Mad is an American humor magazine founded by publisher William Gaines and editor Harvey Kurtzman in 1952. Offering satires on all aspects of American pop culture, the monthly publication deflates stuffed shirts and pokes fun at common foibles. Here's some scans of every MAD magazine cover, all for free.
Christusrex.org has collected the Pater Noster in some 1332 languages and dialects, complete with images of the prayers.
I noticed that Stephen Donaldson has delivered The Runes of the Earth, the first book in what seems to be the 3rd trilogy in the 'Thomas Covenant' series. I've read the books some 10 years ago, and was very pleased to see that the books were reprinted last year. I managed to buy the first trilogy last year, but couldn't yet find the second serie in the shop. Can't wait to read the next serie, though Thomas Covenant won't appear in the last trilogy : he was killed in the sixth book, so now Linden Avery takes over.
Boekblog (Book blog) is a refreshing blog by Dimitri Antonissen, a young Antwerp writer. In the last series of posts, he publishes short stories/poetry on different Belgian and Dutch blogs, like these excellent poems Trouwen and Kermis
From The eyes of the dragon by Stephen King :
And it is quite possible that that was actually the only reason.
Isn't Christmas shopping fun ? Most people resent the fake Christmas atmosphere with the Jingle Bells sound terrorism, but if the place isn't too crowded, I really like it. Today I was browsing The Fnac bookshop for a good book for mum, when I suddenly discovered that there's a new print of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen Donaldson. It's one of the most powerful and complex fantasy trilogies since Lord of the Rings : each character-driven book introduces unexpected plots, sub-plots, and a host of magical beings so believably rendered you'd believe you might bump into them on your way to the bookstore.
If you love The Lord of the Rings, but dislike the arcane language, you should really give The Chronicles a try. Anyway, I treated myself on yet another Christmas present :)
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Ever wished you could read a downloaded Sherlock Holmes story in bed instead of in front of your computer? Now you can : Project Gutenberg offers electronic versions of texts whose copyright has expired; almost all major classics (and more) are covered. Unfortunately, these texts come as plain ASCII, which is very platform-independent, but also a pain to read. With a little LaTeX formatting, maybe these things can be reformatted to someting more readable. I noticed also that Debian includes a Gutenbook program, which allows you to browse the Gutenberg library online.
I was browsing Proxis, just to discover they had nearly nothing available in Dutch of my two favourite writers, Jack Vance and Stephen Donaldson. I ended up ordering Rhialto, the Marvellous. Nice to see that Proxis decided again not to charge anything for shipping.
Anyway, Rhialto is a part of the Tales of the Dying Earth rogue series, a very amusing set of books which tell the tale of Cugel, who tries to survive by his wit and luck - with varying results. I especially recommend The Eyes of the Overworld; pick it up if you find it in your local library.
DyingEarth.com is a site about a RPG based upon these novels. On the site, you'll find different amusing PDF files explaining the scenery in which the game takes place, and provide an excellent introduction to get you in the mood. Part one and three of these PDF files, called The Excellent Prismatic Spray, are free for download, and nicely illustrated.