It's Thursday Afternoon

And that can mean only one thing...links!

• Via the Book People blog (one of the great indie stores in the world), comes the story of Lauren Myracle's book ttyl, which has been removed from the Round Rock, TX middle school library for being "vulgar." You know what I've just noticed, it's always the mothers who lead the charge to ban books, never the fathers. Why is that? Are the fathers just not as involved?

• n+1 on Bolano and the American practice of canonizing one foreign writer each decade (W.G. Sebald in the 90s, Bolano in the 00s).

• Finally the backlash against the stainless-steel-sub-zero-fridge-granite-counter-tops-fancy-tile-kitchen has begun. It is led by French Country Kitchens, and the NY Times takes note.

• Galleycat has excellent coverage of the National Book Awards, including video interviews with poetry winner Mark Doty and non-fiction winner Annette Gordon-Reed.