The Girdle of Melian

hree different book and writer related topics came up this past week! One was Nathan Bransford's recent blog post on bestselling novels vs classic novels . He found a list of bestselling novels by year for the past 100 years, and compared it to the Modern Library's list of classics according to publication date. Very few of the books on the classics list were bestsellers in the year of their publication (and based on sales alone, it seems everyone lost the 1990s to Grisham). As usual, this sort of list is slightly misleading, because it doesn't count cumulative sales (I'm fairly certain Diana Gabaldon and Stephen King would wipe the floor if this list had been calculated that way), and it also compares only to one list of classics - lists based in the UK feature many different authors, for instance. I always find classics lists frustrating because I never seem to have read the right books by the authors on the list. For instance, I've read Dostoyevsky's ...

n honour of the two year anniversary of the Insecure Writers' Support Group , I've got lots of photos to share! Because, of course, what better way to deal with our insecurity than by taking a day off once in a while and, most importantly, not feeling guilty about it! September's co-hosts for IWSG, along with Ninja Captain Alex , are: Chemist Ken SL Hennessey Michelle Wallace Joylene Nowell Butler If you don't already participate and would like to, sign up to the linky-link here so others don't miss your posts! And now, photos! Would you believe I had never heard of artist Dale Chihuly before this August? Then I visited his travelling exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts...   I know you can't read this; it's the story of a piece that was lost during trans-Atlantic shipment... ...and here is the recreated piece! Made especially for the Montreal exhibit. Factoid: Chihuly visited Montreal's Expo back in 1967!  ...