Ed (via Metafilter) reports what everyone familiar with the blogosphere already knows: that the most popular blogs aren’t the ones with the most original ideas. Specifically, the article talks about link poaching, an issue which created a bit of friction a few days ago. (For my take on this, you can read this entry.)
The BBC has a small quiz to test your knowledge of famous first lines (they put it up as part of their coverage of World Book Day–which is really British Book Day, but whatever.) Worth a look for the second part of the page, which lists first lines suggested by readers.
The National Book Critics Circle winners were announced tonight and Edward P. Jones’ The Known World won in the fiction category.
[T]he author, a former proofreader for Tax Notes, a trade magazine, took years to get going on “The Known World.” He acknowledges being a slow worker who doesn’t like writing anything until he has the story constructed in his mind. He also had a computer incompatible with other online systems. And sometimes, frankly, he didn’t feel like writing. “There were days I decided I wasn’t in the mood, so I just put it off,” he told The Associated Press last fall.
In accepting the award Thursday, Jones said he felt so embarrassed about the delay that when he finally finished he couldn’t bear to tell his agent, Eric Simonoff, on the phone. Instead, he sent a letter to Simonoff, who duly left a complimentary message on Jones’ answering machine.
“I still have that message,” Jones said.
Read the AP report here.
Author Sandra Tsing Loh (A Year in Van Nuys) has been fired from her gig at Los Angeles NPR affiliate KCRW.
Loh, an author and actress whose monologues have been a fixture on KCRW for six years, was terminated for using a strong obscenity during her prerecorded segment that aired twice Sunday morning. The decision puts the public radio station better known for news and adventurous music programs incongruously in company with commercial radio powerhouse Clear Channel, which dropped shock jock Howard Stern from six stations last week.
Loh says she had asked her engineer to bleep the four-letter word, but KCRW stands by its decision, saying they had to act to protect their license. Read the story here.
The Artists for Literacy Project has a long list of songs inspired by books. I’m a big Cure fan but I’m pretty sure “Killing An Arab” should have stayed in oblivion, Albert Camus’ L’Etranger notwithstanding.
(Link via Waterboro Lib Blog)
I’m still waiting to hear from the tax guy about where the axe will fall this year, so it was with great interest that I read theChristian Science Monitor review of Richard Yancey’s Confessions of A Tax Collector.
Despite Yancey’s attempts to allay fear, there are reason for readers to feel nervous about this book, and not only because it demonstrates the power of the IRS. The author doesn’t identify anybody by real name. He has altered personal histories, appearances, and sometimes even the gender of the taxpayers he describes. He has disguised his co-workers, as well. He discloses that he has also altered chronology, “for clarity and to facilitate the narrative flow.” He has relied on memory rather than contemporaneous notes.