WWWednesday: October 17, 2018

Awards:

Maryse Conde was awarded the alt-Nobel this year. (Remember, this is the year of the Alternate Award. Here’s the recap.)

Turnip o’ lantern.

Books and Writing:

This writer praises the photocopy and discusses digital books from the standpoint of economic equality in a country where books are prohibitively expensive.

I’d heard of Margaret Cavendish, but it’s odd that I’d never heard of The Blazing World. This is an interesting essay.

Lit Hub discusses a midnight-launch party of the latest Haruki Murakami novel.

Chuck Wendig announced via Twitter that Marvel has fired him from the Star Wars project because, they say, of a lack of civility and too much negativity on his Twitter feed. Since I follow Wendig on Twitter, it seems to be more about his vehement political opinions; that’s one person’s opinion. Wendig also gives his version of the story on his blog Terrible Minds.

Locus has posted excerpts from their interview with Hugo-threepeater N.K. Jemisin.

Growing up around books will help you do better in school and earn more money. Okay, I paraphrased the article a little, but those seem to be the findings of the study the UK Guardian is highlighting here. It was more interesting to see the breakdown of which countries had the most books per household. I was surprised to find Iceland missing from the list… and Estonia wins. The USA is in the lower-middle of the pack (below the World average). We can do better!

Buzzfeed has 21 things book lovers feel vaguely guilty about.

“Stability” seems to be the tagline for this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Hmm. Is that anything like, “a little boring?”

This is a very nice cover reveal for Isaac Marion’s latest WARM BODIES book, The Living, due out next month.

Before pumpkins migrated to Europe. people carved “turnip o’lanterns.”

This is several months’ old but since the book was just released I thought I’d link to The Verge’s interview with John Scalzi about The Consuming Fire.

Here’s an age-ranked list of recommended Halloween books for kiddies and families, ranging from not-scary to shivery-fun.

Cartoon:

Thanks to File 770 for pointing to this cartoon, a tale that demonstrates why dating services might have their uses.

Gatherings:

Black Women Animate and The Cartoon Network join forces on October 20 to offer a cartooning bootcamp in Burbank, California.

Looking for a trip to Dublin? This event, mostly for game and comic book writers, looks fun.

TV and Movies:

Netflix has cancelled Iron Fist.

Johnny Depp talks to Entertainment Weekly about his title role in Fantastic Beasts; the Crimes of Grindelwald (he plays Grindelwald, not a beast). My favorite moment is when he says that he sees the character of Grindelwald as James Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake. Um… okay…

Did everybody but me know about The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell? This looks really fun!

Black Girl Nerds offers a review of the Season Two opened of the CW’s Black Lightning.

Internet:

I think I already did a link about carved turnips, but this page gives a bit of “turnip o’ lantern” lore.

Carved turnip trio, courtesy of the UK Guardian

With the news being the way it is, Merriam-Webster wants to help you out with this handy list of words and definitions that relate to illegal acts. Quite helpful when you’re sitting down to watch CNN.

I love Bitcoin and cryptocurrency stories even when I don’t understand them. A currency that goes from $20/coin to $12,000/coin is not what I would call a stable currency, and apparently Steam agrees with me because they will no longer accept it as tender.

Space:

Two ISS crew members landed safely after a rocket failure during a launch.