Weekend Edition: 3-21

Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes

• If You Don’t Like Reading, You’re Doing It Wrong(“I am afraid too many people are stuck in the same place I was 9 years ago. They do not hold reading with disdain or harsh feelings. They simply do not know how to love reading. They are stuck with the notion that reading is tolerable and enjoyable if the subject is just right.”)
• The Scourge of Coffee (“Coffee is a social scam in that we are compelled to believe that it energizes our interactions with one another, when it actually saps our drive — caffeine is scientific proof of the law of diminishing returns — while diverting our attention away from substantive discourse.”)

Saddest Societal Commentary of the Week

• James Patterson is the world’s best-selling author of the 21st Century

Security Breach of the Week

• Three Pakistani policemen guarding the prime minister’s home were suspended after a cat ate one of his peacocks

Bookish Linkage

• I’ve never been ashamed to say that I dislike Shakespeare (immensely) but at least he’s good for something
• The Harvard Classics, a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature, is now free online
• The UK has a petition going to Let Books Be Books
• Just three percent of some 3,200 children’s books received by the Children’s Book Center last year were about black people
• In light of recent events, The AAUP’s Books for Understanding has released a list of books on the history and culture of Ukraine
• How to Poo on a Date won the 36th annual Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year

Nonbookish Linkage

• Here’s a wonderful example of karma at work
• 774 words you can’t say on a Mongolian website
• More government files were censored or access denied under the Freedom of Information Act last year than at any other time in the Obama presidency
• Encouraging or advising someone else to commit suicide is not a crime, at least in Minnesota

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest