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A few excellent and humorous three line summaries of classic works of literature.

The Rare Book Room is filled with amazing photographs of some of the most beautiful old books in the world.

Full size scans of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a fifteenth-century printed book with beautiful typography.

Here are two excellent articles on novelr.com about the future of online fiction; the first give an introduction to the differences between online and traditional fiction, the second describes how a publishing industry slump might be a good thing for authors and online publishers.

As might be supposed I have not had the time, nor may I add the inclination to read through this book. I have, however, read pages 690 to 732…

- The words with which Sir Archibald Bodkin banned James Joyce’s Ulysses.

I hadn’t realised, but the memoirs of William Hickey, our favourite Georgian rake, are available to read online. God bless Google Books!

Ian McEwan is writing a novel about climate change, which reportedly contains some comic elements:

The impetus for this novel came in 2005 when he was part of an expedition of artists and scientists who spent several weeks aboard a ship near the north pole to discuss environmental concerns.

“While I was on board I soon realised that the boot room, where we all changed our clothing and left our shoes, had turned into a scene of social chaos,” McEwan said, describing how the eminent scientists, who down the hall were gathering to talk earnestly about the future of the humankind, were also capable of stealing each others’ footwear and regarding their colleagues with deep distrust. “I realised that it’s all about human nature,” he said. “The way to write about climate change is through writing about human nature.”

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

-Cicero

I’m reading Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions. It’s the autobiography of a Lakota holy man, a Heyoka, and it’s a brilliant insight into I world I know nothing about, a fascinating man, and a chilling reminder of how vulnerable groups can be persecuted even in the self-proclaimed “land of the free”.

Note to self: when possible, buy and read the Mortdecai trilogy. Apparently, it’s hilarious, like P.G. Wodehouse but darker.

Note to self: buy The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow in the near future. Written by a 7-year-old girl growing up in Oregon in the early 1900s, the language sounds gorgeous:

Today the folks are gone away from the house we do live in. They are gone a little way away, to the ranch house where the grandpa does live. I sit on our step, and I do print. I like it, this house we do live in, being at the edge of the near woods. So many little people do live in the near woods. I do have conversations with them. I found a near woods first day I did go explores. That was the next day after we were come here.