A Few Links

• Amusing commentary on Amazon.com's Penguin Classics Library Collection:

  You can sort the books by author (Edwin A. Abbott to Emile Zola) or by title ("Adam Bede" to "Zazie in the Metro"), which is fun in its own right, as are the inevitable arguments that attach themselves remora-like to any great-books list: Eighteen Graham Greene books, yet all you get is "The Portable Faulkner"? "The Beautiful and Damned" but not "The Great Gatsby"? Five Jack Londons? Has anyone really ever read nine Sir Walter Scott novels? Only the first part of "Remembrance of Things Past"? (On the other hand, you're spared "Ulysses.") Those 1,082 books also contain a few duplicates: By our count, if you weed out the multiple translations, different editions and compilations ("The Iliad" is there four times), as well as the "portable" volumes for well-represented authors, you wind up with 1,031 books. Still, at a book a week (an easy pace when you're reading "This Side of Paradise," not so easy if tackling "The Brothers Karamazov"), that's nearly 20 years' worth of reading headed for your shelves.

  Puts it all into perspective. (link via Slashdot)
• In case you haven't been keeping up with the to MFA or not to MFA debate going on at MobyLives, there is now a guest column arguing the other side and more letters from readers than you can shake a stick at (though why anyone would want to shake a stick at them I'm not sure, but if you did...)
• You too can follow in the footsteps of Don Quixote. For some reason this just makes me sad.