Karl Rove ranges on to new ground with summer book club

His influence over US readers may fall short of Oprah's, but growing numbers are joining the ex-presidential adviser's projec


Karl Rove, who once held reading contests with George W Bush, has started a book club with news anchor Clayton Morris. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Karl Rove, the former deputy chief of staff to George W Bush and the man known as "Bush's brain", has started a summer book club.

With 349 members and counting, the club – which Rove launched with Fox News channel anchor Clayton Morris – has already tackled Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848. Its readers are currently engrossed in the Brad Thor thriller Foreign Influence, in which a former navy Seal investigates the death of a group of American students in a bombing in Italy.

Rove and Morris have each selected eight books, and the public will vote every week on which one they want to read. The political strategist is an author himself, publishing his memoir Courage and Consequence earlier this year. And he has always been keen to show his credentials as a reader, writing in the Wall Street Journal back in 2008 about the reading contests he used to undertake with Bush, when the pair would race to complete the greatest number of books in a year.

"Much like Oprah we've got sass and now our own book club too," said Morris. But Rove is under no illusions that "Karl and Clayton's Summer Book Club" can match Winfrey in all departments, responding to Politico's suggestion that it might match Oprah's mighty influence over America's book charts with a terse "No, it won't.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

The Technology newsbucket: Directions from Yoda, iOS4 gets "Bolt-ed" in test with Android Froyo, and more

We are know The Technology newsbucket: Directions from Yoda, iOS4 gets "Bolt-ed" in test with Android Froyo, and more
Also in today's newsbucket: RIM needs a boost with new BlackBerry, Nokia enlists Russian officials, and visit London in retro fashion


It's a NASA game: Want. 3D. now.

There are 75million US adults on the mobile internet, more than half of them daily >> Search Engine Land
An interesting trio of US-centric surveys giving insight into the near future of m-commerce and consumer behaviour while on the smartphone.

Mobile web use and the digital divide >> New York Times
"The image of the affluent and white cellphone owner as the prototypical mobile Web user seems to be a mistaken one, according to a report published Wednesday by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Center."

RIM needs a lift with Blackberry 6 >> BusinessWeek
Despite Her Royal Highness joining the customer base, RIM needs a boost with their next operating system release

Video: Yoda recording TomTom GPS - behind the scenes
Yoda joins Darth Vader and C-3PO to provide voices to navigate you to your destination

Android 2.2 demolishes iOS4 in JavaScript benchmarks >> ars technica
Interesting - looks like Apple have some work to do...

Nokia pulls an Apple, enlists police to retrieve prototype N8 smartphone from blogger >> VentureBeat
It's one of those questions: would you keep the prototype, set up a blog or return it immediately..?
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

China finds more milk tainted with deadly melamine

this is to China finds more milk tainted with deadly melamine

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities have found dairy products in at least two provinces tainted with an industrial chemical that killed six babies and sickened thousands more in 2008, state media said Friday.

The discovery suggests toxic milk remains a lingering danger in China despite a crackdown two years ago that saw dozens arrested and two people, a dairy farmer and a milk salesmen, executed.

Some of the recently found milk was powder that state media said was likely stockpiled instead of destroyed two years ago.

Melamine is added to watered-down milk to make it appear rich in protein in quality tests that measure nitrogen, found in both the melamine and protein. Health problems from the chemical include kidney stones and kidney damage.

In June authorities found 64 tons of raw materials for making milk powder and 12 tons of finished powder tainted with melamine at a factory in the far western province of Qinghai, the official Xinhua News Agency said. In a separate case, they said they seized about 1,000 packets of tainted milk powder in the northeastern province of Jilin.

Xinhua said the owner and a production manager from the factory in Qinghai have been detained. The report said some of the milk products at the Dongyuan Dairy Factory had 500 times the legal limit for melamine. It did not say whether there were any reports of people getting sick from the dairy's products.

The report said some of the material was believed to be old powder that should have been destroyed in 2008 amid a crackdown on tainted milk but that it was stored instead.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010