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Google has made several public domain horror classics available for downloads from Google Book Search at google.com/scarystories.

What would Halloween be without a little trick-or-treating? This year, make exploring some of these classic spooky tales part of your treat. Discover who famously uttered "nevermore," why Van Helsing was forced to behead the "bloofer lady" and how Ichabod Crane met his untimely end in a tranquil glen called Sleepy Hollow.

Since we've digitized the full text of these stories and novels, you can search every word. But that's not all -- whenever you see a Download button, you're free to download, save and print a PDF version to read at your own pace. And if you decide you want to buy a bound copy, "All editions" will show you multiple editions, many of which are available for purchase.

The spooky stories Google has collected include Bram Stoker's Dracula, Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. TeleRead says you can also get the books at manybooks.net. For lots more Halloween coverage visit BloggersBlog.com's special Halloween section.

Joy Behar of The View has landed a new book deal, according to Cindy Adams.

Joy Behar got herself a publisher, Crown, an agent, Bill Adler, and a book idea, "When You Need a Little Lift . . . By Joy Behar and Friends." She's asking celebrity friends to share whatever picks them up when they're in the dumps because, as her letter says, "Even Richard Simmons is sometimes down." So far contributors include James Earl Jones, LeAnn Rimes and D. Trump.

We actually like the idea of a book where successful celebs share their secrets for battling the blues. Although we're having a hard time picturing The Donald diving into a pint of Haagen-Dazs Swiss Vanilla Almond when the real estate market slumps. We think he buys more hair products or finds a newer, younger wife to cheer himself up.

clndnng writes "Roughly 90% of web content consists of discussions of software patents, so it's a little surprising that Ben Klemens has written what may be the first dead-trees book analyzing their validity. It has a lot of ground to cover: you could approach the topic from the perspective of the geeks, the lawyers, the economists, or the businessmen. Klemens is equal-opportunity, addressing every perspective." Read the rest of the review.

South African Nobel laureate for literature Nadine Gordimer was assaulted and robbed in her own home on Saturday, according to local police. Ms. Gordimer, who is 83, refused to give thieves her wedding ring, so they attacked her.

He said the Gordimer was robbed of cash and jewelry when three unknown men gained entrance to her home at about 10:30 a.m. local time on Thursday. Gordimer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, is noted for her novels and short stories about the inhumanity of apartheid. Several were once banned in her own country.

Tsunke said in a statement released Saturday that the unarmed men held Gordimer and her domestic worker up. One of the men took Gordimer to a bedroom and demanded she open the safe. She handed over cash and jewelry, but would not part with her wedding ring from her marriage to art dealer Reinhold Cassirer, who died in 2001. "The suspects then locked both Gordimer and her domestic worker in a store room and fled the scene," Tsunke said.

He said the domestic worker, whose name he did not know, had managed to press a panic button, triggering an alert with a security company. Tsunke said guards arrived about half an hour later and released the women. He said a case of house robbery and common assault was opened but no arrests had been made. South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime and there is concern about the negative publicity about the country before the soccer World Cup it will host in 2010.

Perhaps the officials should worry less about the negative publicity and more about protecting honest citizens from criminals.

Barnes and Noble.com has announced the launch of its new online book club. The book club aims to be an online, interactive community of authors, experts, and readers. The book club is free and is located at www.bn.com/bookclubs.

From the official release:

Beginning today, visitors to Barnes & Noble.com can join online conversations with authors like Carl Hiaasen, the popular novelist whose latest book, Nature Girl, debuts November 14th. Nearly 30 authors will lead discussions about their books this fall, and Barnes & Noble.com?s Book Club moderators will lead discussions of other popular books, including literary classics and noteworthy titles in such categories as self improvement, personal finance, cooking and health.

Readers can access the Book Club message boards at their convenience, and can enhance their experience by creating user profiles, sharing lists of favorite books and authors, subscribing to e-mail updates, and sending private messages to other users.

"With Barnes & Noble.com's Book Clubs, readers are now able to find literary companionship 24 hours a day from wherever they are," said Marie Toulantis, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble.com. "The new Book Clubs are a natural extension of the thousands of book clubs at Barnes & Noble stores nationwide. This new online community meets the needs of authors who are eager to reach as broad an audience as possible, and our customers, who want to interact with their favorite authors and with like-minded readers in an online forum with easy-to-use features."

Does this mean we get to instant message Stephen King while he's eating his breakfast? Because we could totally get into that.

The librarian who stole more than 500 rare, old books worth over $300,000 then tried to sell them on eBay was hauled in front of a judge to face his fate.

Norman Buckley, 44, began his thefts after breaking up with his long-term girlfriend. He made more than ?11,000 from sales of books on eBay but hardly spent any of the money, claiming the sales gave him a buzz.

Among books he stole was a 16th century Geoffrey Chaucer, worth ?35,000, and a volume of political works by Coleridge, Shelley and Keats. He also took broadsides - newssheets detailing the history of Manchester - including one that contained an account of food riots in 1757. An antiquarian books expert in Somerset became intrigued when he saw a copy of John Donne's Elegies, from 1654, for sale on eBay. He saw the Manchester Libraries seal on it, then contacted the library. Staff subsequently contacted police.

Buckley, who worked part-time in the local studies and archive team, was arrested at his home in Hulme, Manchester, in March, on suspicion of theft, and dismissed from his job. When police raided his flat they found 400 books. Buckley pleaded guilty in August to 10 specimen thefts and asked for 445 offences to be taken into consideration. At Manchester crown court yesterday, he was ordered to perform 250 hours' community service. Judge Clement Goldstone said his 15-month jail term was suspended for two years because he had helped police to find the books.

Denise Fitzpatrick, for Buckley, said he had become depressed after his girlfriend left him: "Norman Buckley's motivation for taking these books was not financial. It was an emotional release."

Most of the books have been recovered. It's perfectly reasonable that Buckley blamed his actions on his ex-girlfriend. Because clearly the entire incident was her fault.

Andre Carregal writes "In the second edition of Programming in Lua Roberto Ierusalimschy presents the Lua programming Language in a simple yet precise format for both novice and advanced programmers." Read the rest of Andre's review.

Queen guitarist Brian May is writing a book. And not just any book, mind you. A book on astronomy. Really.

Brian May traded rock 'n' roll for the big bang as he launched a book about the origins of the universe. May, who abandoned doctoral studies in astronomy to play guitar with '70s rock legends Queen, has returned to his first love as a co-author of the book "Bang! The Complete History of the Universe," which was launched Monday.

Co-written with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, presenters of the British Broadcasting Corp. astronomy program "The Sky at Night," the book recounts the formation of the universe from its origins more than 13 billion years ago and looks forward to its end, several billion years from now.

May, 59, whose guitar playing drives "We Will Rock You," "Bohemian Rhapsody" and other hits, sees similarities between his two great loves, music and astronomy.

"I think there's a sort of purity about both of them," he said recently, according to The Guardian newspaper. "Because you can immerse yourself in thoughts of the universe, or in music, and you're really abstracted. You're a million miles away from all your worries and personal problems and the dust and smoke of where you are."

Bang! The Complete History of the Universe is available for purchase on the website for the book. We'll be blasting "Bohemian Rhapsody" while we read it.

Adobe has announced some major upgrades to its ebook reading software. The new Rich Internet Application (RIA) is Flash-based and is designed for managing and reading ebooks and other digital media.

With native support for Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) as well as an XHTML-based reflow-centric publication format, Digital Editions delivers an engaging way to acquire, read, and manage content, including eBooks, digital magazines, digital newspapers and other digital publications. Initially available as a free public beta for Windows, Digital Editions will support Macintosh systems as a universal binary application, Linux platforms, as well as mobile phones and other embedded devices in future versions.

"Adobe Digital Editions builds on the ubiquitous reach of PDF and Flash and will further energize the eBook and digital publishing market," said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief operating officer at Adobe. "By creating a specialized, consumer-friendly application like Digital Editions, Adobe is ensuring publishers can securely deliver high-impact content to the widest possible audience, across hardware platforms, operating systems and devices."

*****

Digital Editions is designed to support a wide range of business models including public domain texts (open content), ad-supported content, library lending and other borrowing/subscription models, and the purchase of eBooks and digital content.

Digital Editions will integrate with a new hosted content authorization service to protect publisher's rights while maintaining ease-of-use for consumers. This new Adobe Digital Editions Protection Service, based on LiveCycle Policy Server, will allow publishers to choose from a flexible array of business models, with user-ID-based authorization that provides an improved user experience over competitive DRM models.

The new format makes publishers happy becuse of the Digital Rights Management components and should intrigue consumers with the ability to see animations and rich media. The format can also allow free, ad-supported content to be read. If you're interested, you can download a beta of the software here.

A number of reports say that O.J. Simpson is being paid $3.5 million for an autobiography in which he describes how he "hypothetically" might have murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

Relatives of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, the two victims of the 1994 double murder that made headlines around the world, expressed disgust and frustration that Simpson might be continuing to profit from a crime that most Americans are convinced he committed, despite his notorious acquittal.

"If this is true, that is blood money and it's evil and disgusting," said Denise Brown, the sister of Simpson?s former wife who has become a prominent campaigner against domestic violence. ?Any company that actually pays him for this is just as bad as he is." The book is reported to have the working title If I Did It. Details were published by the National Enquirer newspaper last week on the same day that Goldman's father, Fred, launched a new court attempt to seize some of Simpson's assets in part repayment of a $33.5m judgment against him after he lost a 1997 civil court case.

The former American-football star has never paid a cent of the judgment, despite the civil court's finding that he was responsible for Brown and Goldman's deaths. "It is horribly frustrating and at the same time demoralising for Fred Goldman and his family, especially when they read about things like this," said Jonathan Polak, a lawyer representing Goldman in an attempt to obtain rights to Simpson's income from selling autographs and appearing at sports celebrity events.

Polak added: "Simpson appears to be attempting to profit not off his football fame, but off the very thing that was so inhuman and that everyone knows he did." The National Enquirer's account could not be verified this weekend but the newspaper provided extensive details in a four-page report on what it called a "tell-all blockbuster". Simpson is said to describe how he "grabbed a knife from a man who accompanied him to Nicole's home ? and moments later found himself covered in blood and looking down on the bodies of Nicole and Ron".

How absolutely vile.

Simon P. Chappell writes "Is there anyone left in our industry that hasn't heard of Ajax, the ultimate client-side technology for web developers? Like many, I've read several books on it and now I'm even brushing up on JavaScript so that I can try it out. There is, however, an aspect of Ajax that often seems to get lost in the rush to play with the new browser tricks; Ajax enhanced web applications still need to work closely with server-side components. To even up the balance of books that concentrate on the browser end of Ajax, Apress brings us Practical Ajax Projects with Java Technology by Frank W. Zammetti.

SciFi.com reports on the adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's book, The Witches into a feature film.

Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro told SCI FI Wire that he wants to make a more faithful film version of Roald Dahl's dark fantasy children's book The Witches, which was adapted for the screen once before, in 1990, by director Nicholas Roeg. "I liked a lot of the Roeg film, but I really, really disliked that the ending was changed, because I think the essence of the Dahl story is that the kid remains a mouse," said del Toro, who said The Witches is his favorite Dahl book. "Having said that, how the hell do I know that they won't change it on me again? They probably did that to Nicholas Roeg. So it may happen again. But I want to try."

In The Witches, a group of witches aims to rid England of all children, but their plot is thwarted by a resourceful little boy who won't give up, even after he's transformed into a tiny mouse.

Del Toro added: "Growing up, it was my favorite Dahl book. It was my favorite, because the witches represent adulthood. They represent the world. They represent all things that f--k up a kid. And I always thought it was great that the grandmother and the boy were essentially the same age and, therefore, were susceptible to witches that were in the guise of respectable old ladies. I thought Dahl has that subversive streak in him. It was there in his Unexpected tales, but it was also in his children's books. And much like H.H. Munro, Dahl has a very definitely sophisticated point of view on what the children's world is. That script is written. It's budgeted and awaiting a green light."

That sounds like an interesting film project.

PEN USA, the West Coast arm of International PEN, has announced the winners of the 2006 Literary Awards. The winners are:

Fiction: Wounded by Percival Everett

Creative Nonfiction: Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human, by Michael Chorost

Research Nonfiction: Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empires Slaves by Adam Hochschild

Poetry: Here, Bullet by Brian Turner

Children's Literature: The Tequila Worm, by Viola Canales

Translation: War Variations by Amelia Rosselli, translated by Lucia Re and Paul Vangelisti

Journalism: "Historian Iris Chang Won Many Battles/The War She Lost Raged Within," in the San Francisco Chronicle by Heidi Benson

Drama: Devil's Advocate by Donald Freed

Teleplay: Sucker Free City by Alex Tse

Screenplay: Good Night, And Good Luck by George Clooney and Grant Heslov

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Jane Smiley will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. The winners will receive $1,000 and will be feted at the Literary Awards Festival Gala Dinner on December 12, 2006. You can read more about the awards and PEN at the organization's website.

Writers Write, Inc. announces the launch of VideoNacho.com. VideoNacho.com features the Web's hottest short videos and film clips. Video Nacho's editors find the best videos on the Web so you don't have to: music, comedy, pets antics, social commentary: it just has to be entertaining. Enjoy a delicious short new video snack every afternoon. Calorie-free, it's sure to give you a lift!

VideoNacho.com is the twentieth blog to join the Writers Write Lifestyle Network. It follows the launch in May, 2006 of WatchersWatch.com, a blog covering what's hot in movies and television.

Michael J. Ross writes "Experienced and conscientious Web developers, in their efforts to learn from the mistakes of others and to avoid repeating them on their own projects, tend to accumulate tips and recommendations for the many aspects of successfully creating Web sites. These best practices take the form of bookmarked Web pages, saved articles, downloaded PDF files, scribbled notes on scraps of paper, and hastily created documents that will be better organized one of these days, when the developer's schedule becomes less hectic (sure...). Being difficult if not impossible to find later, these pearls of wisdom are rarely consulted before or during each new Web site project. What the developer needs is a book that brings together as many of these best practices as possible, without being overwhelming. Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists may be the answer." Read the rest of Michael's review.

Ravi writes "Asynchronous Javascript And Xml, popularly known as Ajax, is a combination of Javascript, XML and some coding on the server side. Even though this technology existed for years, many believe it was Google which brought it to the front by implementing it on its sites and thus raising it to the cult status it enjoys now. There is something magical in seeing a website update its content without reloading the whole page, which is the visual essence of Ajax." Read the rest of Ravi's review.

Robert Slade reviews Frauds, Spies and Lies by Fred Cohen, and finds it a cut above your average IS Security Book:
Over the years, lots of books have promised to teach us how to deal with social enginering, fraudulent practices, con jobs, deceit, and just plain old lies. There are the pedestrian warnings that it is dangerous out there, such as Barrett's "Bandits on the Information Superhighway". Or Mintz' listing of nasty Websites in "Web of Deception". Or the repetitive recounting of confidence games in Mitnick and Simon's "The Art of Deception". Generally these works retail similar stories, with little variation and even less analysis.

Cohen's slim volume is a bit different.

Markus reviews Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion by Wayne G Hammond and Christina Scull, the definitive guide to JRR Tolkien's writings in the LOTR Universe.

A very impressive piece of work, and the perfect present for all die-hard fans, although be prepared - they'll bore you with even more detailed trivia afterwards ;-)

Simon P. Chappell writes "We've all seen them, those icons that decorate blogs and websites; sometimes they're just little orange squares with white stripes, while others say RSS or Atom. Many of us have heard of feeds and podcasts and aggregators. What are these things and where did they come from? Well, Dave Johnson, the author of the open source Roller blogging software, is glad you asked and by way of an answer, he's written RSS and Atom in Action." Read the rest of Simon's review.

Ravi writes "It is a fact that GNU/Linux has grown from a hackers operating system to be a viable alternative to any commercial proprietary operating system. And the plethora of books on Linux that are being published underlines the popularity of this OS. There are hundreds of flavors of Linux distributions — some of them more popular than the others. Ubuntu Linux is one such distribution which has caught the fancy of many Linux enthusiasts and which enjoys the number one position in the popularity rating chart." Read the rest of Ravi's review.

Robert Slade reviews A Primer for Disaster Recovery Planning in an IT Environment by Charlotte J. Hiatt, and is not convinced:
It is interesting to note that the introduction says nothing about the purpose of the book (and does suggest that those planning for disaster recovery can benefit from bringing in consultants).
There are several oddities in this work. The chapters are not numbered, and most are very short. The Appendices (mostly forms) are longer than the text of the book itself.
While the material is fundamentally sound, it is neither extensive nor particularly related to information technology as such. Details of options and alternatives are scant. [...]

Markus reviews Lord of the Shadows, the third instalment of the Second Sons Trilogy by Jennifer Fallon, and finds it to be the best of the lot (he actually suggests that this should have been at least 5 books, given how the quality improves from Book 1 to Book 2 to this one!) – the Trilogy ends on a High.

Dirk, now Lord of the Shadows, is still playing out his Masterplan on how to destroy the Shadowdancers whilst apparently betraying everyone and everything; meanwhile everyone else seems to be hell-bent on destroying him – for good reason, it appears? As things come to several climaxes the cast really starts dieing…

Trent Lucier writes "Why Software Sucks professes to be a book for computer users, not programmers. Author David Platt wants to be the informant, pulling back the curtain on software development so mere mortals can get a glimpse inside the sausage factory. Platt flaunts his geek cred, all the while implying that he's not one of those geeks. But ultimately, trite observations and a condescending tone left me wishing that the book would end long before it did." Read the rest of Trent's review.

Carla Schroder writes "IPv6 is halfway here, so network administrators need to learn their way around it whether they want to or not. Adoption has been slower in the United States because we possess the lion's share of IPv4 addresses, but even so, someday IPv4 is going away for good. And, there is more to it than just increasing the pool of available addresses. IPv6 has enough improvements over IPv4 to make it worth the change even if we weren't running out of IPV4 addresses, such as built-in IPSec, simplified routing and administration, and scalability that IPv4 simply can't support. We're moving into gigabyte and multi-gigabyte backbones, and high-demand real-time services like voice-over-IP and streaming audio and video that require sophisticated QoS (quality of service) and bandwidth prioritization. IPv6 can handle these, IPv4 can't." Read on for the rest of Carla's review.