Blog Headline of the Week
Worthwhile Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- A memoir of living with a brain tumour (“I think that loss of speech, and of understanding of speech, and of understanding of writing, and of coherent writing – these losses will amount to the loss of my mind.”) (via)
- The loan arranger (“We are granted an illusion of ownership, but may read only within the ecosystem of hardware and software supported by the bookseller with sometimes additional limitations imposed by publishers.”) (via)
Bookish Linkage
- A fifth grade teacher reading passages from a book about slavery aloud to the class leads to a lawsuit claiming it amounted to racial bias and harassment of an African-American student in the class.
- If you haven’t heard, there’s efforts underway to “correctly shelve and categorize” Dubya’s memoirs. (But, ewww, then I’d have to touch it!)
- Somewhat related, the NYTBR looks back at the Committee to Boycott Nixon’s Memoirs.
- The worst book ever to win a Hugo?
Nonbookish Linkage
- Sports writer Joe Posnanski writes an extraordinary post about Bruce Springsteen’s “The Promise,” written for the Darkness on the Edge of Town LP but not officially released until 1999 and which gives the name to new CD of Darkness session recordings and a massive box set on the LP. (via)
- I Am a Blogger No Longer (via)
When the promise is broken you go on living
But it steals something from down in your soul
“The Promise,” Bruce Springsteen, 18 Tracks
Though I’m a writer, my “day job” is teaching, and I can tell you that these harassment-type lawsuits and complaints against one teacher are the quickest way to make all teachers give up on trying anything alive or new.