Weblog Love on Wednesdays

Seriously, books (and the online book blogging community) are awesome, people. That being said, there are tons of fantastic things from the interwebs this week, so let's get right down to it.

1. Fun and General Bookishness

Books on the Nightstand was rocking and rolling this week with two excellent non-podcast posts to their blog. Check out their posts about a moving story of a moving book (don't you love books that make you cry?) and a cool feature about an elementary school book club (don't you wish you had a teacher like that?).

Thanks to Pimp My Novel's Friday Round-up, I read this fascinating article from the NY Times about a woman who reads a book a day (puts you to shame, no?) and an NPR feature on a librarian who changed a boy's life (huzzah to librarians, yeah?).

Do you love your librarian? If so, find out what they love.

2. Book Reviews/Features

I read my first non-professional book review of Audrey Niffenegger's sophomore novel, Her Fearful Symmetry this week on Book Nerds. And I'm pleased to say that it was less than glowing. Good balanced reviews are always worthy of some weblog love.

Indianapolis (my home town) selected Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout as their One Book One City selection for 2009. Has your city selected a book to be read en masse? Find out at the Library of Congress website.

The National Book Awards were announced recently and there was a little hullabaloo about Stitches (the autobiographical adult/YA graphic novel by David Small) being included with the children's short list. 100 Scope Notes did us all a service by rounding up the various hullabaloo-related posts.

3. Publishing Industry Tid-Bits

News erupted this week of Wal-Mart.com doing some price-slashing to steal book business away from Amazon.com, and my first thought was, "Under the Dome by Stephen King for $10? Awesome!" Then I read some thoughts from Eric at PMN and thought, "Not awesome. This hurts book stores, both large chain (i.e., B&N) and independents." I didn't think those thoughts exactly, but you get the point.

4. Book Blogger Highlights

I've added Edge of Seventeen to my Google reader because the bloggess brings a unique sense and sensibility (and perspective) as an employee of an independent book store. Good reviews and wicked contests.