Say hello to the latest little darlings to join my evergrowing book collection:

• Kingdom Come by J.G. Ballard
• The Philosophy of Andy Warhol by Andy Warhol

And, I was lucky enough to have a kindly someone slip a bookmark with one of the Book Depository bookmark competition winning designs into Kingdom Come. Not my favourite one: “Bob was so stuck into his book he didn’t realize he was in SPACE” but a very cute bookmark nonetheless. I guess I’ll just have to keep buying more books until I get the Bob in Space bookmark.

This week I renewed the startnarrativehere.com domain for another two years, so it looks like I’m going to be around for little while longer. Speaking of which, my one year anniversary is coming up … I wonder what I’ll do to celebrate? (No, seriously. Any ideas?)

Until then,

• Listverse lists the Top 10 Difficult Literary Works. I’ve only read 1/10 – T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land – hooray for first year Literature university courses!  (Listverse is easily of my favourite non-book related websites, I spend so much time here and have way too many random “no one cares Jess” facts from reading their various lists.)
• Even though I too favour marginalia and such in physical books versus the cold, hard plastic of e-readers sometimes I wonder whether it is just the old “But physical album art is so important for the experience of music!” argument rehashed for the literature crowd. In the latest bit of heartwarming reportage, a man tracks down and reconnects with an old friend after finding a bunch of old books in a second hand bookstore with the friend’s ex-libris sticker inside.
• More John Waters promotional articles as Role Models is released, The New Yorker recounts a recent event with Waters:

“I love feel-bad books,” Waters said, perched cross-legged on the edge of a couch. “I want to have a hate book club where we all come over and read about hateful characters.”

• And The New York Times reviews Role Models, calling him America’s “best funny uncle.”
• The Washington Post has a great article with lists of the top 10 best selling books for the years 1990, 1980, 1970 and so on, down to 1910. Even though they don’t cover whole decades, just the first year of each decade, it’s surprising how many of the previously best selling books are now probably forgotten. I wonder how many of them are even still in print?
• Chip O’Brien over at Forbes‘ Booked blog has a few words about what book publishers can learn from the film and music industries.
• J.G. Ballard’s archives have been acquired by the British Library.
• This photography slideshow – titled “Remember reading on Paper?” as though the act itself is already obsolete – showcases some lovely photos of grand libraries and private images of people reading.
• John Feffer has been reading books he bought from a book sale as a teenager.
• Summer has started for those in the Northern Hemisphere (and we’re just beginning to get a real taste for Winter down South), and here is a complete compilation of all the Summer 2010 Reading lists that have been published so far. Just in case you needed something else to read.
• I know I linked to it last week, and I’ve also spent a lot of time this week pimping it out to as many sources as possible but I have really high hopes for the Australian Book Bloggers Directory. Be sure to spread the word, and join up if you haven’t already.