Who’s in charge around here?
I’m a former daily newspaper journalist who worked in the Pacific Northwest and New England. Now a book reviewer, writer, editor, iMac user. I founded Rich Litho Media, which provides writing/editing and publishing services for authors and small businesses.
Read more in the About section.
Email me at kimberly@typelikethewind.com
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Author Archives: Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
And it’s E-Book on the rail…and E-book wins it!
Amazon reports that for the past three months, E-books outsold those old-fashioned paper-with-covers things known as “books.” Check out New York Times story, here.
Posted in Ruminations Leave a comment
Not a vookworm. Yet.
If there is a better definition for “ambivalence” than the feelings aroused by reading about “vooks” (electronic books with interactive video), I don’t know what it could be. Los Angeles Times reporters Alex Pham and David Sarno write about how iPad-driven vooks make even Intro Chemistry interesting, something that makes me wish they’d existed when [...]
Harvey Pekar dies. Doesn’t that just figure.
Harvey Pekar, best known for his autobiographical “American Splendor” graphic-novel series and the 2003 movie “The Quitter,” that dramatized his dejected world view, saw every glass as half empty. A half-empty glass leaving a ring on the table. He is dead at age 70, which just proves, as he always knew, that shit happens and [...]
Posted in Art, Death Leave a comment
Inherit the (Type Like The) Wind.
It’s a haunting question: When your time is up, and you move on to whatever comes after this life…who will cancel your Facebook page? Fortunately, the folks at Legacy Locker are on the job. This company offers a way for your designated beneficiary (and I’m using that word loosely) to access all your online services, [...]
77 Words: “Twilight at the World of Tomorrow” by James Mauro
Twilight at the World of Tomorrow: Genius, Madness, Murder, and the 1939 World’s Fair on the Brink of War by James Mauro. (Random House, 2010) Expecting dry and serviceable, I got lively, amusing, informing. Mauro’s magazine-writing roots serve him well: strong researching with an eye for the absurd. He captures a particular sort of visionary—that [...]
Posted in 77 Words, Authors, Books, Business Leave a comment
Uh oh, the rich are bailing on mortgages too.
Proof that this foreclosure tsunami is real: “The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves…” writes David Streitfeld in The New York Times. (The other quotes are from the same piece.) A hint that that [...]
Posted in Business, Economy, Ethics, Human nature Leave a comment
Sad news: AP jargon gets the shove.
As a former daily-newspaper journalist (and for a short time about 100 years ago, a proud writer for The Associated Press) I am heartsick to hear of the death of some longtime terms of the trade. Who would opt for “keyword” instead of “slug” or “correct” instead of “cq” or “instead of” rather than the [...]
Posted in Death, The Press 2 Comments
Something I made up that sounds smart.
“…Writing biography is a sort of reverse magic trick. The audience is baffled and thrilled by sleight-of-hand. Later the writer comes across a stray rabbit, and goes back in time looking for a top-hat, a cape, a wand. She consults old letters to see if abracadabra! was actually uttered on stage. So when she recreates the [...]
Posted in Writing & Words 1 Comment
Goodbye Senator Byrd. Be glad you missed the news today.
One of the faceless commentators talking during the solemn carrying of Senator Robert Byrd’s coffin this morning observed that the most significant thing about the late Senator’s tenure is the enormous social change on his long watch. Byrd himself exemplified that change, moving from membership in the Ku Klux Klan as a young West Virginian [...]
Posted in Death, Government, Ruminations, TV & Radio, The Press Leave a comment
AA in the news: Powerless, grateful and other useful feelings.
There’s an essay in Wired by Brendan I. Koerner, titled “Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don’t Know How it Works.” It is burning up the email channels and New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about it. As the headline makes clear, the piece is largely about the fact that the success rate [...]
Posted in Alcohol & Drugs, Faith 1 Comment
West Virginia down to two friends.
From the Los Angles Times obituary of Senator Robert C. Byrd by Johanna Neuman: “On election night 2000, when Byrd, then 83, was reelected with his largest margin ever — a 78% majority, carrying all 55 counties and all but seven of the state’s 1,970 precincts — he remarked: ‘West Virginia has always had four [...]
Posted in Death, Politics Leave a comment
All the news that fits. And solves.
I’ve only read some of the stories and ads in three sections in Sunday’s New York Times (Book Review, Business and Week in Review) and here’s what I’ve already learned: Most new fiction is deeply flawed. A five-line letter from Ronald Reagan to his old actress friend Kitty Carlisle Hart is worth $6,100. Whales and [...]
Posted in Advertising, Animals, Authors, Business, Economy, Ethics, Gender Mysteries, Government, Health, Human nature, Politics, Publishing, Research, Science, The Press Leave a comment
When the roll is called up yonder: il b thr
Posted in Faith, Real People, Writing & Words Leave a comment
Death on our own terms: Don’t be squeamish, read this.
This is the best-written newspaper or magazine piece I’ve read in a very long time. The headline is “What Broke My Father’s Heart,” and writer Katy Butler rewinds her family story to describe what happens when technology–in this case a pacemaker–keeps someone alive beyond the capacity of the mind (and parts of the body) to [...]
Posted in Ethics, Health Leave a comment
Our bodies, our worse-off selves.
I have occasion to regularly visit a wonderful vintage jewelry/resale clothing business in town. The owners defy small-business odds: thriving as a family-owned venture, they’re now serving the second- and third-generations of regulars. Most of the customers are women, and they feel so at home that personal conversation flows easily. There’s a bit of that [...]
Posted in Gender Mysteries 2 Comments
True.
How BP would handle a coffee spill.
Posted in Business, Ethics, Government, Health, Science Leave a comment
77 Words: “The Love Letter” by Cathleen Schine and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” by Stieg Larsson
“The Love Letter” by Cathleen Schine (Penguin; Signet 1995) – Before I get Schine’s latest rave-receiving novel, I figured I’d try this older work. Verdict: Excellent and smart summer escapism. A middle-aged bookseller has an affair with a much-younger man, motivated by a mysterious love letter… oh, yeah, and lust too. Schine nimbly chronicles the [...]
Posted in 77 Words, Authors, Books Leave a comment
A comforting nugget of wisdom.
From the New York Times obit for Chris Haney, co-creator of Trivial Pursuit: “Mr. Haney fought and won a 13-year legal battle against a man who said he had given him the idea for Trivial Pursuit when Mr. Haney picked him up hitchhiking. He won another suit against an author who claimed that Mr. Haney [...]
Posted in Death, Ruminations Leave a comment
Biggest understatment since BP’s last press release: