Lit: Link Love

I've found some interesting book-related articles, thanks to Twitter, recently that made me laugh, think, and want to pick up new books.

Koren Zailckas wrote a fun (well, if you call books about evil characters "fun") article for Publisher's Weekly titled "11 Most Evil Characters In Books." Perhaps the thing I enjoyed the most about her list was the range of baddies she included, from the obvious (Lucifer - Dante's Inferno) to a children's book antagonist (Cruella De Vil - Dodie Smith's The Hundred And One Dalmations).

Cruella De Vil as envisioned by Disney

While it pains to me to have to agree with Jonathan Franzen about Jeffrey Bezos (and I do think that calling Bezos the anti-christ may be a slight exaggeration no matter how much I dislike Amazon's business practices). I do believe, however, he's just insulted me and thousands of other bloggers and folks who use Twitter to talk about books in this article in The Guardian. Is a man who sits alone every day for his job really qualified to pass judgement on the social engagement of the rest of us? And is he actually suggesting that bloggers and Twitter users are utter puppets who can be manipulated to only write about certain books? Remind me if I ever read a book by Franzen (and I'm probably bound to at some time), not to bother to post a thing about it. After all, what does a "yakker" like me know?

This article on The Millions, by author Sarah McCoy, captured my interest. Who would have thought to compare reality television to literature? Not only that, McCoy has a take away for each comparison for use in her daily writings. Seriously, would you ever have thought to compare The Bachelor with Hans Christian Andersen's beloved The Little Mermaid? Life lesson? "A pretty face will only get you so far. Never underestimate the power of your unique voice."

Oh Twitter, sometimes I think I will just have to break it off with you, you can be suck a time suck and there's so much out there that just clutters up the Internet. But then I'd miss so much great stuff (and so many great conversations with friends!).