Don’t have time to read Shakespeare? To busy to get through Ulysses? Schedule too tight to get through Dante? No worries, you can get the hyper cliff notes version from Twitterature.

What is Twitterature? Well it’s from the root word Twitter – a micro-blogging site that allows you to speak your mind, discuss your views and give your opinions in 140 characters or less. With such a small window, you’ve got to be brief, to the point, and it helps if you’re clever with the written word. There are thousands of people who are becoming experts at the art of the tweet. But nowhere has the twitter concept been taken to the reductio ad absurdum as when two University of Chicago college freshmen sold their…

California’s Governor is leading the way in the digital textbook evolution. Whether you’re in college and have to purchase your textbooks, or you’re in middle and high school and the state pays for them – textbooks aren’t cheap. According to the California Governor’s website, “The average textbook costs about $75 to $100 per student.  For a school district with about 10,000 high school students, the use of free digital textbooks in just science and math classes could save up to $2 million dollars.”

While the switch from paper to digital is a money saver – what gets me excited is the ability to keep students current in a world that changes minute to minute.  Providing students digital information allows them to have the most current…

For anyone who has ever had to license clips from films or tv shows, you know it’s not an inexpensive proposition.  The first step is always getting a copy of the clip to determine whether or not you want to use it, and that costs money.  Warner Brothers is making it easier through their new commercial clip licensing website .  Now producers can view on line more than 1,000 film, television and animation titles. The WB Clip Library is organized by name, genre, actor and release window with trailers and one-sheets as well as printable search results and information on rights submissions. Available content includes titles from Warner Bros. DC Comics, Turner, Castle Rock, New Line Cinema and Hanna-Barbera.

Some Girls Bite by Chloe Neill
Publisher: Penguin
4 Stars

There’s a fresh new voice in paranormal and that voice belongs to author Chloe Neill. She’s penned the first of her Chicagoland Vampire Novels entitled Some Girls Bite.

I’d been in a reading ‘slump’ so I was very happy to pick up a book that made me want to turn the pages. The author has created an interesting vampire mythology and a heroine who has spunk and daring, she’s kick ass without the hard edges.

Set in contemporary Chicago, vampires who have been around for a very long time have finally ‘come out’ presenting a face of wealth, sophistication, power and civility making a very vocal statement that they are here and…

Guest blogger Marisa O’Neill tells us what she’s watching…

After my period of mourning of ‘no more new episodes of LOST on television’, I had to pick myself up and figure out what to program next on my DVR. I must say there are several shows I’m looking forward to. And in my quest to bring you summer entertainment that’s free, I pass on to you the shows I think you shouldn’t pass on. Below, part one.

1. What I’ll Be Watching:

I’ll be watching So You Think You Can Dance every Wednesday and Thursday this summer on Fox TV. The dancers have been chosen but the dancing has just begun. So if you like to watch fiercely competitive, creative, talented young people who…

The Book Expo of America’s CEO roundtable discussion hosted by Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Beast Tina Brown was held to a standing room only crowd wanting some answers from a panel consisting of who’s who in publishing. The panel included Brian Murray of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, Carolyn Reidy of Simon & Schuster, John Sargent of Macmillan, and David Steinberger of Perseus Books Group. Ms. Brown’s opening remarks likened the current digital explosion to the industrial revolution. She stated, “The publishing industry is experiencing volcanic changes calling for major re-thinking and restructuring. Publishers today must reinvent the wheel while still publishing great books. They are faced with fewer and fewer places to talk about and promote books because of the collapse of newspapers.” How’s…