Just one this week, from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program thanks to Hesperus Press:

• On Wine and Hashish by Charles Baudelaire

Was it just me, or was there an overwhelming amount of good articles to be found on the interwebs this week?

• A brief exploration from cover designers as to why book covers differ according to national markets.
• An interview with C. Max Magee, the founding editor of The Millions.
• And speaking of which, this article on The Millions about the rush of hipster books based on tumblr blogs – including Look at this Fucking Hipster and Stuff Hipsters Hate- names and shames Melbourne, Australia as one of the world’s hipster havens. Not going to argue with that. I am still waiting for the perfect moment to capture a photo of my dog for the upcoming Hipster Puppies book. What?!
• Um, I don’t have any publishable comment about this one, I’ll just let you make the call yourselves: people are supposedly naming babies after Twilight characters.
• Oh dude, I’m linking to the Millions again, but this article is too good not to share: on the joy of unread books.
• Looks like Christos Tsiolkas is on the verge of hitting it big overseas, “on the literary rock-star track” says the Times who interviewed him recently. I wonder if The Slap will be as massively successful overseas as it was here?
• I really love this look at the notes, ephemera and scribbles found in a pile of abandoned books, a.k.a. things a Kindle/Nook/iPad/ereader will never be able to reproduce.
• Chuck Klosterman’s newest project is a set of cards – Hypertheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations – designed to inspire debate and conversation.
• It’s official – the internet could be making you happier.
• An eye-opening and somewhat alarming look at the cost of running an independent bookstore.
• A book bike that gives away free books and reading materials to everyone, very cool that he is using it to support independent bookstores.
• A cigarette vending machine in Hamburg now a book vending machine.
• Lesley Glaister’s top 10 books about incarceration from the Guardian.
• A series of toad sculptures are to be placed around the city of Hull to honour the 25th anniversay of Philip Larkin’s death. Not only is Larkin one of my favourite poets, but we share the same birth date. Exciting!
• This interview from Vice magazine (I know…but trust me on this one) with Bret Easton Ellis is amazing. He drops a few spoilers about Imperial Bedrooms, and my anticipation for this novel is reaching fever pitch. Did I mention here that he’ll be in Melbourne in my birthday week too? I’m salivating.
• A short and sweet interview with my hero John Waters about his reading habits and his book collection, made up of at least (!) 8,425 books. Also this quote explains why I love him so:

I collect shocking titles — “Sex on Horseback,’’ “Roughneck River,’’ “Convict Lust,’’ “Stars and Their Pets.’’ My most shocking books I put in the guest room, so people don’t stay real long.

Photo Credit: Natalie Wood, from the Women Reading tumblr.