It wasn’t all bad

When Brunonia Barry of Salem, Mass., wrote her novel The Lace Reader, she didn’t send it to a mainstream publisher. Instead, she and her husband published the book themselves and spent $50,000 promoting and distributing it. Within a few months, bookstore owners, teachers, and editors were raving about the quirky mystery tale of a young woman who can read the future in the patterns of Ipswich lace. A bidding war ensued, and William Morrow ultimately bought the book for more than $2 million. “Everybody told us this would never work,” said Barry, “and that what we were trying to do never happens.”

Researchers at the South Pole now have a luxurious new $153 million habitat to ease their subzero, icebound isolation. Able to accommodate up to 150 people, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station offers a host of amenities, including a gym, a sauna, Internet access, a game room, an arts and crafts center, a chapel, and a hydroponic farming complex. The building is constructed on hydraulic jacks that can raise it up to 24 feet above the encroaching snow. Best of all, for the first time at the South Pole, each person has his or her own quarters and even a window. “Single rooms are big for morale,” said station construction manager Jerry Marty.

When a relative gave Gan Shugen of Chengdu City, China, a chicken stuffed in a thick plastic bag, its legs bound with tape, he figured it was dead and put it in his freezer. Two days later, upon opening the door, he found it was very much alive. “I heard weak sounds and when I opened the bag a head popped out,” he said. “It was still warm and when I removed the tape, she could stand.” Gan will now keep the chicken as a pet. “If she survived in a freezer for two days,” said Li Fazhi, a Chinese veterinarian, “that’s magic.”

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