Thursday Linkishness

A few things caught my eye while fluttering about the interweb today:

• Janet Maslin reviews Lee Siegel's new book about the horrors of internet culture, Against the Machine, for the New York Times.

  "The vindictiveness and disproportionate influence of the blogosphere is a particularly sore subject. Who is it that “rewrote history, made anonymous accusations, hired and elevated hacks and phonies, ruined reputations at will, and airbrushed suddenly unwanted associates out of documents and photographs”? Mr. Siegel’s immediate answer is Stalin. But he alleges that the new power players of the blogosphere have appropriated similar powers."

  Not surprisingly, Siegel's book has generated some noise amongst the very "laptop-addicted" "Internet zombies" he describes in his diatribe -- bloggers!

• Babygotbooks laments the failure of social networking sites for bookworms. Have they tried Good Reads? It's the best of the lot, if you ask me.

• What do you do when your short stories keep getting rejected? Make a book out of the rejection slips, of course.

• Vroman's own Allison Hill popped up on a couple of blogs chronicling the Beijing Book Fair. Lee Siegel is right -- no matter where you go, the internet will find you!