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Books Clone, Kyiv (2026)

27/08/2022

XKCD creator Randall Munroe has announced his latest science book: What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, which will delve into new out-of-the-box questions that Munroe attempts to answer with hard scientific facts and research.

What If? 2 follows 2014’s original What If? book — which itself was borne out of an XKCD spinoff blog — that saw Munroe examine absurd questions (like whether you could build a jetpack that ran off downward-facing machine guns or if there’s enough paint to cover the entire surface of the earth) with rigorous scientific accuracy, accompanied by Munroe’s signature stick figure comics.

The new volume will continue in What If?’s absurd scientific footsteps, attempting to answer new questions from readers like how you’d ride a fire pole from the moon to Earth, or what would happen if you tried to build a billion-story-high building or solve global warming by having everyone on earth open their freezer doors.

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XKCD’s Randall Munroe on his new book How To and the joys of using science to build lava moats
Munroe took a break between the first and second What If? books to publish How To, a spiritual successor to What If? that attempted to answer more mundane questions (like “how to charge a phone” or “how to mail a package”) in his signature over-the-top scientific style. But What If? 2 looks to see a return to even higher heights of absurdity by once again throwing out even the very pretense of practicality.

What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions will be out on September 13th.

What *does* happen if you make a lava lamp out of actual lava?

25/08/2022

If you set out to design the most deluxe version of The Lord of the Rings books imaginable, I think you might end up close to The Folio Society’s latest edition. They’re hardback, obviously, and quarter bound in burgundy leather with silver page tops — the perfect accompaniment for an apartment that smells of rich mahogany.

Most importantly, however, they feature illustrations by Alan Lee, whose conceptual design work on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films helped establish the visual style of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world on the big screen. His work on The Return of the King won him an Oscar in 2004 for Best Art Direction. Lee has contributed a preface to The Folio Society’s edition of these books and has hand-signed each of the 1,000 sets produced for this limited-edition run.

The Fellowship of the Ring. Image: The Folio Society
The Folio Society is well-known for producing lavish editions of popular titles, and past titles have included entries from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series (including its first entry, A Game of Thrones), a short story collection from Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

The Folio Society’s luxurious books don’t come cheap, and its trilogy of Lord of the Rings titles will set you back £1,000 (about $1,500). And that’s if you’re even able to get these as part of their initial limited run. If you’re after something a little more affordable featuring Lee’s illustrations, then the artist’s illustrations have appeared in various editions of the books in the past, including this set from 2002, this one from 1991, and this more recent one from 2020.

Alan Lee won an Oscar for his work on The Return of the King.

23/08/2022

An ebook subscription platform used by thousands of public libraries in the US and elsewhere is offering Holocaust denial, COVID disinformation, LGBTQ conversion therapy, and other conspiracy theory books, according to a report by Motherboard.

Hoopla — a Netflix-like subscription service that libraries use for audiobooks, ebooks, and movies — serves more than 8,500 public libraries in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Titles on Hoopla included antisemitic books like Debating The Holocaust and A New Nobility of Blood and Soil. Unlike physical books, which libraries can order individually, Hoopla sells libraries a subscription to its service, meaning librarians don’t always have control over what is being offered. OverDrive, another popular ebook platform, allows libraries to request individual titles.

Some librarians began noticing the books in February and released a statement demanding accountability and transparency about how content is approved from both Hoopla and OverDrive. In an email response to concerned librarians, Hoopla CEO Jeff Jankowski said the flagged books come from a network of 18,000 publishers and slipped through “both human and system-driven reviews and screening.” The flagged books were removed, according to Jankowski.

“These eBooks are inaccurate and sources of propaganda that have no place in the hoopla Instant collection,” he said at the time.

But a keyword search by Motherboard for “homosexuality” in Hoopla’s library returned dozens of titles under the “nonfiction” category, including ebooks promoting conversion therapy and other anti-LGBTQ content. Hoopla did not immediately respond to questions about how it vetted the titles it offers.

In their February letter, the librarians said shrinking library budgets, media consolidation, and other austerity measures have led to “a proliferation of disinformation, especially in digital information feeds and platforms.”

“Libraries should be trusted hubs for quality information, and these companies are undermining the library’s traditional role in the information landscape,” they wrote.

Hoopla is used in thousands of public libraries in the US.

21/08/2022

The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is counteracting a ban on certain books by letting anyone in the US aged 13 to 21 apply for a digital library card. This gives teens and young adults, regardless of their location in the United States, access to the library’s entire ebook collection.

The initiative, called Books Unbanned, is fighting what the BPL describes as an “increasingly coordinated and effective effort to remove books tackling a wide range of topics from library shelves.” According to the American Library Association (ALA), a total of 729 books were challenged in 2021, meaning a person or group attempted to ban these titles from public libraries.

This led to 1,597 challenges or removals of individual books, most of which were written by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ people and targeted a teenage audience. In Llano, Texas, books including Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen were removed from shelves, and the head of the town’s governing body, Ron Cunningham, questioned whether the town should even have libraries, according to emails obtained through public record requests by The Washington Post. Further north in Granbury, Texas, the Granbury Independent School District pulled over 100 books, only to then return them to the library system after criticism from students and the ACLU.

In addition to the library cards offered to any people in the US between the ages of 13 and 21, the Brooklyn Public Library has also made a selection of ebooks and audiobooks that are frequently banned or challenged at other locations “always available” to library cardholders. You can see a full list of frequently challenged books (and why they were challenged) on the ALA’s website.

If you’re interested in getting a BPL digital library card, you can apply by emailing [email protected]. You can also find more information about banned books on BPL’s website.

The BPL is fighting back against book removals.

19/08/2022

Though it’s only been a few weeks since Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper graphic novel began airing, the streaming platform’s already made the move to renew the show for two more seasons.

Variety reports that Netflix has greenlit Heartstopper for two more installments with Oseman slated to return as writer and executive producer. Like the graphic novel, Heartstopper tells the story of how Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) fall in love while attending an all-boys grammar school. Heartstopper’s first season focuses on the beginning of Charlie and Joe’s romance with plot points pulled from the graphic novel’s first and second volumes. There’s currently no word on when production on Heartstopper’s next seasons will kick off, which means there’s plenty of time to get caught up on the books to get a sense of where the show’s likely headed

Heartstopper’s already been renewed by Netflix

17/08/2022

You can’t summarize the webcomic Mr. Boop better than its first panel, which emerged out of what felt like the raging id of the internet on February 28, 2020. “My wife Betty Boop is really hot,” says Alec, the strip’s spectacled, grinning protagonist, a cartoon avatar for actual writer and artist Alec Robbins.

His wife, you see, is Betty Boop. She’s really hot.

At first blush, Mr. Boop might not seem all that different from the webcomics that largely defined the genre’s boom a decade or so ago: imperfectly drawn pan

els, constant flirtation with copyright violation, and a h***y, endlessly self-indulgent hero based directly on the author.

But Robbins isn’t just channeling the tropes of a largely bygone era of fanfiction; he’s weaponizing them, delivering a note-perfect satire of a very specific time on the internet with layers that only reveal themselves as the story unfolds. Over 216 comic strips, several videos, and one alarming free-to-play visual novel, Robbins — a writer and comedian whose credits include stints on I Think You Should Leave and The Eric Andre Show — starts with a goof about a guy who’s married to Betty Boop and steers it into a hilarious, sometimes existentially troubling interrogation of what’s fascinating about fandoms and dumb about copyright law.

Though Mr. Boop’s initial appeal was directly tied to the internet — new strips debuted on Robbins’ Twitter feed, where the entire thing can still be read for free — the comic has a different kind of weight in Silver Sprocket’s lavish new hardbound edition, which also collects a series of guest strips and cleverly adapts the original video ending for the written page. It is the new best way to read the best comic I read in 2020.

Alec Robbins talks about the most sexualized Pokémon and copyright threats.

Books Clone

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