddities online.
Top of Page |
http://www.bookshop.co.uk/
It claims to be the biggest online bookstore in the world,with over 750,000 titles available from a myriad of publisherssuch as Penguin, McGraw Hill, Butterworths and Oxford Press. Andthat's without including all the other bookstores it's linked to.All are cross-referenced by subject, with brief synopsises andlinks to related material. Some are available through its centralordering mechanism and others direct from their publishers.
Top of Page |
http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/ab96/
Buy directly from Wyvern's online business book catalogue.
Top of Page |
http://www.mcp.com/
The Macmillan USA Information SuperLibrary goes further thanmost publishers, by not only providing a searchable titlebase,new releases and discounted email order, but by puttingsearchable contents pages and full chapter samples for many ofits thousands of books online. What's more, you can downloadcopies of any software included with their computer titles, hereor from their FTP site.
Top of Page |
Laissez-Faire has been a source of libertarian books andtapes for twenty years. It offers titles by the likes of AynRand, Thomas Jefferson,Ludwig von Mises, P.J. O'Rourke, MiltonFriedman, Thomas Szasz and of course, Adam Smith, on topics likeeducation, drug policy, gun control, objectivism, freemarketeering, economics and humour. You can email order fromanywhere in the world.
Top of Page |
This exhibit of controversial books is presented by CarnegieMellon University, where the administration recently removed morethan 80 sex newsgroups, a matter still contested by the students.You can find out which books have been banned or come underattack, and why. Some titles like the evil Tom Sawyer includecontentious extracts. Many will regard some of these titles asessential reading.
Top of Page |
Another dreadfully slow Demon site, but we're told thingswill speed up soon. This major educational publisher is makingits entire catalogue available for international mail order andit specialises in works on and from the Middle East, Africa,Japan and Asia. There are also some interesting snippets of newsfrom these regions.
Top of Page |
http://www.elsevier.nl
Elsevier claim to be the world's leading supplier ofscientific information. On board is a comprehensive list ofjournals, publications and multimedia products, plus news offorthcoming releases, along with reviews and ordering facilities.Links include an excellent science Gopher and the WWW 94conference proceedings at CERN.
Top of Page |
http://futfan.com/home.html
The Future Fantasy Bookstore specialises in fantasy, horror,science fiction and mystery books. You can browse in the store,get samples of old and new material, and look at the exotic coverart associated with this type of literature. At present thebookstore is not accepting payment via the Net for securityreasons, but expect it to introduce an online service in the nearfuture. The store can be emailed at futfan@netcom.com
Top of Page |