• On Censorship (“Even more serious is the growing acceptance of the don’t-rock-the-boat response to those artists who do rock it, the growing agreement that censorship can be justified when certain interest groups, or genders, or faiths declare themselves affronted by a piece of work.”)

Blog Headlines of the Week

• Live nude planets!
• Another way to get rich off Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg’s former assistant writes memoir

Bookish Linkage

• A Harvard Business Review study shows Amazon reviews of books are, on average, at least as good as those of professional book critics. (via)
• While not advocating banning any books, Flavorwire suggests 10 books far more deserving of being banned from libraries than 50 Shades of Grey (which, by the way, is the bestselling book of the year on Amazon).
• I am almost embarrassed to admit that I am one of these people, although I bought them for my wife.
• Flavorwire also has a list of 10 young adult novels that “scarred us for life.”
• Characters who swear in teen fiction are more likely to be wealthier, more attractive and more popular or socially influential, according to a study by Brigham Young University.
• Where do e-books go when you die?
• The Art of Passionately Hating at Least One Classic Author
• Amazon list the top 20 most well-read cities — based on its data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales. Or, put another way, the top 20 most Amazon-addicted cities.
• New Vermont bookstore says to customers, “Bring in an Amazon Box & Get 25% Off a Book.” (via)
• Why rock novels rarely work
• Blooms of Darkness by Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld won the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
• The shortlist for the first Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were announced — and I’ve actually read one of the three finalists in each category.

Nonbookish Linkage

• Top 10 mysteries of the universe
• The GAO has completed “its study of a study ordered by the Pentagon into studies ordered by the Pentagon.”

Weird Shit of the Week

• A man was arrested in Bangkok for possessing six human fetuses roasted and covered in gold leaf, which police said were packed in his luggage. (via)

Counting Crows, “All My Friends,” This Desert Life

• Siouxland Libraries now has a mobile app. I’ve been playing with it for about a week and the speed with which it searches the catalog is quite impressive.

Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes

• Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught In School (“6. Behaving yourself is as important as getting good marks.”)
• Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath? (“I’ve always said that Michael will grow up to be either a Nobel Prize winner or a serial killer.”)

Bookish Linkage

• I must say I agree with Beth Hutchens’ view on the moral quandry posed by libraries banning Fifty Shades of Grey.
• How should we treat yesterday’s racist books?
• Fictional characters can change our behavior
• The Atlantic asks, “Could the Internet Save Book Reviews?” while Scott Esposito asks if someone can save criticism from The Atlantic
• Is the Novel Dead?
• The B&N Review looks at libricide
• The Most Read Books in the World
• Granted, the list is from an international Pakastani newspaper, but I would still have a hard time with its 10 books to reread this summer since I’ve only read one to begin with.
• A Beginner’s Guide to Crime Fiction

Nonbookish Linkage

• Did humans survive because we were domesticated by dogs?
• Verizon refused to help police locate unconscious man unless they paid his phone bill.
• The gruesome history of eating corpses as medicine
• My “microhate” tolerance level is much lower than this Atlantic editor’s — and could actually probably be called “macrohate”
• Why we need music
• Why things happen

Joe Gores

• May is World in Translation Month, where independent book stores promote literature in translation.

Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes

http://prairieprogressive.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=12558&action=edit
• The Enemy Within (“If America stopped searching for goblins under the bed, it might actually be able to reset its economic priorities and start investing in the things that would make the country stronger, more prosperous, and safer again[.]“) (via)
• Read no evil – Senior censor defends work, denies playing Big Brother (“The censors who are responsible for censoring books and other publications do an interesting job, which becomes harder during some periods of the year, yet it seems they enjoy it.”) (via)

Blog Headline of the Week

• Castration: The Advantages and the Disadvantages

Bookish Linkage

• Why fiction is good for you
• Wieslaw Mysiliwski’s Stone Upon Stone won the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.
• Jane Rogers’ The Testament of Jessie Lamb (which will be released in the US later this month) won the 2012 Arthur C Clarke Award.

Nonbookish Linkage

• A study suggests the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists.
• For Rod Serling fans like me, two worthy Twilight Zone-related worthy reads: “The State Is Not God!“: How Rod Serling Addressed Social Inequality in The Twilight Zone and Rod Serling’s Time and Space Craft. (via)
• The absurdity and wonder of presidential candidates.
• Facebook “likes” aren’t protected by the First Amendment. (via)

Weird Shit of the Week

• Man Forced to do Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk at Gunpoint
• Dentist Under Investigation After Removing Every Tooth From Mouth Of Ex-Boyfriend

Rod Serling, quoted in “Rod Serling: On the Way to Fame“

• Monday is International Jazz Day.

Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes

• A teacher, a student and a 39-year-long lesson in forgiveness (“The beauty of an apology is that everyone wins because it reveals not only who we are, but who we hope we are.”)
• The capital of the forgetful (“There is a slow-moving tsunami of dementia advancing towards us as our population ages.”) (via)

Bookish Linkage

• Despite 15 years of talk, one of my Desert Island Books, The Sparrow, is no closer to the big screen. But I’m not complaining about Mary Doria Russell’s reason: “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life apologizing to people who would feel betrayed by a screen adaptation that didn’t face up to the central issues of the story.”
• Book Reviews: A Tortured History
• Reading and the art of ‘rerouting’
• The most cryptic titles in literature
• Should there be an Instagram for books?
• It’s Not So Easy Giving Away Books: World Book Night US

Nonbookish Linkage

• So where did the Supreme Court justices deciding the fate of Arizona’s immigration law come from? (via)
• Ooops. Magazine photographers drop a 2,600-year-old terracotta statue while moving it for a photo, destroying it.

Johnny Griffin, quoted in Talking Jazz

• Monday is World Book Night
• Voting in the Independent Book Blogger Awards ends Monday night.

Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes

• Death and the Library (“In a house of readers, what, more than books, allows access to the inner lives of its occupants?”)
• Tracking Creation in Glen Rose (“In the beginning, God created dinosaurs and humans, and they walked together in Texas.”)
• Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012 (“To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet.”) (via)

Bookish Linkage

• What city buys the most e-eaders?
• How Frederick Manfred changed a reporter’s life
• In case you’ve been in seclusion or comatose this week, under a rock, I have good reason for not reading this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction — there wasn’t one.
• 10 Famous Novels That Didn’t Win a Pulitzer Prize
• The 2011 LA Times Book Prizes were announced last night.
• Example 9,684 of why Twitter/Facebook culture should not influence publishing decisions: “Shit Girls Say” Lands a Book Deal

Nonbookish Linkage

• John Brennan is my hero of the week
• Does cold weather cause witch trials?
• The best and worst comments sections (in terms of commenters) on online sites and magazines.
• Ted Nugent offers voters real incentive to vote for Obama in November

Nick Harkaway, Angelmaker