Not much happening here at Casa Kittling unless I want to talk about the murder of millions of dust bunnies. The remaining fluffies may be thinking of putting a contract out on me, so I think I'd better just go straight to the links!
Bookish News & Other Fun Stuff
- Remember the time when, if a book didn't come out in hardcover first, there must be "something wrong" with it? The stigma of paperback originals.
- How to raise boys who read.
- The privatization of libraries during this recession.
- I've been having fun with this one: a literary map of Manhattan.
- I've always been a sucker for a great first line: American Book Review's 100 Best First Lines from Novels.
- J.K. Rowling talked to Oprah about Harry Potter's future.
- Kindle for the Web.
- People in bookstores often read page 99 of a book to get a taste for the writing - to determine if they'd buy the book.There are two spots on the web conducting their own page 99 tests: Spot #1 and Spot #2.
- There just may be an Amazon Android Tablet in the works.
- The death of the book has been greatly exaggerated.
- Scholastic talks about getting kids to read. Kids say they'd read more books for fun if they had greater access to books. (Your idea of access and these children's idea may differ a bit....)
Around the Water Cooler in the Book Blogosphere
- On Confessions of a Mystery Novelist, Margot Kinberg has a fun quiz you can take: What Kind of Sleuth Would You Be? (I'd be Hercule Poirot... which practically had me falling out of this chair.)
- On Murder Is Everywhere, Tim Hallinan has an excellent post about Southeast Asian transportation.
- On Caroline Bookbinder, Carin has a differing viewpoint on the privatization of libraries that I linked to in the first section.
- On Farm Lane Books, Jackie has a wonderful post showing the differences between libraries in the UK and the US, and she asks the question, "How Can We Save UK Libraries?"
New to My Google Reader
That's it for this weekend. I hope you managed to find a thing or two to tickle your fancy in that line-up. Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll have a fresh batch of links for your surfing pleasure. See you then!
Cathy - Thanks, as always, for your round-up. And thank you very much for including one of my posts. I think it's neat that you came out as one of my favourite sleuths!
ReplyDeleteI loved that article about how to raise boys who read! One of my own tricks was to read great books aloud to the girls (who are a bit younger), and when I put them to bed, I would leave the open book on the table in the living-room ´by coincidence´. Quite often my son was so intrigued he picked the book and read the rest himself. He still doesn´t read quite as much as his sisters, but when he visits us over a weekend, he borrows his mother´s best crime novels!
ReplyDeleteI have also seen a number of blog posts about that page 99 test recently, and I must say that it depends on the kind of book you read or write. In my opinion even the most brilliant crime novels may have quieter scenes or chapters that give you background on the characters so I would never put down a book based on ONE tame page.
I have never heard of the page 99 rule - but I plan to put it to use from now on!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading about the Stigma of Paperback originals! Use to be that Harlequin was the only one to come out with first runs in paperback and if any other "traditional" books came out that way, people thought they must not be "good enough" for the hard cover. Oh how things have changed! New authors are even by passing paperback and directly publishing in digital.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the great links! Now I'm going to have to turn to page 99 and see if the book I'm reading measures up! :-)
Margot-- You're welcome!
ReplyDeleteDorte-- I don't necessarily agree with that page 99 test either.
Molly-- Let me know how it works for you!
Suzanne-- Who knows? It may be easier for new authors to publish digitally.
So... why page 99?? lol. I really liked the detective quiz. I would be Precious Ramotswe, which is great because I absolutely LOVED Botswana when I was there earlier this year! But now I really must read those books :)
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy round-up type posts and admire bloggers who do the work to suss things of interest out. Am very glad I saw this one of yours Cathy because I have passed on one of the them - the outsourced public libraries - to some library students. Fascinating stuff.
ReplyDeleteAmy-- Secretly, I think he put a bunch of numbers in a hat and 99 was the number he drew! I'm glad the detective quiz worked for you; I'm not all that sure I'm Hercule Poirot in disguise! LOL
ReplyDeleteSue-- I'm glad you found something to pass along!