1. I missed this post over at Color Online on Sunday but Doret has a great "Letter for Oprah" that's worth a couple of minutes of your time. I didn't realize how skewed her book choices had been toward men but I was mightily annoyed by the Franzen selection. I'm sure the book is fine and all that but really - it's already a massive bestseller. Would it have killed her to pick something that wasn't already lauded by everyone and their third cousin? Find a book maybe people had missed? Seriously - was this the laziest recommendation in the history of book recommending or what?

I'm so annoyed.

2. I am listening to Amanda Palmer right now. Thank God. And thank you Neil Gaiman because I had not heard of her until you wrote about her on your journal.

3. Just finished Carrie Vaughn's DISCORD'S APPLE and it was 100% not what I expected. This is not a bad thing (it was actually quite good) but certainly a surprising thing. I thought it was a book about a woman who is called home to her ailing father and finds out the family has guarded a collection of magical items in the basement for centuries. That was all in there but I didn't realize the book was set in an alternate earth (I would call it alt history except it's modern times - so alt contemporary?) where India & Pakistan have launched nukes, homeland security has gone wild in the US, the Kremlin gets hit by a terrorist and then things really go downhill. Meanwhile, our heroine is dealing with some folks trying to get into the basement and meets an ally who has been around for a LONG time. Plus King Arthur. My only complaint is that the flashbacks (which ultimately explain the whole basement) are sometimes abrupt and aren't as compelling as the contemporary storyline. It's not seamless. But still pretty good popcorn reading.

4. If you missed this article on writer's personal libraries and what happens to them after they pass away, be sure to check it out. Other than the coolness of finding annotated books by a favorite author for a buck and the way fans organized to track author David Markson's books, it is particularly interesting in that it shows how archivists value papers - and odd ephemera - over books. I can understand that funds are limited but personally I'm waaaay interested in the kinds of books people own (authors or not). I lucked into finding a copy of TOOLS OF MY TRADE in the UAF library so I was able to get a glimpse of Jack London's library. The book is out of print but my son happily photocopied the entire introduction (it's for research purposes for the western book so this isn't copyright violation, right?) and I paged through the whole thing totally impressed by how David Hamilton went through over 400 books in London's library. It's a total peek into London's mind and offers up all sorts of points to ponder. I can't help but think that Markson's might have done the same (especially in light of his impact on David Foster Wallace). Or maybe I"m just really really curious about how writerly minds work. (Hat tip to The Literary Saloon.)

[Post pic: A David Foster Wallace annotated book from his personal library.]