Midweek marginalia

Normally, this week is fairly laid back with plenty of time to read and get caught up. For some reason, that’s not true this year and besides work committments I have a couple reviews I haven’t started. Therefore, a dose of linkage:

This year’s edition of Scott Hudson’s top 10 people who should get out of town is up. I certainly agree with the top three and, in fact, number three was a pet peeve of mine the entire summer.
Another interesting take on why people don’t read SF. (Via SF Signal.) I had not read any of the prior columns by this writer and she appears to have quite a few interesting ones, including why some of us do read science fiction and how writers can deal with bad reviews.
The last link goes to something I’ve been meaning to comment on but haven’t. John Scalzi evidently did not need to read the column on coping with bad reviews. His forthcoming book got panned by the so-called SF columnist at the NYT Book Review. Scalizi’s view? How often does a writer get a full page of the review devoted to him? Scalzi also reports on the fallout from the review. The fallout here. It got me to take The Ghost Brigades out of the TBR pile and read it over the weekend.
SF Signal takes a quick look at how bookstores die while Reuters reports on the closure of an independent bookstore in NYC and Amazon says this holiday season was its “best ever.”