Assorted

I'm posting this morning for two reasons. First, it's been too much time since my last. Second, a friend recently harassed me to add her link to the blogroll you see to your left. She's got sunshine, her heading says at the blog, but the content is often rants on her new identity as a hong kong housewife - and that's not a racial slur that you don't know. She left the nice, nice land of Canada for Hong Kong with her husband and child, leaving her days as a high-powered lawyer behind (but not for good). It's a modern Baby Boom, but rather than canning apples, she's doing all she can to keep from publicly abusing her child in HK's Ikea. Just read it - and as noted, hold me in no way responsible for anything that offends or upsets. She's a loose cannon, people.

So anyhow, I was pleased to see this op-ed in the New York Times by Nancy Kalish, about how much sleep teenagers need. Now look, I don't particularly like teenagers. They are like exotic animals to me - I don't get them, I can't predict them, I don't know what's going through their heads at any given moment. It's a bit unnerving. But in this article, Kalish smartly starts with the fact that teenagers' sleep is dictated by a hormone, and that we gotta roll with it and adjust their school schedules accordingly to get the most out of their education. Fascinating.

The best I can do to tie this article to this blog? If they get a good education, they'll be good readers. Done!

Next up is this good news from the ever-reliable Shelf Awareness:

Census Bureau: Bookstore Sales Rise Again in November

Bookstore sales in November were $1.186 billion, up 7.5% from $1.103 billion in sales in November 2006, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. For the year to date, bookstore sales have been $14.654 billion, up 0.8% from $14.532 billion in the first 11 months of 2006. This marks the fifth month in a row that bookstore sales were up over the same period last year--and the second month in a row that year-to-date sales have topped last year's comparable figures.

By comparison, total retail sales in November were $347,688 billion, up 6.4% over
November 2006, and sales for the year to date were $3.665 trillion, up 4.1%.

Note: under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.

Hoorah!

And lastly, this nice post from the Guardian's book blog on blurbs, by Boston-born Meg Rosoff - check out the post. It's from the author's perspective - blurbee and blurber - and provides a nice "inside baseball" kind of scoop.