Slumdog Millionaire

Q & A made into a movie! I can't wait...

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/slumdogmillionaire/

Embittermints

Bad Day at the Office Inspires Edgy Breath Mint Concept

It was 2002, a good year. But an attorney was having a bad day at the office and needed a breath mint, though her peers said an attitude adjustment might be more in order. And though she got neither a mint nor her mind altered that day, the Embittermints concept was born. Even though the lawyer couldn’t say “bite me” or “you suck” or “buzz off” or “yo mama” or “wench” or “idiot” to the people who were ruining her day, she soon figured out a way for anyone to say those things, and still keep their job.

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Six Word Memoirs

"A shilling life will give you all the facts," as Auden sadly observed, and a memoir by James Frey will add a bit more. But how much would a life compressed into six words be worth? That's the challenge in our six words competition, and the entries have been rolling in.

We've started adding some of our favourites to a postcard gallery. I particularly enjoyed the understated romance of Nick Bailey's "Grumpy bastard. Until wife came along", and Rishi Dastidar's "To date; one love, no deaths."

I've been thinking that the perfect entry was already - almost - written by Samuel Beckett ("Tried again. Failed again. Failed better.") Which inspired my first thought: "Entered various competitions. Did not win." I'm sure you can do much better - please feel free to post them here too.

- Lindesay Irvine for the Guardian.co.uk


Not Quite What i Was Planning
Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure
Rachel Fershleiser (Editor)

The Daily Aphorism - new from The School of Life

The School of Life: "We need good ideas today more than ever, to give us the courage and humour to get through these uncertain times. So today we’ve launched The Daily Aphorism, a new website that distributes a short and pithy piece of wisdom every morning. Sign up now to receive a beautifully typeset aphorism in your inbox every day for a month."

www.thedailyaphorism.com

But what exactly is an aphorism? An ‘itch of wisdom’, 'the world in a phrase’, or for the more prosaically minded, ‘an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and easily memorable form’. Anyone can write one, though it takes some skill to do it well. Famous aphorists have included Blaise Pascal, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Winston Churchill, Jenny Holzer and Woody Allen, many of whom are featured on The Daily Aphorism website.

Bibliotherapy

The School of Life brings you bibliotherapy:

"Once upon a time, it was easy to find books that you could enjoy and felt were relevant. Now a new book is published every 30 seconds, and you would need 163 lifetimes to get through all the books offered on Amazon. That’s why The School of Life has set up a bibliotherapy service: the perfect way for you to discover those amazing but too often elusive books that can transform and illuminate your life."

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Rock on, Obama

Dreams From My Father - A Story of Race and Inheritance
Barack Obama
Paperback, 457 pages
200 x 130 x 25mm (L x W x H)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4000-8277-3
November 2004
Published by Three Rivers Press
R168

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father--a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man--has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey--first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.


The Audacity Of Hope - Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream
Barack Obama
Paperback, 375 pages
203 x 131 x 20mm (L x W x H)
ISBN-13: 978-0-307-23770-5
November 2007
Published by Three Rivers Press (CA)
R168

Obama has written a book of transforming power. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to the Constitution, he says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans.

The Antidote to Tired Typography

Robert Klanten brings us a fresh, playful take on old, tired fonts.

Playful Type: Ephemeral Lettering and Illustrative Fonts
Robert Klanten

Playful Type discovers a new and young generation of designers who are applying typography beyond the classical typeset and creating a dynamic range of playful and illustrative fonts and ephemeral lettering. From manual lettering, calligraphy and collage to manipulative time exposure of photographs, designers are developing fonts for the moment which are irregular and often accidental.

This book shows such cutting edge examples of elusive scripts that are being translated into serially employable alphabets to be used digitally with the computer. Playful Type presents an inspiring collection of illustrative fonts and hand-made typography created from a variety of approaches and indicates current development in font design.

Look at more here http://www.gestalten.com/books/detail?id=ceaea7651adf9ba0011b69a6a1500267

Meet the Biodegradable Bible

“The Green Bible” is printed on eco-friendly recycled paper, with a linen cover and soy-based ink.

Every passage that features the most taken-for-granted player in the Bible’s vast cast — the planet Earth — is printed in grass-green ink. The effect can be powerful, chastening and even exhilarating, as when you come upon these lines in the book of Isaiah, glinting green: “The mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

In a foreword, Archbishop Desmond Tutu reveals the unsubtle message of this edition: “We, who should have been responsible stewards preserving our vulnerable, fragile planet home, have been wantonly wasteful through our reckless consumerism, devouring irreplaceable natural resources.” Repent while ye may … and along the way, recycle. - Liesl Schillinger, New York Times: extract from the Paper Cuts blog