Giddyup! It's a Readin' Roundup!

Oh, people. Lordy, lordy, lordy. That's all I'm going to say about the voodoo zombie death plague that's hovered over Chez Doppelganger for the past week and a bit. Trust me, you're getting off easy.

So now I'm easing myself back into the real world. Is it okay if I practise on you? I've collected some neato bits and odds from around the internet to talk about. Or is this like those people who read the newspaper before a date solely so that they'll be able to make intelligent dinner conversation for once in their life?

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The Last Book EVER... Sort Of
Stuart McLean, the host of the CBC Radio show Vinyl Café, and of course author of the excellent series of books by the same name, recently declared his new policy on book purchases:

I would like to take a moment this morning, if you would indulge me, to say I am not going to buy another book ever again ever in my life. I am not going to buy another book ever again ever in my life. Never.

He makes a few exceptions, of course:

And I am allowed to buy books if it is a book that more than one person says I should read... like say five people mention it. Okay, maybe five is a lot. Make it three people. Three people and they don’t necessarily have to tell me to read the book, but if they mention it in some way, even if they aren’t speaking to me. Like if I overhear them talking about the book at a dinner party. Or say, see them reading the book on an airplane.

In the case of a book that has had a movie made about it, or it has won a major award, or appeared on a bestseller list, then less then three but more than one.

What am I doing here with the copying and pasting? Really, you should just go read the whole piece. It's funny. I'll be waiting here when you're done. I'll do my nails or something.

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If Madonna Can Write Kids' Books, So Can I
Finally, I know how to make my own board books. The world's been waiting for my sequel to The Very Hungry Caterpillar... The Very Bite-y Butterfly.

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Engineering a Scientifically Perfect Book Storage Solution
I thought I was the only person who bookmarked cool bookcase photography, but it turns out I'm not the only shelving fetishist out there. Kim at Desire to Inspire has put together a nice collection of truly inspiring spaces and the book collections they house. (I'm assuming guessing praying that the owners actually read them and didn't just buy them by the meter.)

The jury's still out for me when it comes to organizing books by colour, but I have to admit that some people seem to make it work. Me? As I commented recently on Jane's site, I tend to group my books according to my gut feeling about whether I think the authors would have liked living next door to each other. (Leo Tolstoi? Meet your new neighbour, Kurt Vonnegut. He has a habit of borrowing power tools and forgetting to return them, but he'd loan you his last cup of sugar. If he had any. Which he doesn't.)

And speaking of Jane's site, you should follow the link above, because then you'll get to see the lovely shelves she just had custom built for her home. I'm struggling with envy. It's all part of becoming a bigger person, right?

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Free Books! Free Books!
Well, sort of. You have to download them and print them out, but that doesn't make the Rosetta Project any less cool. For the past ten years, this volunteer-driven initiative has been amassing a huge online library -- we're talking tens of thousands of titles -- of antique and vintage illustrated children's books that are now in the public domain.

You may remember a while back when I was moaning that so many wonderful kids' books are disappearing from the public imagination. Projects like this make my jaded heart blossom like a dandelion in a cowpie-strewn meadow.

[Thanks to Dale for the link!]

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When Posterity Bites Back
Speaking of projects, the Book Inscription Project is the kind of thing I always absent-mindedly think about doing, then never get off my ass to do. Good thing I'm not running the internet.

The website is a lot like Found, but exclusively dedicated to book inscriptions. I find this idea chilling, because god knows I've written my fair share of moronic undergrad "insights" inside books. Nevertheless, a recent favourite (note highlighted text):

I vote both!

[Thanks for the link, Kristin!]