Weekend Edition: 1-14

Worthwhile Reading in the Interweb Tubes

• In the Land of the Non-Reader (“As a non-reader I felt free to happily non-think all day.”) (via)
• The Remains of an Illegal and Immoral War (“The rate of birth defects in Fallujah is 14 times the rate after our nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II!”)

Bookish Linkage

• The Economist has a Q&A with my favorite Scandinavian author, Per Petterson. Among the gems: “We are locked up in our own minds, although we instinctively reach out to each other for compassion, solidarity, understanding, and we often succeed, it should not be forgotten.” (via)
• Gee, I’m part of the Bermuda Book Review Triangle
• Toni Morrison’s Beloved is supposedly written to about a fifth-grade reading level, one of the reasons it is being challenged in Michigan.
• A U.K. literati says “the useful art of skimming” is justified because “there are some passages in great novels that are so profoundly boring they should not detain our attention.”
• The Tournament of Books has begun. (I’ve read three of the “Sweet 16.”)

Nonbookish Linkage

• My friend and former RCJ colleague Mike Sanborn makes some honest observations on Bill Janklow that I haven’t really seen elsewhere in the media or blogosphere.
• North Dakota tries to be cool, fails
• The Red Flags of Quackery (via)
• Great moments in regulatory idiocy
• New research suggests heavy Facebook users are more likely to believe other people have happier lives.

Bot Comment of the Week

• “i think im pregnant” (January 7 comment to my post on my favorite books of 2011)

Benjamin Disraeli