Get Your Envy On

Behold what those with lots of money can do with their books... here and here. Proof that money can indeed buy happiness? (links via Bookninja). In Other News Is the Orange Prize necessary? Does it discriminate? Does it make it seem like women writer's can't compete with men? Personally, I think the Orange Prize is a good idea for no other reason than it highlights books and authors I may never have heard of otherwise. Ask Bill Bryson a question and you could win a signed copy of A Short History of Nearly Everything. A sensible voice in the gabbling noise of bookish doom-and-gloomers:

No, the barbarians are not at the gate. It's an age of awesome variety we are living in. English in all its thrilling, international forms, from romance to rap, is finding more colour and expression than at any time since Spenser, Marlowe and Jonson.

(link via MobyLives)