Category Archives: Books

Books

Judge Put Coded Message Into “Da Vinci Code” Judgement

Posted on by

The BBC reports that Mr Justice Peter Smith encoded a message into his judgement on the “Da Vinci Code” copyright case.

Seemingly random italicised letters were included in the 71-page judgement given by Mr Justice Peter Smith, which apparently spell out a message. […]

Italicised letters in the first few pages spell out “Smithy Code”, while the following pages also contain marked out letters.

I liked the fact he said:

I can’t discuss the judgement, but I don’t see why a judgement should not be a matter of fun,

Nice one your honour. 🙂

Common Sense Rules in UK Book Copyright Case

Posted on by

Hooray, it appears that the law and common sense has triumphed in the case of Baigent & Leigh versus The Random House Group Limited over the fiction work “The Da Vinci Code“. From the judgement:

2.1 Holy Blood Holy Grail does not have a Central Theme as contended by the Claimants: it was an artificial creation for the purposes of the litigation working back from the Da Vinci Code.

and

2.3 Even if the Central Themes were copied they are too general or of too low a level of abstraction to be capable of protection by copyright law.

Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006) and Pro Hart (1928-2006) – RIP

Posted on by

A sad day for the arts with the loss of a Polish science fiction author and an australian painter.

Stanislaw Lem has died (Via Alec – though it’s not obvious unless you grok Unix humour or click on the link). A controversial character, he was the author of books such as The Cyberiad and The Futurological Congress.

Pro Hart has also died (via ABC news) who had been ill with motor neuron disease. He was largely self taught and is famous for his “cannon art” where Christmas tree balls were filled with paint and fired at a canvas by a home made cannon.

The Jumbled Jigsaw arrives!

Posted on by

Well the author copies of Donna’s 9th published book The Jumbled Jigsaw have arrived with a fab cover featuring a lovely painting by Donna called the Music of Beingness!

Hopefully it’ll stir up the autism field into realising that there is far more diversity in the causes of the symptoms that get labelled as “Autism” and that a diagnosis of autism confers no magic resistance to things like Tourettes, OCD, bipolar or anything else that the rest of the population gets.

“Everyday Heaven” arrived..

Posted on by

Well Donna’s author copy of her new book,
Everyday Heaven, has arrived! I guess this means it’ll appearing in bookshops soon. 🙂

It’s kind of odd to know that part of your life has been written about and is now out there for anyone to read.

The book is great (I know, I’m biased!) and you can find it at
Amazon.com

The book is, of course, a followup to her best selling autobiography Nobody Nowhere and its sequels
Somebody Somewhere and Like Colour to the Blind.