[Regular news below]

Well, everyone and their dogs are releasing best of year lists, so harkening back to an earlier day when I released a biting list of the year’s top stories under the insousciant header “The Golden Shuriken Awards” (no longer available online), I thought I’d revive the tradition but with a wider input.

Send me your vote for top lit-story of the year, either as reported on Bookninja or as missed by Bookninja.

Was it something skeezy, controversial or stupid like the OJ/the Goldmans/Judith Regan money grab? The dumbening of The Golden Compass? The Martin Amis/Ronan Bennett racism dustup? The rise of the blog? Stephen King winning literary awards? Canada Customs screwing Little Sister? Stephen Henighan pointing the shaky finger of conspiracy at the Canlit family? The Google/digitization arguments? The kindling of The Kindle? The exposing of the misblurb? The end of US reading according to the NEA? Brown writers being mistaken for terrorists? The death of the books pages? Rankin vs the lesbians? etc etc etc?

Or was it something heartening, triumphant or smart like the OJ/the Goldmans/Judith Regan money grab? The dumbening of The Golden Compass? The Martin Amis/Ronan Bennett racism dustup? The rise of the blog? …. (No seriously, what about the Lessing Nobel? What about the fact that literature still didn’t die, despite the internet? What about Peggy and Yann taking on Harper (though depending on your view, this could fit in the first category)? What about the end of Harry Potter? etc etc etc?)

Send in your votes for the year’s top ‘Ninja stories, with commentary explaining your position — please also include a note about whether or not I can identify you by name on the site (if you don’t offer permission in your note, I will NOT post your name beside the comments) by emailing me through this link: . (If you don’t use this link with the subject line provided, I may not get your mail because the spam is so bad it’s got one of those Star Wars trash compactor beasts swimming around in it.)

I’ll try to get the list up by the 20th.