Photo © 2008 Rachel James CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Today, I had planned to publish a piece making fun of book reviewers and literary critics. Because in my opinion, publishers spend way too much time sucking up to them, which is why I decided to become a book reviewer. Unfortunately, I was unable to make fun of them without sounding bitter at them, which should tell you something about how I feel about myself. Factor in the fact that I’m also an indie publisher who is genetically incapable of sucking up, and you’ll finally understand why I should probably be in a mental institution.
So instead of publishing that post, I figured I’d let it sit for another week, see if I can do something constructive with it. In the meantime, I’m linking to a few funny, interesting, and inspiring pieces that I’ve read on the web this week.
A hilarious, true story of a customer who got the wrong idea about a worker in retail store who was putting away girls underwear. No, the customer is not always right.
Why women read more than men: NPR reports.
A cute, humorous, though-provoking anecdote of an old woman trying to be young, and a young woman becoming old, over at the Blog Jar.
For an old fart like me, this brings back so many good memories, and some pretty terrifying ones. (You mean I actually used to watch those shows… And I liked them?!) Neil Shurley’s list of the five greatest spaceships of all time.
The Surly Writer, Michelle Hickman’s classic post about her lighter- and darker-gray friends. Must read! Finally, a sane voice among the cacophony!
Good news for us, reports Lenore Skenazy, which means bad news for newspapers and politicians: Child abuse is down, WAY DOWN.
An interview of one of my favorite contemporary authors, Holly Lisle, in which she talks about her history, becoming a writer, current projects, and more: at the Dallas Speculative Fiction Examiner.
Two interviews of yours truly this week, featuring From the Ashes of Courage: one by Jess C Scott, author of EyeLeash: A Blog Novel, whom I will also be welcoming over here at this blog next week; the other by Lori A May, poet, novelist, and freelancer, whose latest book stains: early poems has just recently come out. Please show them your support!
That’s it for now. Have a wonderful, life-expaning weekend!
-TimK
Wow! Thanks for the linkage, Tim!
Believe me; my sanity is fleeting. But thanks for the link and the tweet! Quite unexpected for such a little post expressing a personal opinion.
You’re welcome, Neil. Actually, ever since I’ve been following your blog, it’s been reminding me of the science-fiction that I used to enjoy, when I watched and read a lot of SF.
Michelle, sometimes sanity appears fleeting. But I believe it was you (or someone you linked to) who put me on to the proposition that race is a meaningless construct, that is, it’s a social categorization with no scientific measurability. Suddenly, everything I’ve always felt about race as a concept made perfect sense, because I could analyze it objectively. That realization brought a new level of understanding, which you capture so well in your “shades of gray” metaphor.
-TimK