Ken MacLeod on Jura and Orwell's political legacy.

Dubravka Ugrešić on Austro-Hungarian literature.

On the importance of paper books for those who can't afford gadgets.

Yet another book list.

I was able to leaf through these in a bookshop last month, and they are all brilliant - particularly the introductions.

On a recent episode of South Park, the kids got all excited about reading The Catcher in the Rye, the supposedly scandalous novel that's been offending teachers and parents for generations. They were, of course, horribly disappointed: As Kyle says, it's "just some whiny annoying teenager talking about how lame he is."

"Frankly, my sense is that The Story of the Treasure Seekers may be entirely wasted on children."

Really bad news as Amazon buys The Book Depository. I'm finding eBay a better and better source for my books.

On reading your ex-husband's memoir: "I believe the description of himself, me, and of our marriage, to be a fiction. It is a pity he has neither the good taste, nor the talent, to present it as such."

:Why is Barnes and Noble performing well as a business while Borders has filed for bankruptcy? What is so different about how they are run? This is a question that many of us at Borders asked ourselves frequently and I think the answer is not a simple one. As someone who has given this a tremendous amount of thought and was Director of Merchandise…

"By what seems more than coincidence, I appeared at The Kilns that very day and learned that unless I carried the papers away with me that afternoon they would indeed be destroyed," Hopper wrote. "There were so many that it took all my strength and energy to carry them back to Keble College." For the past 46 years, Hopper has s…

"The total literature of Iceland is under 50,000 books, which is easily scannable in 2 years by 12 people". This proposal is being put forward by the wonderfully named Þorsteinn Hallgrímsson. With a capital Þ.

FRiveBooks is a brilliant site in general, and this is particularly delightful. "Any parting advice for young journalists?" "The best piece of advice I ever got was from John Bulloch, of The Independent, when I was grousing about some miserable act of sub-editing. ‘Never, ever read the paper, my boy,’ he said. ‘You’ll be much happie…

"It can't be an important book without the n-word."

Reading "The Emperor's Babe" by Bernardine Evaristo, with bonus real Roman relics.

On Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that one joke isn't really enough to sustain a parody mash-up novel over 300 pages."

"Goodnight Moon", but not as we know it.

Rather more serious than the Paul Magrs incident I blogged about - she printed the reviewer's email address and phone number and asked fans to tell the reviwer what they think of 'snarky critics'.

Snufkin as the Mad Hatter?