Weekend marginalia

What began as a relatively brief midweek collection of items that caught my attention morphed into a much longer list as the week progressed.

• A hat tip to Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading for one of the most innovative books of the year lists. Jenny Davidson at Light Reading also gets a nod for starting her list with her favorite unread books of the year. (Although you have to wonder how she manages to read that many books and still have time to write and teach!)
• NPR lets three independent booksellers suggest books for holiday gifts.
• BookTV will be giving viewers an inside look at the operations of the NYT Book Review.
• For the second year in a row Seattle ranked first and Minneapolis second in a study of America’s Most Literate Cities. St. Paul moved from a tie for ninth to third place while Omaha remained ranked 31. Stockton, Calif., finished last for the second year in a row.
• Regret The Error Wednesday released The Crunks, its annual awards for media errors and corrections. Awards go out for correction of the year (which won due to the phrase “no revellers dived into bedrooms in search of drunken romps”) and apology of the year. The site/blog also shows why it was not a good year if you were interested in reducing plagiarism.
• The Science Fiction Book Club blog has picked Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End as its SF book of the year. As my review indicated, I wouldn’t call it this year’s best. I enjoyed one of the runners-up, Glasshouse by Charlie Stross (review here), much more but am unfamiliar with the other runner-up, Farthing by Jo Walton.
• Project Gutenberg, which provides free e-books, now has a science fiction bookshelf.
• Although not directly SF related, there’s a fascinating site on the anatomy of a black hole. Be warned, though, it is shockwave and flash intensive. (Via Amy on the Web.)
• John Scalzi gives us an updated list of the top 51 personal blogs in science fiction and fantasy. As he notes, it is based solely on Technorati rankings.
• My reviews of two CDs in the Riverside Profiles series — Chet Baker and Bill Evans — both were Editors’ Picks this week at Blogcritics.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World