BEFORE the internet, book recommendations traveled at the rate of sound. You had to talk to someone to pass on word about what to read. Or read it in a review. Or write a letter. Now you can go to the website of a newspaper, a magazine, or a literary blog to find out what's new and what's good.

But with all this connectivity, it felt like a moment had yet to be seized about finding out what a lot of people said was good.

Apparently the National Book Critics Circle has yet to receive their MemeStreams invitation.

And what better people to ask than award winning novelists, historians, poets, critics and biographers?

These are the pie-in-the-sky notions that prompted the National Book Critics Circle to create a monthly Best Recommended List. Polling our nearly 800 members, as well as all the former finalists and winners of our book prize, we asked, What 2007 books have you read that you have truly loved?

CRITICAL MASS: Introducing the NBCC's Best Recommended

This year's Favorite Books issue has a retrospective feel. Inside, you'll find pieces on the pioneering comics artist Winsor McCay and children's author Beverly Cleary, as well as a reflection on rereading and a look at the lingering influence of the chapbook.

The joy of reading: Favorite Books of 2007

11) This is not a bailout.
10) The Paulson mortgage plan does not violate any contracts.
9) There will be no lawsuits from investors (other than lawsuits that would have happened anyway).
8) These are not teaser rates.
7) The plan is voluntary - not a mandate - and this is not government regulation.
6) The plan targets homeowners with weak credit who owe more than their house is worth.
5) This is an industry / investor plan. This is about helping the investors.
4) The savings for the investors will be small.
3) Recidivism will be high.
2) For the Home Builders: Nothing.
1) The purpose of the plan is to publicize that lenders will modify loans.

The goal of this plan is get homeowners to pick up the phone.

Eleven things to know about the Freeze

The collection and analysis of OSINT information will be ultimately judged by its contribution to the overall intelligence effort. Collecting information from open sources is generally less expensive and less risky than collection from other intelligence sources. The use of OSINT may result not only in monetary savings but also in less risk than utilizing sensitive technical and human sources. OSINT can also provide insights into the types of developments that may not be on the priority list for other systems or may not be susceptible to collection through other intelligence approaches — innovative applications of new technologies, shifts in popular attitudes, emergence of new political and religious movements, growing popular discontent, disillusionment with leadership, etc. Supporters of OSINT maintain that the future contribution of the Intelligence Community will be enhanced by its ability to provide detailed information and incisive analyses of such developments. This report will be updated as new information becomes available.

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): Issues for Congress

Above all, White Sun of the Desert celebrates Russian men. Perhaps that is the secret of the film's enduring success and why it is still one of the top five bestselling DVDs in Russia. Ravaged by alcoholism and cursed with plunging life expectancy, Russian men today need reasons to feel good about themselves. Blue-eyed Comrade Sukhov fits the bill. He is the embodiment of Russian macho cool, the sort of guy who serenely lights his cigarette with a smouldering bunch of dynamite. Even in the dramatic final shoot-out on the beach, he remains laconic and unruffled.

This sangfroid appealed to Soviet cosmonauts. Bizarrely, White Sun has become a lucky talisman, ritually watched to this day before each and every launch. Even the recent space tourist Charles Simonyi had to sit through it. "Not bad for a Soviet movie," concluded the Hungarian-born Microsoft billionaire when I called him on his yacht in the Mediterranean. Georgiy Grechko, who made three Soyuz flights and trained with Yuri Gagarin, compares the film to a "tuning fork".

Wild, wild east

I've long been peeved by the ambiguity of phrases like the name of this club. What's so secret? Is it a secret club about open science? Or is it an open club about secret science? Maybe it's a nonexistent club about the science of contradiction.

The Secret Science Club is a free science lecture and arts series. It is open to the public and meets the first Wednesday of every month in the basement of Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

So how do you keep the science secret? If you read the article by Thomas Powers about the Nine little words in the NIE, then you know that

One of the basic laws of intelligence is that no big secret can be kept that can be written on the back of an envelope.

So I guess these secrets must be like the toner in The Diamond Age:

"See, there's mites around all the time. They use sparkles to talk to each other," Harv explained. "They're in the food and water, everywhere. And there's rules that these mites are supposed to follow. They're supposed to break down into safe pieces... But there are people who break those rules [so the] Protocol Enforcement guys make a mite to go out and find that mite and kill it. This dust - we call it toner - is actually the dead bodies of all those mites.

Secret Science Club

A cyber attack reported last week by one of the federal government’s nuclear weapons laboratories may have originated in China, according to a confidential memorandum distributed Wednesday to public and private security officials by the Department of Homeland Security.

China Link Suspected in Lab Hacking

Mexican telephone and retail magnate Carlos Slim, in a rare defeat, will exit the U.S. consumer electronics market, shutting the last 100 CompUSA Inc. stores after sinking about $2 billion into the business.

I was just in a CompUSA recently and had no idea they were in the death throes.

Last CompUSA Stores to Close

One of my Republican brothers told me he wished he could vote for “a Protestant Mitt Romney.”

The problem with Mitt is not his religion; it is his overeager policy shape-shifting. He did not give a brave speech, but a pandering one. Disguised as a courageous, Kennedyesque statement of principle, the talk was really just an attempt to compete with the evolution-disdaining, religion-baiting Huckabee and get Baptists to concede that Mormons are Christians.

“J.F.K.’s speech was to reassure Americans that he wasn’t a religious fanatic,” Mr. Krakauer agreed. “Mitt’s was to tell evangelical Christians, ‘I’m a religious fanatic just like you.’”

The world is globalizing, nuclear weapons are proliferating, the Middle East is seething, but Republicans are still arguing the Scopes trial.

Mitt’s No JFK

Advertisers discover Deep Packet Inspection.

CenturyTel Inc., a Monroe, La., phone company that provides Internet access and long-distance calling services, is facing stiff competition from cellphone companies and cable operators. So to diversify, it's getting into the online-advertising business.

And not just any online advertising. The technology it's using could change the way the $16.9 billion Internet ad market works, bringing in a host of new players -- and giving consumers fresh concerns about their privacy.

CenturyTel's system allows it to observe and analyze the online activities of its Internet customers, keeping tabs on every Web site they visit. The equipment is made by a Silicon Valley start-up called NebuAd Inc. and installed right into the phone company's network. NebuAd takes the information it collects and offers advertisers the chance to place online ads targeted to individual consumers. NebuAd and CenturyTel get paid whenever a consumer clicks on an ad.

Watching What You See on the Web