July 2009 - Posts - Bookends

July 2009 - Posts

Friday evening honour roll - 14

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
Plenty of entrants into the honour roll today, and Ashwin Prabhu, I am sure, would have made it as well if not for the fact that YouTube is blocked from his office computer. 1. According to one version, which literary character was given his / her name after the author saw a marquee listing for this film? A: Holden Caulfield, from the surnames of William...

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Thursday afternoon books quiz - 14

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
No themes this Thursday -- just plain, old-fashioned quizzing. I ask a question, you give me the answer. 1. According to one version, which literary character was given his / her name after the author saw a marquee listing for this film? 2. The name of which work of poetry comes quite literally from its primary plot device, of a Yaksha trying to send...

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Off-the-cuff links: Free e-books!

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
Why I stumbled on to this so late, I don't know. But for those of you even more behind the times than me, here is the fourth annual e-book fair , in which you can download any of two million e-books for free. The fair has been running from 4 July, so there are only a few days to go before it shuts shop on 4 August; the remainder of the year, access...

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The dynamics of book-browsing

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
As promised last week , Bookends spoke to K. Vaitheeswaran, COO of IndiaPlaza.in , and A. S. Vindhya Lakshmi, his product manager, about a variety of subjects. Primarily, though, we talked about the browsing habit, how well that habit translates to online buying, and what online retailers need to do to attract more browsers. The interview in its entirety...

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Friday evening honour roll - 13

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
Lots of entries this time around, and many -- Prasanna Walimbe, Shyam, JC, Tanmoy Saha, Roopa Machaiah -- who came agonisingly within one correct answer of the honour roll! Here go the answers: 1. A. S. Raman, Khushwant Singh, M. V. Kamath and Pritish Nandy were the four Indian editors of which now-departed publication? A: The Illustrated Weekly of...

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Thursday afternoon books quiz - 13

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
After a hiatus of three weeks, courtesy my holiday , the Thursday afternoon books quiz returns to brighten up your...well, your Thursday afternoon. This week, we quiz you not so much on books as on periodicals -- magazines, comic books and newspapers. 1. A. S. Raman, Khushwant Singh, M. V. Kamath and Pritish Nandy were the four Indian editors of which...

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Things you realise while shopping for books

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
On a recent holiday, as with nearly all of my holidays, I spent a lot of time walking around bookstores looking for books to buy. This included a couple of mammoth chain stores but also a bunch of smaller independent shops and used book stores. En passant, I realised a few interesting trends and changes -- predicated, of course, purely on observation...

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