fair-ness – From Atwood’s mechanical hand to the guy from Google, “What technology can do” was the theme of this year’s the London Book Fair and a HarperCollins UK, exec fears Amazon’s move into publishing more than Google’s digitization…..is this good or bad?

game preserves – The editor of the beloved Chambers Dictionary is trying to save the ‘zoozoo’, ‘obernowl’, ‘logodaedalus’, ‘incompossible’ and supernaculum’. toaster– Chambers online offers 2 free PDF books, Word Wit and Wisdom – charts the fascinating history of The Chambers Dictionary and Scrabble® Hints.

cookies – nominees for the UK Orange Prize for Fiction by a woman announced:

• Leila Aboulela – Minaret



• Lorraine Adams – Harbor
• Naomi Alderman – Disobedience
• Jill Dawson – Watch Me Disappear
• Helen Dunmore – House of Orphans
• Philippa Gregory – The Constant Princess
• Alice Greenaway – White Ghost Girls
• Gail Jones – Dreams of Speaking
• Nicole Krauss – The History of Love
• Hilary Mantel – Beyond Black
• Sue Miller – Lost in the Forest
• Joyce Carol Oates – Rape: A Love Story
• Marilynne Robinson – Gilead
• Curtis Sittenfeld – Prep
• Ali Smith – The Accidental
• Zadie Smith – On Beauty
• Carrie Tiffany – Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living
• Celestine Hitiura Vaite – Frangipani
• Sarah Waters – The Night Watch
• Meg Wolitzer – The Position

hot to trot – Harness Tracks of America has launched a new service to the sport. The association of 42 harness tracks has added a Rare Books division to its Web site, offering “the rarest of the rare” in literature of the trotting and pacing horse. I just love this story….how many industries care about their own literature?

worth while – Washington Post has an interview with Chapel Hill Professor Bart Ehrman author of Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. Prof Ehrman was also a guest on NPR’s Fresh Air in Dec. I am not religiously inclined and I found this fascinating.

ex-pats –JM Coetzee has become an Australian citizen.

memento mori
• The ashes of M. M. Kaye, the author of The Far Pavilions, were scattered in Lake Piccola in Udaipur, India over the weekend.
• Bloomington novelist Harold Sinclair is remembered 40 years after his passing.

un-news – Alexander McCall Smith wants to build a hot tub in the garden of his £1m home.

banktoaster – For those of us who use such things Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs