More Web Articles of Note

I think this Internet thing is going to catch on in a big, big way this year. It's really going to take off. Look what I found there today:

• Beatrice on the cover art for a limited edition of the new Dan Simmons novel Drood:

  It’s the Victorian-askew look of the latter that came to mind this morning when I got a look at Picacio’s artwork for a limited edition of Drood, the new Dan Simmons novel that asks the question, “Did the famous and loveable and honourable Charles Dickens plot to murder an innocent person and dissolve away his flesh in a pit of caustic lime and secretly inter what was left of him, mere bones and a skull, in the crypt of an ancient cathedral that was an important part of Dicken’s own childhood?”

  Dan Simmons will be at Vroman's on February 22 to sign copies of Drood.

• Sarah Weinman, who is a terrific Twitterer (or tweeter or whatever), read 462 books last year. You thought you were so mighty with your 35. Loser.
  

• Norah Vincent, who will be at Vroman's next Thursday, is the guest for the newest Bat Segundo podcast.
  

• Ariel Swartley reviews two books by authors visiting Vroman's this month - Nancy Spiller's Entertaining Disasters (she was here last night, and was very cool) and Charlie Huston's The Mystic Arts of Removing All Signs of Death in Los Angeles magazine.

• As if bookselling weren't tough enough already, the new Child Safety Act has vague and potentially catastrophic implications for children's publishing. This is the law that was passed in response to the recalls of Chinese-made toys that contained lead. Right. So instead of, I don't know, buying more locally made toys (maybe even handmade toys) or rethinking the value of outsourcing toy production, we instead pass a bunch of restrictions with broad-strokes implications on all sorts of industries that weren't at fault to begin with. Won't someone please think of the children's booksellers!

• On a happier note, the excellent Inkwell Bookstore blog features this priceless artifact of 1990s culture: The Kids in the Hall Dr. Suess Bible.

• And finally Maud Newton just pointed out that the city of New York has passed budget cuts to nullify arts grants that were awarded but not paid. The city still found enough money to pay the Yankees $370 million for their new stadium. The same Yankees who just spent a cool $450 million on three players.