Issue Number 23 - April 2000

THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK for students, teachers, and scholars in the field of literary studies. It's a guide to using the Internet to search for information - and then how to interpret the results. The guide includes a useful annotated list of sites devoted to resources, literary journals and individual writers - from Aeschylus and Albee to Woolf and Yeats. And it also has some interesting reflections on the culture and politics of hypertext.

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/browner.htm

Opportunities for writers
BUDDING WRITERS and publishers might like to know about a new site run by speechradio.com launching this month. It allows writers and publishers to place audio extracts of their work(s) on-line for visitors to listen to - it's all free of charge and saves reading on-screen which is more difficult for some (as we age!). More details from info@speechradio.com

http://www.speechradio.com/

The Internet in Easy Steps
THIS IS A BEGINNER'S GUIDE in the Computer Steps series which offer clear, simple instructions and lots of screen-shot illustrations of each topic. This one covers getting online, email, net searching, Internet Chat, and even more advanced topics such as making your own CDs and designing Web pages. Ideal for those who want to make a start without facing lots of jargon and technicalities - and it's a double-thick volume at the price of a short guide. Full review and details at --

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/preston.htm

An Electronic Dictionary
THE NEW SHORTER OXFORD English Dictionary is now available on CD-ROM. It's an updated version of the two-volume print publication, with new illustrative examples from contemporary writers. The user interface offers a quick, simple definition of any term - and then further information via a selection of different searches. These include anagrams [ideal for crosswords] rhyme, etymology, and phonetics. Half a million words defined - and you don't even need to install it onto your hard disk. Review at --

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/oxf-cdr.htm

Big e-Book success!
STEPHEN KING has just boosted the potential income of all ebook writers. In one fell swoop he has made ebooks, and other internet delivered information, respectable. His 66-page ghost story, 'Riding the Bullet', racked up more than 400,000 orders at $2.50 a download in the first 24 hours after it was made available.

That means the story beat the first-day sales of all King's best-selling novels. King told Time magazine that he will earn at least $450,000 from his story, beating the $10,000 he says magazines such as Playboy and the New Yorker would have paid. Many in the publishing industry are calling it the watershed moment when a book goes from computer to the reader in a fraction of the print-book publishing arc. It also is a leap into the digital future that takes the eBook from the realm of novelty and directly into the very mainstream of todays culture. The repercussions have been discussed widely in eBook circles. For more information on e-Books go to

http://www.fatbrain.com
http://www.booklocker.com
http://www.nypost.com/news/26578.htm

Books and their Enemies
According to James Joyce in a letter to the American Publisher Bennett Cerf in 1932, when 'Dubliners was published by Grant Richards in 1914, 'some very kind person bought out the entire edition and had it burnt in Dublin'.

Source: BookEnds

Windows 95 Tip
Did you know that you can still use your old Win3.1 file manager - even in Windows 95? You can use it instead of or alongside the Windows Explorer. Why would you? Experience, comfort, nostalgia: who knows. To get it --

1. Click on Start and choose Run.
2. Type 'winfile'[without the quotes]
3. Press ENTER

Remember that File Manager doesn't understand long file names and will shorten them all temporarily to eight characters.

NB! If you move or copy a file with File Manager, the shortening will be permanent. And if you delete a file with File Manager, the file won't wait in the Recycling Bin. It will immediately be gone for good.

Scientific Writing
Life Sciences Publishing produce a free biweekly ezine entitled 'How to write medical and scientific papers', which includes a feature article on some aspect of scientific writing. For details see

http://www.lifescipub.com/newsletter.htm

Cliff's Notes
The study guides that help you get through school now help you get through life. At Cliffsnotes.com sign up for free Cliffs Note-A-Day email newsletters on topics such as Money Management, Creating Web Pages, and more. For instant gratification, download an entire CliffsNotes book 24x7 to meet any deadline.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com