Friends, Readers, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Eyes

Welcome to Friday, friends and country(wo)men, and to Laura's visit from Combreviations to round up the week:

Life is a tricky thing, reader types. No matter where we are now, we have to look back and think on the adults who helped to get us here. That is, of course, unless you live in a YA novel, in which case your parents are absent or evil. Yes, folks, bad parents are taking over your books. But it gets worse! Adults are no longer the voice of reason in real life, as they become obsessed with Twilight characters and let proper nouns into Scrabble (but only in the UK, thank goodness). They have forgotten their preppy roots, and need another Preppy Handbook, and I totally bombed this quiz of literary first lines (although I did pretty well with the Judy Blue quiz), which has nothing to do with adults, but adds to my general crankiness. Plus, some adults have trouble with technology, when even a two year old is an intuitive iPad user.

With all this distressing information, I think we should play a little game called "Faith in Humanity: Restored or Destroyed?" I'll list some things that happened this week, and you let me know where your faith in humanity stands.* We all read the NBrans' take on the NYTimes Ethicist's support of pirated e-books (or should have! Click click if you have not). Turns out, John Scalzi doesn't mind you pirating his books, which I'm sure his publishers loved to hear. So that kind of blows, but George Carlin's widow is going to release his letters, and Keith Richards is a secret librarian, which is adorable, and...very rock and roll? J.K. Rowling might be coming out with a new book (hurray!), but the iPad won't save publishing (boo). And angels are the new vampire, so that's...I actually don't know how to feel about that. Perhaps a bit queasy.

You can visit Jules Verne's world, but you have to do it in Second Life, and you can read some great memories of rock stars, but only as characterized by their "ladies." Writers quit the internet, an iPad boxes a Kindle, and a publisher is jailed (you keep up that Emergency Rule, Mubarak--almost three decades and counting!). And why are all these Nicholas Sparks posters the same? I'm so confused. St. Augustine, show me the annotated way!

So, what think ye, reader types? Faith in humanity restored or destroyed? I remain decidedly on the fence. Let me know what to believe!


*The right answer is, "Who cares, it's the weekend!" Right-o, sirs—lift a glass to leaving work at lunch and reading a book in the park.