Lots of love for libraries recently. First, The Old Spice Guy (yeah, that Old Spice Guy) hilariously celebrates libraries in his typical stream-of-consciousness, non-sequitur fashion:

(Confused? It’s part of a social media campaign in which the Old Spice Guy answers questions from fans, explains GalleyCat.)

Next, a dead-on parody of the Old Spice commercial encourages [...]

As a former professional proofreader, self-proclaimed punctuation nerd, and admitted colon addict, I was delighted to stumble across Conor J. Dillon’s essay on the uses of colons in prose. The whole thing is worth quoting, but here’s a snippet:

new colon is on the march. For now let’s call it the “jumper colon”.
For grammarians, [...]

ant to learn what not to put in your query letter? Or maybe you just can’t get enough #queryfail? A self-proclaimed “grumpy literary agent” has started SlushPile Hell, a Tumblr blog dedicated to terrible author queries he (or she) has received—plus snarky commentary. Here’s a quick sampling:

Greetings agent. I have written the [...]

Just in time for the scorching heat that’s blasting much of the east coast, food blog Umamimart offers a recipe for the “Literary Agent,” a cocktail that’s “a cross between a Whisky Sour and a Hemingway Daiquiri.” But it’s not the kind of agent you think. Says the blog:
Writer, adventurer, ravenous drinker, hunter, [...]

Eye-catching covers? Yup. Marginalia? Check. Decorative deckle edges? Indeed. But if paper books disappear, we’ll lose something else. This xkcd strip says it all.

It turns out it’s difficult to find a novel in which the phrase “Somewhere a dog barked” or something similar does not appear, as novelist Rosencranz Baldwin reports in Slate:
Having heard the dog’s call, it seemed like I couldn’t find a book without one. Not The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Not Shadow Country. Not Ulysses. [...]

That’s what Gore Vidal had to say about John Updike in 2008.
Think that’s bad? Examiner.com’s Michelle Kerns has compiled the 50 best author vs. author put-downs, and Vidal’s comment is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Nathaniel Hawthorne called Edward Bulwer-Lytton “the very pimple of the age’s humbug.” James Gould [...]

I am secretly envious of Star Wars and Star Trek geeks, because they get to decorate their desks (and cubicles and shelves and windowsills) with action figures in heroic poses. It’s like saying to the world: I’m letting my geek flag fly. I also suspect that when no one is around, they play [...]

Grub Street is an independent not-for-profit writing center in Boston that runs writing classes as well as an annual literary conference, The Muse and the Marketplace. At the most recent Muse, Chuck Palahniuk was the keynote speaker, and even if you missed the conference, you can watch his speech below. Palahniuk tells the [...]

Boston Examiner Michelle Kerns has come up with the perfect way to monitor clichés in book reviews: Book Review Bingo.
Just because I’m a sucker for you guys, I’ve taken all the work out of it: you’ll find, below, eight Bingo cards specially designed for the cliché-intolerant among us. I even gave you [...]