One of the reasons I was sorry to see Ed change his format was that I enjoyed his round-up posts so much. I understand his desire to generate more original content at his site, but I know that I often find really interesting books, authors and sites via those round-ups. I think they are a valuable occasional addition for bloggers and so I will continue to post what I find out in the internet wilderness - and hope lots of you will as well. (I'm sure Ed's new site will be great, I just miss hearing about the off the wall things he finds and shares with the rest of us.)

First up, Sherman Alexie is interviewed in USA Today where he says two things that I was thrilled to read:

Well, after the success of this book, do you plan to work on more young-adult fiction?

Lose the 20 pounds I gained this year. That's what happens with eight months of room service. And I have a family memoir I've been working on for eight years that I need to get done. So lose 20 pounds of fat and gain 20 pounds of manuscript.

I was an Alexie fan way back when (way way way back!) and I'm so glad to hear about both of these books. He's been dancing around the memoir idea for a long time in particular; it will be interesting to read about his life as a strictly nonfiction document.

Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings explains why he loves the public library:

Technology has contributed several improvements to the library experience but it has also taken away one of the things I loved best about borrowing books from the lending library: the check-out card. Perhaps you are one of the fortunate ones who can still open a library book and find a slip of paper or a card inside with dates stamped on it indicating when that book has to be returned. Our local libraries do everything by computer now. While that contributes to a more clean and efficient process, I miss the date stamps. Library books and used books carry with them the added dimension of history–someone, or perhaps many someones, have picked up this book before, and perhaps even read and enjoyed it. Being able to see the card inside with multiple dates stamped on it gave me such a sense of wonder as well as a connection to all the people who have read that book before me. I recall feeling sorry for books whose previous check out date had been years in the past. I am certainly not anti-change, but there are definitely things I miss about my own ‘good ol’ days’.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one nostalgic for the date stamp - I still look at those empty card pockets in our library books with a certain amount of sadness - it was always nice to know if you were bringing a book home for the first time in a long long time.

An updated version of Swallows and Amazons is on the horizon from the BBC - and I think it will go over wonderfully with today's kids. (It's all about adventure and every kid loves that.) And here's a bit you might not know about author Arthur Ransome:

Ransome would have agreed. He was a charismatic man with a love of the outdoors. In a life packed with adventure he married Trotsky’s secretary and may have spied for the Bolsheviks before settling down in the 1920s to work as an occasional foreign correspondent and angling columnist for the Manchester Guardian. He made his breakthrough as an author with Swallows and Amazons, which was published in 1930.

In other spy (or not) news, Yannick Murphy is interviewed by my wonderful Booklist editor Donna Seaman in the brand new issue of Bookslut:

I wrote about her because I read an article in Smithsonian magazine. It was a very short little article stating that she had been a spy and an exotic dancer and commemorating the anniversary of her death. It said she had been killed by a firing squad at the age of 41, which is the age I was when I had first read the Smithsonian article. And you know, all of that comes flooding into your psyche. I started thinking, “Well, I had a whole life. I had children. I had done and felt all these things. If my obituary was this short and missed all the wonderful kind of images and experiences I’ve had throughout my lifetime, I would have felt a little P.O.’d about it.” So it was interesting to write about her.

Smithsonian Magazine is awesome and everyone should read it. (Jan Morris on Oxford and the history of the St. Bernard all in one magazine. I love it.)

In other Bookslut news I have a review up of Barbara Hodgson's wonderful Trading in Memories and a column on nonfiction that includes biographies of Lisa Andersen, Jeanette Rankin and Edith Clavell as well as books on war in the Middle East and the 1960s. It's all good, I promise.

I also forgot to post on the new issue of Eclectica which has a new polar exploration piece by me, one on historical dramas for teens (with one of the first negative reviews I've written in ages, but Ever-After Bird deserved it) and reviews of The Dinner Club and The Theory of Clouds.

I just picked up the fourth book in a row where the head cheerleader is rich and evil. I am now starting a "please find your evil characters someplace else and leave the cheerleaders alone!" club. More on this annoying trend in YA literature tomorrow.

[Post pic of Oxford from Smithsonian Mag.]