Weekend Edition: 5-29

Bulletin Board

• This week I used two new resources for disposing of barely used books. Through Operation Paperback, I shipped 29 books off to a USO library in Kuwait. And thanks to Books for Soldiers, four history books are on their way to a member of the Air Force in Iraq and six relatively recent novels and a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird are heading for a camp in northern Afghanistan. I figure books are a welcome diversion for someone far away from home and family. Keep these organizations in mind if you have books (or money) to donate.
• While I’m not a particular fan of the genre, Lee Child, America’s current bestselling author, will be at the local B&N Tuesday evening for a reading and signing. Child’s 61 Hours, set in South Dakota, debuted this week at the top of the NYT fiction hardcover bestseller list and second on USA Today‘s Top 150 Best-Selling Books list.

Blog Headline of the Week

• Medical Study Reveals That Headbangers Are at Risk for Headbanging

Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes

• What happens when you throw three men who believe they are Jesus Christ together? (Neatorama)
• World War II graffiti (also Neatorama)

Bookish Linkage

• Coming immediately on the heels of the study I posted about this week about the importance of books in homes with children, the National Literary Trust in the UK has a report forthcoming indicating that more young people own a cellphone than books of their own.
• Unquestionably, a ton of the reading I did when a kid was comic books. Although they predate my era, there’s a great archive of public domain Golden Age comics at the Digital Comic Museum. (Neat New Stuff on the Web)
• Why real book lovers read SF. (Kittling: Books)
• Mark Twain — yes, THAT Mark Twain — is releasing the first volume of his autobiography this year.
• Five books that can save the world.
• Bookshelf porn, more bookshelf porn and book cover porn (in a good sense).

Nonbookish Linkage

• It’s not official but I encourage people to support Simon Smithson’s proposal that Wednesday be the first annual Hey. Don’t Be An Asshole Today Day.
• While the UK finally recognizes it amounted to “serious professional misconduct” and yanks the license of the physician who claimed vaccines were linked to autism, the damage he caused is irreversible.