Book News, In Brief

Why does this New England resident regularly read The Sydney Morning Herald's Books section? Because The Boston Globe would never open an article on poet Robert Burns with a line like this: His love might have been like a red, red rose but it turns out that Robert Burns may have been suffering from a rather nasty STD, according to a collection of explicit writing apparently by Scotland's national bard, due to go on sale in January. (To read the entire article, click here.)

Semi-related (in that it mentions a poem by Burns) is The Guardian UK's piece on the various New Year's traditions that have been immortalized in verse. Everything from leaving a lump of coal at your neighbors' doors to feeding an ear of corn to your horse is included.

The NYTimes blames the buying and selling of used books online for the the deaths of neighborhood bookstores, publisher's backlists and author's paychecks. (Yet this doesn't stop the article's author from making repeated plugs for the wonderful world of one cent books. Weird.)

Last but not least, a killer time killer: Links to hundreds of audio recordings of authors reading their own works.