SF Signal has compiled a list of 95 newly free online speculative fiction stories. This is cool. Of course, this is used fiction. You get brand new fiction every month here at FlashFictionOnline.com.

Google announced a "mobile version of Google Book Search, opening up over 1.5 million mobile public domain books in the US (and over half a million outside the US)...."

These books were already accessible on Google Book Search but the mobile editions were optimized for small screens. From your iPhone or Android phone, go here to search for mobile editions of the books.

FFO covered an early debate about Google Book Search. (Scroll down the archive.) If you're not familiar with Android, it is an open source mobile phone software platform shepherded by Google.

Flash Fiction Online believes its own flash fiction archive is already optimized for small screens!

From various illustrators and 1890's storybooks, some quality vintage color and B&W graphics, thought to be in the public domain. See Grandma's Graphics.

It's easy to get a book deal these days; just become a Veep candidate.

Eclectic blogs: 3 Quarks Daily and Shaken and Stirred (Bond Girl).

The United States House of Representatives and the Senate are now on YouTube. Further comments will be made in four years.

The Teaching Company has an amazing amount of great stuff, and sometimes they publish lectures for free. They've had excellent, topical, timely lectures on the Olympics and the election of the Pope, for example.

I just got an email that read as follows:

No individual is more synonymous with the strength, spirit, and success of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s than Martin Luther King, Jr. But what were the inspirations for his beliefs in equal rights and nonviolent resistance? As a thank you for being our customer and in honor of Black History Month, here is a free audio lecture: Martin Luther King, Jr.: Stride Toward Freedom, delivered by award-winning Professor Dennis Dalton of Barnard College, Columbia University....

Professor Dalton is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. A scholar of classical and modern political theory, nonviolence and violence in society, and ideologies of modern political movements, he is the author of Indian Idea of Freedom and Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action. Professor Dalton has been honored with numerous teaching awards, scholarships, and grants, including the 2008 Barnard Commendation for Excellence in Teaching award and a Gandhi Peace Foundation grant.

It sounds like it'll be live until Monday, February 2, and I'm encouraged to send it to all my friends, too -- so here you go. Enjoy.

You really ought to be reading Buttersafe. Really.

John Scalzi over at his Whatever blog has an open thread for recommending books for the holidays.

Given his status as a science fiction writer, I'd guess that many of the people contributing to the thread will lean towards genre fiction, but I can see already that there are young adult, literary, and other categories there as well. Worth checking out. I know I'm looking for myself and for people I'll buy gifts for.

Nice to see the big companies offering audiobooks online and in MP3 format.

ANN ARBOR, Mich., July 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Borders Audiobook Downloads -- a new audiobook download service -- debuts today on Borders.com, offering an initial 15,000 titles, including fiction and non-fiction bestsellers, classics, self-help and children's books, among other categories.... To introduce the service, beginning tomorrow July 15 and continuing through July 19, customers can download free of charge Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" in MP3 format. In addition, the 15 popular titles listed below are being offered at the discounted price of $9.95 through July 22.

-- "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
-- "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
-- "Beloved" by Toni Morrison
-- "The Logic of Life" by Tim Harford
-- "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
-- "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
-- "The Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See
-- "The Eight" by Katherine Neville
-- "Fortress of Solitude" by Jonathan Lethem
-- "The Traveler" by John Twelve Hawks
-- "The Appeal" by John Grisham
-- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
-- "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
-- "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" by Barack Obama

I thought this was an interesting list: the recommendations don't come from literature professors, but from the all academic specializations: management, biomedical engineering, pediatric medicine, biomedical ethics, neurosurgery, communications, psychology, etc. I know some of the books, and they look like good recommendations.

NEW YORK, June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- TED's groundbreaking series of talks has achieved its 50 millionth video view since debuting online in June 2006. To keep up with growing demand, TED today announces a significant expansion of its publishing schedule, with a talk now being released every weekday. The talks, which have defined a new genre in online video, are offered free to the world, and are available for download or online viewing at www.ted.com.

The emphasis above is mine. I listen to TED talks fairly often when I'm doing the dishes or other non-thinking work. They're often fascinating, frequently controversial, and worth paying attention to.

From the press release:

CHICAGO, June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Allan R. Millett has been selected to receive the 2008 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The $100,000 honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation, will be presented at the Library's annual Liberty Gala on October 4, 2008 at Chicago's Drake Hotel. The announcement was made today [I'm a few days late, this was June 23] via Internet webcast by the Library's President and Founder, COL (IL) James N. Pritzker IL ARNG (Ret.), at http://www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org/.

The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award recognizes a living author for a body of work that has profoundly enriched the public understanding of American military history. The recipient's contributions may be academic, non-fiction, fiction, or a combination of any of the three, and his or her work should embody the values of the Pritzker Military Library.

The library also podcasts: go to the Pritzker Military Library Web site and find them on the home page, or search for "Pritzker" on the iTunes store.

Congratulations to Dr. Millett, leatherneck and historian, for his award.