Although I’ve moved from PC hell to PC purgatory (my Catholic upbringing is showing), I remain far behind on a variety of things. So here’s a link version of a number of items, several of which were initially intended for longer posts. More substantive posting to resume shortly.
- As a follow-up to my illiterati post, it seems I also would be in the category based on Time magazine’s list of the All-Time 100 Novels. I have not read a majority of them but do have a few bones to pick. Most notablyl, how can this year’s Never Let Me Go (review here) already be classified as among the best 100 novels of the last 80+ years?
- Speaking of bests, the Rolling Stone cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono has been selected as the top magazine cover of the last 40 years. (Via Blog of a Bookslut). Coincidentally, I was speaking with someone over the weekend about how hard it is to believe that December will mark the 25th anniversary of Lennon’s murder.
- John at SFSignal (which was added to the blogroll at right a while ago) has updated his SF/F writers who blog.
- The winner of the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage I mentioned last week has been announced. Alexandra Fuller won for Scribbling the Cat, a story of her travels in Africa with a white Rhodesian war veteran. (Via The Millions).
- As displayed in the NYT’s own big, but confusing, article Sunday on Judy Miller, the split in the journalism community grows. A columnist at Editor & Publisher, a leading trade mag for newspaper journalism, says Miller should be fired for “crimes against journalism.” At the same time, Miller today received the First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Although I used to belong to the SPJ (I dropped my membership when I was no longer an active journalist), I tend toward the columnist’s viewpoint.
- Finally, while I’m still waiting to learn more about her, I can’t help but repeat one item from the CW Watch in last week’s Newsweek on Harriet Miers: “Once called Bush ‘most brilliant man I have ever met.’ What does that say about her judging experience?” And don’t miss this cartoon from Mike Luckovich at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which is being reprinted in Newsweek this week.
Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
Austin Phelps
