I’m running behind on many things, namely snow tires and Santa duties, so I’m going to be doing roundups today and then blogging sporadically for the next couple weeks as family descend from far and wide on our little island paradise for the yule season. Ah, Quakers and humanists. We’re a match made in heaven-on-earth.

First, some rare good news: HC has somehow managed to get part of their products around the Borders return policy…. I wish I could write you a cartoon bunny triple take. Publishers might actually be able to survive under a system like this… hmm…

Happy birthday to the world’s best board game since chess

Rabbie’s got some new poems and rude letters to show

Is the Newberry Medal failing kids? Melts it down, Oi says, and makes us a Newnewberry, moi lovely!

Some links to critiques of the Nobel Prize via Jacket Copy (I think Carolyn might be getting paid to blog there, so if I disappear for a day, it’s a good place to go because she’s under the constant pressure of unreasonable bosses… but if you stay away, I’ll hunt you down, drag you back here and throw you down in the pit with Kathryn and Pete… yeah, that’s right… he TRIED to quit….)

Robert McCrum says literary Britain is a smallish place… sounds familiar…

On the ever-contentious, and international, nature of prizes and conflict of interest