Also on sale, the very recently released Pump* by Bill Schutt (see also our Ikonoklast interview)

Referring to Wikipedia (so get mad at them, not at me, if this seems wrong to you) the robot series of books (not counting short stories) in order of the stories themselves runs something like this:

I, Robot (The Robot Series)

iRobot Roomba 690 Robot Vacuum-Wi-Fi Connectivity, Works with Alexa, Good for Pet Hair, Carpets, Hard Floors, Self-Charging

Bicentennial Man

The Caves of Steel (The Robot Series)

The Naked Sun (The Robot Series)

The Robots of Dawn (The Robot Series)

ROBOTS & EMPIRE PB

We’ll Always Have Paris: Stories by Ray Bradbury.

In We’ll Always Have Paris—a new collection of never-before-published stories—the inimitable Bradbury once again does what few writers have ever done as well. He delights us with prose that soars and sings. He surprises and inspires, exposing truths and provoking deep thought. He imagines great things and poignantly observes human foibles and frailties. He enchants us with the magic he mastered decades ago and still performs flawlessly. In these pages, radio voices become indomitable flesh and the dead arise to recapture life. There is joy in an eccentric old man’s dance for the world and wonder over the workings of humankind’s best friend, O Holy Dog. Whether he’s exploring the myriad ways to be reborn, or the circumstances that can make any man a killer, or returning us to Mars, Bradbury opens the world to us and beckons us in.

Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society by Bill Bryson.

Bill Bryson takes readers on a guided tour through the great discoveries, feuds, and personalities of modern science. Already a major bestseller in the UK, Seeing Further tells the fascinating story of science and the Royal Society with Bill Bryson’s trademark wit and intelligence, and contributions from a host of well known scientists and science fiction writers, including Richard Dawkins, Neal Stephenson, James Gleick, and Margret Atwood. It is a delightful literary treat from the acclaimed author who previous explored the current state of scientific knowledge in his phenomenally popular book, A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Needs no description.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: The inspiration for the films Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 by Philip Dick.

Centennial: A Novel by James Michener. This is a novel set in the West a hundred years after the American Revolution.

Vaccinated: Triumph, Controversy, and An Uncertain F by Paul Offit.

Maurice Hilleman’s mother died a day after he was born and his twin sister stillborn. As an adult, he said that he felt he had escaped an appointment with death. He made it his life’s work to see that others could do the same. Born into the life of a Montana chicken farmer, Hilleman ran off to the University of Chicago to become a microbiologist, and eventually joined Merck, the pharmaceutical company, to pursue his goal of eliminating childhood disease. Chief among his accomplishments are nine vaccines that practically every child gets, rendering formerly dread diseases—including often devastating ones such as mumps and rubella—practically toothless and nearly forgotten; his measles vaccine alone saves several million lives every year.

Vaccinated is not a biography; Hilleman’s experience forms the basis for a rich and lively narrative of two hundred years of medical history, ranging across the globe and throughout time to take in a cast of hundreds, all caught up, intentionally or otherwise, in the story of vaccines. It is an inspiring and triumphant tale, but one with a cautionary aspect, as vaccines come under assault from people blaming vaccines for autism and worse. Paul Offit clearly and compellingly rebuts those arguments, and, by demonstrating how much the work of Hilleman and others has gained for humanity, shows us how much we have to lose.

That is all, thank you very much.

There is a Kindle reader application for the PC (and the Mac and the iPod touch). But not Linux. Which makes us sad because without Linux, your Kindle wouldn’t even turn on.

But despite this deeply insulting unforgivable slight by Steve Bozo or whatever his name is, diligent supergeeks have solved this problem temporarily. The problem is, as usual, the Intertubes are full of people who know diddley squat but don’t seem to understand that, so you will find ample instructions to make the Kindle for PC work on your Linux computer, and you will have very little success.

Unless you know two secrets that I know.

Never mind what Lifehacker says, never mind what most of these other crazy people on the internet say. Do these two or three things and you’ll probably get the Kindle reader working.

1) Install the latest, Beta version of Wine. Go to the wine site and find out how to do that. It is a little complicated, requires some messing around, but you can do it. I know you can. And never mind that it’s the “beta” version. It’s not like Wine was stable and trouble free or anything. Might as well go for broke.

2) Do NOT use the Kindle for PC installer provided by Amazon. That one is broken for Linux with wine. Use the older version. This is a 5.2 megabyte version that still seems to be available here. But keep in mind, this and other “older” versions that are stored away on the Internet, like at Tocows, have been updated by some moron or another who thought they were being helpful. If you end up not being able to find the 5.2 meg version, email me, I’ll send you mine.

3) It may be necessary to run this as Windows 98 software. You may also want to increase the dpi to about 105 or 110.

If this does not work, do not get mad at me. Get mad at Steve Blotto and Amazon, because they are the ones who have let you down by not providing a Linux version of this totally simple easy to produce software. Their fault. In fact, you should complain to them. But in the mean time, this kludge will work. The fonts and scrolling and stuff on the application totally suck, but the reader itself …. once you have an eBook loaded, is pretty darn good.

You can’t search the text, it would seem. Or at least, I have not figured out how to. If you have, let me know!!!

That is all. Good luck.