Kids vote for their favorites

The Children's Choice Book Awards allow kids to vote for their favorites. Not a bad idea. We read about this over at Omnivoracious, which has links to past lists of winners. It's worth looking at if you're in the market for good books for kids, or you're a kid with an itchy voting finger. Check it out.

Music from space

I would suggest that William Shatner's song stylings are... unique. Fans of the actor's interpretations of pop hits will be happy to hear that a new album is due out later this year, and the track list has been announced. A new version of Rocket Man is promised, but I have to admit, the one I just can't wait for is Bohemian Rhapsody, although I can't exactly see the space connection there. Oh, well. Hearing Shatner intone "Mama, just killed a man," is spacey enough for me. (Via)

One cure for the adolescent blahs

The act of reading, if not necessarily the content of what is read, may improve the mood of teenagers? 'I heard that a study published this month had found that reading books improves the moods of adolescents... Primack and his research team examined six types of media—television shows and movies, video games, magazines and newspapers, music, the Internet, and books—and concluded that major depressive disorder is common among pop-music-listening teens and drastically less common among their bookish counterparts.' More...

Strumming the old ukulele

The ukulele is making a comeback. which is a wonderful thing. The instrument has a long history, with many ups and downs, one of the most recent ups being Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole's beautiful "Over the Rainbow." 'It’s not hard to see the attraction. The light, carefree strum that has become the instrument’s sonic stereotype invokes innocence, sincerity and childlike wonder, as well as nostalgia for a pre-rock ’n’ roll era. It doesn’t hurt that the sound also conforms to ingrained notions of Hawaii as a consumer-friendly earthly paradise.' More...

Wonder cabinets

Some books are radically different from the norm. This is one we doubt will be on the Kindle any time soon. 'Only thirty copies of the book exist and, in the spirit of the Renaissance wonder cabinet, no two are exactly alike. For those of you unfamiliar with what a wonder cabinet is: aristocrats, philosophers, scientists, and artists used them to display their eclectic collections of natural and man-made objects, everything from Roman terracotta lamps to conjoined livers of Siamese twins. Every copy of Hodgson and Cohen’s book, which includes essays and images, comes inside an inlaid wooden box with its own distinct items, such as a cast of a Russian countess’s finger, a porcupine quill, a sea urchin’s skeleton, and Roman coins from Syria.' More...

Looking for love in all the Rand places

Those of us who are not fans of Ayn Rand might blanch at this, but the objectivists out there are probably happy as clams: a dating site for fans of the author of Atlas Shrugged. 'There are about 12,700 dating profiles on the Atlasphere, which Joshua Zader, 37, founded in 2003 after attending a few Rand-related conferences. "I realized that all the single people were using the conferences to search for another Ayn Rand fan they could fall in love with," says Zader, who modeled the site after Match.com's pay-to-view profile system. But the Atlasphere also functions as a social network (with some 22,000 nondating profiles) in which members can contribute essays and articles. I asked Zader how someone who espouses a me-first philosophy can also maintain a loving relationship. "Ayn Rand has a great quote in The Fountainhead," he told me. "She writes that a person cannot say 'I love you' without first being able to say the I."' More...

The future of books

There's plenty of people prognosticating the future of books, but Alberto Vitale, former Random House CEO, is worth listening to more than most. 'A lot is going to be changing ... but for the better. Digital technology has brought to publishers the ability to develop a new business. That doesn't mean that the book business will disappear. Actually, paper books will be with us for a very long time to come, if not forever ... except that they will evolve into much more precious products. [They will be] better-printed, better-bound, better-produced and better-marketed, even at much higher prices. E-books will turn out to be the equivalent -- not the same thing -- as the paperbacks of the past.' More... (Via)