mcdspot

This is, absolutely and positively, the most amazing library I have ever seen.

The 50 greatest villains in literature.

Not sure if I’d call the Judge from Blood Meridian a villain per se, but a great list nonetheless.

“The truth is that most US academic prose is appalling - pompous, abstruse, claustral, inflated, euphuistic, pleonastic, solecistic, sesquipidelian, Heliogabaline, occluded, obscure, jargon-ridden, empty: resplendently dead.”

– David Foster Wallace

Who, tragically, hung himself a few days ago. Which means that future readers will have an even harder time understanding him. But you should really find out for yourself. Because he really was a genius. So, so sad.

I love all of these bookshelves. I think I’m going to build a set like this for the beaner.

David McCullough: a national treasure.

This book may go far in debunking the unfortunate misperception that Islam is incompatible with democracy.

While I may personally disagree that all of the books on this list of 50 Amazing and Essential Novels to Enrich Your Library are in fact “amazing” and “essential,” that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t drop what you are doing and go buy these books immediately and be amazed and enriched according to your own lights.

If you like free audiobooks you’ll like Librivox and Audiobooksforfree.

Textbook Torrents: “Because You Can’t Torrent Beer.”

Bookmooch. Give away books for free, get books for free.

via xkcd.

Miss Cellania has a very witty collection of merged books:

“Planet of the Grapes of Wrath” - Astronaut lands on mysterious planet, only to discover that it is his very own home planet of Earth, which has been taken over by the Joads, a race of dirt-poor corn farmers who miraculously developed rudimentary technology and evolved the ability to speak after exposure to nuclear radiation.

“Paradise Lost in Space” - Satan, Moloch, and Belial are sentenced to spend eternity in a flying saucer with a goofy robot, an evil scientist, and 2 annoying children.

“The Exorstentialist” - Camus psychological thriller about a priest who casts out a demon by convincing it that there’s really no purpose to what it’s doing.

“A Time To Kill A Mockingbird” - The Alabama KKK, outraged at Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) for defending a black man in an Alabama rape trial, get revenge by abducting and molesting Scout. Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) and his lovely law student assistant Ellen Roark (Sandra Bullock) arrive from Mississippi to take over defending the case for the distraught Finch, and later defend sharpshooter Finch for taking revenge on the KKK members.

“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

- Tyler Durden in Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

There are many ways to dig it.

Check out these literary tatoos.

Gore Vidal isn’t putting up with any of this crap.

Kevin Kelly has a good post here about books that have changed his life. I’d love to write one of these once I have the time. I concur with him on Leaves of Grass and Finite and Infinite Games.